Intelligent people less likely to believe in God

You have to keep in mind what type of intelligence.

You could stand a 50 year old man next to me and quiz us on math,
and I look like I should be sent back to highschool.

Or you could ask us immaterial questions, ones that don't corroborate
with the everyday norm.
The stuff you have to seek for yourself, and experience yourself,
the unanswered questions of the 'obscure'.

Stand myself next to the same 50 year old and he might aswell be 10,
and I a wise old man with a withered cane.

I actually prefer the latter of intelligence.

People with a high degree & act like there heads are too big,
with no knowledge of anything beyond our everyday norms,
and really not accepting anything except for here and now,
makes me want to personally want to tell them how idiotic they really are.

There's two different kinds of intelligence

Not a significant study, if you can even call it that. Polling some career academics about their beliefs is nonsense. That's like asking a farmer if he thinks that farming is important...sorta... academics are professional paradigm challengers...
Anyway, isolated polls of groups that consider themselves to be pretty sharp are severly biased.
Who are the "intellectual elite?" I live in a college town. Many of my neighbors are carreer academics. Most of them can't change oil, brew beer, grow food or explain photosynthesis adequately. Pity, really.
You know IQ tests are silly. An ounce of hard work makes up for considerable cognitive deficiencies. So who's smart? The happy simple agrarian or the high-speed intellectual with a therapist? Who has more staying power? Real worth?

Methodology not withstanding. This academicians' proclamation of the likelihood of atheism and high IQ begs many questions regarding the subjects he based his statistics on, his definition of non-atheist, what particular aspect of IQ is relevant, and for me most importantly, his point.

I assume there are those who will always indelibly link faith and religious practice, or faith and a god. Yet some may see that religion, (and arguably, even god,) is an inevitable construct of cultural evolution. Faith, on the other hand is NOT a construct of man. It is an operating principle of human consciousness. No human can function without the element of faith in their lives. Simplistic, yes. But not so much as to render it a 'vestigial' element of the human psyche.

This makes to notion of separating faith from IQ as contradictory elements (as seems implicit in the theory) a bit ridiculous.

Why then, would one make an effort to prove this hypothesis? To what end does one wish to quantify a differentiation between those who channel their faith into the metaphysical, and those who don't?

I think, despite all the erudite calculations and witty reparte, this comparison like most involving apples and oranges, is based on axioms that only those amenable to the result will embrace. Which is true of most of these academic games, especially when the progenitor of the 'study' has a demonstrated propensity, and predilection, for proving his pre-determined assertions. The whole race and gender thing doesn't exactly aggrandize his work this time either.

reply to post by ALightinDarkness


I must have missed the data. But of course, I categorically dismiss anything that may be arguably remotely contrived or confounded. Hence, I dismiss about 95% percent of studies in social sciences that claim statistical significance. It hard enough with elegance and simple well-known parameters to demonstrate anything.
Social Science is psuedo-science without HUGE,HUGE sample sizes. "People like food." Only governments have the resources to collect data on appropriate scales, and many types of questions cannot be explored/described by statistics.

reply to post by Quazga


Well I believe it, but is not that people do not believe in God but their understanding of a supreme being as the creator of everything goes beyond bible and religious rhetoric.

Originally posted by NightDweller
There's two different kinds of intelligence

Actually, there are 9 types and counting
skyview.vansd.org...

The key to intelligence isn't what you 'know' but what you're capable of knowing and how well you can retain it.

This article says "intellectual elite" like it's a good thing. The truth is that any group that consideres themselves "elite" - as in better than everyone else in some fashion - is a terrible thing. They're only setting themselves up in their ivory tower waiting for the next group that's even more "elite" to come around and knock them back down to the rank of mere mortals.

What is amusing is how the 'intellectually elite' beg for their miserable existence; asking for the mercy they would not grant those they enslaved, raped and murdered because they deemed themselves to have a special status not bestowed on mere mortals of the lower caste, as they meet their Godless hell. Having first granted themselves the privileges of gods: they of course need to lead the huddled unwashed masses to enlightenment due to their superior intellect; along the way to enlightenment - their just cattle after all - a few culled and used they believe is their right. All such intellectually elite human garbage deserve and eventually meet the same end; and while their meeting it they DO NOT call on Stalin, Buddha, Mohammed, OR their doctor - I know as I've seen.

reply to post by SGTChas




What?

Have you killed the intellectual elite and listened to them beg for their lives? Where do you see the 'intellectual elite' die en mass that you can confirm that they'll praise Jesus before the end?

Professor Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University, said many more members of the "intellectual elite" considered themselves atheists than the national average.

Wow, what breaking news, imagine that, i would never have guessed that the intellectual elite would have an adverse reaction to believing in a being who may be far more superior to them.



[edit on 13-6-2008 by atlasastro]

This should have been titled "intelligent people less likely to need fairy tales to get them through life".

Honestly, you religious types crack me up. If you were to take a step back, assess what you are claiming and then assess what your sources are, you might find you feel like a fool. Of course, you won't, because if you did things like that, you wouldn't be one of those zany religious types!

Originally posted by Maxmars
Which is true of most of these academic games, especially when the progenitor of the 'study' has a demonstrated propensity, and predilection, for proving his pre-determined assertions. The whole race and gender thing doesn't exactly aggrandize his work this time either.

I think it's a bit unfair to suggest this is an academic 'game', but I definitely agree with the Lynn part. He is a bit of cad, fool, and academic attention whore - that was sufficient to activate my BS meter straight away.

