Is there any evidence that religious fanatics have a higher, lower, or
the same IQ as the atheists?

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 18 Aug 2005 13:11 PDT

How do you define "religious fanatics?"

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Clarification of Question by tosop-ga on 18 Aug 2005 13:27 PDT

I define as "religous fanatics" people who are willing to use violence
to achive their goals, whatever they may be.

Since there is no clear scientific definition of what a "religious
fanatic" is, any such survey would be subject to subjectivity.

Scriptor

"Is there any evidence that religious fanatics have a higher, lower, or
the same IQ as the atheists?"

I was almost got hung on the "religious fanatics", and then on second
reading saw the comparison to atheists  - which really opens up the
subject.
There are some extremely intelligent Researchers who are not atheists
and who  - from some comments -  are apparently quite religous.
But there are also some highly intelligent people who are atheists. 
Much of philosophy argues against the concept of a Supreme Being, thus
supporting atheism, and it takes a certain amount of intelligence to
follow the philosophical arguments to the extent of rejecting a
religious upbringing.
But as a French philosopher (Descarte or Pascal?) who espoused atheism
said, when he was asked why he went church:  "You never can be sure,"
or similar words  (damnation and hellfire were the religions promise
for non-believers then)
.
I will admit to a personal feeling that such "religious fanatics"
couldn't be very intelligent, else they would recognize the futility
of using violence to achieve purely religious goals  - and please note
my qualification.
A great deal of violence in the name of religion, historically, can be
explained by other goals:  population expansion and need for new
territory, access to better land, other peoples' accumulated wealth. 
Examples of this occur in the Old Testament, the Muslims' expansion
into Spain, the Christians into heathen areas of Europe, the Nazi's
treatment of the Jews, and perhaps also the present situation in Iraq.
It always helps to claim a religious motive with the battle cry:  "God
is on our side."  That reduces the respect for the enemy:  "They are
not really full-value humans if they don't believe in our God."

This undermines any assumptions about relative intelligence of
apparent "religious fanatics", since their actions are so seldomly
metivated purely by religion.

I would think that common sense is the key. Intelligence is a tricky
question with some people... some think literacy, some think math
concepts, some think theoretically... I however think a different way.
If the figurative god is all knowing and the whole of intelligence has
been produced by god... then you would think that religious fanatics
would be more consumed by love for the common man and forgiveness
traits. I think that the majority of violence occurs from the lower
half of the educational curve, since it seems that most crimes against
humanity have been delivered by people of challenged intellect. I
think that IQ vs Wisdom is a hard line to clarify. Wisdom dictates
understand of one's enemy whether it is religious oriented or not. The
IQ arguement is more of a question of what test would be used. Book
smarts or memorization can still be a great proficiency of the
extremist mind; however, most IQ tests are designed to detect higher
learning... things that are not memory based. Therefore, I personally
think that "scriptor" is right in the theory of what is a religious
fanatic... and would like to add: what is a clear definition of IQ
assessment. I think the thought processes lead in two directions:

1. IQ is not intelligence or wisdom as it could be subjective 
2. No one that is truly wise could be a religious fanatic

... leading to my thought: no one who is truly wise or intelligent
could use violence for the sake of religion... but then again, is
"wise" or "intelligence" the same as IQ?