Summary of studies: Religiousity and intelligence

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
where do you live Drachasor?

Ohio.

-Drachasor

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Arrian
Wow, Sava. Your best troll in quite some time.

5/10.

-Arrian (Agnostic, for the record)

If you do any topic vaguely along the line of atheist-theism then there is always a high chance of it getting carried away by misunderstandings and arguements.

-Drachasor

[Arrian]

Of course. I, however, know Savita's M.O., and I assure you that this was a deliberate troll.

-Arrian

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Arrian
Of course. I, however, know Savita's M.O., and I assure you that this was a deliberate troll.

Ahh, how unfortunate.

-Drachasor

[Ben Kenobi]

They actually aren't so bad. Intelligence is almost always used to mean the capcity to aquire and apply knowledge.

And how do you assess this?

Sometimes it also means reasoning ability (and you can't reason well if you are incapable or limited in your ability to be skeptical). I.Q. tests aren't perfect at measuring this, but they do a decent job.

So, if you assume belief in God to be illogical, doesn't that mean, you will always prove that the faithful are less intelligent?

You are begging the question Drachosor. You need to show why belief in God is in fact illogical, rather than assuming what you are trying to prove.

I would again note that none of this means you can't be both intelligent and a theist.

You are saying that the average theist is going to be less intelligent than the average atheist. This is all I claimed.

The better a scientist you are, for instance, the more likely you are to not believe. You might not like that, but it is a well-established fact.

I was a scientist, and why should this be the case? The best scientists acknowledge the limitations of science. Look at the scientific discoveries made by faithful Christians here in the west. Does the number of discoveries by ardent atheists compare?

Science has no tools to measure the supernatural, and they admit that in the scientific method, developed by Bacon.

Being able to question information is an essential part of intelligently processing it.

True, but you cannot doubt everything. You accept most of what you know on the authority of others. If you doubt everything you hear, then you will know nothing.

Questioning information, is not the same as rejecting the information. When presented with information, you need to have some ability to assess the information in such a way as to gage what is more probable. Then, it would seem most intelligent to take what you see as most probable, and to retain such information, until more probable information comes forth.

Many theists have became believers not because they insisted that God come down and reveal himself before they believed, but rather, that the evidence in favour of God was more probable than the evidence against.

So skepticism, ought to still lead to the acceptance of information that is the most probable, rather than the rejection of evidence because it does not fit with preconceived notions.

Now, what I think is going on is that more intelligent people tend to find it easier to not believe than less intelligent people. Probably because the more intelligent you are the more you *tend* to question the facts everyone else accepts.

Right, but I would say that the intelligent also understand the limitations of their knowledge, and come to value the accumulated knowledge of past generations as a supplement to their own. So in rejecting tradition, you are not necessarily showing more intelligence than one who accepts the evidence of tradition to be greater than his own limited understanding.

Actually people that tend to do well on one intelligence test, tend to do well on other ones. There is something there that it is measuring, and it is reasonably close to intelligence.

Again, I ask to see the questions. If IQ tests all ask the same questions, then it is obvious you would have the same results. They are the same test!

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Drachasor


Occam's razor always gets rid of God, because god is not a valid explanation for anything as far as pure science/logic is concerned.

-Drachasor

It doesn't, because as I said science does not preclude assumptions as to what might be beyond its actual grasp. Interestingly, philosophical conceptions of God are very logical in nature and show strong influence from scientific procedures.

It's like Dalton postulating atoms in the 19th century; he might have had some sort of 'logical intuition' leading to it, that turned to be proved by scientific standards. Before something can ever be described with scientific means, it has to be known qualitatively through the natural language, and that's exactly what - some of the - speculation about God is about.

[Drachasor]

They don't all ask the same questions, and you need to look at societal as a whole on the results (as I touched on).

Yes, it is a fact that currently in American the average Atheist is more intelligent than the average Theist.

Guess what? The average White is more intelligent than the average Black.

Why is this? Because of how society is set up and the inherent inequities within it. Blacks aren't incapable of learning just as much as whites, but their socio-economic position hinders them (if you balance studies based on socio-economic position, then whites in a similar socio-economic spot score similarly on I.Q. tests compared to blacks).

With atheist and theists there is an inherent bias in our culture towards religion. That means that most people are going to be religious. The only people that are going to question it are going to generally have more intelligence than the average person, because that is simply how intelligence works. If the situation was reversed, and 90% of the population were atheists, then studies would show that theists were more intelligent than atheists (imho).

-Drachasor

[Al B. Sure!]

Ohio

Cleveland, Cincinatti, or Columbus?

