Can You Be Honest, Intelligent, and Religious?

Can you be honest when making a friendly wager with a friend? Sure. Can you be honest with yourself about reality? No, probably not. Many different degrees of honesty. 2c

Since I have come to grips with my atheism, I automatically assume someone is an atheist if they are intelligent when I first meet them. It is difficult to reconcile that someone who seems genuinely smart and sweet would allow themselves to be “conned” by the Church.

I don’t think honesty (or intelligence, for that matter) is an all- or- nothing quality. People can be honest sometimes and not others; honest in some situations but not others. And very relevantly to religion, people can be sincerely honest with others, and still deceive themselves. We all do it — it’s a fundamental part of how the human mind works, and isn’t limited to religious believers.

Ditto intelligence. Maybe even more so. I think most of us are intelligent in some areas of our lives and profoundly stupid in others.

So I don’t think it makes sense to say, “Hey! You’re being dishonest/ unintelligent about (X), therefore you’re not an honest or intelligent person!”

I’m going to strongly disagree with this claim. First, I agree with Ramsey that this is an incredibly non-standard definition of honest. To expand on his point, under that logic, anyone who was a geocentrist was dishonest even if they lived in the time where the evidence supported that. This isn’t a helpful definition.

For other definitions of honesty that are closer to the standard meaning, I think it is pretty clear that this is false.

So I’m a professor (I teach ethics as part of my dudies) and an atheist, and we have this discussion in my class. Here is a good way to think about it.

A man who is color-blind will tell you, in all honesty, that the sky is not blue; it is not truthful, as objectively we know the sky to be blue. However, he is honest in his assessment because that is how he sees it. Honesty is an ethical trait; truth is one of observable fact.

You can be ethical and honest without speaking truth.

Is, of course, one way to think of this.

I agree with Greta Christina, based on personal experience and observation. I have a brother-in-law that qualifies as a genius when it comes to mathematics and engineering. He is also a creationist. He’s obviously not a stupid man and he’s about as honest a person as I’ve ever met when dealing with others, but not so honest with himself when confronting (or avoiding) personal issues. People just love to pigeonhole folks, but it doesn’t work consistently in the real world.

Of course you can be honest, intelligent,and religious. I was myself for many years. I’m not religious anymore. Like everything else, people grow and change.

I definitely think you can be religious, honest and intelligent. I would suggest that you question the honesty and/or intelligence of religion because you believe that God doesn’t exist.

I on the other hand believe God does exist, and could from a similar perspective question the intelligence and/or honesty that atheists display when it is clearly a “ridiculous” proposition to be an atheist given the evidence for God. (Just my opinion, and although I wouldn’t normally say that, I just wanted to make the point about how we view things based on our world view).

I think that it is certainly possible to be all three by altering your religious views so that they conform to reality. A Deist or one of those Christians who sees God as an instigator for creation rather than a micro-manager could anyway. Its the fundies and the creationists who insist that reality change to fit their dogma that are dishonest, lying religious people.

Assuming each relates only to the topic of religion (so honest means speaking the truth about your beliefs, intelligent means being smart about your beliefs, and supporting religious dogma means just that), then my knee-jerk reaction is no. But yet I know people who are intelligent outside of religion, and not with direct regard to it. I would say that this still applies to them (they are not intelligent with regard to religion) but it made me think of the possibility of someone who has not yet been exposed to the idea that religion could be wrong. It’s entirely possible for an intelligent person to have a fact wrong if nobody has pointed out that possibility.

If, in a mathematical proof, I have made a mistake, it doesn’t mean that I am unintelligent, it means I have made a mistake. However, if after being exposed to the existence of that mistake I do not correct it because I still, incorrectly, am convinced I am right, then I have shown that lack of intelligence. Ergo, it is possible for someone who is honestly (not wilfully) ignorant of the very possibility of atheism to be intelligent, honest, and support religious dogma.

One last consideration. In many cases can we consider religious dogma in an intelligent person to be not a case of a lack of intelligence with regard to religion, but rather a mental block created by brainwashing during childhood? Iffy, but feasible enough to consider before discarding, I think.

