Theists are Stupid

[A_Wanderer]

Intelligence is a predictor of religious scepticism, a professor has argued. Rebecca Attwood reports

Belief in God is much lower among academics than among the general population because scholars have higher IQs, a controversial academic claimed this week.

In a forthcoming paper for the journal Intelligence, Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Ulster, will argue that there is a strong correlation between high IQ and lack of religious belief and that average intelligence predicts atheism rates across 137 countries.

In the paper, Professor Lynn - who has previously caused controversy with research linking intelligence to race and sex - says evidence points to lower proportions of people holding religious beliefs among "intellectual elites".

The paper - which was co-written with John Harvey, who does not report a university affiliation, and Helmuth Nyborg, of the University of Aarhus, Denmark - cites studies including a 1990s survey that found that only 7 per cent of members of the American National Academy of Sciences believed in God. A survey of fellows of the Royal Society found that only 3.3 per cent believed in God at a time when a poll reported that 68.5 per cent of the general UK population were believers.

Professor Lynn told Times Higher Education: "Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population. Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs tend not to believe in God."

He said that most primary school children believed in God, but as they entered adolescence - and their intelligence increased - many began to have doubts and became agnostics.

He added that most Western countries had seen a decline of religious belief in the 20th century at the same time as their populations had become more intelligent.

Andy Wells, senior lecturer in psychology at the London School of Economics, said the existence of a correlation between IQ and religiosity did not mean there was a causal relationship between the two.

Gordon Lynch, director of the Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society at Birkbeck, University of London, said that any examination of the decline of religious belief needed to take into account a wide and complex range of social, economic and historical factors.

He added: "Linking religious belief and intelligence in this way could reflect a dangerous trend, developing a simplistic characterisation of religion as primitive, which - while we are trying to deal with very complex issues of religious and cultural pluralism - is perhaps not the most helpful response."

Alistair McFadyen, senior lecturer in Christian theology at the University of Leeds, said that Professor Lynn's arguments appeared to have "a slight tinge of intellectual elitism and Western cultural imperialism as well as an antireligious sentiment".

David Hardman, principal lecturer in learning development at London Metropolitan University, said: "It is very difficult to conduct true experiments that would explicate a causal relationship between IQ and religious belief. Nonetheless, there is evidence from other domains that higher levels of intelligence are associated with a greater ability - or perhaps willingness - to question and overturn strongly felt intuitions."

Times Higher Education - High IQ turns academics into atheists

Causation or correlation, I think it is easier to dismiss God as irrelevant critically than to justify it.

Not to box people in but many posters who are "religious" don't seem to believe in an interventionist personal God; they don't seem to bother with the negative parts of their religious texts; people that adopt what they consider the positive teachings of Jesus but don't need to get tied down with justifying miracles or resurrections. Having framed this group with such a broad borderline agnostic brush I think thats a good thing, I much prefer people tailoring their religion to their innate morality than twisting their morality around religious belief.

The secondary issue of religious belief and being a good scientist is more interesting to me. I have a rather positivist outlook on the world and I have no problem reconciling my beliefs with what is known about the world. My position in regards to God is that there is no cause to suppose God, that such an actor isn't necessary to explain the universe or personal morality. It is possible that God exists but I am effectively atheistic.

I think it is different for a scientist who is also religious, they can't allow their beliefs to effect their work but their work must inevitably impact their beliefs. I can think of the example of a perfectly competent PhD candidate studying fossil fish who also happened to be a Young Earth Creationist. I can't fathom the mind-bending involved in trying to write a proper scientific thesis while believing in such nonsense. He didn't reach the conclusion that God created the Earth and every animal six thousand years ago from the evidence, he held that belief system from childhood and held onto it even though as a hypothesis it is about as wrong as any statement can be. It isn't that intelligent people can't hold religious beliefs, it's that they can and have to justify those beliefs to their own intelligence.

In general intelligence can allow people to think critically and that can create a lot of agnostics (I am technically an agnostic; although I have more acceptance of the martian teapot claim than a guiding intelligence). Intelligence can also allow people to justify pre-conceived absurdities.

