Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

[Drea]

From Telegraph.co.uk

I knew it all along.

Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

...Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population. Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs tend not to believe in God."

Intelligence is the ability to analyze a problem and reach a conclusion through informed thought.

Religion hampers intelligence by teaching followers to accept what they are told rather than question (analyze).

Hence children are more likely than adults to believe in the concept of god -- they accept things as they are told because they are children. As the child grows he begins to question his parents and the world around him. In order to learn a person has to ask questions. Religion forces people's intelligence to stay childlike by not allowing analysis.

[Riverwind]

Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God

God is so passe when you can worship Gaia instead. Environmentalism is a near perfect re-mapping of medevil Christianity without God bits (Nature is perfect and must be lest untouched, humans are sinners and must be punished, etc.). Carbon credits are indulgences and scientists are the priests. Apostates are villified and cast out - probably would be jailed if David Suzuki could get his way. Edited June 13, 2008 by Riverwind

[Guest American Woman]

From Telegraph.co.uk

I knew it all along.

Professor Lynn also says men are more intelligent than women. Did you "know" that all along too?

Edited June 13, 2008 by American Woman

[Drea]

Why worship anything?

The earth is going through natural changes and there is nothing that we humans can do to change it. Sure, we put some pressure on but not enough to tip the balance of the entire globe. If we were to stop all fossil fuel burning today, the climate would still change. It's a cycle of thawing and freezing that the earth goes through.

This thisfrom Nasa

But we digress...

Belief in a god requires a certain level of acceptance that highly intelligent people don't adhere to. They question and analyze. Intelligence isn't a one-time event; it's the entire life of learning experiences.

If you allow yourself to question, you're learning, if not then you are just memorizing. Learning to think is about questioning and solving problems using logic, not memorizing.

Edited June 13, 2008 by Drea

[Drea]

Professor Lynn also says men are more intelligent than women. Did you "know" that all along too?

Actually no. I'm just reading a cool book about the differences between men and women's brains and why men have trouble finding the butter in the fridge and why women can't parallel park.

It's written with humour and not condescending towards either gender.

[Remiel]

<--- Is a Deist.

<--- Came to his conclusions through rational thought, not "memorization" nor "scripture" .

<--- Thinks that the premise of this thread is an intellectually stunted appeal to authority.

[sharkman]

I've noticed that among some people, even though they proudly proclaim that they don't believe in God they sure talk about him a lot(that would be Drea).

[eyeball]

People with higher IQs are less likely to believe in God

What about lefties? I bet more right-wingers believe in God. You know the old sayings 'reality has a liberal bias' or my favourite 'not all conservatives are stupid but most stupid people are conservative'.

I think this view of how our belief systems are shaped by ecology is an interesting one.

This division makes ecological sense. Deserts teach large, singular lessons, like how tough, spare, and withholding the environment is; the world is reduced to simple, desiccated, furnace-blasted basics. Then picture rain forest people amid an abundance of edible plants and medicinal herbs, able to identify more species of ants on a single tree than one would find in all the British Isles. Letting a thousand deities bloom in this sort of setting must seem natural. Moreover, those rain forest dwellers that are monotheistic are much less likely to believe that their god sticks his or her nose into other people’s business by controlling the weather, prompting illness, or the like. In contrast, the desert seems to breed fatalism, a belief in an interventionist god with its own capricious plans.

Are the Desert People Winning?

There's little doubt which sort of god most right-wingers would have an affinity for.

Edited June 13, 2008 by eyeball

[Riverwind]

What about lefties? I bet more right-wingers believe in God. You know the old sayings 'reality has a liberal bias' or my favourite 'not all conservatives are stupid but most stupid people are conservative'.

If you like trite sayings try this one: "If you are not a socialist when you're young, you have no heart. If youre socialist when you are old, you have no brain"

[Drea]

If you like trite sayings try this one: "If you are not a socialist when you're young, you have no heart. If youre socialist when you are old, you have no brain"

Funny, I've always thought that saying was bastardized and should be the other way around. Children are not compassionate towards others (socialist) they are selfish and think the world revolves around them (because they are children). Once a person grows up they should have developed some compassion through life experience. But sadly many people remain selfish children throughout their lives.

Belief in religion means believing what you are told, not questioning it.

Have you ever memorized a biblical passage and passed it off as "knowledge"? LOL

Memorization is not intelligence. Hell my budgie can repeat what I say... doesn't mean she is intelligent, just that she can mimick what she hears.

Actually, come to think of it... she is a good deal more intelligent than some people.... LOL

[GostHacked]

I think people really need to start beleiving in themselves and each other. We put to much faith in this mystical entity termed god. I have struggled with that question of god at an early age. I think before I was 10 I came to the conclusion I did not beleive in a god.