I have many friends and relatives who are devout Christians. Many of them are very intelligent. They are all honest people. I have observed two things. First, i notice that a lot of people, such as my father seem to “comparmentalize” their religous beliefs. My father is an intelligent man who taught me a lot about critical thinking, yet he is a devout Catholic, who believes in Mary’s perpetual virginity, transsubstantiation and the like. He, like most other religionists, can point out absurdities in other religions-i.e. the absurdity of the Mormon’s “Magic underwear”, but he lacks the objectivity to see the absurdity of his beliefs concerning his own religion.
Also, many extremely intelligent people are able to believe things for which there is no evidence, or things for which there is evidence to the contrary. A great example for this was provided by P.Z. Myers, concerning climate change denialists. He points out that George F. Will, is one of the most vocal climate change denialists, yet he is very well educated, and very intelligent, indeed brilliant. Myers asserts that the reason that Will is able to rationalize against the prevailing scientific evidence regarding climate change, is because of the fact that he is so intelligent. According to Myers, only an intelligent person could invent such convoluted rationalizations.

Of course there can be honest intelligent and religious people. Its called cognitive dissonance.

Warning anecdote ahead!

I knew a guy, smart guy, who was Christian. Not a literalist, but certainly a believer in Jesus and the whole thing. He saw Islam as being founded by a patently mortal warlord and full of contradictions. Then he got himself a Muslim girlfriend and started studying Islam. He converted to Islam and when he told me he explained that he could see now how little sense Christianity made; why would god send himself down in the form of his son that was actually him to sacfrifice himself to himself so he could forgive everyone?

I couldn’t help but laugh. Now that he didn’t believe in the Christian god all the blatant flaws of Christianity were laid bare, while the flaws of Islam were suddenly veiled (ejem). Good, honest, intelligent people can hold totally incoherent ideas in their heads and keep them neatly segregated from every other aspect of their lives. Even Bible thumpers mostly do this, because if they didn’t they’d be unable to function in the world.

I used to not think so but then I met my parents in law.

The original quote sounds like honesty with other people, but your post sounds like “honest with themselves” or “intellectually honest”.

I think if we confine ourselves to evangelical christianity then no.

But what about Thomas Aquinas? He reserved himself from making factual statements about the world based on faith, indeed he argued we shouldn’t do it. (I have no idea why American Christianity threw out all his ideas). He thought god was outside of nature and therefore “unknowable”.

The truth is there is a tradition in christianity of them not being so fundamentalist and fearful of science. But I find the average christian doesn’t really believe a lot of that stuff. I think a lot of us just have bad experiences with the wrong sort of christian.

Also, let us not forget Kuhn’s whole point: scientists are human with the same frailties as religious folk. They may cling to a cherished idea and refuse to believe the evidence in front of them.

Being honest with yourself is hard work for all of us.

I agree with what J.J. said. You’re not using the agreed upon definition of “honest”.

With the real meaning of the word, yes, certainly, a person can be honest and religious.

With your definition of honest (which seems to be more like “correct”) then we’re all dishonest at one point or another. Show me an atheist who has never been wrong about something.

In the absence of relevant information or a lack of interest in seeking alternative ideas, all the logic and critical thinking in the world will not cause you to change your ideology because you’ll always be working with the same starting premises.

The rationalizations I’ve heard for the discrepancies between real life and religion are logically possible. Mind-numbing, but theoretically possible.
I don’t know how anyone ever loses their religion. Logic is easy but it’s a rare individual who bothers to do the hard work of checking the truthfulness of his starting assumptions. And why bother if you’re happy with the prepackaged answers to the big questions that you’ve already got? Cognitive capacity plays a role here, too.

It may be a better question to ask whether an open mind is compatible with a dogmatic mindset, bearing in mind that dogma isn’t limited to religion. The answer to that question is obvious.

