I'm going to do something a little different here and a bit of a book review.
I thought about posting this in the mental health support group, then thought that maybe the skeptic's group might be more appropriate, then decided on here. I'm going to take some psychology, a little science, and some religion and kind of mix it up all together and hope it makes sense.
I just read Lawrence M. Krauss' book A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing. The book is about theoretical physics and cosmology with a little atheistic skepticism thrown in. Simply stated, Krauss explains how the universe came from nothing and did not need any supernatural force or prime mover to do so. It was a hard read for me, not because of what I said in the previous sentence, but because we're talking physics here and I have no training in that regard; but I think I got the general idea. When I consider that the book is popular science and therefore has been made simpler and easier to understand than the reality of the hard science behind it, it humbles me a bit. And that got me thinking about human intelligence and the possibility of becoming more intelligent as we age, and also just how far I've come in my own personal development.
When I was four years old, my dad started taking the family to a fundie church. I didn't fully escape until I was sixteen. That church had a profound effect on my psychological development and I didn't fully escape it in my mind until I was thirty, when I started to become skeptical of supernatural claims. I'm thirty-nine now and I've come a long way. But why is it that I could kick the church habit and see through all of the crap when I was young, even after having grown up in that church, while others never even question religion or actually may even convert to it at an older age after having been skeptical? I think that happens to people who are much smarter than me. Is being skeptical a function of intelligence? It would not necessarily appear so.
Can we get smarter as we age? Can we get dumber as we age? Is intelligence and the ability to learn fixed at birth? I'm a trucker and I am going to college part time to finish my degree. I'm doing well in my class this summer; better than a lot of students half my age. I've heard it said that the ability to learn deteriorates as we age, but I'm doing just as well or better now in school than I did at earlier times in my life.
Maybe it's all just about having an open mind. Someone who is open to new experiences and ideas may grow personally more than someone who on paper may be more intelligent, but is otherwise rigid and unchanging due to belief in a regressive world view and no desire to question his or her established model. Maybe it's about courage.
Could a courageous and open-minded person be smarter than people who have a higher I.Q. but have otherwise allowed themselves to be cowed into a view of the world that, on closer inspection, appears to make no sense? Can an uneducated trucker be smarter than the pope?
Anyway, buy the book. It's a good read. 
= new reply since forum marked as read
the mindset we were brought up in is based on our emotional IQ over intellectual. Those who never develop emotionally past varying points of childhood will certainly not have the ability to look at that which they've always been taught to believe objectively.
Of course some intellectual ability is helpful on the journey. 
Just my .0125
Julie