It may not be that atheists are just smarter than other people, it may be that smart people have more trouble accepting religion and possibly spirituality (which is a separate issue).

 

[BonosSaint]

I wonder sometimes if belief in a God is less a need for God than it is a desire for the comfort of ritual (and socialized ritual) which cuts across the intelligence spectrum.

 

[maycocksean]

Are you trying to pick a fight with us Theists, A_W?

Well, you won't get one from me. My brother is way more intelligent than I am and. . .

yes, he's an atheist.

Still, as Mrs. S says, some believers are EVEN intelligent and rationale.

I do believe in a personal interventionist God. I believe the resurrection and the miracles and all that (It's kind of absurd to dismiss the resurrection and the miracles and yet still insist on believing in a scientifically unprovable God in my book. I'm not saying that those who have this kind of belief are absurd. I'm just saying it's absurd to INSIST that one must dismiss the miraculous on scientific grounds when one continues to believe in God).

Your point about the Young Earth scientist is well taken though, and it's why I'm no longer stuck to the idea of a six day Creation. I think scientists who accept evolution but still believe in God (and yes even Jesus and all that) are more problematic to your view of the prime motivator for belief--the kind of childish awe and wonder about things we can't understand. I've said before and will continue to argue that religion for most people (though not all--apparently not for you) is not merely about explaining phenomena.

One other thought. . .intelligence is great but intelligence doesn't make you a "better" or "worse" human being. If only the reason for all the horrible things humanity has done to itself was simply that people were dumb.

 

[maycocksean]

I wonder sometimes if belief in a God is less a need for God than it is a desire for the comfort of ritual (and socialized ritual) which cuts across the intelligence spectrum.

I don't know if we can ever say with authority whether this is the case or not. For me ritual (socialized or otherwise) is not what brings me comfort in my faith. It's the belief that there is an Ultimate Good out there that will "win" someday; it's the hope of seeing loved ones who have passed away again and the hope that my own finite number of days on this planet is not all there is; it's the attraction of a love that I can never lose. . .that at least in part is what draws me.

I can't speak for anyone else.

 

[BonosSaint]

I don't think that is the sole reason. Nor do I think it is the prime motivator in the genuinely religious. I think it is one motivation for the quasi religious and I think for a lot of people who wouldn't call themselves religious at all, but like the ritual of it. I think you sometimes find something like that in former believers like me who no longer miss belief in god, but still search for some kind of ritual--as irrational as that sounds.

 

[maycocksean]

I don't think that is the sole reason. Nor do I think it is the prime motivator in the genuinely religious. I think it is one motivation for the quasi religious and I think for a lot of people who wouldn't call themselves religious at all, but like the ritual of it.

True.

Though to be honest it amazes me that people get that much out of the ritual of it. For me a lot of the time the ritual is just a pain in the ass!

 

[UberBeaver]

Sometimes I think that those really smart people that deny God just have a hard time accepting someone smarter than them.

 

[maycocksean]

Sometimes I think that those really smart people that deny God just have a hard time accepting someone smarter than them.

Whereas we dumb people are thinking, shit, I hope there's Somebody smarter than me up there!

 

[UberBeaver]

Whereas we dumb people are thinking, shit, I hope there's Somebody smarter than me up there!

Amen.





Though I do think Einstein believed in God, or something "up there". So that also gives me some hope. Einstein was allright in my book.

 

[maycocksean]

Though I do think Einstein believed in God, or something "up there". So that also gives me some hope. Einstein was allright in my book.

Weelll, it depends on who you talk to. Everybody wants to claim Einstein for their themselves--the atheists want him, the believers want him, the agnostics--everybody. And really, who wouldn't?

 

[BonosSaint]

 

[deep]

Weelll, it depends on who you talk to. Everybody wants to claim Einstein for their themselves--the atheists want him, the believers want him, the agnostics--everybody. And really, who wouldn't?

I have never heard of the Muslims trying to claim him.

 

[maycocksean]

I have never heard of the Muslims trying to claim him.

Haven't you heard? Einstein was actually a Muslim!