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
It doesn't, because as I said science does not preclude assumptions as to what might be beyond its actual grasp. Interestingly, philosophical conceptions of God are very logical in nature and show strong influence from scientific procedures.

God is defined as something forever out of the grasp of science. The reach of science is everything observable. You cannot ever observe god or anything that is clearly caused by god, therefore you must believe in him based upon *faith*.

I thought faith was an important part of religion, but apparently some of the people here think reason is more important. That's a bit odd.

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
It's like Dalton postulating atoms in the 19th century; he might have had some sort of 'logical intuition' leading to it, that turned to be proved by scientific standards. Before something can ever be described with scientific means, it has to be known qualitatively through the natural language, and that's exactly what - some of the - speculation about God is about.

He was postulating them, he said they might exist and they explain some phenenon (though the important thing is that he was *postulating*). Guessing is not the same as proof, and the eventually proof for atoms required hard numbers, hard data. That is something that will never happen for a belief like "god".

-Drachasor

[Al B. Sure!]

Why is this? Because of how society is set up and the inherent inequities within it. Blacks aren't incapable of learning just as much as whites, but their socio-economic position hinders them (if you balance studies based on socio-economic position, then whites in a similar socio-economic spot score similarly on I.Q. tests compared to blacks).

oh so you going back to your religious persecution arguement?

religious people appear dumber because they are persecuted a la France.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
And how do you assess this?

You can ask people questions that require them to learn new material and apply that material within the same test. That's what I.Q. tests do.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
So, if you assume belief in God to be illogical, doesn't that mean, you will always prove that the faithful are less intelligent?

It only means that they hold on to that particular irrational belief. It doesn't inherently mean they are less intelligent, and so it certainly will never be a proof.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
You are begging the question Drachosor. You need to show why belief in God is in fact illogical, rather than assuming what you are trying to prove.

It's illogical because there is no evidence for the existence of god. It's that simple. To believe in go you must accept his existence on *faith*.

Faith is belief without evidence for something (or in spite of the evidence).

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I was a scientist, and why should this be the case? The best scientists acknowledge the limitations of science. Look at the scientific discoveries made by faithful Christians here in the west. Does the number of discoveries by ardent atheists compare?

When asked to rank the most important/influencial (in regards to science) members of their respective fields, the higher ranked members of the scientific community had a much higher chance of being non-believers than the average member of the community. That's just how it is, I needn't explain why this is the case. You get a similar result when you consider important papers published and the like.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Science has no tools to measure the supernatural, and they admit that in the scientific method, developed by Bacon.

As I said, the Supernatural is inherently something that can't be measured. It is something that isn't part of nature, that isn't part of the observable universe. It is something that if believed in, is believed in despite the lack of evidence for it. It is believed on faith.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
True, but you cannot doubt everything. You accept most of what you know on the authority of others. If you doubt everything you hear, then you will know nothing.

One can distinguish between things that are believable and can be shown to be true, and those that cannot be shown to be true. (and then one can evaluate the general trustworthiness of the speaker as well).

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Questioning information, is not the same as rejecting the information. When presented with information, you need to have some ability to assess the information in such a way as to gage what is more probable. Then, it would seem most intelligent to take what you see as most probable, and to retain such information, until more probable information comes forth.

As I have said, the people that don't question it automatically believe in god because of how our society is configured.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Many theists have became believers not because they insisted that God come down and reveal himself before they believed, but rather, that the evidence in favour of God was more probable than the evidence against.

Then they are confused, because there is no evidence for god; indeed, there cannot be.

Most people I know who believe that have thought about it, know that it is a belief based on faith. It is not based on reason.

-Drachasor

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
oh so you going back to your religious persecution arguement?

religious people appear dumber because they are persecuted a la France.

You misunderstand.

If you grow up in America and don't question the basic beliefs of society, then you will be a theist. That's how society is. That's what the culture is.

On average more intelligent people question things more, and hence there are more atheists among the more intelligent people than among the less intelligent.

-Drachasor

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Ockham, or Occam, was a theist, so that conclusion does not make sense to me.

Occam's razor is used to narrow between one God or many, not to prove or disprove the existance of God.

Ockham's Razor was used to narrow between one God or many.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Ockham's Razor was used to narrow between one God or many.

True, but now it has a much wider meaning.

-Drachasor

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
How does this disprove God?

And you are wrong about Ockham's razor. It simply states that the simpler theory is more likely to be correct.

Ockham's Razor can be put most precisely thus, IMO: any fact whose truth can only be reached by going beyond what is necessary is false. In the example of the undetectable dancing leprechauns, there is simply no rational process by which you could derive their existance. Same for God.