High IQ turns academics into atheists

[crocofish]

Found this article from the UK just released today titled High IQ turns academics into atheists.  The results of a study will be published in the journal, Intelligence; and that study claims that there is a strong correlation between high IQ and lack of religious belief.

Of course, there will be some who will think that the results are obvious, and some who will think that the study is totally flawed, depending on who is boosted or offended by the study.

[Smallville]

I don't know about any studies that I've encountered in the past but that has apparently been a belief of mine for years.

People with lower intelligence, and this is not a slur, tend to accept things more on a faith basis rather than examining or reasoning things out. They are happy just to take things on faith without questioning if there's any truth to it.

My immediate family, both parents, barely high school grads, are strong in their church. My older brother, college grad, is agnostic at worst (or best) yet my younger brother, also a college grad, is a strict, hardcore fundamentalist. Our tested IQs were the 120s for my brothers and the 140s for myself. Politically speaking, the younger brother is hard-line Republican, our parents Democrats, the older brother and I Independents. I wonder if that's been studied - atheists and political leanings. (Probably fewer Republicans would be my guess.)

The few other atheists that I know personally (and granted here in South Carolina it's only a few) are at least college graduates who excelled in school and in their professional careers. Each has gone on to further education, research, or study.

So I don't think high IQ 'turns' academics into atheists as much as the high IQ is an indicator for the propensity of someone willing to challenge the religious systems and look for real answers instead of blindly accepting religious faith and dogma.

[curiosityandthecat]

there is a strong correlation between high IQ and lack of religious belief.

Not news, really; just confirmation of anecdotal beliefs held by many for a long time, but having statistics to back it up is nice. When I first glanced at the article title, I thought it said High IQ turns academics into athletes and I about shat, haha.

There's also evidence that sympathy goes up as literal beliefs go down (Duriez, B. (2004.) "Are religious people nicer people? Taking a closer look at the religion-empathy relationship." Mental Health, Religion & Culture. Vol 7, No. 3. 249-254). Also, "moderately" religious people tend towards being more racist than lesser and non-religious people or, interestingly, extremely religious people (Rowatt, W. C., Franklin L. M.  (2004.) "Christian Orthodoxy, Religious Fundamentalism, and Right-Wing Authoritarianism as Predictors of Implicit Racial Prejudice." International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 14(2), 125-138.).

There's mountains of evidence that religion actually makes people less... erm... evolutionarily desirable, shall we say?  

[myleviathan]

Very interesting find. Although it's a correlational study, which only shows a statistical relationship between intelligence and atheism. It doesn't prove causality that those with lower IQ will become theists. I'm sure there are lots of intelligent theists, as well as dumb atheists.

The Biblical authors wrote failsafes for this in scripture. One of them is 1 Corinthians 1:25 which says : For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom.

So Christians are okay with their foolishness. According to scriptures like this, foolishness is next to Godliness. Their attitude is that they have no need for academic pursuits which might further disprove their version of history. Even the intelligent Christians get caught up in this mentality. I did. And once you have fully invested yourself into religion it's hard to leave.

[karadan]

All hardcore religious people i've ever met tend to be thick as pig-shit.... Sounds harsh, i know, but i am not suffering fools gladly today. Been a right rubbish day..  

I'm not really sure how highly attuned intelligence can go hand-in-hand with religiousness (is that a word?) to be honest. Obviously i am biased but, to me, the notion of a white bearded man in the sky watching over all of us is reserved solely for the deluded and stupid. Any self professed intelligent person who believes in god is either lying about their belief or lying about their intelligence.

[myleviathan]

Any self professed intelligent person who believes in god is either lying about their belief or lying about their intelligence.

That may be. It's hard to delude yourself against good judgement for long. There may be something else at work, too. There may be people whose brain chemistry is more attuned to theism than others. There have been studies suggesting that the pineal gland may play a role in belief. This is the same gland that produces and secretes melatonin which regulates sleep cycles / circadian rythms. It also produces a very powerful psychedelic drug called DMT (also known as the spirit drug). This substance may very well play a role in a person's 'religiosity', or affinity for religious beliefs.

Like the study says, there is a statistical relationship between intelligence and atheism. But it's not a pre-requisite. There may be other chemical forces that cause intelligent people to feel like they have a personal relationship with imaginary beings.

[MikeyV]

There's also evidence that sympathy goes up as literal beliefs go down (Duriez, B. (2004.) "Are religious people nicer people? Taking a closer look at the religion-empathy relationship." Mental Health, Religion & Culture. Vol 7, No. 3. 249-254).

I am definitely an outlier.

[Asmodean]

All hardcore religious people i've ever met tend to be thick as pig-shit.... Sounds harsh, i know, but i am not suffering fools gladly today. Been a right rubbish day..  

I have the same impression. I have yet to meet a high iq theist or a fairly intelligent fundie.

[myleviathan]

There are lots of intelligent theists. The original post was based on Gallop poles. No offense, but not the most reliable information. Even the professor interviewed says this is a correlational study, and proves no causality whatsoever. I was just talking to a fundie who graduated from Oxford. I'm not saying she's more intelligent just because she graduated from Oxford, I'm just saying there's something else going on here. It's not as simple as saying all theists are dumb and and all atheists are smart. That just sounds like bigotry to me.

[Asmodean]

Sorry, leviathan, but until someone manages to convince me otherwise, I will still look down on fundies (underline fundies - many moderate theists are actually quite ok) as un-intelligent beings.

[pjkeeley]

I would say that Venom Fang X guy on Youtube is an example of an intelligent religous fundamentalist. When I first saw his videos I could only think about how on earth he manages to delude himself into believing what he does.

[Asmodean]

I would say that Venom Fang X guy on Youtube is an example of an intelligent religous fundamentalist. When I first saw his videos I could only think about how on earth he manages to delude himself into believing what he does.

It may have something to do with lacking general reasoning skills (pretending to reason and actually do it are two different things, obviously) or with lack of wisdom (having seen and understood enough of the world, how CAN you believe in god(s)?) I'm not saying that's the case with that guy as I have no idea who he is - might check it out when I get my codecs straight - just a general thought...

[OldGit]

On another site I was chatting to an undergraduate in Brasenose College, Oxford who lost a battle to prevent his JCR (=fellow students' club) from giving their annual charitable contributions to two religious causes.  He reckoned most of the JCR were wishy-washy Christians.  And Oxford undergraduates are not thick!
Mind you, in my college, just across the square from BNC, in my time, we were rather more sceptical.  But we did lose the brightest physicist of our year to the evangelicals.
You never can tell....

[afreethinker30]

Found this article from the UK just released today titled High IQ turns academics into atheists.  The results of a study will be published in the journal, Intelligence; and that study claims that there is a strong correlation between high IQ and lack of religious belief.

Of course, there will be some who will think that the results are obvious, and some who will think that the study is totally flawed, depending on who is boosted or offended by the study.

Well it would be great to see why people are so different on their choices on religion and those of non-religion.But who can believe these things.How can you make a connection on I.Q. and Atheist without giving a worldwide I.Q. test.Most studies are based on a small percentage of people.I have friends who are Atheist and missing a few marbles.And others who are into different types of religion.My Budda loving friend is extremely intelligent.And a Catholic friend of mine spent years in school learning to help the hopeless.She worked as a counsler for homeless,mostly teens.And is now working on helping GLBT teens work to earn rights they so deserve.But then again my neighbor a Christian preacher (I call him the Con Man) has some issues.His wife is the worse but I am starting to wonder if she has some major learning problem.And get this she was a teacher for years.I guess you have to meet them to see what I mean.