Atheists outperform theists at nearly all reasoning skills

[leroy]

What means "free will"? You must define your term, here--

Point: If there exists an All Powerful, All Knowing Entity, who interferes with the Universe (including earth), then Free Will in the Classic Sense, cannot possibly exist. Free Will is utterly incompatable with an All Knowing/All Powerful Entity. The expression of Free Will requires power to choose-- and also requires a Future that has not been pre-determined.

All Knowing eliminates an indeterminate future, and All Power eliminates the expression of Free Will (regardless of your definition) .



Incorrect. Absolutely incorrect, in fact-- Philosophers have settled this a very long time ago.

The bible is immoral, because it's many many moral failures by it's principle agent. Yes-- we judge it with Hindsight. That's what humans do.



This is why proper scientific experiments are crafted to avoid this bias. It's not really that difficult. Google "double blind experimental procedure" for some simple examples.

But it does involve ...the Logic of Math... so...



Who is the author? What were his credentials? When was the novel written, and why?



We can test for things. We get results. We then use the results to test for more things.

This computer-- the one I'm using right now-- is based on such testing and results.

Scientific Method produces results-- EVERYTHING we use, in the Modern Day? (that is useful) Is based on such testing/results.

100% of the time? When religious claims are also tested in the same manner? NEGATIVE OR AMBIGUOUS RESULTS. 100% of the time.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm......

Free will is the claim that atleast sometimes we have the habity decide from 2 or more alternatives.... As oppose to determinism that states that all decisions are predetermined by antecedent factors.... So are you a deterministic or do you believe in free will.?

I believe in free will, meaning that I believe that I can choose from eating salad or eating hamburgers, wether if God (or someone else ) knows what I am going to choose does not to move the fact that I freely chose between salad or hamburgers.


2 ok do if claim that the Bible is morally wrong, the you accept the rxistexis of objective moral values.


3 irrelevant, all experiments , evidence, data etc. Are brain-dependent.... Science makes the assumption that our brains are reliable tools that represent reality accurately... and atheism is not consistent with that assumption.

 

[Brickjectivity]

This is at least the third time that I am seeing this study being referenced. It is curious as to why this study comes up again and again.

Furthermore, the way the abstract starts " It is well established that religiosity correlates negatively with intelligence....", indicates its bias.

Perhaps they set out to get sensationalist results. They probably suspected that New Scientist would be packed with logically skilled males that had bad experiences with religions and that twitter and facebook would be packed with theist moms mostly concerned with keeping their kids happy and going to church, so then they set up a study that would be sensational and which did not indicate sex.

The study did not differentiate between the sexes, but it was known that men scored higher in logical abstract tests. (Am I wrong about that? Why did they ignore sex?) All they had to do was set it up so that they got more religionist women especially church moms and more non-religionist men, especially mathematicians. Self selection? It was more like shepherded selection than self selection.

In its own way the study admits this by saying "Finally, a limitation for any observational and cross-sectional study is that cause and effect cannot be directly inferred from correlational analyses." In other words they ignored sex and any other factors that might have made the study less sensational. That is common with sociology papers I guess.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Free will is the claim that atleast sometimes we have the habity decide from 2 or more alternatives.... As oppose to determinism that states that all decisions are predetermined by antecedent factors.... So are you a deterministic or do you believe in free will.?

I believe in free will, meaning that I believe that I can choose from eating salad or eating hamburgers, wether if God (or someone else ) knows what I am going to choose does not to move the fact that I freely chose between salad or hamburgers.

Except God made the Universe with full and complete knowledge of all of the necessary consequences, including the fact that you would choose either a hamburger or a salad, and decided to make the Universe in which you made a specific choice rather than another one. Ultimately, free will cannot exist if this is the case, as God will have already pre-determined all choices that you make at the outset.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

Free will is the claim that atleast sometimes we have the habity decide from 2 or more alternatives.... As oppose to determinism that states that all decisions are predetermined by antecedent factors.... So are you a deterministic or do you believe in free will.?.

Currently, I am undecided. I lack sufficient evidence to make a conclusion. But, tentatively, it does seem that Free Will exists, that humans are capable of Choosing, which subsequently affects the Future.

I believe in free will, meaning that I believe that I can choose from eating salad or eating hamburgers, wether if God (or someone else ) knows what I am going to choose does not to move the fact that I freely chose between salad or hamburgers..

If god knew what you would "choose"? Then? You cannot possibly have chosen: Do you think you can go against what god already knows!

