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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence
    #8534087 - 06/17/08 03:25 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

Intelligent people less likely to believe in God

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor UK Telegraph

People with higher IQs are less likely to believe in God, according to a new study.


Professor Lynn said religious belief had declined in the 20th century. Professor Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University, said many more members of the "intellectual elite" considered themselves atheists than the national average.

A decline in religious observance over the last century was directly linked to a rise in average intelligence, he claimed.

But the conclusions - in a paper for the academic journal Intelligence - have been branded "simplistic" by critics.

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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.

A survey of Royal Society fellows found that only 3.3 per cent believed in God - at a time when 68.5 per cent of the general UK population described themselves as believers.

A separate poll in the 90s found only seven per cent of members of the American National Academy of Sciences believed in God.

Professor Lynn said most primary school children believed in God, but as they entered adolescence - and their intelligence increased - many started to have doubts.

He told Times Higher Education magazine: "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."

He said religious belief had declined across 137 developed nations in the 20th century at the same time as people became more intelligent.

But Professor Gordon Lynch, director of the Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society at Birkbeck College, London, said it failed to take account of a complex range of social, economic and historical factors.

"Linking religious belief and intelligence in this way could reflect a dangerous trend, developing a simplistic characterisation of religion as primitive, which - while we are trying to deal with very complex issues of religious and cultural pluralism - is perhaps not the most helpful response," he said.

Dr Alistair McFadyen, senior lecturer in Christian theology at Leeds University, said the conclusion had "a slight tinge of Western cultural imperialism as well as an anti-religious sentiment".

Dr David Hardman, principal lecturer in learning development at London Metropolitan University, said: "It is very difficult to conduct true experiments that would explicate a causal relationship between IQ and religious belief. Nonetheless, there is evidence from other domains that higher levels of intelligence are associated with a greater ability - or perhaps willingness - to question and overturn strongly felt institutions."


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #8534112 - 06/17/08 03:34 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: Veritas]
    #8534119 - 06/17/08 03:36 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

Same theme - new study.


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #8534148 - 06/17/08 03:45 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

Same thing applies to much of the crap bandied here and on M&P.

A lack of critical thinking skills opens the door to many forms of unsubstantiated (i.e. wacky) belief.

A study conducted in 1974 with Georgia high-school seniors, for example, found that those who scored higher on an I.Q. test were significantly less superstitious than students with lower I.Q. scores. (3) A 1980 study by psychologists James Alcock and L. P. Otis found that belief in various paranormal phenomena was correlated with lower critical thinking skills. (4) In 1989, W. S. Messer and R. A. Griggs found that belief in such psi phenomena as out-of-body experiences, ESP, and precognition was negatively correlated with classroom performance as measured by grades (as belief goes up, grades go down). (5)

This is a polite way to say that Crop Circle believers (as being made by non-human mechanisms), astrology believers, homeopathy believers, UFO believers, chakra believers etc. are mentally deficient.


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #8534160 - 06/17/08 03:50 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

Wierzbicki (1985) found that believers made more errors on a test of syllogistic reasoning than did disbelievers.

No shit?! Believers cannot reason properly? :whoa:


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #8534169 - 06/17/08 03:52 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

How to Start a Flame War

1.  Light figurative match (incendiary comments)
2.  Pour gasoline (sarcastic observations)
3.  Toss match into pool of gasoline (post on Shroomery)

:lol:

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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: Veritas]
    #8534177 - 06/17/08 03:54 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

What if the material presented is factual?


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #8534189 - 06/17/08 03:59 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

What does factuality have to do with emotional overreactions?

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InvisibleAfroshroomerican
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #8534202 - 06/17/08 04:02 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
What if the material presented is factual?




Same deal; this is obviously a flame post.

However, there are plenty of scientists/linguists that believe in Something--God or otherwise.

I'm guessing Issac Newton and Einstein were idiots, according to this "fact".

Maybe this selection of individuals are pompous intellectuals who feel that they are above a higher power because of their intelligence? 

Let's not forget that everyone who has a XYZ IQ isn't running to get it tested/validated by some committee or join a group.


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"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

~Martin Luther King Jr.~

<passitbobbie> if I just showed you a closeup of my ass
<passitbobbie> youd think it was female

"You owe errrbody up in here an apology fow youwe shit, HO!" - classic

Edited by Afroshroomerican (06/17/08 04:03 PM)

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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: Veritas]
    #8534204 - 06/17/08 04:03 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

Shhhh! I'm :fishing:


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OfflinePhanTomCat
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #8534216 - 06/17/08 04:06 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

Careful with those matches strawman.....  :smirk:


>^;;^<


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>^;;^<

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Invisibleblewmeanie
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #8534232 - 06/17/08 04:12 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

Its not that all religous people are stupid, its just that most stupid people happen to me religious.


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Offlinezouden
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: blewmeanie]
    #8534243 - 06/17/08 04:15 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

Its not that all religous people are stupid, its just that most stupid people happen to me religious.



Got it in one.


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I know... that just the smallest
                                                part of the world belongs to me
You know... I'm not a blind man
                                                    but truth is the hardest thing to see

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OfflineBrainChemistry
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #8534252 - 06/17/08 04:16 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

I don't think most intellectuals are necessarily "non-believers", they just have a more refined belief system based on their own ideals and experiences. Many might still believe in God, but not in, say, Creationist theory, reincarnation, divine miracles, and any number of other things written in the Bible (or whatever text you prefer).

This was probably the case with people like Einstein and Newton.


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: BrainChemistry]
    #8534264 - 06/17/08 04:19 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

Actually, the polls mentioned showed that a VERY small percentage of the academic elite believed in God.

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OfflineBrainChemistry
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: Veritas]
    #8534295 - 06/17/08 04:28 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

Hmm...well maybe I should rephrase that as, believers are not necessarily dumb or have low IQs. I've met some pretty intelligent people that believe in God for respectable reasons.

I've also met quite a few people who believe for no better reason than that they have sheep mentality. Those are the ones I feel sorry for.


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: BrainChemistry]
    #8534427 - 06/17/08 04:56 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

The poll results indicate that few highly intelligent people profess a belief in God.  This does not mean that NO intelligent people have such a belief, but rather that it is more likely that a given person with a high IQ will be an atheist or agnostic.

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Offlinezouden
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: Afroshroomerican]
    #8534440 - 06/17/08 04:59 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

You can't use historical characters like Newton because back then pretty much everyone believed in God. And Einstein didn't believe in God, as has been discussed here many times before.


--------------------
I know... that just the smallest
                                                part of the world belongs to me
You know... I'm not a blind man
                                                    but truth is the hardest thing to see

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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: zouden]
    #8534488 - 06/17/08 05:13 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

And Einstein didn't believe in God, as has been discussed here many times before.





Don't get me started on belief and
memory retention. :nonono:


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OfflineBrainChemistry
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Re: Religious Belief Inversely Proportional to Intelligence [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #8534514 - 06/17/08 05:24 PM (15 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:

And Einstein didn't believe in God, as has been discussed here many times before.





Don't get me started on belief and
memory retention. :nonono:




I did say people like Einstein and Newton, not Einstein and Newton themselves. But now I'm just splitting hairs. :banghead:


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