Which do you think is a surer sign of low intelligence and/or low information?

[Whateverist]

Sometimes it comes up around here that theists may not be the brightest crayons in the box.  For some of us, Trump supporters are held in the same low regard.  So I got to wondering which is the more widely held stereotype?

Lets settle this question with a poll.  The question:  Which do you consider the surest indication that a person is lacking information or intelligence, believers or Trump supporters?

The options:

1) Believers/practitioners of a religion are more reliably deficient;
2) Those who support Trump are more reliably deficient;
3) Both are damned good indicators of low intelligence/information, too close to call;
4) Stereotyping is bad, neither is a reliable indicator;
5) Screw all polls this one included.

This is a public poll and only one choice per customer.

[The Grand Nudger]

Easy, belief.  

Trumpism only takes a willingness to -be- the asshole.  There isn't anyone who wouldn't prefer a more respectable president, hell..the trumpsters strongly wish that a more respectable person was peddling trumpism. Assholes can be trumpsters for a long list of smart reasons. Reasons such as grift, lol.

[Whateverist]

Doh, guess it isn't a public poll after all. I had intended for it to show who voted for what. I voted choice #2. I've known plenty of people who are religious and bright. But I don't think that is true of Trump supporters. I wouldn't say the same about old fashioned, true conservatives. I'm progressive but I've known bright conservatives. Some Trump supporters may be choking back their nausea in order to push what they hope will be a more conservative agenda. So to vote #2 as I have I'd have to rewrite it to say: "Those who support Trump are more reliably deficient in information and/or intelligence, or are reckless in a morally reprehensible way.

Feel free to elaborate where you stand too.

[Silver]

3) Both are damned good indicators of low intelligence/information, too close to call;

[Fireball]

I'd say that people have a selective mechanism for suspending disbelief. It's rampant in politics and religion. I'd venture to say that a lot of the Chump's supporters are just plain stupid. The ones who voted for him but are not stupid, turned on their selective mechanism for suspending disbelief. It's OK when you are watching movies or reading books, but if one closes down too much rationality, they can be led to doing crazy shit like having the Chump as president. I think that religion is the training ground for suspending disbelief, and in a bad way.

[vorlon13]

Time for a vorlon story:

years ago a dear friend was dating a man I found to be 'unusual' in how he processed information and the decisions he was able to come up with as a result.


When faced with job loss, for instance, food and clothing for his children came behind boarding fees for their horse, which they could no longer enjoy on weekends, BTW, as dad didn't have money to fix car or pay for gas to go out to riding stable

he also thought there would be no repercussions to having a sexual affair (while married to his female wife) with his father in law (her dad). He was EXTREMELY mistaken about that.


I could go on for quite a while on this guy, but you get the idea; he's wired differently than anyone else I can think of. In view of that, most everyone else on the planet, at least to some small degree, seems more normal to me than that guy.

(BTW, he passed away many years ago after another series of odd decisions regarding his medical care) (FWIW, his 3 kids seem normal to me as grown adults)

[Regina]

Given that I'm sure there's a positive correlation between the two, I'm inclined to say they're both equally good indicators.

[Jackalope]

None of the above. I'd say they - among a lot of things not on the list - are more indicative of confirmation bias, etc. That's something that seems true for the vast majority of people across the spectrum. People are irrational - myself included, news at 11.

[paulpablo]

I think there's a tendency of people to confuse intelligence with moral decision making and whether or not someone agrees with you on topics.

I once knew someone in school who was so tribal minded, he once threw a led weight at his own foot by accident, slammed his own hand in a car door, got his leg trapped in a fence and had to have it removed by firemen on his first day in school.  He was pretty bad socially.  Definitely a person who would be considered racist by anyone on this forum at least.  And this was the most intelligent male in my year at school, that's according to the maths, english and science test results and we did some sort of IQ test that confirmed him as top of the year at least in the males, I think he could have been beaten by a girl but I can't remember.

I've known too many people like this.  Where you can look at their actions or some of their choices and think this person must be at least nearly retarded, and it turns out their skills or application of knowledge just aren't obvious and apparent to a casual observer.  

But if statistics show that a certain group has lower intelligence then I'm in no position to argue against that, but if that's the case you don't really need an opinion poll you can just go off the statistics and people can make their own mind up as to how reliable they are.

Even in the case of statistics, if the statistics are measuring a huge group of people it would still require caution to judge any individual from that group based on the statistics.  All you can really do is point out that the trend is there.

[Minimalist]

Both are reliable indicators but religion has a longer track record.