Wow-- that means you would be MORE POWERFUL than god, and you would have done something GOD DID NOT KNOW.

In one fell swoop-- by choosing what to eat, you utterly destroyed god's All Knowing and All Powerful abilities.

Who knew that choosing to eat a Salad would be God's Kriptonite?

2 ok do if claim that the Bible is morally wrong, the you accept the rxistexis of objective moral values..

What is "rxistexis", please?

And? What is "objective" in this context?

Here, let me give you an example: All Modern Civilizations have put into Law, that Owning People (even temporarily) is Wrong.

Looking at the Bible? We see the opposite is the case: Owning People is Okay, so long as certain very selective Conditions are met: principally, that the person to be owned is not a Hebrew, or is Female (of any flavor).

Thus, in Hindsight, the Bible Is Morally Wrong. You can call that "objective" or "subjective" or simply, "Humans Choose What Is Moral As A Group" if you like. It' won't change the fact that by Modern Morality, the Bible is Morally Bankrupt.

3 irrelevant, all experiments , evidence, data etc. Are brain-dependent.... Science makes the assumption that our brains are reliable tools that represent reality accurately... and atheism is not consistent with that assumption.

Wrong. SUCCESS proves just how WRONG you are, here-- you could not even have written the above false claim, without the success of scientific experimentation.

 

[Quintessence]

I do find it amusing that the theist replies, so far, have been passive-aggressive.

Why? I have a hard time believing one would expect anything else. The OP is a passive-aggressive slight against "theists." Why shouldn't those who identify as theist be passive-aggressive (or outright aggressive) in return?

 

[atanu]

How does that indicate "bias"?

"it is well established that aspirin will reduce
pain... "

Bias?

Yes. Bias born of ignorance and/or smugness.

"It is established that aspirin will reduce pain. However prolonged use of aspirin may cause brain haemorrhage ......".

Are all aspects of intelligence well understood? Are all aspects of theism understood? These black and white categorisations are indicative of immature thinking, IMO.

Elsewhere, in a similar thread, I had linked an article that notes that science has no way to understand the brain state of expert meditators and yogis characterised by perpetual gamma waves. You have never consciously experienced what it means to be in a state like that even for a moment. Forget about a state of continuous existence in that state.

Superhumans: The remarkable brain waves of high-level meditators

 

[Audie]

Yes. Bias born of ignorance and/or smugness.

"It is established that aspirin will reduce pain. However prolonged use of aspirin may cause brain haemorrhage ......".

Are all aspects of intelligence well understood? Are all aspects of theism understood? These black and white categorisations are indicative of immature thinking, IMO.

Elsewhere, in a similar thread, I had linked an article that notes that science has no way to understand the brain state of expert meditators and yogis characterised by perpetual gamma waves. You have never consciously experienced what it means to be in a state like that even for a moment. Forget about a state of continuous existence in that state.

Superhumans: The remarkable brain waves of high-level meditators

Speak of bias! Look what you do to try to get out
of what the metrics show.

It is not demonstrating bias to say that aspirin relieves
pain/ It just isnt. You not-so-subtly tried to sidestep that.

It is not bias to report what all the metrics show.

It is not possible, or necessary to know all about
anything. But we get robots to land on asteroids
anyway.

Yoga states have nothing to do with whether the
metrics, all known applicable metrics show
what the OP says.

Actually, bringing it up works against you, as
the percent of "theists" who are so-called
"superhuman" is vanishingly small, leaving
the rest of theists in the aforementioned
benighted state.

 

[Sky Rivers]

Atheists are better at reasoning(E.G. logic problem solving) than the religious. I'm sorry agnostics, you're just bellow atheists A proposed explanation, from this study, why atheists tend to have high IQ than theists is that religious people are more likely to use intuitive decision making. To confirm this theory, the study found working memory increased with religiosity(I.E. strength of belief) but decreased with reasoning/cognitive skills and deductive reasoning stayed the same all-round. Similarly, apostates(I.E. converts either way) showed similar results. This study suggested it's not an impairment but rather a bias, "religiosity effect reflects cognitive-behavioral biases that impair conflict detection, rather than general intelligence." The authors conclude from the results that religious people tend to forgo logical problem solving when an intuitive answer is present. Therefore, if the intuitive answer is it seems like god-did-it or it's a supernatural answer, then nothing else need be examined. Nonetheless, from these results, this cognitive bias seeps into more than just religious dogmatism and axioms. Religiosity generally makes people worse at reasoning. Interestingly, working memory increases with religiosity/dogmatism(not as much as the atheist though) and deductive reasoning is the same as others. Perhaps some people can explain why they think this is the case?

