I love Alcohol Induced Altruism(Laura) I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence - Doug McLeod Those who believe in absurdities will commit atrocities - Voltaire
Hmm couldn't the fact that most academics don't beleive in God be something to do with the fact that most scientific disciplines don't fit well with many religious beliefs? So whilst academics generally have higher IQ's than the general population it might be that intelligent religious people tend not to become academics because it would cause conflict with their faith.
And the other study about how religious people are compared with how intelligent they are is based on results for a whole country. People's faith tends to be stronger in less developed countries where people tend to be uneducated. Such people may not be unintelligent, just have never had the chance of an education to maximise their intelligence. If people don't have access to media, literature and scientific research the one source of information they probably do have access to is a church, synagogue, mosque or other place of worship. For centuries in the UK the church was the main educator of people, if people can only access education through their church, which is what I reckon is the case in a lot of less developed nations, then they are far more likely to beleive in what they are taught by the church. That in itself doesn't mean people who are religious are less intelligent.
I personally don't beleive in God, but I would never dare to suggest that those who do are less intelligent than I am. I might believe they are deluded/brainwashed on a number of issues (not all religious people, but some fundamentalist fanatics generally!) but that doesn't mean I'm going to make disparaging remarks about their intellect. This research smacks of petty name-calling to me and I find it distasteful, there was uproar when research was published on people's race and their intelligence, why should it be ok to conduct research on people's religion and their IQ?
I personally don't beleive in God, but I would never dare to suggest that those who do are less intelligent than I am. I might believe they are deluded/brainwashed on a number of issues (not all religious people, but some fundamentalist fanatics generally!) but that doesn't mean I'm going to make disparaging remarks about their intellect. This research smacks of petty name-calling to me and I find it distasteful, there was uproar when research was published on people's race and their intelligence, why should it be ok to conduct research on people's religion and their IQ?
Yess.
Apart from the last point - religion is a choice, whereby race is biological - this new study seems to be more of a sociological observation of the types of people who are religious and their intelligence, whereas I think that race is slightly different.
TBH. though, I find it strange when people go all up-in-arms about studies like this; it's an association-based relationship. It's not saying that everybody who is religious is thick, or anybody who is an atheist is somehow more intelligent, and I don't think it's necessarily a comment about religion itself - but more a study, with the results published. Take it to mean what you will.
Last edited by Dreaming. : 04-09-2009 at 02:56 PM.
I went to a top university yet I knew many, very devoted, conservative, evangelical christians (some perhaps would consider them bordering on fundamentalist) and these were extremely intelligent people.
btw just wondering whether this is bordering on rule breaking, especially considering similar threads created by yourself recently. The rule to which I refer notes "Please do not make comments or post images that overly push any religious belief (or lack thereof) onto any other members, or make any religious comments that could be offensive to others".
I wonder how the thread would be taken if a person of religious beliefs - whatever they be - was to post a couple of similar threads noting that atheists are less likely to be intelligent.
"Everything is possible through Christ, who gives me strength". Phillipians 4:13
So whilst academics generally have higher IQ's than the general population it might be that intelligent religious people tend not to become academics because it would cause conflict with their faith.
I personally don't beleive in God, but I would never dare to suggest that those who do are less intelligent than I am. I might believe they are deluded/brainwashed on a number of issues (not all religious people, but some fundamentalist fanatics generally!) but that doesn't mean I'm going to make disparaging remarks about their intellect. This research smacks of petty name-calling to me and I find it distasteful, there was uproar when research was published on people's race and their intelligence, why should it be ok to conduct research on people's religion and their IQ?
QFT.
s a r a h
* pm me * eating disorders info *
"Between two worlds life hovers like a star,
twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge."
- Lord Byron
I wonder how the thread would be taken if a person of religious beliefs - whatever they be - was to post a couple of similar threads noting that atheists are less likely to be intelligent.
If they had some science to back it up I wouldn't be bothered one bit. I'm not actually pushing any theory on anyone with either thread merely asking a question based on scientific study and or news stories. :)
I love Alcohol Induced Altruism(Laura) I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence - Doug McLeod Those who believe in absurdities will commit atrocities - Voltaire
Most religious people accept science and what it teaches us. They simply have a spiritual side as well. I don't think there is anything wrong with that.
