This is absolute crap, there are a lot of non-religious people who are very smart, however, they are also very ignorant in many aspects. Their are a lot of people who are religious who believe in their faith blindly...it is those people who could be deemed "less intelligent" (though saying that is still very naive)...but there are religious peoples who are very well studied in their religious lives, and don't denounce science. As much as extremists on both sides of the issue say that science and religion can't live side by side...those are the truly ignorant people, and a study should be had to address just how ignorant both sides can be about the other because they both blindly follow their own beliefs where it be scientific or religious.

Originally posted by Maxmars

Professor Lynn, who has provoked controversy in the past with research linking intelligence to race and sex, said university academics were less likely to believe in God than almost anyone else.

The grain of salt.


Sorry people, this sounds like wishful thinking.

True faith may be amongst the highest expression of intelligence, after love of course.

No apologies, you don't have to agree, it comes from my gut.

[edit on 12-6-2008 by Maxmars]

I agree with you,

I am Intelligent in my own thought, right and will. And with all the foolishness that goes on in this World today. i still WILL NOT Renounce my FAITH in GOD THE CREATOR at all. Faith is a Powerful thing. Along with Faith comes WISDOM. Man o Man if people would understand how these two combined could accumulate much more Wealth Greater than Gold, Silver, Money, and Material...

OK, haven't got round to reading the study yet, but I posted this in reply to a U2U:

Yeah, saw that today. The dude who's the author (Lynn) is a bit of a stinker, and has published similar IQ papers on race and gender, amongst others.

I'm not a big fan of IQ test = Intelligence, tbh. It just tests ability on IQ tests, heh. I won't go too far into it, but there are a few studies showing some relationship between atheism/belief and various measures of 'intelligence' and education. More a case that people with higher education tend towards atheism and agnosticism than causality (atheism>intelligence), I feel.

The problem is that there is without doubt a massive overlap between the groups and, I'll be blunt, stupid atheists will be much less intelligent than the many intelligent theists (and in my experience there are enough of both of these; e.g., check out the rational responders website, heh). Moreover, these sort of things are always confounded by socio-economic and cultural factors, so I wouldn't get too excited (e.g., more money> better education>more likely to be non-theist?). Then we have certain religious denominations who are pretty much negative on higher education (i.e. view most universities as hotbeds of liberal atheists - perhaps they are, heh).

So a simplistic interpretation is not the order of the day for such studies, IMHO. Same goes for comparable race and gender studies.

.............................

I'll add this though. If the study is reliable, what the correlation suggests is one of (i'm accepting that IQ=intelligence here - another question really):

1. a to b: Non-belief leads to higher intelligence
2. b to a: Higher Intelligence leads to non-belief
3. c (which may also include d, e, f, g, h) to b & a: unknown factor(s) lead to intelligence and non-belief.

Take ya pick.

[edit on 12-6-2008 by melatonin]

Originally posted by acewilliams
Being human in itself is sort of a miracle.

What a pleasant thought, eh?

And of course - and i use this phrase again - "It's the thought that counts".

YEP! I am very smart, after I got the internet (drool) uh! I grew up LOL
I do believe in God, but nothing more, I used to be a Christian and all, but I found out that some men wrote the Bible, and everyone dosent interp
the good book the same way.
I also relised that Christianity IS the new Religion.

Yes sir reeee had it not been for the internet, Id still be a Christian and Id wouldnt known any better LOL.

Now I need to brush my teeth.

Originally posted by Quazga

All I'm saying, is that the article, although as you pointed out, is biased, is also true.

True, yes, but ultimately pointless.

Refer to my analogy earlier in the thread if you want to understand my meaning.

I think serious religion requires intelligence. Biblical history and what it tells us about ourselves is a lot to take in.
Of course there are those who are blindly religious. They believe by rote and mindlessly repeat the words without considering what the words even mean.
I've "studied" in an unstructured manner, "religion" - the flavor I lean toward, since '59 and it is fascinating, rich and colorful. Much more interesting than "may be", "is considered to be", "is widely believed to be" and so on that I see so much in so called "scientific" articles. "Science" is as much "faith" as religion is.
"Science" told us for decades that the smallpox vaccination would protect us for life. Recently in the bio-terror sector was a worry smallpox will be spread and suddenly our vaccinations aren't any good anymore and we all have to be innoculated again. Trust "science"? Uh unh.

This article does not surprise me in the least - the most intelligent among us are not so deserving of our society's admiration as one might think and they certainly do not deserve to replace our gods - what arrogance. "Intelligent" does not equal "enlightened". When we talk of "religion" and "religious" we really need to sit down and define what we're talking about. Such broad terms cannot possibly hope to covey accuracy.

Originally posted by Anti-Tyrant

Originally posted by BlasteR
I think alot of people grow up around religion and feel pressured into it as I was.

It works both ways, BlasteR.

You can be pressured into Academic studies just as easily as you can be pressured into Religious studies.

That is true, however the difference for a smarter individual is a curiosity about the world which will always make such a person crave the TRUTH about the world around them. To crave the truth is to crave knowledge, to crave knowledge is to crave understanding. Truth is what will allow one to make up his/her own mind. Faith-based beliefs in god are based solely on Faith, where a more intelligent person is obviously going to question this blind faith and demand truth first.

The more you look at history and the facts in general, you begin to see how evil, dogmatic, and heinous religion has been over the centuries. And it is all because of man's blind faith in God (in one form or another). The biblical God is very unforgiving. In some cases througout history you have situations where you have a convert or be killed kind of situation where an army overtakes a city, such as Jerusalem, and forces them to convert or be slaughtered... Women, children, doesn't matter.. Quite obviously pretty far from what God would actually want (If there even is a God).

In America, religion is largely a vessel for making money these days. But ony a few hundred years ago it was largely a vessel for war and conquest. That's because when religion first swept across the ancient world (Catholicism and Christianity in particular) people accepted the fact that religion was dominant in society as almost a law-creating governmental entity. As far as the inquisition is concerned, this was because of the fear of being persecuted or killed. All throughout history the smartest scientific figures have battled philosophically against religion on many issues. Nicholas Copernicus comes to mind and his heliocentric theory just as one example.

Copernicus was on the right track and his model was actually closer to the truth. His findings were later published in a book he wrote which was denounced by the Catholic church. To them, anything other than the earth being the center of the earth was preposterious.. Simply because it countered what was interpreted from biblical scripture.

You can't cherrypick what you want to believe from scripture and then ignore scientific understanding altogether. Science isn't necessarily always exact, and our understanding is constantly moving forward and the scientific community is constantly challenging their own status quo based on new discoveries. Sometimes what we thought we understood is false. It's no different now. But the point here is that the main objective of science is to understand the universe. To understand the truth. Setting the truth aside to facilitate one's own faith-based beliefs shows a willingness to live in a delusional dream-world where the truth is ignored (even if only partially) and faith always trumps the facts.

-ChriS

No, no, no.

Belief in god does not indicate a lack of intelligence. God to me is the "creator." Certainly within the realm of possibility.

There is nothing non-intelligent about believing in god. Some of the sharpest people I have ever known have believed in creation. These cats could devour books like nobody else. These folks were smart.

And, as has been stated, creation and evolution could both exist at the same time. The creator could simply decide that evolution is the way things will occur.

Troy