Intelligence linked to atheism

[The Big I]

I just read an article that the decline in religion is due to the higher IQ. I would have thought that this ws a gime.

heres the article:

Decline in religion "linked to rise in intelligence"
University academics the "most likely" not to believe
Study portrays religion as "primitive"

PEOPLE with high IQs are less likely to believe in God, according to a new study.

A leading psychology professor at Ulster University said many more "intellectually elite" people in the UK, especially univeristy academics, identified themselves as atheists than the national average.


http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23 ... 09,00.html

[Lord of the Abyss]

I've heard that for years, that higher intelligence and better education makes a person tend towards atheism. It's religion's little weakness, due to it being blatantly stupid.

[Kanastrous]

I think self-deception and a healthy dose of crazy figure into it too, at least for people who are both very intelligent and very faithful.

I mean, St. Augustine can be explained in terms of crazy, but he certainly isn't accurately described as stupid.

[CaptJodan]

No surprise here. It's why my grandparents are so suspicious of higher education. Prior to my getting a clue, they kept asking if the university was teaching me not to believe in god. I'm sure they blame higher education now.

[Kanastrous]

You hear that a lot, from conservative types. The universities are devoted to disseminating atheism, liberalism, etcetera.

[ArmorPierce]

Them damn college kids are just rebelling! They don't know anything!

[Lord of the Abyss]

You hear that a lot, from conservative types. The universities are devoted to disseminating atheism, liberalism, etcetera.

Well, in a sense it's true; as the line goes, "reality has a well known liberal bias". When you are dedicated to factually incorrect beliefs, any good educational institution is in effect going to an enemy of your beliefs whether they intend to be or not.

[sketerpot]

You hear that a lot, from conservative types. The universities are devoted to disseminating atheism, liberalism, etcetera.

When I was in high school, the school actually brought in a guy to give a speech warning us about the dangers of college, how to stay a Christian in an environment where you could be exposed to ideas, and the importance of keeping the old values even though not everybody around you will believe the same thing you do anymore.

It was like something out of the Twilight Zone, except that it actually happened.

[Gullible Jones]

PEOPLE with high IQs are less likely to believe in God, according to a new study.

Because we all know that IQ is an accurate measure of intellectual ability... right, everyone?

(Also: correlation does not equal causation. Rinse and repeat.)

[Darth Wong]

PEOPLE with high IQs are less likely to believe in God, according to a new study.

Because we all know that IQ is an accurate measure of intellectual ability... right, everyone?

It doesn't have to be completely accurate in order to be correlated to it. While every jackass and his brother can proudly say that IQ is a deeply flawed measure of intelligence, the fact is that when a person has an IQ of 140, you can be pretty sure that he's a fuckload smarter than a guy with an IQ of 90.

(Also: correlation does not equal causation. Rinse and repeat.)

Do you feel proud of yourself for knocking down this evidence in your mind with these pithy remarks? First you simplify the argument beyond all recognition, then you look for "gotcha points", then you pat yourself on the back. Just be careful, you might strain your arm doing it.

The stink of your stupidity is fouling my forum. I have to find an air freshener to clear out the stench.

[Surlethe]

IQ tests measure pattern recognition, not necessarily general intelligence, don't they? It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that pattern recognition abilities are correlated with atheism.

[ArmorPierce]

(Also: correlation does not equal causation. Rinse and repeat.)

Alright, what could cause the correlation rather than it being due to the person's intelligence?

[Surlethe]

(Also: correlation does not equal causation. Rinse and repeat.)

Alright, what could cause the correlation rather than it being due to the person's intelligence?

Off the top of my head, a person who is raised in an atheist or secular household might also be exposed to a greater emphasis on reason and intellectual ability, hence becoming more intelligent as well as receiving atheism. But that seems less probable than a person's intelligence driving him to atheism.

[Darth Wong]

It's not complicated. The fact is that atheism is a logical conclusion, whereas religion is not. In fact, religion is so gloriously, proudly illogical that they try to spin-doctor it as a positive: they actually call the ability to believe without a shred of evidence or supporting logic a virtue, named "faith".

Therefore, someone who has a more logical approach to life will be more likely to be an atheist. And people who have better logical thinking skills are likely to do better in IQ tests as well as academic performance, particularly in technical fields. Hence, they will tend to be more educated.

[Stark]

Depending on the test, an important factor is the ability to reason with abstracts (be it shapes, patterns, colours, etc). That's definately something you can learn, and it's something you can lose if you're raised to not question things.

[ArmorPierce]

(Also: correlation does not equal causation. Rinse and repeat.)

Alright, what could cause the correlation rather than it being due to the person's intelligence?

Off the top of my head, a person who is raised in an atheist or secular household might also be exposed to a greater emphasis on reason and intellectual ability, hence becoming more intelligent as well as receiving atheism. But that seems less probable than a person's intelligence driving him to atheism.

