Atheists outperform theists at nearly all reasoning skills

[charlie sc]

The chief skill isn't mentioned--reasoning away God's existence.

How does one do this? I understand you said it takes great effort but you haven't said how it's done.

Fortunately, for me, having heard so many inane arguments from skeptics, then refuting them, has increased my powers of reason far beyond any living skeptic.

You have quite a high opinion of yourself. If I might give my humble opinion oh master of reason. Perhaps this is not what is actually going on. You may be perceiving this, but a neutral party may observe the opposite.

Just as suggestion. Don't mind me.

 

[charlie sc]

Apparently higher IQ doesn't equal to understanding atheism only exists in context to religion. Dorks.

Would you mind repeating this so it's more comprehensible? Jocks.

 

[Trailblazer]

What "reason"? You often say "the reason" but you never say what the reason actually is!

The reason is because God exists.

 

[Nakosis]

Don’t you ever think that that could be due to a disability? Ha ha.

Do you know your own self?

IMO we have a be disability called the conscious self. It only knows a very small part of what is actually going on inside our own heads but thinks it runs the place.

 

[atanu]

What i did not understand until you demonstrated was how
from any semblance of on topic you would go in order
to salvage, some sort of win for yiurself.

Someone is triggered.

Ha ha. So, this is a petty ego game?

 

[atanu]

IMO we have a be disability called the conscious self. It only knows a very small part of what is actually going on inside our own heads but thinks it runs the place.

We agree. But we will probably disagree when I say that the true self is not blind. It is that which is aware of the so-called conscious self.

 

[atanu]

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.

....


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.

Scientists on the whole are much less religious than the general public

https://www.pew forum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/

It is well known that scientists on the whole are significantly less religious than the general public. In scientific community about 51%, in contrast to more than 95% for the general population, believe in some form of deity or higher power.

Tests that measure scientific aptitude in a general population will likely generate the result that we see in the referred paper. But suppose, these tests are administered to scientists and musicians. What will the score difference be? And if scientists scored higher would that mean that musicians were less intelligent?

So, to be meaningful, these tests should be administered community wise only. At least the data should have been categorised community/profession wise.

This study has very little predictive value, if any. A musician, an artist, or a novelist will likely have lower IQ than scientists in general. But that does not mean anything.

Furthermore, as was pointed out earlier, adept yogis/meditators who believe in a higher intelligence than the manifest ego intellect, exhibit altogether different brain states, yet not understood. Science cannot tell what it means when a brain is perpetually generating gamma waves.

My atheist friends have no experience of even a moment of what it means to be in a state like that.

 

[Audie]

Ha ha. So, this is a petty ego game?

You are entertaining sometimes, but I'd not rely
on you to correctly interpret a traffic light.

 

[Audie]

My atheist friends have no experience of even a moment of what it means to be in a state like that.

I will be fine with clear thinking and not play with
aberrant brain function, I dont care to be
in a state like what ever you may have done to yourself.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

The reason is because God exists.

That isn't a reason-- that is a claim.

Methinks you need to go back to the dictionary.... again.

You keep using the word "reason".... it appears it doesn't mean what you think it means.

 

[Bob the Unbeliever]

You are entertaining sometimes, but I'd not rely
on you to correctly interpret a traffic light.

Traffic lights are easy: If the top of the stack of dark circles is lit: stop.

If the bottom of the stack is lit, but not the top: go

If both the top and the bottom are lit? Right turn only.

If the one in the center is lit: go really, really fast without looking either way.

I got this information from a Movie, so we know it's accurate, correct?

 

[atanu]

I will be fine with clear thinking and not play with
aberrant brain function, I dont care to be
in a state like what ever you may have done to yourself.

Aberrant? Did you read the article I had linked?

Superhumans: The remarkable brain waves of high-level meditators

 

[Audie]

Aberrant? Did you read the article I had linked?

Superhumans: The remarkable brain waves of high-level meditators

So we see you also cannot be relied on to check a dictionary
before challenging the better educated on their use of English


ab·er·rant
/ˈabərənt,əˈberənt/
adjective

1. departing from an accepted standard.
   synonyms: deviant, deviating, divergent, abnormal, atypical, anomalous, digressive, irregular; More
   
   • BIOLOGY
     diverging from the normal type.

Do by all means let us know when one of your supermen
comes up with something useful or that exists outside of
their own self-absorbed lil brains.

 

[atanu]

speaking of reading-

Cannot you be relied on to know what
ordinary words in the English language mean?


ab·er·rant
/ˈabərənt,əˈberənt/
adjective

1. departing from an accepted standard.
   synonyms: deviant, deviating, divergent, abnormal, atypical, anomalous, digressive, irregular; More
   • BIOLOGY
     diverging from the normal type.

Do by all means let us know when one of your supermen
comes up with something useful or that exists out of
their own self absorbed lil brains.

