"Christians aren't smart"

Christians aren't smart. This is more of a broad generalization than an argument, but I think it's still effective, particularly on people who have been part of Christianity the social institution and not a part of Christianity the lifestyle--in other words, people who have participated for other reasons than actual faith. When they meet people who are both highly intelligent and antagonistic to religion, at one of the nation's fine universities or colleges for example, "Christians aren't smart" even seems to be factual.

Since this is a broad generalization, some counterexamples would prove it wrong, and there is no shortage of counterexamples; many famous geniuses have been Christian. Christianity was the prevailing belief system for years in the West, so it's only natural that the smart were Christian too. Considering the religious origins of many schools, Christianity may even have been more influential among the academically gifted than among those without the same talents and opportunities.

"Christians aren't smart" may not be stated openly because of its flimsy evidence and lack of political correctness, but nevertheless it can be implicit in the anti-Christian attitude and stance. In this form, the statement is an emotional appeal better expressed as "believe in Christianity, and you're a fool". The emotional appeal can be approached in a few ways, because it can mean several things.

First, the justification may be that Christianity has inherent logical flaws like self-contradictions. Since illogical flaws make statements meaningless, the only people who can find meaning in Christianity must be people without the capability to see or reject logical flaws, i.e., the stupid. The defense here is individual to each "flaw", but the defenses exist. Christians have been finding and reconciling apparent problems for a long time, even among themselves. Some "flaws" like God being three-and-one are special cases of being beyond human understanding/comprehension, but those cases can't be helped because reality can't be helped. If Christianity was purely a human invention, those "flaws" would have been excised or replaced.

Second, the justification may be that Christians rely on faith for some of their knowledge, so they must not be smart or honest enough to apply the scientific method to all domains. The problem is that science is not enough. Some things defy objective measurement. For even those that admit such measurement, science is not an exact science and not all experiments or studies support the same conclusions. Its strength and weakness is that its theories are never absolutely finished. It can explain many things, but those explanations are still not sufficient to answer some essential questions of the human condition. "What is my purpose?" "Where did the universe come from?" "If nothing has ultimate meaning in the end, why should I bother?" "What is right and wrong, and why am I unable to ignore that question?" A related statement is the ol' "fairy tale" comparison, which implies that any narrative with supernatural elements automatically is fictional. And I don't see much of a counterargument for that. If nothing supernatural can be real, then there's no basis for further dialogue. If one can't even allow that maybe there just might be the remote possibility of supernatural existence, then discussing the plausibility of Christianity is ridiculous. Of course, there is the point that the historical events in the Bible happen to be recorded and corroborated by other sources (which do not contain supernatural elements), and last I checked that wasn't true for any fairy tales I've read.

Third, the justification may be that Christianity is too simple, that it's tailor-made for dumb simpletons: "Dumb people can believe in Christianity, and many dumb people currently do, so if you believe in Christianity, you're probably dumb too". Part of this is a misunderstanding that's inevitable from not looking too deeply inside. While the core of Christianity, the Gospel, is simple enough to communicate in a variety of languages and to a variety of societies, it is also profound and deep. The Bible is large, after all, and it only contains a well-vetted canon of texts. Theologians and scholars study for years. Christianity is simple and complicated. A different way to counter the emotional appeal of "Christianity's so simple it's believed by dummies" is with an emotional appeal to democracy and unity. Proclaiming that dumb people believe in Christianity only shames someone who refuses to value dumb people. If a belief system is accessible to all, shouldn't that be a good thing, an egalitarian thing? If "all have sinned", then Christianity is not for elitist snobs. Christians have a responsibility to teach and correct one another in love, as well as serve as role-models, but there is no caste system. Christianity is "for dummies" because it is for all.