IQ down the drain

I just got back from the toilet trying to get mayonnaise out of my nose. And people doubt that I’m a genius…! People have said to me "You seem like such an intelligent guy" but then they continue with "so how did you do on the IQ test?"
Truth is I failed. I took it when the state wanted to bring my man power into the national defence. But during the test I kept losing focus and instead I wanted to smash the tick-tick-ticking clock on the sergeant’s table into little bits and pieces. So I got up and I killed the alarmclock, smashing it into the walls with the fury of a lemming on fire.
Sergeant walked over, pat me on the back and said: "You’re our boy."

Then I got to the exit door, but I couldn’t get the concept, so I just stood there looking at it. In case somebody noticed, they would help me, I figured. So I spent the remaining twenty minutes looking at the door. I did really well in the mathematics part.

The theory about my undoubtable brilliance was re-affirmed this weekend when I got drunk and lost. According to my brother (’cause I can’t remember a thing) I called him at around three o’clock in the morning to discuss, and I quote some kind of entrance system.. It is true. Check the phone records. I called my brother at three in the morning to ask how I would best proceede to open a door..
My good ol’ grandmother’s always happy to talk with me on the phone because, as she says, it’s a miracle that I’m still alive. Let alone alive and breathing.

So when I read today that an American study shows that atheists have a higher IQ than people of the religious persuasion, I had to agree that the findings don’t really say anything at all. I am an atheist by trade. I’m a philosopher, meaning I have to think things through, contrary to most folks. Keeping a faith in God, then, is pretty challenging, unless you go for the pantheist direction which isn’t going anywhere at all really. But at the same time I do believe there are some benefits in having a religion. My educated guess is that praying keeps psychiatric costs down, and that religious groups on the brink of extinction welcomes just about anyone aboard, giving room to anti-social or depressed individuals whom would otherwise have fallen between some chairs, so to speak. Good thing there. Unless they sacrifice cats.

It’s the beliefs themselves I have a problem with. Or rather, the inherit justification of act X that seems to go with it. We can look at smaller things like drinking wine or having sex outside of marriage, or we can look at wars of today, like the war on terror. It’s not a war on terror, it’s a terrible war. If the Bush administration was serious about getting help with the war on terror, they should have asked the American indians, whom would have quite some experience ny now.

But there are many ignorant bastards among the atheists too. And it is often coupled with the horrific arrogance that I’ve just talked about. So when it comes to this study I am not convinced that it means anything at all. What I’d like to see instead is a study of how many who firmly believed that every human being is a valuable addition to the creation, whether they be atheists or believers of any kind. Would there be a difference? Would religion weigh more than the life of a human being? If a study would show that atheists cared more, that would mean something.
But if you take countries that are more secular than others they don’t show any signs of being better at taking care of each other. I think fundamental ignorance is the number one threat to ourselves. Do something about it. And excuse me while I broaden my horizon in the understanding of the door handle.