You may not be pushing beliefs or theory, but your certainly judging religious people rather harshly. It's unnecessary and it's undermining those who really haven't done anything wrong. (sure, there are extremists but for the most part, religion is harmless)
I don't know if that was the point, Lou Lou? In the sense that the study/thread is suggesting that religion makes you less intelligent.
Perhaps just that you are more willing to accept religion, or less likely to question religion if you are less intelligent.
That may not be accurate, but the study just suggests a negative correlation between religion and intelligence.
And this is just a posting of some studies recently done, rather than an actual "religious people are thick" type-comment...
I don't know.
^ oh yes, no I understand, just didn't phrase it well lol.
Spiritual people aren't spiritual because they are unintelligent. Am I making sense? Maybe I'm not reading this all right. It's way too late for me!
It doesn't say that, it just says smart people are less likely to believe in God. Doesn't say intelligent people can't or don't believe in god or vice versa. I do judge religious people but thats my own opinion and i'm welcome to it.
I love Alcohol Induced Altruism(Laura) I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence - Doug McLeod Those who believe in absurdities will commit atrocities - Voltaire
I'd say that intelligent people on the whole are more likely to question ANY widely held belief which cannot be scientifically proven one way or the other .... regardless of whether it is related to religion or not.
(btw - The mods are still having a discussion amongst ourselves whether this thread breaks the rules or not.
On the surface at least, the results of the study dont seem to be very complimentary to those people who believe in God ... but I personally believe that if you look hard enough, you'll find studies with research findings to support any conclusion that you are looking for ..... and in this instance, the article doesnt link us to where the research design or methodology has been outlined and described, so you dont even know if they followed good research design principles, so I think you've really got to take the end results with a grain of salt.
Maybe if it wont be seen too much like thread hijacking, an RYL member who has a bit of time up their sleeves may be able to find a research finding that says exactly the opposite of the conclusion of this study .... just so we have a bit of balance in this thread?
I am a christian. And i have to say yes i agree with this. Religion comes from belief and taking things at face value. Intelligence on the other hand values thinking for yourself and looking at nuances.
Quote:
Originally Posted by typsee
On the surface at least, the results of the study dont seem to be very complimentary to those people who believe in God ... but I personally believe that if you look hard enough, you'll find studies with research findings to support any conclusion that you are looking for
you can find studies that back up almost anything. And you can make studies say almost anything with enough spin.
Along with studies you can make the christian bible say anything you want if you take a verse out of context. :P
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
I hope it doesn't get removed.
To me, this thread is comparable to a thread posting research suggesting that boys perform less well in exams than girls (which is, I think, true?), which I don't think would even be considered to be removed - it's observational based on the knowledge you have at the time, rather than necessarily a negative comment about religion, or other such topics.
Meh stuff like this is tedious and I am used to seeing it in political forums - "Blue States Smarter than Red States" bla bla. There are always grand sweeping generalizations and misuse of data/sampling. Looking at the countries listed I could easily take the data on religiosity and IQ and just substitute race for religiosity since most of the countries with high "religiosity" (whatever that means - and the sweeping implication is it's mostly third world superstition of some form) and low IQ's are also non-white (Angola, Ghana, Guatamala, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Senegal etc). That graph could easily be titled in some provocative ways if anyone was inclined ("White countries have higher IQ' and are less superstitious" etc).
Of course there are also lots of studies tying religion to better quality of life surveys and high IQ's and creativity to higher rates of psychotic illness - but I wouldn't make broad generalisations from them. I would also add academics are a pretty uniform group ideologically and taking any position of theirs as a general measure (academics are atheists so atheists must be smart etc.) is kind of superficial to say the least.
Last edited by Isoverity : 05-09-2009 at 09:32 AM.
Oh rubbish. *rolls eyes* the way the study is written is like... "if you believe in god, you're not as smart as we are". Ugh.
What I don't understand is... why is it important? Who cares if someone believe in God or not? Why does it matter? Where the hell do people get money to fund these stupid ass research projects?
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
What I don't understand is... why is it important? Who cares if someone believe in God or not? Why does it matter? Where the hell do people get money to fund these stupid ass research projects?
It's interesting.
Slightly off topic:
People with particularly obsessive / fervid beliefs in God all have the same chemical processes happen (abnormal to the rest of us) within the frontal lobe of their brain. The obsessiveness is often found in people with schizophrenia.
Just thought I'd throw that in there. It's all interesting stuff.