From what I gather (yickitty-yacking), Lynn et al have measured population levels of atheism/non-belief in particular countries (e.g., percentage atheists), then correlated this with average national IQ scores. They found a significant correlation (higher levels of disbelief, higher national IQ)

Bleugh.

Apparently there was an outlier in the data - anyone want to guess which country? Heh. The highest IQs were found in Asia (I, for one, will welcome our new Asian overlords). To those in the outlier - destroy science education thorough your religious fervour with peril.

So what this really suggests is that populations with higher levels of non-belief tend to be associated with higher IQ scores. So, like earlier, I'll stick with c (and perhaps d, e, f, g, h, i etc) to a & b. Or in English, unknown(s) lead to higher IQ and levels of non-belief. Which was always the most likely (i.e. a very complex situation with multiple factors).

I can think of lots of relevant explanations. So, for example, countries with better educational systems tend to produce higher population IQ and often foster a level of freethinking that leads to higher levels of non-belief.

Originally posted by melatonin

I can think of lots of relevant explanations. So, for example, countries with better educational systems tend to produce higher population IQ and often foster a level of freethinking that leads to higher levels of non-belief.

Which surely begs the question: why do people stop believing in God when they get some smarts?

I suspect its because science does actually explain most of the big questions, and suddenly the universe looks quite feasible on its own, rather than under the care of some almighty omni-being.

"Professing themselves wise, they become fools." This "outlier" with the low I.Q. is out of here.

Just to throw it out there......

It is commonly assumed that religious people are less intelligent than those who who aren't religious. Many skeptics think that Christianity and other religions are for people who do not want to think - but will blindly follow what they are told by their church. While it is true that those who have advanced degrees tend to be more atheistic than those who don't, does this correlate with intelligence or just self-sufficiency?

In conclusion they say:

Since the slopes of the two curves are virtually identical, one would be hard pressed to claim that one factor or another was actually responsible for the prevalence of religion around the world. By the way, there is an outlier country in all this - the United States. People from the U.S. rate religion as being very important, although they have one of the highest IQ's. However, they also have the highest GDP per capita, which seems to be a more significant factor influencing IQ than religious involvement. In general, one could speculate that those who have a full belly would be less likely to consider their need for God.

Source

Originally posted by SGTChas
"Professing themselves wise, they become fools." This "outlier" with the low I.Q. is out of here.

Ignoring the scripture, you misinterpret the outlier - they demonstrated high levels of belief in their population and high average national IQ.

Why? I have a few ideas.

Originally posted by C.C.Benjamin
Which surely begs the question: why do people stop believing in God when they get some smarts?

It's just one possible explanation, as noted above, I'm sure most of these nations are also richer. There are other studies on this issue which speak to possible relationships between education and religiousity. So I'm not sure the 'full bellies' explanation is adequate. Nyberg (also a cad) has apparently showed relationships within the US population.

I tend to go with the educational angle myself. However, not all countries are really that open to freethinking

[edit on 13-6-2008 by melatonin]

I wouldn't say that it's as simple as "stupid people believe in god". I think it's more like the higher the average intelligence is of a people, the less they find mysticism and magic in the world around them. Why do clouds float in the sky? Either it's because some divine being is controlling them or it's because of a physical process that can be measured and studied. Understanding what is happening around you significantly changes the way you see the world, you can no longer just ignorantly say "This happens only because god wants it to, there's absolutely no other possible explanation". By the way, this is one hell of a good way to piss of the religious extremists and bible thumpers on the board

[edit on 13-6-2008 by DemonicAngelZero]

Originally posted by Quazga


Well duh!

It's been said more than once by more than a few that religion is a crutch for the weak-minded and lame.
That it's a convenient excuse to never take responsibility for your own actions.
I guess we won't know for sure until we die, eh?

Originally posted by budski
reply to post by jsobecky

 

For once we agree on something

That alone is proof enough of an existence of God.

reply to post by Quazga


Now, I hear the logic behind this because it is what I believe. However, what is the definition of God? I was raised Christian but have since begun to question the many 'inconsistencies' in the religion. Does it mean I do not believe in God? Well, no. I do believe in some type of intelligent force behind creation. Does it mean we are all a dream of some omnipotent being? Maybe. I don't know.

My qualifications on my intelligence level? Well, no I.Q. tests here. When I entered the army my test scores were among the top 1% of all entrants. They put me straight into intel. I have 3 degrees with the 3rd being an MBA.

Here is the progression of my beliefs. When I was in the army I was considered intelligent. However I fully believed in the conservative/Christian system. I kept this belief for quite a while. However, once I achieved my bachelors degree in business management I started to question things. Why? Probably because of the thought process that is forced on you when you take business courses. Then during my MBA I kind of 'woke' up. That is when I really started to do research and self exploration.

Do I believe in God? Well, it depends on your definition of God. Does this make me atheist? I don't think so. However, I DO believe that the more intelligent you are the more 'hard proof' that your brain will require. I have mine to a satisfactory degree. Would it work for most atheists as proof positive? Nope. They would call it a bunch of coincidences that just happened to lead to these events. Kind of like the 911 situation.

Anyway, this is a legit thought process and I understand fully why people will think this way.

Originally posted by Quazga

Intelligent people less likely to believe in God

www.telegraph.co.uk

Professor Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University, said many more members of the "intellectual elite" considered themselves atheists than the national average.

A decline in religious observance over the last century was directly linked to a rise in average intelligence, he claimed.

But the conclusions - in a paper for the academic journal Intelligence - have been branded "simplistic" by critics.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Critics being? The religious ones? Well that's to be expected

How come "god" keeps running out of money and needs to be topped up every week?

LOL, man what a scam, suckers.