New Theory: Why More Intelligent People Tend to be Less Religious

[Shia Islam]

A weight of studies over the years have found a negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity. But if that's the case, then why is it so? A new theory proposes that the reason more intelligent people tend to be less religious is because (1) religiosity is rooted in instinct, and (2) more intelligent people are able to overcome their instinctual religiosity relatively more often than less intelligent people.

Source: The reason why atheists are more intelligent

What do you make of the theory?


At the risk of pointing out the obvious: Just because there is a well established negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity does not mean that all religious people are dumb and all non-religious people are smart, or that all religious people are dumber than all non-religious people. Second, the focus of this discussion should be the notions that (1) religiosity is instinctual and (2) relatively high intelligence allows people to more readily overcome instincts. If you wish to discuss the negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence, get your own thread.

First, Who decides that A is more intelligent than B, for instance..
Second, It is not a mater the percentage of Intelligent people supporting a particular stance..
Third, there are many fake religions that cause people to turn away from religion all together..
Fourth, Religion is not Math..It is not Art too...It needs particular kind of people to think beyond the material world..

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

It appears that the negative correlation will be stronger between religiosity and education than between religiosity and intelligence. It's not that the creationists, for example, are inherently less intelligent. Their critical thinking skills and data base are less well developed, undoubtedly a consequence of their faith. Fundamentalist Christianity is very anti-intellectual and anti-mainstream liberal arts education.

This should be disheartening to all of us:

• "You know, what makes women stupid is college. Because college makes everybody stupid. Because fools say in their heart that there is no God. And it's an atheistic fool system - it's not a school system, it's a fool system - that teaches Humanism and atheism and Agnosticism and godlessness and blasphemy against the Lord Jesus Christ." www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/02/16/christian-hate-pastor-steven-anderson-the-bible-makes-you-smart-college-makes-you-dumb/

• "God almighty hates book lerners (sic)" http://i.imgur.com/zjV1rgy.png

• The Jehovah’s Witnesses Told Them Not to Get a College Degree; Now, They’re Struggling

• "While the public school system continues to degenerate into a drug-stupid, sex-oriented, illiterate morass of misfit, Marxist clones, the homeschool movement is producing intelligent, clear-thinking, confident citizens ready to stand in the middle of cascading corruption and declare their allegiance to God and family." Jumping Ship (Part 1) - No Greater Joy Ministries

You won't find that kind of thinking coming from the irreligious. Nor this:

• "There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity. It is this which drives us to try and discover the secrets of nature, those secrets which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing and which man should not wish to learn." - St. Augustine

• "Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God." - Martin Luther

• "Since God has spoken to us it is no longer necessary for us to think." - St Augustine

• "The smallest of minds are the easiest to fill with faith" - Pope Leo X

We shouldn't be surprised that people influenced by this kind of thinking don't become as educated as they otherwise would, and why religiosity declines as we go from high school dropouts to high school graduates to those with some college to those with a 4-year degree and so on.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

My point is that the intuition of the existence of a spiritual nature probably preexisted its exploitation, and while religion is surely bunk, the intuition that it exploited might be accurate.

I have no argument with that. Surely people conceived of disembodied spirits before anybody figured out how to exploit such beliefs. It's simple math: living body - dead body = ghost or soul.

It is also instinctual for the beasts to consider any activity to be caused by a conscious agent and run from unidentified noises (agenticity). So it comes as no surprise that man could certainly do the same regarding lightning and thunder.

The roots of god beliefs were likely natural. Propitiation couldn't have come much later, and a priesthood would be expected to rise up and insert itself between these people and their imagined gods. What a great gig - instant social standing and no labor.

And you are correct. None of this constitutes an argument against gods. Of course, the atheist needs no argument to be skeptical of what religious intuitions in others actually represent, nor to reject god claims supported only by intuitions.

 

[Milton Platt]

A weight of studies over the years have found a negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity. But if that's the case, then why is it so? A new theory proposes that the reason more intelligent people tend to be less religious is because (1) religiosity is rooted in instinct, and (2) more intelligent people are able to overcome their instinctual religiosity relatively more often than less intelligent people.

Source: The reason why atheists are more intelligent

What do you make of the theory?


