When (potentially) great minds go wrong

[Kayenneh]

One of the most annoying things are people who spam on Facebook. Usually it's just about trivial love problems, but nowadays there's been some unusual activity on my page. Suddenly there are updates like "Praise the Lord!" and "Miss X likes Donald Miller".

Said miss X was on the same class as me during high school. It was an IB (International Baccalaureate) class, and supposedly they graduate the finest minds around the globe. Now she's suddenly a reborn Christian, and I can't help but wonder: Where the hell did it go wrong? She had access to the best education ever, she had brilliant teachers, was taught to think critically and yet there's hallelujahs and amens all over.
I never thought her particularly clever, in fact I thought her very silly from the start. She was more of an scholar than a smart one, but I am amazed at how all she achieved during school seems now forgotten.
I can't help but grieve, so much potential gone to waste. I sure hope that she's found happiness, but this is to me like a terminal cancer patient has taken homeopathic sugar pills and claims that she's cured.

[bozo]

Reminds me of how in the God Delusion , Dawkins speaks of an eminent scientist he knew who was well versed in evolution and the improbabilty of a creator yet still couldn't, in the final analysis, deny his " faith ".
As to the young woman you speak about, personaly I think born-agains are the worst kind of xtians.

[Epimethean]

Well, maybe she went too far with the old notion of the baccalaureate ceremony. My former school held them and they were pure religious BS.

IB programs in general, though, rock.

[Kayenneh]

Yeah. I later heard that our coordinator was a creationist.. It made me shiver. All the other teachers were cool, though, especially my biology and chemistry teachers.

Yeah, born-again.. Idiots. Well, at least she chose her own poison. Or maybe growing up in the states might have had something to do with it

[Epimethean]

I'm definitely buying into the religious gene theories that are starting to come out thanks to the likes of Dennett, et al..

[Anomalocaris]

What made you think she ever had the potential to be great?

Is it because if she didn't, and yet still made it into the same IB program as you, then that would suggest the IB program isn't really so much of a reliable badge of distinction for you to wear?

For me, faith does not so much bespeak of lack of cleverness. Many Christians I know are some of the cleverest people in the art of deceiving others through deceiving oneself. Faith for me bespeak of a lack of mental rigor and intellectual discipline, and a confusion between the truth and what one might convince oneself to pretend to be true.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Now she's suddenly a reborn Christian, and I can't help but wonder: Where the hell did it go wrong? She had access to the best education ever, she had brilliant teachers, was taught to think critically and yet there's hallelujahs and amens all over.

How old is she ? Late teens early 20's ?

A good friend's brilliant 19 year old daughter,(second year,law/arts,a dual degree here) recently came down with a nasty case of happy clappy evangelical Christianity.

From what I can tell it seems to be about community and acceptance by peers. Sadly, it also seems to require turning off part of one's brain,the part which deals with critical thinking. With any luck she will grow out of it.

Tell me your idea of heaven and I will tell you what is missing from your life ( TS Shagnasty)

[Faith No More]

I agree with Chuck. It's not so much they're not clever, it's that the necessity to grasp onto a certain worldview is greater than their desire to objectively understand reality. Some people desire so much for there to be a higher purpose to life they will convince themselves of anything, regardless of the facts presented. The fact that life is a series of jumbled, random circumstances, and after they die, their existence will be nothing but a unnoticed footnote in the book of the human race, is too much for some people to face.

[Kayenneh]

@Chuck: Doesn't everyone have the have the potential to become great?

I hoped that I had misjudged her character and gave her the benefit of the doubt, but unfortunately I was right, and she's indeed very silly. Even worse so than I originally expected.

As for the badge of the IB.. I'm just confused that a person who supposedly got thoroughly educated, could make such a life-altering decision based on absolutely nothing.
If IB distinguishes me or not, I do not much care about it. All I know is that I finished high school, which was merely a pit stop on the road to a better education.

Clever might have been a poor choice of word on my part. I do agree that many Christians are clever in the shrewd sense of the word, when I meant clever as in sensible. And I guess that a person that you can force-feed three years worth of knowledge won't even gag when the religious bs follows.

@padraic: Yup, early twenties. My guess is that she had some mental hole to fill, after being obese and suddenly turned really thin. People who eat their emotions are seldom far off to become addicted or obsessed with something else when food isn't an option anymore.

@FaithNoMore: Yes, but it is then so wrong for me to mourn when knowledge is lost and humans become stuffed with their self-importance? To be so unsure as to turn to a deity, just because your life might not have meaning otherwise, is despicable to me.

[Anomalocaris]

@Kayenneh, I think greatness is relative. Most people have some theoretical potential for achievements more impressive than what they have managed to actually accomplish. But most people are so mediocre that even if all their unused potentials were exhausted they would still be mediocre. Only those whose potential achievement is impressive even in comparison to the achievements of the most accomplished of their peers can be said to have potential for greatness.