Religion and god tell you what is. That is it. Nothing more. Althought I must admit, there are some good lessons to be learned in the Bible and other religious texts, but to base all your morals on those texts is shortsightedness.

Those who claim to know everything are the ones you question the most.

Drea

Have you ever memorized a biblical passage and passed it off as "knowledge"? LOL

Not me personaly, but I have seen that example on TV on many Sundays.

sharkman

I've noticed that among some people, even though they proudly proclaim that they don't believe in God they sure talk about him a lot(that would be Drea).

Only God knows. OH god not now. Holy shit. Jesus Christ. Yeah, I used those terms quite often without really thinking about it. Just kind of part of the language we all use.

[segnosaur]

If you like trite sayings try this one: "If you are not a socialist when you're young, you have no heart. If youre socialist when you are old, you have no brain"

Funny, I've always thought that saying was bastardized and should be the other way around. Children are not compassionate towards others (socialist) they are selfish and think the world revolves around them (because they are children). Once a person grows up they should have developed some compassion through life experience.

Umm... in that quote (It is widely attributed to Churchill, but was likely said by someone else.... see http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ethicalesq/20...-over-30-maxim/ )), the 'young people' that he is referring to are not children, they are adults (for example in their 20s), who would have developed compassion for others, but may not have the responsibilities or life experiences that someone in their 40s have. As the younger adult ages, they realize that the concepts that they have (e.g. let the government give money to various causes, liberalize things like drug usage) may not work as well when they get older (and may end up with families of their own) and actually see their tax money funding such programs.

[MontyBurns]

From Telegraph.co.uk

I knew it all along.

Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

Intelligence is the ability to analyze a problem and reach a conclusion through informed thought.

Religion hampers intelligence by teaching followers to accept what they are told rather than question (analyze).

Hence children are more likely than adults to believe in the concept of god -- they accept things as they are told because they are children. As the child grows he begins to question his parents and the world around him. In order to learn a person has to ask questions. Religion forces people's intelligence to stay childlike by not allowing analysis.

"Intelligent" people who didnt believe in God created some of the worst regimes in human history. They have also committed some of the worst atrocities in history.

[scribblet]

Professor Lynn also says men are more intelligent than women. Did you "know" that all along too?

All intelligent people know that don't they (sarcasm here)

[scribblet]

What about lefties? I bet more right-wingers believe in God. You know the old sayings 'reality has a liberal bias' or my favourite 'not all conservatives are stupid but most stupid people are conservative'.

.

There's little doubt which sort of god most right-wingers would have an affinity for.

There is little doubt that you and others like to paint people whom you know little about, with a broad brush of your own pre-conceived notions.

Who cares what people want to believe in if it gives them hope, comfort or whatever, who are you to put them down, unless 'they' want it to become the State religion and law - then we have a problem.

Differences of opinions, and a voice for all views is what makes us a democracy.

[WIP]

"Intelligent" people who didnt believe in God created some of the worst regimes in human history. They have also committed some of the worst atrocities in history.

Worse than crusades, jihads, inquisitions and various religious wars (like the 30years war) that have occurred at regular intervals through human history? If we added in all of the make-believe genocides (such as The Flood that spared Noah and his family), there certainly would be no argument over who was the greatest mass murderer of all time!

Any ideology that claims absolute truth that cannot be disputed (and that includes Marxism and ideologies that believe in racial supremacy), has one of the key ingredients to create genocide. The problem with all of the "true" religions is that they already have one of those ingredients, since they believe their religion is from God and all of the others are false religions. In the past, keeping the peace meant creating special doctrines to reign in the more zealous practitioners who wanted to stamp out heresy and prevent heretics from preaching false doctrines.

If we follow the basic logic of the Christian story of salvation, torturing heretics to gain confessions is a kindly practise if they repent under duress, since they would otherwise go to hell; if they die at the hands of their inquisitors, oh well, they would have ended up in hell anyway, and that's worse than their suffering in this world! If you take a look back at European history, the only thing that stopped this lunacy, was the realization that the wars between Catholic and Protestants were unwinable and the carnage had to be stopped, even if it meant allowing heretics to lead themselves and others to the gates of hell. To me, that is the great irony of the Reformation -- the pragmatists and less devout had to seize control from the devout believers to make the world a better place!

[WIP]

I've noticed that among some people, even though they proudly proclaim that they don't believe in God they sure talk about him a lot(that would be Drea).

And what's wrong with talking about it? Are some beliefs to precious to be criticized or even commented on?

[WIP]

Professor Lynn also says men are more intelligent than women. Did you "know" that all along too?