This particular study had 63 235 participants, in total, of all age groups, education and country of origins. These variables were also cross examined to see if there were conflicting co-variables - there were none. The online tests took about 30+- minutes to finish and gave the participants a plethora of test, such as:The Grammatical Reasoning Task, Colour Word Remapping (CWR), Interlocking Polygons task, Paired Associate Learning (PAL), Spatial Span and Self-Ordered Search, Spatial Rotations tasks and so on.

So, my question to you is, how certain are you god(s) exists?
1 = Absolute Certainty, 2 = Strong, 3 = Not Certain, 4 = Very Doubtful, 5 = Atheist

Of course, you may critique the study or anything else. If you are going to question the study, I recommend you put your thinking caps on and either read it(it's free) or give some constructive criticism. Just saying something is wrong, especially if the thing you're against has evidence, is an assertion. Assertions can be answered with assertions and are pointless beyond words. In other words, put because after you said something

Before I give this study further thought, perhaps you could take a bit of all that time you have on your hands and provide evidence that standard IQ tests are an accurate measure of cognitive ability.

 

[charlie sc]

Why? I have a hard time believing one would expect anything else. The OP is a passive-aggressive slight against "theists." Why shouldn't those who identify as theist be passive-aggressive (or outright aggressive) in return?

Ah, there's my critical-thinking-from-birth friend Sometimes the truth hurts, but trying to understand it while going against it is different from being in denial. I consider the denial part passive aggressive. I have no complaints though.

 

[Sky Rivers]

If you are so smart, why do you use such poor English?

English is learned and English grammar is often difficult, even for native English speakers. Perhaps this person isn’t a native English speaker or simply hasn’t bothered to become adept in English grammar?

 

[Sky Rivers]

God is a concept created by man's ignorance and is completely useless.
Well useless with regard to reality. Still some folks managed to convince others that a God exists and that God's existence, or their "knowledge" of God's existence gives them some kind of authority.

This is your opinion, nothing more.

 

[Audie]

English is learned and English grammar is often difficult, even for native English speakers. Perhaps this person isn’t a native English speaker or simply hasn’t bothered to become adept in English grammar?

Perhaps so, but she can speak for herself.

She went out of her way to insult the intelligence
of others, based on their behaviour, I asked
her a question based on hers.

As English is my second language, I need no
introduction to the difficulties. If those who
are born into it would put in one percent of
the effort I have, we'd not see those people
making such a hash of it.

 

[Audie]

This is your opinion, nothing more.

It is an opinion, yes. But "nothing" more?

If you do not believe that Batboy has a secret
moon lab, why?

You'd find it fair if someone who heard you say there
is no Batboy lab there said its just, like, your
opinion, man?
just your opinion - Google Search:

 

[Sky Rivers]

It is an opinion, yes. But "nothing" more?

If you do not believe that Batboy has a secret
moon lab, why?

You'd find it fair if someone who heard you say there
is no Batboy lab there said its just, like, your
opinion, man?
just your opinion - Google Search:

My response conveys my annoyance and lack of respect for the position to be asserted as fact. Had the individual stated that this was their opinion, I’d have been less annoyed.

 

[Audie]

Before I give this study further thought, perhaps you could take a bit of all that time you have on your hands and provide evidence that standard IQ tests are an accurate measure of cognitive ability.

Cognitive ability. Good that you brought this up.

Examples include verbal, spatial, psychomotor, and processing-speed ability."Cognition mainly refers to things like memory, the ability to learn new information, speech, understanding of written material.

All of these lend themselves very nicely to testing.

 

[Audie]

My response conveys my annoyance and lack of respect for the position to be asserted as fact. Had the individual stated that this was their opinion, I’d have been less annoyed.

Fair enough, though you must agree that it goes
beyond mere opinion, nothing more.

If your annoyance is equally expressed for those
who assert their religious convictions as fact,
great. Keep it up.

 

[atanu]

Speak of bias! Look what you do to try to get out
of what the metrics show.

It is not demonstrating bias to say that aspirin relieves
pain/ It just isnt. You not-so-subtly tried to sidestep that.

It is not bias to report what all the metrics show.

It is not possible, or necessary to know all about
anything. But we get robots to land on asteroids
anyway.

Yoga states have nothing to do with whether the
metrics, all known applicable metrics show
what the OP says.

