Featured Image Credit: YoungHoon Kim, IQ 276 / YouTube
We know that intelligence is subjective, after all, how many times have we mocked that booksmart relative who boasts about their IQ, only for them to be unable to cook a poached egg?
Still, in terms of actual intelligence on paper, the average is said to be around 100, and anything above 140 is said to be 'genius' level.
You might consider someone like Albert Einstein to be one of the brainiest guys around, but apparently, his IQ was only around 160.
Going up the rankings, the likes of Voltaire and Isaac Newton (both around 200), William Shakespeare (210), and Leonardo da Vinci (around 220) all score highly, although, because tests were only introduced in 1905, anyone around before the 20th Century is more of a guess.
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That hasn't stopped South Korean scientist YoungHoon Kim from proudly wearing his crown as the world's current 'most intelligent' person.
In April 2024, the Giga Society for people with IQs above 190 claimed YoungHoon Kim had scored 276. As well as serving as an intelligence specialist advisor at the World Mind Sports Council, World Memory Championships, World Speed-Reading Championship, and World Mind Mapping Championship, Kim is the president and executive director at the United Sigma Intelligence Association (USIA), and has scored perfect marks on a number of high-intelligence tests.
It's not just his intelligence relating to all things academic that Kim prides himself on, with the world's 'smartest' man also having some controversial views on religion.
Taking to X, Kim simply wrote: "God is real 100% and Jesus is God."
He then signed off with a gloat of "World's Highest IQ 276 Holder."
This isn't the first time Kim has declared his passion for religion, previously saying, "Christ is my logic,” as he said he was going to use his platform and lofty IQ to lead others to faith. Also holding a theology degree from Seoul's Yonsei University, Kim has called it "the ultimate discipline of all fields of study.”
He's said that the afterlife aligns with science by referring to quantum physics and theories of consciousness: "If reality is part of something bigger, then death is not the end, but a transition."
Pitching himself as a man of science and a man of faith, he's also posited: "Our death is not destruction, but change and shift. Humanity will keep searching for the truth about what comes after.”
God is real 100%
— YoungHoon Kim, IQ 276 (@yhbryankimiq) December 12, 2025
and Jesus is God.
- World's Highest IQ 276 Holder https://t.co/xBvLLBzOiU pic.twitter.com/oYavRNTmj5
We know that religion and science walk a complicated path together, while the notoriously bright Stephen Hawking famously divided with his own views on the idea of an omnipotent being watching over us all. Earlier this year, we even covered a Harvard scientist who claimed a mathematical equation can prove the existence of God.
With Elon Musk claiming that AI is beating some of the smartest minds around, we've already seen people turn to these advancing technologies to try to discover 'proof' that God exists or doesn't.
But is there any proof to Kim's claims? Aside from the man with the world's highest IQ saying that he's '100%' sure that God is real, he's made the fatal error of not showing his working out.
Responding to his post seemingly coming out of nowhere, one person said: "If you’re the world's highest IQ holder you should have no problem proving your chosen god is real. Take your time."
Another joked: "This shows that IQ Tests are not reliable to measure intelligence."
A third sniped back as they concluded: "Having a high IQ has nothing to do with how much knowledge you have. It’s a measure of your problem solving and pattern recognition levels. It doesn’t mean you are a history or even mathematic expert. You can Have a high IQ and know zero about the anthropology of civilization and religion, and in this case you don’t."
