Summary of studies: Religiousity and intelligence

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Elok
Hmm, we're told that the majority of scientists are atheists, and by stunning coincidence, a study conducted by scientists reports that atheists are intellectually superior. What are the odds of that? Wowwwww.....

*slap*

Learn to read studies.

These studies concluded there is a correlation between intelligence and not being religious.

That does not mean that "atheists are intellectually superior"

-Drachasor

[Kuciwalker]

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...

No one should've come up with the idea in the first place.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

And agnostiscism, technically speaking, is a type of atheist.

An atheist is someone that isn't a theist. Agnostics aren't theists. Typically the term "agnostic" is used by people to try to soften the blow of them being atheists (not always the case, but often).

This is semanticist bull****. The normal definition of an atheist is some who believes there is no god - this does not include agnostics. Etymology is not definition. It's hard to avoid the conclusion you're intentionally trying to muddy the waters.

No, because there is both hard atheism and soft atheism. Soft atheism generally corresponds to agnosticism.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
That's just pragmatics - working out fourth-order polynomial equations via the analytic formula on paper is so time consuming you're usually better off using special methods suggested by the particular form of the equation*, guessing roots or using numerical methods, while a computer, excelling precisely at crunching numbers swiftly can do it with economical speed. Fourth order polynomial certainly can be analytically solved by hand, and have been done so - so, indeed, was the analytic solution found.

* Only an idiot or a computer would have any more trouble solving x^4+Ax^2+B=0 than a second-order equation.

Yes, obviously it can be done by hand, my point was that there are things that push the boundaries of what people can reasonably do. A better example is the string theory equations.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
I'll admit I don't know what the average American on the street's usage is; you might be right on that point. But the usage atheist="someone who believes that god does not exist" is what everyone around me uses, and by far the most common one in online debates including Americans that I have participitated in.

Do they used the English word atheist, or the German one?

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
I'll admit I don't know what the average American on the street's usage is; you might be right on that point. But the usage atheist="someone who believes that god does not exist" is what everyone around me uses, and by far the most common one in online debates including Americans that I have participitated in.

Well, the people I have encountered and my friends use the term "atheist" in the way I described.
Two definitions to help you out:

dis·be·lief Audio pronunciation of "disbelief" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (dsb-lf)
n.

...Refusal or reluctance to believe.

plus:

ag·nos·tic Audio pronunciation of "agnostic" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (g-nstk)
n.

...1.
.........1. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
.........2. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
...2. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.

Originally posted by Last Conformist
The AHD defines "atheist" as "One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods", BTW. The implication is that someone who does not a fixed opinion whether God exists or not - an agnostic - is not an atheist. This puts some doubt on your claims for common usage.

"Disbelieve" has multiple meanings, one of which is to "not believe," or to be reluctant to believe. The fundamental point here is that the agnostics most are familiar with do not believe in god. They have an absence of belief or a reluctance to believe. Not believing in something is not inherently a belief itself, as such "atheism" implies no beliefs, but rather the lack of one (and sometimes the denial of the validity of one).

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Moreover, someone who believes that God exists but say they can't prove his existence would not be called an agnostic where I come from; few if any of the Christians I know offline would claim they can prove God's existence.

1.1 under agnostic above.

Someone that acknowledges it is impossible to know if god exists and still believes in god is an agnostic. I was a bit sloppy in my wording before. As I said though, they are very rare.

-Drachasor

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by Last Conformist
I'll admit I don't know what the average American on the street's usage is; you might be right on that point. But the usage atheist="someone who believes that god does not exist" is what everyone around me uses, and by far the most common one in online debates including Americans that I have participitated in.

Do they used the English word atheist, or the German one?

German?

The online discussions have been in English and the people around me speak Swedish.

[Last Conformist]

Someone that acknowledges it is impossible to know if god exists and still believes in god is an agnostic. I was a bit sloppy in my wording before. As I said though, they are very rare.

Acknowledges that it's impossible to know? Since when is that a commonly accepted fact (and, how could it be known for certain?)?

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

Someone that acknowledges it is impossible to know if god exists and still believes in god is an agnostic. I was a bit sloppy in my wording before. As I said though, they are very rare.

Acknowledges that it's impossible to know? Since when is that a commonly accepted fact (and, how could it be known for certain?)?

Ok, someone that *believes* it is impossible to know if god exists..etc, etc..etc..

Does that make you feel better?

-Drachasor

[DinoDoc]

Has anyone done a study of the intelligence of militant atheists? You know like the ones here that start these threads, post in any and all threads that have God and religion in the title declaring thier non-belief, etc. It'd be interesting how they compare to fundamentalists considering thier simalarities.

[Elok]

*Slaps Dreckarsewhore right back*

Learn to read humor/hyperbole/between the lines. And

*slaps again*

It's not nice to physically abuse people you've only just met. So there.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Elok
*Slaps Dreckarsewhore right back*

Learn to read humor/hyperbole/between the lines. And

*slaps again*

It's not nice to physically abuse people you've only just met. So there.

Yeah, I might have taken it as a joke if at least one other person hadn't posted and seemed serious about the same thing. As you should also know, it is very hard to tell when people are being serious or not on the net. Proper smiley usage helps though.

Hypocrit ; )

-Drachasor

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Has anyone done a study of the intelligence of militant atheists? You know like the ones here that start these threads, post in any and all threads that have God and religion in the title declaring thier non-belief, etc. It'd be interesting how they compare to fundamentalists considering thier simalarities.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes, but in studies like this, IIRC, there's usually a high correlation between the two groups (because of the ways they measure intelligence).

Interesting to see the bias inherent in all of these IQ tests.

I wonder if someone could design an IQ test that would produce the opposite results that you see here with the theists scoring very high comparing to the atheists.

Secondly, the test shows that according to how that test gages intelligence, it favours atheists over theists. In order to advance the discussion, we would have to see the test, and the questions that they tested people on to see if the discreprency can be attributed to the types of questions asked.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I maintain that the idiot is the one who comes up with a creator in the first place, because logically that person is required to enumerate every OTHER thing that we can't know whether or not it exists. Get started.

Not necessarily. After all, God is a metaphysical abstraction of the scientific chain of causality, one whose ontological value is too high for the human mind.

There is a logical, correlative link between an uber-cause and material, knowable ones. Not that I believe in it, but in some cases Occam's razor does not get rid of God.