RJ,

I believe that without religion, without God, any attempts to explain the origins of life and the world that I observe around me will only result in infinite regress. With that knowledge in mind, I would hardly call my decision to believe in God a result of either dishonesty or primal stupidity.

It’s turtles all the way down. Oh wait, only gods are allowed to terminate an infinite regress, not anything that’s logically possible. I guess it depends whether you consider wishthinking dishonesty or not.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with a man named Daniel Tammet, but he once posited that there are five scenarios which, if ever occured, would cause him to abandon his faith. These are essentially five scenarios that would “prove atheism”.

Not intelligent enough to understand the anthropic principle? Not humble enough to admit ignorance of god, multiverses, or an eternal universe, has to pick one through wishthinking? Not educated enough to know that suggesting a literal “beginning” to the Big Bang is incoherent?

Honesty, intelligence and religiosity are relative, so to say they cannot mutually co-exist in one person is as easy to refute as it is to prove.

In my opinion, however, the idea that there is a supreme being that cares who I sleep with, what I eat and what I do on Sunday is absurd! In addition, anyone who does believe that, I feel I cannot trust to be truthful in their friendship with me as a gay person.

Oh, and I would add religion to the things muggle says we use to not deal with reality:

“We humans simply cannot deal with reality all the time. If we could, the arts would not be so damned popular. Neither would sports. Or drugs… I think you get my point.”

This post makes me think of Dr. Francis Collins, elected by Pres.O as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. Brilliant geneticist AND self-professed evangelical Christian. I certainly don’t doubt the man’s honesty.

I still can’t wrap my mind all the way around it.

I have a very good friend who is a very intellectual person. In her spare time, she reads about linguistics, enlightenment philosophy, and political theory. She was a huge supporter of Barack Obama in the 2008 election, and she is very involved with the LGBT community and believes wholeheartedly in gay rights.

However, two or three years ago she experienced a kind of religious conversion. She had been raised with little to no spirituality whatsoever, and “found god” in spite of her parents’ attempts to instill her with rationality. To this day, she is a deeply devout (albeit “closeted”) Christian, though you would never know it by looking at her or even talking to her.

To me, this makes sense (knowing her) because she is optimistic to a fault, and always believes that things will work out, something which would theoretically only be augmented by the presence of a benevolent “god figure” who always looks out for you. She is also incredibly stubborn, and cannot be disavowed of her new beliefs. She also has a habit of ignoring the bits and pieces of Christianity which she doesn’t like, which may count as being dishonest.

I agree with those who have said that being intelligent, religious, and honest is possible because people compartmentalize, and are often very hesitant to apply their advanced abilities to think critically to their closely-held religious beliefs.

I can’t help but roll my eyes when I see articles like these. I for one believe that someone’s religious beliefs or lack there of has no effect on person education and/or intelligence. Despite what some would like to believe. There is actually evidence that suggest that more religious attendence leads to higher education.

“Sociologist Jennifer Glanville has published studies suggesting that church attendance for children correlates with higher GPAs as teenagers. The correlations is a slightly better predictor than both parents having college degrees. Glanville also explains that, “Surprisingly, the importance of religion to teens had very little impact on their educational outcomes… That suggests that the act of attending church — the structure and the social aspects associated with it — could be more important to educational outcomes than the actual religion.” Glanville believes that students who go to church are more likely to have other things that lead to better GPAs, regardless of religious views, including more pro-active adults in their lives and more contact with peers who have similar values.”

But there is also evidence that suggest that  intuitive thinking increases belief in God (or religion) while reflective thinking decreases it. However, intuitive thinking isn’t always irrational, invalid, or unjustified. But either way it advocates the idea that religious beliefs has more to do with behavior and thinking patterns than intelligence. Someone who is more reflective may not be the most intelligence. But someone more intutive could be more intelligent.

I don’t think there will ever be clear answer. Studies like these have be done for years and have resulted in evidence that conflicted with previous studies. But I think this is more of matter of common sense. Since both intelligent theists and atheists exist we shouldn’t assume that someone beliefs makes them more likely to be intelligent than the other.