At the risk of pointing out the obvious: Just because there is a well established negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity does not mean that all religious people are dumb and all non-religious people are smart, or that all religious people are dumber than all non-religious people. Second, the focus of this discussion should be the notions that (1) religiosity is instinctual and (2) relatively high intelligence allows people to more readily overcome instincts. If you wish to discuss the negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence, get your own thread.

I dunno........I think it has less to do with intelligence than it does with education and access to information.

 

[Vaderecta]

It was so for me.
Born that way.
Stayed that way.

We all can't outsmart our instincts. *wink*

Keep being you mate. Seem like a nice enough bloke to me.

 

[MJFlores]

A weight of studies over the years have found a negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity. But if that's the case, then why is it so? A new theory proposes that the reason more intelligent people tend to be less religious is because (1) religiosity is rooted in instinct, and (2) more intelligent people are able to overcome their instinctual religiosity relatively more often than less intelligent people.

Source: The reason why atheists are more intelligent

What do you make of the theory?


At the risk of pointing out the obvious: Just because there is a well established negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity does not mean that all religious people are dumb and all non-religious people are smart, or that all religious people are dumber than all non-religious people. Second, the focus of this discussion should be the notions that (1) religiosity is instinctual and (2) relatively high intelligence allows people to more readily overcome instincts. If you wish to discuss the negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence, get your own thread.

Very True. Actually that is supported by the Bible.

James 3:13-18

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

1 Corinthians 4:10-13

We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.

 

[Thief]

A weight of studies over the years have found a negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity. But if that's the case, then why is it so? A new theory proposes that the reason more intelligent people tend to be less religious is because (1) religiosity is rooted in instinct, and (2) more intelligent people are able to overcome their instinctual religiosity relatively more often than less intelligent people.

Source: The reason why atheists are more intelligent

What do you make of the theory?


At the risk of pointing out the obvious: Just because there is a well established negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity does not mean that all religious people are dumb and all non-religious people are smart, or that all religious people are dumber than all non-religious people. Second, the focus of this discussion should be the notions that (1) religiosity is instinctual and (2) relatively high intelligence allows people to more readily overcome instincts. If you wish to discuss the negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence, get your own thread.

baloney....not having read the offered text

oh wait.....I don't have a religion

but I believe in God...
now what?

 

[Tonstad39]

A weight of studies over the years have found a negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity. But if that's the case, then why is it so? A new theory proposes that the reason more intelligent people tend to be less religious is because (1) religiosity is rooted in instinct, and (2) more intelligent people are able to overcome their instinctual religiosity relatively more often than less intelligent people.

Source: The reason why atheists are more intelligent

What do you make of the theory?


At the risk of pointing out the obvious: Just because there is a well established negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity does not mean that all religious people are dumb and all non-religious people are smart, or that all religious people are dumber than all non-religious people. Second, the focus of this discussion should be the notions that (1) religiosity is instinctual and (2) relatively high intelligence allows people to more readily overcome instincts. If you wish to discuss the negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence, get your own thread.

Just to throw my hat into the ring, intelligent people seek to justify concepts of spirituality through logic and reasoning often trying to funnel religious theology and ideas into a scientific framework (personal experience). When intelligent people accept the idea of a higher power being a universal reality, they are naturally inclined to entertain ideas that the divine text didn't account for when it was written, Making their interperatation at odds with what the book says. In short, intelligent people are less religious because they are not as keen to accept all of one idea as being the full and complete truth.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

A weight of studies over the years have found a negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity. But if that's the case, then why is it so? A new theory proposes that the reason more intelligent people tend to be less religious is because (1) religiosity is rooted in instinct, and (2) more intelligent people are able to overcome their instinctual religiosity relatively more often than less intelligent people.

Source: The reason why atheists are more intelligent

What do you make of the theory?


At the risk of pointing out the obvious: Just because there is a well established negative correlation between intelligence and religiosity does not mean that all religious people are dumb and all non-religious people are smart, or that all religious people are dumber than all non-religious people. Second, the focus of this discussion should be the notions that (1) religiosity is instinctual and (2) relatively high intelligence allows people to more readily overcome instincts. If you wish to discuss the negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence, get your own thread.

If this boils down to religious people tending to being more simple-minded and less self-aware, then I agree.