 

[A_Wanderer]

Weelll, it depends on who you talk to. Everybody wants to claim Einstein for their themselves--the atheists want him, the believers want him, the agnostics--everybody. And really, who wouldn't?

He wasn't a theist

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them.

The problem with physicists is their use of religious terminology in framing concepts, Einstein spoke of God only in the sense of the universe, not a creator deity.

His wikipedia article had this quote

I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth.

Obviously not an evangelical atheist or anti-theist.

On being claimed as theistic

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

I can relate to the sentiment towards the numinous experience through science, not religion.

Agnosticism is the only position science can take in regards to God, it is unsurprising that a man as intelligent and considered as Einstein would hold it. It's also funny that the likes of Richard Dawkins, who holds a very similar position but is outspoken about it gets mischaracterised as somehow the equal but opposite of a religious zealot. Faith is affirming in the absence of evidence, unbelieving is not a faith-based religious position.

I would like to see an example of an atheist that has certainty and faith that God doesn't exist.

 

[A_Wanderer]

I wonder sometimes if belief in a God is less a need for God than it is a desire for the comfort of ritual (and socialized ritual) which cuts across the intelligence spectrum.

Identity is important to people, so is family, I wouldn't doubt that religion caters to peoples need for both these things, it couldn't exist if it didn't.

 

[Liesje]

I wonder sometimes if belief in a God is less a need for God than it is a desire for the comfort of ritual (and socialized ritual) which cuts across the intelligence spectrum.

I don't wonder, I think this is very much true. People want or need to believe in something bigger and greater than themselves. I'm not surprised that "dumber" (ie, poorer) people might make up a larger percentage. The more control one has over their own life, the less they need to believe in anyone but themselves.

My in-laws are in somewhat of a fight right now about church and what the purpose of church is. I really believe that church (as in, the community of people + the building/compound) is more of a socio-economic thing than a spiritual thing. Everyone is always asking why people in my generation don't seem to care as much about church anymore...because we don't *need* to. Unlike my grandma who was an uneducated housewife, I have a career, friends, and hobbies outside of my own nuclear family and my church activities. I don't need (and wouldn't get) financial support from a church and I have plenty of good friends (Christian and non-Christian) that I've met through school, work, and extracurricular activities.

If a god in fact exists I do believe there is sufficient evidence in creation alone and that all the dogma and institutional religion is not necessary to simply believe in such a god. (Calvinism - General Revelation)

(I say these things as a Christian believing in God)

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Sometimes I think that those really smart people that deny God just have a hard time accepting someone smarter than them.

lol-in some cases you really have a great point there

I don't believe in any link between religious belief and intelligence. There are plenty of religious believers who are quite intelligent, plenty who aren't, plenty of non believers who are and aren't. It's an individual thing, not a religious thing. And sometimes belief is more of a heart thing than a head thing. Not everything has to be seen to be believed.

 

[A_Wanderer]

lol-in some cases you really have a great point there

I don't believe in any link between religious belief and intelligence. There are plenty of religious believers who are quite intelligent, plenty who aren't, plenty of non believers who are and aren't. It's an individual thing, not a religious thing. And sometimes belief is more of a heart thing than a head thing. Not everything has to be seen to be believed.

It's not a case of believing in a link, the fact there is a significant difference in rates of belief and intelligence when taken for many people demands explanation. Now explaining why this is so and discriminating the controlling factors for religiosity and belief is the tricky part.

 

[Vincent Vega]

I just would like to throw in that not believing in a God doesn't necessarily equates denying him.

 

[financeguy]

To take a contrarian point of view on this.....if the religious are generally happier than atheists, and they seem to be, frankly - then those who convince themselves that there is a benevolent interventionist deity could be seen as MORE intelligent.

 

[Knuckle]

Quote (Einstein):
I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth.

Reminds me of how Jesus instructed "be like little children" when it comes to matters of faith. I'm trying to get there, but I've collected too much noise along the way. I figure that, if I am made by God, then he understands how this brain he gave me brought me to this doubtful point. I'm trying to make my way back. I just hope I don't croak before I figure it all out.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Is the effort required to gain that simple faith worth it?