It should noted that Professor Lynn is not the only one to draw conclusions relating supernatural belief and intelligence. The National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Academy of Sciences in England have been keeping stats on the beliefs of their members for almost 100 years, and the members of these scientific bodies are invariably more skeptical and less religious than the general population. Belief in God varies depending upon interpretations of God that are provided in the survey questions -- for example, many scientists will accept belief in a deistic, non-intervening God along the lines of Einstein's God, but fewer will accept belief in a personal deity that intervenes in a mysterious, undefined way with our world and they are also far more likely to reject all supernatural phenomena such as ghosts, angels, spirits or an immaterial soul animating human bodies.

Just by virtue of being an atheist or an agnostic, does not make you intellectually superior, and believing in God doesn't mean you're stupid. But the averages indicate that the scientists are more likely to have a skeptical viewpoint and evaluate their own beliefs, something that very few average citizens do unless they are faced with some sort of tragic event that challenges the beliefs they've grown up with, and accepted implicitly without question.

At the upper echelons of the scientific world, scientists who believe in traditional conceptions of God are in the minority, and what's even more notable is that belief in a soul has declined the most since 1914; no doubt much of the reason is likely due to the hammering that substance dualism has taken from the discoveries that neuroscientists have made regarding brain function in the last 30 years that correlate cognitive thinking, emotion and even free will decision-making with identifiable patterns of activity in the neocortex. Anyway, here's a brief rundown of the numbers from 1914 to 1998:

Our chosen group of "greater" scientists were members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Our survey found near universal rejection of the transcendent by NAS natural scientists. Disbelief in God and immortality among NAS biological scientists was 65.2% and 69.0%, respectively, and among NAS physical scientists it was 79.0% and 76.3%. Most of the rest were agnostics on both issues, with few believers. We found the highest percentage of belief among NAS mathematicians (14.3% in God, 15.0% in immortality). Biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief (5.5% in God, 7.1% in immortality), with physicists and astronomers slightly higher (7.5% in God, 7.5% in immortality). Overall comparison figures for the 1914, 1933 and 1998 surveys appear in Table 1.

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

[sharkman]

And what's wrong with talking about it? Are some beliefs to precious to be criticized or even commented on?

Can you not understand such a simple statement? There is nothing wrong with talking about God or not talking about God. I will not respond further to your trolling.

[WIP]

Can you not understand such a simple statement? There is nothing wrong with talking about God or not talking about God. I will not respond further to your trolling.

Not that I care a whole lot, but you were expecting to just post a snide attack on Drea for bringing up this subject without having to elaborate your statement.

[sharkman]

Not that I care a whole lot, but you were expecting to just post a snide attack on Drea for bringing up this subject without having to elaborate your statement.

Hmm, you 'cared' enough to post. My post was a snide attack? Get real, here's a snide attack for you by Drea.

Here's a little taste:

And it's Armygettin' time for you anyway isn't it? Aren't you frothing at the mouth to see Jebus? First one must have WAR in whole of middle east yes? Then Jebus come with 10headed beast and save us all from sex and other "bad", "dirty" stuff

Funny, you don't seem to object to knuckle dragging posts like this, but are all over me. That makes you a hypocrite. Mind your own business hypocrite.

[Riverwind]

The problem is not religion - it is fanaticism that does not respect the right of other people to have different views. Fanaticism in the name of one's tribe or nation is just as likely to lead to bloodshed as fantacism in the name of one's religion.

[Drea]

I beg to differ.

Because it's not only fanatical religious folks that close their minds, it's the so-called "moderates" that refuse to accept indepth analysis of their beliefs.

Why does one believe there is a god? What led you to this belief? What do you think would happen if you questioned the very existence of god?

Answer these questions to yourself, and try to be honest with yourself. If you say "because that's what my parents believed" or "I felt god's presence" or "I don't want to go to hell"... you are reguritating what you have been told.

Edited June 13, 2008 by Drea

[Drea]

I've noticed that among some people, even though they proudly proclaim that they don't believe in God they sure talk about him a lot(that would be Drea).

Honey it's because I have an agenda.

I want to educate the world... I want the world to realize that there is no pie-in-the-sky, all we have is today and that life is short and we should treat one another as human beings, not members of differeing skydaddy cults.

As soon as my friend from Iran gets here (2010) I will be giving her every book I can find supports my view that there is no god.

[noahbody]

Answer these questions to yourself, and try to be honest with yourself. If you say "because that's what my parents believed" or "I felt god's presence" or "I don't want to go to hell"... you are reguritating what you have been told.

You can also do the same thing with Santa. Only change "presence" to "presents" and "hell" to "Walmart."