The GP said such people were mythical, that's not a statistical claim it's an absolute claim. One counter-example destroys such a position.
Inverse relationship between religiosity and intelligence may be true, just not sure what it tells us. A statistical appeal to authority??
Many more people are theistic or spiritual than are religious -- I doubt any statistics exist for that, but again proving a truth that tells us nothing about the basic proposition seems pretty worthless.
You appear to think reasoning about a position requires someone to come to your conclusion.
Re the anecdotal nature of the data-points, are you disputing that the mentioned people are intelligent. What in particular is questionable about those data-points, they don't disprove the aforesaid conjecture but they do cast doubt on the implied conclusion being drawn.
I doubt that was meant, either. There have been studies, most show that intelligent people are less likely to be religious. The more education, the less religion. Etc. It is, of course, a statistical thing.
(I grew up in Sweden and can tell you that to get a large fraction of (mentally healthy) people to be religious, they need to grow up in a religious environment -- without anyone really contradicting that world view. It was a bit of a shock for me the first time I went to Ireland for vacation, since I knew that a large part of the locals were really religious, but they were sane.)
Inverse relationship between religiosity and intelligence may be true, just not sure what it tells us. A statistical appeal to authority??
Many more people are theistic or spiritual than are religious -- I doubt any statistics exist for that, but again proving a truth that tells us nothing about the basic proposition seems pretty worthless.
You appear to think reasoning about a position requires someone to come to your conclusion.
Re the anecdotal nature of the data-points, are you disputing that the mentioned people are intelligent. What in particular is questionable about those data-points, they don't disprove the aforesaid conjecture but they do cast doubt on the implied conclusion being drawn.