Summary of studies: Religiousity and intelligence

[Sprayber]

Re: Summary of studies: Religiousity and intelligence

Originally posted by Sava
link: http://www.objectivethought.com/atheism/iqstats.html

I found this quite interesting. It only reinforces my own personal opinions about religiousity, religionistas, and intelligence.

So in case you are too lazy to read. Smart people tend to not be religious. Dumb people tend to be religious.

Discuss.

Go smoke some pot Sava

[Al B. Sure!]

i'm surprised no one mentioned this (though i did stop reading on the third page) but Bell Curve, anyone? Them ******s were proved to be stupider! now we proved religious people are stupid! YAY!

to Chegitz. nice job consistantly fulfilling my expectations

[Jaguar]

I love it when you just go for broke on trolling Speer. Throwing the n-word around


Speaking of trolling...

Whaleboy, I assume that you're smart enough to know that Mill's definition of a conservative is far different from the modern definition. However, you have that quote in your sig anyway just for the sake of trolling.

Serious post on this thread coming up.

[Jaguar]

Alright, the point that I would make in response to this thread is that if smarter people believe in something, that doesn't make it superior.

Smart people generally do well in school. In Geometry, they teach you all about proving theorems. In Chemistry, you have to back up your ideas with observations and the scientific method. In political discussion, which smart people tend to involve themselves in, faith is kept out because a consensus has been reached that religion and politics shouldn't be mixed. The thing that all of these have in common is that they all discourage accepting things on blind faith. Of course smarter people will tend towards atheism, but it's not necessarily because they are willing to be nonconformists. It's the exact opposite. In most intellectual theaters, faith has no place. So naturally, smart people, whose lives revolve around such intellectual activity, are going to be less religious.

So, the high levels of atheism among intellectuals is not due to superior reasoning ability, but to typical human conformity.

[Al B. Sure!]

immense stupidity like this thread only deserves a response of trolling... come on now. Sava appears to have this inferiority complex and probably got a smug smirk on his face and a hard-on in his pants when he found this information. yup.

and for you jaguar, it depends on what sort of schooling. Business school or law school grads aren't scientists. would they tend towards disbelief in god as well? your reasoning for 'intelligent tendency towards athiesm' wouldn't quite work for them. they don't worry about biology and chemistry.

[Jaguar]

For law school, there's the political discussion thing that I already mentioned. People who mention faith in their political arguments get attacked on it. The way political discussion is conducted today favors atheism, because atheists can't be accused of having religiously motivated beliefs, etc.


Also, to go to business or law school, you have to go to regular university first. And let's not kid ourselves about the gigantic bias towards atheism there.

[Jaguar]

It's late, so I can't promise you that my arguments are entirely coherent, but I think people get the general jist of what I'm talking about.


And yes, it bothers me too when atheists do the OMFFG I am so smart thing. Even though I'm pretty close to atheism right now.

[monkspider]

Good post Jag, I have always been surprised at how close-minded to all things supernatural the majority of intelligent people are. It very well could be an issue of conformity. As a respected member of the internet intelligentsia, I think that even I have conformed and moderated my views on a couple things, just to avoid constant fist-fights with people.

[Al B. Sure!]

agnosticism, jaguar... agnosticism and deism... the possibility of god is always there.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Stefu and Kid are onto something, tagging along with higher intelligence are greater curiosity and skepticism - higher standards of proof. Religion appears to lack the proof needed to satisfy greater enquiry by skeptics, so "Doubting Thomas'" are less inclined to accept a belief in God based on what someone else told them to believe. But frankly, the more intelligent (generalisation alert) have not made a sufficient enquiry into the existence of God to know one way or the other. Simply rejecting religion out of a dis-satisfaction with other people's proof for it is not enlightenment. Look for the proof yourself first...

You know what, this actually has been done many, many, many times. The fact is that any belief in the supernatural *requires* faith, which is belief in the absence of evidence.

Personally I choose to minimize by belief in things that have no evidence for them.

That is simply how it is. I've examined it for myself. I've read the works of others who have examined it. I've spent a lot of time thinking it over.

I rejected religion because it requires a foundation of belief without evidence. Naturally it means that people trying to prove their religion end up having arguements that are lacking, but I didn't reject faith because their arguments weren't good (rather, I rejected faith for the same reason that caused their arguements to be bad).

-Drachasor

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Verto
Standardized tests show Blacks are intellectually inferior to the Great White race.

This is the same as the Bell Curve, and the Bell Curve does not show blacks to be intellectually inferior to white inherently.

Socio-ecnonomic biases tend to reign supreme in areas such as this, and correlation does not equal causation.

And even if, in this case, being smart tended to make you less religious, that does not mean that someone religious can't be smart.

Some people need to take a beginning logic class.

-Drachasor

[monkspider]

Belief in Religionism /= Belief in God

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by monkspider
Belief in Religionism /= Belief in God

But clearly if you don't believe in religion then you don't believe in god. (Religion in the general sense, not the institutions). Afterall, believing in god is a religious belief (there are just other religious beliefs too).

-Drachasor

[monkspider]

Originally posted by Drachasor


But clearly if you don't believe in religion then you don't believe in god. (Religion in the general sense, not the institutions). Afterall, believing in god is a religious belief (there are just other religious beliefs too).

-Drachasor

Religionism
Own Goals

[DAVOUT]

This theory is useless since abjuration of religious beliefs does not improve your IQ; it could even worsen it if God was angry because you abjured.