Hard to separate a household that encourages intellectualism from it also bestowing atheism on one given that one would lead to the other. That line of reasoning also requires that we accept that intelligent people are more likely to be atheist without explaining why.

[Gullible Jones]

(Also: correlation does not equal causation. Rinse and repeat.)

Alright, what could cause the correlation rather than it being due to the person's intelligence?

Off the top of my head, a person who is raised in an atheist or secular household might also be exposed to a greater emphasis on reason and intellectual ability, hence becoming more intelligent as well as receiving atheism. But that seems less probable than a person's intelligence driving him to atheism.

That's essentially the line I was thinking along. It at least reflects my own upbringing - my family isn't very religious and I never had any strong religious faith, and by the time I was exposed to more devout religion, I could see through it. And a lot of the atheists I've met have claimed to come from nonreligious backgrounds rather than having broken free of a religion on their own.

[Darth Wong]

I personally have a strong suspicion that better-educated Christians also inadvertently tend to produce less religious offspring, because they're the ones who are likely to encourage their children to ask tough questions. A lot of people like this are confident that Christianity can survive those kinds of questions, even though it really can't. Their confidence stems from their own upbringing which was more strict, and they delude themselves into thinking that this confidence comes from their intellect. But anyone who says that he subjected Christianity to a harsh logical interrogation and failed to crack it is either stupid or lying (perhaps even lying to himself).

[Kanastrous]

I personally have a strong suspicion that better-educated Christians also inadvertently tend to produce less religious offspring, because they're the ones who are likely to encourage their children to ask tough questions.

It may work this way with Jews, anyway. My parents are both very dedicated to the practice of Judaism, but at the same time are (now retired) physicians and medical researchers - that is, scientists. Their dedication to their practice was all about identity; it took me a long time to nail down the fact that for them, faith was borderline relevant, if it was relevant, at all.

And, for all the Hebrew school and Friday observances and Saturday services, I lost interest in the religion before age ten. I'm pretty sure that religion being the solitary thing my parents never underwrote intellectually or logically for me, undid all their efforts to mold me into a practitioner.

Letting me hang out at Georgetown and argue with the Jesuits, probably didn't help either.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Do you feel proud of yourself for knocking down this evidence in your mind with these pithy remarks? First you simplify the argument beyond all recognition, then you look for "gotcha points", then you pat yourself on the back. Just be careful, you might strain your arm doing it.

Statistically, I am not sure you will even find a statistically significant correlation between actual intelligence and religion. Whenever you are looking at two phenomenon using proxy measures (indirect measurements that are only correlated with what they are trying to measure) the correlations are often weak or non-existent. You see it in ecology a lot...

[ArmorPierce]

Alright, what could cause the correlation rather than it being due to the person's intelligence?

Off the top of my head, a person who is raised in an atheist or secular household might also be exposed to a greater emphasis on reason and intellectual ability, hence becoming more intelligent as well as receiving atheism. But that seems less probable than a person's intelligence driving him to atheism.

That's essentially the line I was thinking along. It at least reflects my own upbringing - my family isn't very religious and I never had any strong religious faith, and by the time I was exposed to more devout religion, I could see through it. And a lot of the atheists I've met have claimed to come from nonreligious backgrounds rather than having broken free of a religion on their own.

That explanation has nothing to do with people with higher IQ less likely to be religious.

[wautd]

No doubt, creationists must be really dragging their average below

[CaptainZoidberg]

(Also: correlation does not equal causation. Rinse and repeat.)

Not true. Correlation is necessary but not sufficient for causation.

If a correlation exists, then a higher IQ could cause atheism, atheism could cause a higher IQ, or they share a common cause.

Could that common cause be geography? For example: people in the western world are more likely to be atheists because of our high education levels, and people are also likely to be intelligent (http://www.iapsych.com/articles/dickerson2006ip.pdf).

Or perhaps people who are atheists use more logical skills and are more likely to be intelligent.

So "correlation does not equal causation" is a dramatic oversimplification.

[Darth Wong]

Do you feel proud of yourself for knocking down this evidence in your mind with these pithy remarks? First you simplify the argument beyond all recognition, then you look for "gotcha points", then you pat yourself on the back. Just be careful, you might strain your arm doing it.

Statistically, I am not sure you will even find a statistically significant correlation between actual intelligence and religion. Whenever you are looking at two phenomenon using proxy measures (indirect measurements that are only correlated with what they are trying to measure) the correlations are often weak or non-existent. You see it in ecology a lot...

You will in a population where everyone has roughly equal access to education. Everyone knows that IQ tests measure both intelligence and educational background, which is where most of the criticisms of the IQ tests as a pure intelligence measurement come from.

[Kanastrous]

No doubt, creationists must be really dragging their average below