You don't need a belief in God to understand why things happen, how to live a good life or how to treat other people. If blind faith offends your critical faculties then go with what you know, appreciate the world as you can understand it, which can be perfectly fine, even humanistic, if you feel unbelief is the default state of your brain. If you have trouble believing don't make the mistake of thinking it's a problem with you, or get led down the road of having to "fix" something that needn't be a problem.

It may be that religious belief has fringe benefits, although I suspect it isn't so much the belief in God that helps as much as it is socialisation and support. To me those benefits are irrelevant to the validity of the claims that are being made; the absence of the supernatural, the fleshing out of the history of religions and the foundations of moral actions really does away with so much cause to believe. Evolution wipes away the teleological argument and the large scale issues of the first cause of the universe and the supposed fine tuning are open questions with a somewhat plausible anthropic argument.

God doesn't fit in the universe, as it is now known. It's unnecessary, and the concept just gets more removed from our day to day lives as more facts are uncovered.

I understand that a lot of people insist that God doesn't fulfill an explanatory role about the universe for them but what else is there? What other purpose does the abstract concept of a higher power serve?

If people need love then they should be around nice people, or take drugs. If it is a question of the spiritual experience I don't think it requires God. The very universalist line of there being many roads to God may just be a reflection that the human brain is susceptible to the spiritual experience for reasons of common biology. Stimulation, be it through a latin mass, a voodoo ceremony or looking through the Hubble telescope, provokes the same reaction. People find benefit from the experience even though it isn't specific to their faith.

I would be inclined to be in line with Einstein as he describes the only possible religious feeling he holds is awe towards comprehension of the universe. I would stipulate that feeling is a product of a material brain and has an evolutionary origin. A mechanism that can be triggered by thinking about ones place in the universe.

If through some process I came around to belief in God I think it would be a mirror of O'Brien in 1984, I would have to be capable of holding onto incompatible ideas simultaneously. I rationalised the fear of death at age seven by thinking what it was like before I was born; which is a decent enough marker to me of how I thought at that age. Being raised in an agnostic environment may have something to do with such materialistic thinking. That most of my relatives are also agnostics or atheists is an interesting quirk, although I would venture it is as much (if not more) social forces than biological (although the majority of cousins are pretty on the ball and there is a correlation between smarts and belief, or lack thereof, in that group). Comprehending why people believe is interesting, it has implications for human interactions as well as philosophical considerations. There is value in holding and justifying a position, even or perhaps especially when in the minority.

 

[BrownEyedBoy]

It may not be that atheists are just smarter than other people, it may be that smart people have more trouble accepting religion and possibly spirituality (which is a separate issue).

Why couldn't this be the title of your thread?

You'll be surprised to know that my initial reaction to your thread was to agree. The cynic within me was happy to finally have something to scientifically one-up my church-going friends.

With a little bit more thought, though. I have to respectfully disagree. The title for this thread is a terrible fallacy because with the information given you've inferred in a completely oposite direction.

I know plenty of brilliant God-fearing people and I have no doubt in my mind that they believe and reason with that very same brain of theirs.

I think the reason most people who "are smart" don't believe is because most of these people rely on verifiable facts and what they've seen. With God, it's not so much knowledge as it is about faith.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Nobody bothers to read agreeable threads.

 

[BonosSaint]

I'm curious in these studies whether there was any distinction between those who rely heavily on left brain and those who rely more heavily on right brain--math/logic vs. artisitic intelligence, say. I'm inclined to think that many of the latter would find the idea of god, whether or not they personally believe in one, intellectually fertile.

 

[maycocksean]

I understand that a lot of people insist that God doesn't fulfill an explanatory role about the universe for them but what else is there? What other purpose does the abstract concept of a higher power serve?


I rationalised the fear of death at age seven.

These two things help me understand a lot about why you are so comfortable without faith and have such a hard time understanding other people's need for it. The answer to your question is found in the second statement I quoted above, I think.