You employ usual demeaning tactic, without any concern for the actual subject under discussion. I understand what aberrant means. You need not teach me.

Ability to be in a state when gamma waves dominate is not an aberrant state. It is a super-human state, as the BT article points out. You have no experience of it. So please do not comment.

(Put on ignore list).

 

[Audie]

You employ usual demeaning tactic, without any concern for the actual subject under discussion. I understand what aberrant means. You need not teach me.

Ability to be in a state when gamma waves dominate is not an aberrant state. It is a super-human state, as the BT article points out. You have no experience of it. So please do not comment.

(Put on ignore list).

Is it against the rules to click "funny" after someone
runs away and hides from me?

 

[Quintessence]

I sure hope no one is classifying or generalising individuals. That would be bad form.

When the general public gets ahold of scientific research, it happens often, unfortunately. It's one of the reasons I don't really like studies like this in spite of feeling all things are worthy of study (and even bad studies can be informative when taken in context). People use it to rationalize and reinforce their preconceived notions about various groups, or as ammunition against groups they dislike.

Scientists on the whole are much less religious than the general public

Or we're religious in ways that don't conform to the stereotypical Christian/Abrahamic-oriented ways of being religious. I had many interesting discussions about this with various professors when I was in graduate school. In no small way, the sciences themselves are a religious pursuit. Religion is about searching for and establishing truth/meaning/values to orient ourselves within the world; sciences do exactly the same thing (with more constrained methods).

In any case, what it means to be "religious" is not straightforward. It makes assessing things like this difficult. The story can be spun in whatever direction you want it to because of that.

 

[atanu]

.
Or we're religious in ways that don't conform to the stereotypical Christian/Abrahamic-oriented ways of being religious. I had many interesting discussions about this with various professors when I was in graduate school. In no small way, the sciences themselves are a religious pursuit. Religion is about searching for and establishing truth/meaning/values to orient ourselves within the world; sciences do exactly the same thing (with more constrained methods).

In any case, what it means to be "religious" is not straightforward. It makes assessing things like this difficult. The story can be spun in whatever direction you want it to because of that.

Yes. What it means to be religious is not straightforward.

 

[charlie sc]

Ha ha. So, this is a petty ego game?

I didn't play into your little insulting game. Perhaps you wanted a certain response but I refuse to take part in it. You said, "As if you know what is true.".
What, are we in kindergarten? Nah ha, as if you know what it is! Pfff, I'll pass, thanks.

Scientists on the whole are much less religious than the general public

https://www.pew forum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/

It is well known that scientists on the whole are significantly less religious than the general public. In scientific community about 51%, in contrast to more than 95% for the general population, believe in some form of deity or higher power.

Tests that measure scientific aptitude in a general population will likely generate the result that we see in the referred paper. But suppose, these tests are administered to scientists and musicians. What will the score difference be? And if scientists scored higher would that mean that musicians were less intelligent?

So, to be meaningful, these tests should be administered community wise only. At least the data should have been categorised community/profession wise.

This study has very little predictive value, if any. A musician, an artist, or a novelist will likely have lower IQ than scientists in general. But that does not mean anything.

Furthermore, as was pointed out earlier, adept yogis/meditators who believe in a higher intelligence than the manifest ego intellect, exhibit altogether different brain states, yet not understood. Science cannot tell what it means when a brain is perpetually generating gamma waves.

My atheist friends have no experience of even a moment of what it means to be in a state like that.

I appreciate this longer-than-usual response, because I've mostly seen your responses as little snippets. Therefore, I apology for what I'm about to do.

Scientists on the whole are much less religious than the general public

https://www.pew forum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/

It is well known that scientists on the whole are significantly less religious than the general public. In scientific community about 51%, in contrast to more than 95% for the general population, believe in some form of deity or higher power.

First, this is not the general public. The survey was done in the USA, so I suggest you get some more surveys in order and perhaps ones more recent. Big mistake here on your part. Second, the more recent surveys, even from the institution you linked, have changed their figures for the USA in more recent years. Other surveys actually have found non-religious to be, in America, around 30-36%
Irreligion in the United States - Wikipedia. From the very pewresearch centre and link you gave, the more recent articles suggest that the non-religious may not say what they are because of the stigma attached. Here's a quote from this more recent article, ""While nationwide surveys in the 1970s and ’80s found that fewer than one-in-ten U.S. adults said they had no religious affiliation, fully 23% now describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular.”" The factors driving the growth of religious ‘nones’ in the U.S.

Tests that measure scientific aptitude in a general population will likely generate the result that we see in the referred paper.