Actually, bringing it up works against you, as
the percent of "theists" who are so-called
"superhuman" is vanishingly small, leaving
the rest of theists in the aforementioned
benighted state.

However, exception proves.

 

[charlie sc]

"Researchers found that church attendance has as much effect on a teen's GPA as whether the parents earned a college degree."

"Students who attend religious services weekly average a GPA .144 higher than those who never attend services, said Jennifer Glanville, a sociologist at the University of Iowa."

Church Attendance Boosts Student GPAs

Hmmmm...

It's nice reading some extra material but it's not peer-reviewed and I can't read any report. However, I'm not surprised that religiosity increased GPA. Studies have shown that religiosity increases self-control, which has a plethora of positive effects that can even explain the self-control to sit down and study. Nonetheless, GPA is not IQ and the vast amount of studies on this subject have agreed that religiosity negative correlates with IQ and, as we can see here, cognitive and reasoning ability.

Then, we have a more realistic and honest approach vs a world-wide biased internet approach:

Religion vs. IQ - Are Religious People Stupid?

I found this link rather humorous. There's some sort of fallacious reasoning going on here, which I don't really need to address because they don't seem to understand how science is done. It seems like they want to refute the IQ studies by saying there's some connection to belief and GDP. Very funny

As far a intelligent religious people:

100 Scientists Who Shaped World History

They break the curve you suggest.

Nice list, but I'm not sure what relevance it has. Are you saying that these people were smart therefore ...? Is this some sort ad populum and appeal to authority fallacy rolled into one ?

 

[Hawkins]

So if it is assumed that Satan > atheists > theists. Then who owns who in the end.

Example:
------------
The hard truth is the humans don't know how to identity a hard truth.

The question should be asked in a reversed order. That is, if God is a truth then what should be done?

The only way such a kind a truth can convey among humans throughout a history of thousands of years is by means of human witnessing via a religion. That's the only way unless God shows up in front of all mankind. However in the case that God has a strong reason to hide behind, then believing in witnessing by employing a religion remains the only way for such a truth to convey.

So in identifying a truth, it is rather similar to how all other humans can identify what you ate in one of million meals you ever had in your life. You eat 3 meals a day, so by the age of 31 you have eaten more than 30,000 meals none of which you can evidence. A certain meal can be identified only when an eyewitness testify what you ate on a particular day. So it boils down on how reliable and credible the claimed eyewitness is. If a close friend of you said the he had a big meal on a Christmas day, you will choose to believe him. That's how such a truth conveys, most of the time it remains the only way.

Similarly, a true religion should be identified this way. Christianity is established by eyewitnesses testify by martyring their own lives. There's no a better way to make this more reliable and credible! To put it another way, even when Jesus is a truth, you can't find a better way to convey such a truth!

Humans divide themselves into various societies. This is a normal establishment. It is because so that a true God must urge to "preach the gospel to the every corner of the world". So if the god of a religion didn't do so, he can't be a true god. Preaching a truth and to invite for faith to believe is the only way for such a kind of truth to convey.

Other than the reliability and credibility of witnessing, the reason why the god of a religion must hide behind is another factor worth examining (or reasoning). In Christianity, there is a final covenant between God and men saying that humans need to be saved by faith. So if the God of Christianity shows up, humans can no longer be saved. If on the other hand, He doesn't show up at all, humans don't even know that such a covenant exists. The only way which works is for God to show up to His chosen eyewitnesses for such a truth to convey through valid human testimonies based on those eyewitnesses accounts.

That being said. The only hard truth is that humans don't have the intelligent to work out a hard truth. They think that they are intelligent but they aren't. They think that the OP is an intelligent and plausible reasoning but it isn't. One day when they find out that they wind up in a kind of hell, it's because they are actually stupid!

 

[charlie sc]

If you don't know why then maybe you're not a genius??? I thought you were claiming that atheists are really smart??

To summarise what I said in the OP, assertions are a waste of time. You made the claim it's not science, therefore, you need to say why. I don't need to defend this study based on your assertion even if I wanted to. There are tons peer-reviewed published scientific articles that use online platforms to recruit participants. Sympathetically, I've noticed you don't seem to have a good grasp of science and I don't really want to explain it in great detail. In one of the last threads I created, I explained and corrected someone over a span of like 10 pages. I'm sorry but I find this too tedious. However, with your genius level IQ of 150, you should be able to master this topic in no time. If you want, I can suggest a few psychology 101 books and I also suggest you read the OP article.