Happy Atheist Forum

I was actually just surfing around while watching Monster Quest and came across an article regarding a recent poll of "how important religion is in your daily life" amoung the citizens in States of the United States.  While looking at the list of "most religious" and "least religious" I was surprised at some of the entries.  However, it was a comment on the page that caught my interest so I went to look for the last census on States with the highest level of education and it is interesting.  Most of the top 10 least religious states are among the most educated states and none of the most religious states make the top ten of education(actually several of them are in the lowest 10).  I think we all kind of see the correlation, and I am not saying that formal education equals intelligence (I know many "educated" people that make me wonder how they function) but it's an interesting parallel.  And the comments are interesting as well!

Most and Least Religious States http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles_of_faith/2009/01/massachusetts_a.html

Most and Least Educated States http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/elearning/?article=mosteducatedstates

I guess what shocks me most is when very intelligent people are still religious, it doesn't make sense, are they not thinking critically?  For all of the Battlestar buffs it's like in the mini-series when Baltar is saying to Six "I don't see how someone so intelligent and capable believes in something as silly as God".  I don't like Baltar but the statement was on point.

Is your State listed?  Is it what you expected? (I can't say I was in shock about Texas - I'm happy to say I am a transplant)

My state, Virginia, was listed as one of the "More Religious" states. However, I think that mainly applies to mid and southern Virginia. I live in Northern Virginia and it doesn't seem as religious and not to mention it's pretty liberal up here. Also, our education system is considered to be better than the rest of Virginia. Despite this, there are like five or six churches in the area near my school alone.

I once again have to mention that I don't think there's a causative correlation.  I am of the opinion that the same conditions which cause people to achieve less academically also cause people to turn to religion.  There's no real world hope or help so they turn to a fantasy.  There's also a tendency of criminals to be more religious than the general population.  Again, the poverty and desperation that causes criminality tends to also cause religiosity.

Quote from: "Godless"My state, Virginia, was listed as one of the "More Religious" states. However, I think that mainly applies to mid and southern Virginia. I live in Northern Virginia and it doesn't seem as religious and not to mention it's pretty liberal up here. Also, our education system is considered to be better than the rest of Virginia. Despite this, there are like five or six churches in the area near my school alone.

It does seem that Northern Virginia is generally included with DC in polls like this...what was it that someone said during the elections, "Real Virginia".  Hehe, that made me laugh because I'm from Charlottesville and there is a huge difference.  I do know that one of the high schools up your way Thomas Jefferson High has been number one in AP and academics in the country for that past couple of years.  

This was more so talking about formal education of the population in the State, not talking about the school systems of the State though.

Quote from: "Kylyssa"I once again have to mention that I don't think there's a causative correlation.  I am of the opinion that the same conditions which cause people to achieve less academically also cause people to turn to religion.  There's no real world hope or help so they turn to a fantasy.  There's also a tendency of criminals to be more religious than the general population.  Again, the poverty and desperation that causes criminality tends to also cause religiosity.

I wasn't implying any causation.  This is comparing the population of the States, not trying to determine why the States are more religious and using education as a reason.  It's just interesting that the populations with the most formally educated citizens are also populations with the least religious influence in their daily lives, and likewise in reverse.  Not saying one has an effect on the other, just that they seem to go hand in hand, like you said above: "the same conditions which cause people to achieve less academically also cause people to turn to religion."

And all I picked up from that was, I don't like Baltar ..."

Are you insane? Baltar's awesome! Granted he's a weasel but he's such a survivor

Kyu

There was a similar discussion on another forum I visit about IQ and religion.  There was a reference to a website, HERE (http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/religion_vs_iq.html), which claimed that the responsible variable was GDP rather than religiosity.  So, since the dataset was available, I played with it.  They utilized simple correlation in their presentation of IQ and GDP, so I took the dataset and utilized linear regression and the residuals between religion and GDP - this left a variance accounted for with GDP removed.  From the original Rsquared of .52, GDP accounted for .24 variance of that total - a large portion, yes but not as much as we would be led to believe by the article by using Pearson correlation.  The remaining variance of the total was .28 which GDP did not account for.  Now, we could probably get a better idea of what variables play a large part by utilizing stepwise regression but I was lazy.  Despite the large chunk accounted for by GDP, with it removed there still occurs a negative correlation between IQ and religiosity - however, there are many other variables to consider and teasing apart all of them would take more time than I care to commit to something like this - maybe after grad school.

I have the datasets for the GSS (General Social Survey) and plan on playing around with the religion, IQ, income, age, gender and other similar variables one day and seeing what I can find and maybe then I'll have the time and want to run the more advanced statistics upon them - a little more detailed than the data provided in the article.

Anyhow, just thought I'd add that related stuff - we now return you to your regularly scheduled thread....

**EDIT** - Just a comment, the guy who wrote the article, Richard Deem, for having such an impressive background - BS in biology, MS in microbiology and research publications and so forth - he seems to have a major deficiency in statistical analysis.

One more thing, reading the discussions on their forum about evolution is endlessly entertaining as differing theistic views butt heads but also quite disturbing as I lost count of the many inaccuracies, distortions and just plain wrong statements people posted as fact....very sad.