Absolutely false. First, You have no bases for this claim. Bring evidence, my friend. As I said in the OP, assertions are useless beyond words. Second, this particular study measured people of all education backgrounds. They measured from some high school to college on a 5 point Likert scale. Every scale showed the same results. You are demonstrable wrong and it seems you haven't read my OP nor have you read the article. Third, I think you're going down a fallacious argument but I don't think I need to address it because you failed to get there in the first place.

Tests that measure scientific aptitude in a general population will likely generate the result that we see in the referred paper. But suppose, these tests are administered to scientists and musicians. What will the score difference be? And if scientists scored higher would that mean that musicians were less intelligent?

So, to be meaningful, these tests should be administered community wise only. At least the data should have been categorised community/profession wise.

You want musicians and scientists to administer tests? Do you mean administer or participate? You want to test the scientists in the general population or do you mean compare to the general population?
This makes no sense at all and I addressed the intelligible part above.

A musician, an artist, or a novelist will likely have lower IQ than scientists in general.

I don't know if you're claiming this or continuing your example with this line of reasoning. Either way, it makes no sense. If it is the prior, give evidence pl0x.

Furthermore, as was pointed out earlier, adept yogis/meditators who believe in a higher intelligence than the manifest ego intellect, exhibit altogether different brain states, yet not understood. Science cannot tell what it means when a brain is perpetually generating gamma waves.

My atheist friends have no experience of even a moment of what it means to be in a state like that.

I have no idea what you're talking about with gamma waves. I actually studied some of this topic. EEG is actually quite convoluted, complex and esoteric as a topic.
What are you trying to say about gamma waves and how does it apply to any of this? I suggest that you give some peer reviewed articles on the subject, especially those that relate to intelligence or cognitive/reasoning skills

 

[Etritonakin]

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

From my own experience, it seems that it does not often require intricate and detailed knowledge of something to get the big picture or a generally-true concept.

It is similar to how one who designs computers or programs them may not be as proficient in their use as the end-user. Those who write computer games, for example, must be able to do things a gamer need not.

A religious person might "see" or "feel" that creativity was necessary for the universe to exist as it does -without knowing how to explain it beyond something like... Birds build nests, people build houses, God creates a universe.

That does not mean they are incorrect -they just are not able to show the work their mind is doing for them in detail. It is not stupidity, but a different kind of smart.

Science -by its own rules -really can't make such huge leaps in reasoning and draw conclusions -even if perfectly logical or correct.

When the various types try to tell each other their business, however, there is conflict.

A religious person might be more likely to possess or be subject to things such as strong conviction or even fear to question certain things -and may abandon their type or level of reasoning ability. While it may be "obvious" that an extremely complex and purposefully-specific creation required a capable creator, their conviction and fear might cause them to get stuck on one incorrect idea -such as the earth being very young (not actually biblical, by the way), no matter how much evidence is presented to the contrary -even of the sort they ought to be able to understand.

ScienTISTS are also human. They may not possess or be subject to the same convictions or fears, but they may refuse to consider certain things for very unscientific reasons -such as religious people being so frustrating that they do not want to even consider the idea of a creator, and proving them wrong about specific things is enough for them -or concluding there need not be a creator because they have considered it only to a certain point and to their own satisfaction -rather than allowing evidence to lead them beyond their comfort zone.

(I just watched an episode of "river monsters". The investigator travelled to meet a "primitive" tribe immune to the otherwise-deadly effects of a very powerful type of electric eel -which actually left severe burn marks on its victims.
Before they hunted and caught the eels with their bare hands, the local shaman burned two small holes into the arms of the hunters -put some sort of frog poison in the wounds -the hunters puked and went hunting the next day. They were then able to hold the eels. They described a slight shock -but were otherwise not affected.
They didn't need to understand every detail of how it worked, they just knew it worked. They also probably arrived at the procedure by general observation and "intuition" rather than investigating exactly how the eel shocked -what might counter it -and then trying to find something to counter it.)

I absolutely know God exists, but I probably have more reason to than most.
However, I am also eager to hear every valid point from every "side" -because every valid point describes the one overall reality -and must be put in order.
I actually agree that some man in the sky always existing as such -responsible for all things -is not even possible.
First of all, an eternal being could not possibly be responsible for its own existence, the existence of that of which it would be composed -or that which allowed for its ability to create. Furthermore, development is logical -whereas always existing in a complex and capable state is not.

However, that does not negate the fact that a capable creator must precede that which requires and is indicative of such.

 

[charlie sc]

When the general public gets ahold of scientific research, it happens often, unfortunately. It's one of the reasons I don't really like studies like this in spite of feeling all things are worthy of study (and even bad studies can be informative when taken in context). People use it to rationalize and reinforce their preconceived notions about various groups, or as ammunition against groups they dislike.

Perhaps this is the very reason to talk about it, not ignore it. Michel Foucault found good reason to discuss and study differences so that they can eventually integrate. In my humble opinion, ignoring controversial topics makes everything worse in the long run.