For me, it's not so much that I fear death--I really don't (but a lot of that, I admit, is grounded in my faith in life beyond death--eventually any way. For me, I think I'd worry more about death if I believed that this go-around was it.), but more that I am not satisfied with just the run of life I currently have (and who knows how long that's going to be anyway. I'd like to assume I'll die at nice ripe old age, peacefully in my sleep, surrounded by friends and loved ones--but really who has any kind of guarantee of that). I want more. I want eternity. I think many people do. You clearly do not, and among other things, I think it's why unbelief makes so much sense to you.

What to do you make of scientists (besides the young earth kind) that DO believe in God. Like that guy who had the debate with Dawkins in TIME magazine last year? (Can't remember his name right now, it's slipped my mind. I'm sure if were an atheist, I'd be sharp enough to remember but us believers are slow you know. )

 

[A_Wanderer]

I want more. I want eternity. I think many people do. You clearly do not, and among other things, I think it's why unbelief makes so much sense to you.

But faith in an afterlife isn't the same as there being an afterlife, I think that I would like to be functional for over a century; I may become tired of existence in time but a brief flash of a mortal coil isn't the ideal to me. Faith doesn't make an afterlife the case no matter how much one wishes it were so, when the brain ceases to function so does existence, it may not be as comforting as an eternal soul but it fits the known facts. Additionally the claims of an afterlife have produced some positively vile claims that permit great evil and suffering. Placing higher importance on the single life that we have rather than dubious claims of better things to come is more honest and plausibly more humane than the alternative.

What to do you make of scientists (besides the young earth kind) that DO believe in God. Like that guy who had the debate with Dawkins in TIME magazine last year? (Can't remember his name right now, it's slipped my mind. I'm sure if were an atheist, I'd be sharp enough to remember but us believers are slow you know.)

I don't think that one would reach a conclusion of God as the result of what's known, I think that smart people can have needs for whatever reason that they fulfill with faith in a manner wholly independent of their critical faculties. It isn't a question of what's real, it seems to be a means of satisfying an emotional need. I think that religious belief is unnecessary, unfounded and ultimately meaningless. That conclusion isn't one of atheistic superiority, merely an acknowledgement that our brief lives are unimportant to the universe no matter how much we wish it were different and that we are in the same situation together, ultimately an atheistic outlook resigns all of us to an equal fate regardless of what we believed in life. That view can be taken to a more humanistic end than the majority of the worlds religions in terms of pluralism.

 

[LemonMelon]

Are you trying to pick a fight with us Theists, A_W?

Yes.

Threads like this are precisely why I never bother with FYM anymore; arrogant interferencers using someone else's opinion to support their own opinions, or to rile others up. The latter happens surprisingly often, as evidenced here.

Hey, Wanderer, why not make a thread entitled "those with spiritual beliefs are fools" without including an article and be done with it? I'm sure you'll find a crowd that will pat you on the head for your diligence.

 

[The Sad Punk]

Yes.

Threads like this are precisely why I never bother with FYM anymore; arrogant interferencers using someone else's opinion to support their own opinions, or to rile others up. The latter happens surprisingly often, as evidenced here.

Hey, Wanderer, why not make a thread entitled "those with spiritual beliefs are fools" and be done with it? I'm sure you'll find a crowd that will pat you on the head for your diligence.

I'm an atheist and I'm right behind this post.

Is there really a more useless argument?

 

[Diemen]

Yes.

Threads like this are precisely why I never bother with FYM anymore; arrogant interferencers using someone else's opinion to support their own opinions, or to rile others up. The latter happens surprisingly often, as evidenced here.

Hey, Wanderer, why not make a thread entitled "those with spiritual beliefs are fools" without including an article and be done with it? I'm sure you'll find a crowd that will pat you on the head for your diligence.

I agree with this.

Interestingly enough it was this same tactic my dad used in one of his uber-Christian forwards that was the last straw for me. He sent some dumb little made up story about the ACLU suing for an atheist who thought it was wrong that Christians had Christmas but atheists didn't have a holiday. The last line of the forward was spoken by the judge who threw out the case: "those who don't believe are fools."

My response (to everyone on the list of course) was: "Yes! Excellent story! Let's just ridicule and insult everyone who doesn't believe what we do!"

I haven't gotten any of those forwards since.