Intelligent people are "less likely to believe in god"

[Syzygys]

This is a good one:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2111174/Intelligent-people-'less-likely-to-believe-in-God'.html

"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."

[YinyangDK]

Well ofcause intelligent people are less likely to belive in superstious beings.

Every generation since the stoneage have develloped about 50000 extra braincells than their parents. This is proberly why new religions tend to be atheistic.

[visceral_instinct]

Duh.

[Lori_7]

intelligent people become prone to relying on their intelligence as opposed to their spirit, or what may be called instinct. and may i point out that it's the intelligent people in the world that all of us "dummies" can blame for the fucked up mess we have to live in every day, all in the name of science,all in the name of technology, all in the name of progress.

kudos to you for turning a paradise into hell. you're all so fucking smart. ha, ha, ha, ha.

[tim840]

One of the two smartest people I know is a Christian. The other is agnostic.

[Simon Anders]

I can see where picking the next number in a series and being able to tell what shape something has if you rotate it has to do with wisdom. They both share the ability to recognize patterns. Unfortunately the former ability is confused with intelligence and should not be, let alone anyone confusing it with wisdom, and for those with high IQ this confusion seems to foster the further confusion that they are wise and are good pattern recognizers in all ways.

[siledre]

intelligent people become prone to relying on their intelligence as opposed to their spirit, or what may be called instinct. and may i point out that it's the intelligent people in the world that all of us "dummies" can blame for the fucked up mess we have to live in every day, all in the name of science,all in the name of technology, all in the name of progress.

kudos to you for turning a paradise into hell. you're all so fucking smart. ha, ha, ha, ha.

as opposed to religions being the cause of some of our biggest and bloodiest wars.

[cosmictraveler]

“I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.” Socrates


"Efficiency is intelligent laziness.” David Dunham


“Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgment, the manner in which information is collected and used” Dr. Carl Sagan


“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.” Tao Te Ching


“Your intelligence is measured by those around you; if you spend your days with idiots you seal your own fate.” Annon.


The sign of an intelligent people is their ability to control their emotions by the application of reason” Marya Mannes

[oreodont]

I was surprised by a poll in Canada a couple weeks ago. 71% of Canadians still believe in some higher 'force'....and a full 47% of Canadians still believed in a mythical character like Jesus, Mohammed. etc. I can't say I associate with many family, friends or colleagues that buy into religious myths so I don't know where the 47% comes from....I would have guessed maybe 30% believed in a Jesus type dude.

Fortunately belief in a 'force' was less than 50% in Canadians under 30 and less thhan 23% believed in Jesus like mythological figures....and the trend against mythical beliefs increases with each generation.

[Read-Only]

Every generation since the stoneage have develloped about 50000 extra braincells than their parents.

That sounds like sheer nonsense to me!! Do you have ANYTHING to back up that silly claim with?????? (I think you're just making up your own "facts.")

[lightgigantic]

as opposed to religions being the cause of some of our biggest and bloodiest wars.
(cough cough) (http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.FIG1.GIF)

[YinyangDK]

That sounds like sheer nonsense to me!! Do you have ANYTHING to back up that silly claim with?????? (I think you're just making up your own "facts.")

Well I can not give a link to any website, I was watching a program on Discovery Channel and that is where I have my fact from.

But why do is sound like sheer nonsense to you?
Don´t you belive that we have more braincells than people that from the past?
Are you having low tide in your braincell pool?

[Syzygys]

One of the two smartest people I know is a Christian. The other is agnostic.

and if you get to know another smart person who is a buddhist, you are screwed.

I just love when people make statistics out of personal experiences...

[Enmos]

kudos to you for turning a paradise into hell. you're all so fucking smart. ha, ha, ha, ha.

Uh.. that were the religious people..

[iceaura]

Don´t you belive that we have more braincells than people that from the past? Not from the stone age.

The Reds in America were stone age, and they didn't have any fewer brain cells than the Whites in the boats.

Likewise the Papuans, or the aboriginal Australians.

[tim840]

and if you get to know another smart person who is a buddhist, you are screwed.

I just love when people make statistics out of personal experiences...

The thread is about the likelihood that intelligent people will believe in "god" - not specifically the Christian god, but any god at all.

[Leo Volont]

actually what they are measuring is a particular social caste... a social group all educated within the same secular system.

What we see here is the success of U.K.s propaganda efforts... within their education system they have managed to eradicate Religious Belief.

Also, it may also have something to do with the system of Social Rewards. Perhaps in Job Interviews care is taken to screen out any applicants that are guessed to have any Religious Affiliation. These Religious People become impoverished. Their children grow up poor and in the worst schools. So they test lower in Standardized Intelligence Tests.

But does this prove that Religious People are inherently less intelligent or only that the Atheistic Ruling Classes have successfully persecuted the Religious Minorities or Proletariat.

Yeah, perhaps the study should have reported on what Great Pricks the Atheists are that they have successfully kept the Religious People out of the Schools in England. Probably something of a Free Mason thing going on too, I would guess.




This is a good one:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2111174/Intelligent-people-'less-likely-to-believe-in-God'.html

"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."

[Sarkus]

actually what they are measuring is a particular social caste... a social group all educated within the same secular system.

What we see here is the success of U.K.s propaganda efforts... within their education system they have managed to eradicate Religious Belief.

Also, it may also have something to do with the system of Social Rewards. Perhaps in Job Interviews care is taken to screen out any applicants that are guessed to have any Religious Affiliation. These Religious People become impoverished. Their children grow up poor and in the worst schools. So they test lower in Standardized Intelligence Tests.

But does this prove that Religious People are inherently less intelligent or only that the Atheistic Ruling Classes have successfully persecuted the Religious Minorities or Proletariat.

Yeah, perhaps the study should have reported on what Great Pricks the Atheists are that they have successfully kept the Religious People out of the Schools in England. Probably something of a Free Mason thing going on too, I would guess.I really couldn't stop myself from laughing at all this.

I'm going to take a big stab in the dark, here, and guess that you didn't grow up in, or now reside in the UK?

From someone who did and is, I can categorically say you're talking drivel, and of a flavour I have not seen on this forum for quite a while.

Unless of course you wish to support your statements with any sort of evidence??

[Myles]

One of the two smartest people I know is a Christian. The other is agnostic.

So, you are basing your judgement on a sample of one Christian. That qualifies you as a believer in god. Well done.

[Myles]

Well I can not give a link to any website, I was watching a program on Discovery Channel and that is where I have my fact from.

But why do is sound like sheer nonsense to you?
Don´t you belive that we have more braincells than people that from the past?
Are you having low tide in your braincell pool?

Are you suggestring that intelligence is a function of the number of brain cells we have ?

[Myles]

actually what they are measuring is a particular social caste... a social group all educated within the same secular system.

What we see here is the success of U.K.s propaganda efforts... within their education system they have managed to eradicate Religious Belief.

Also, it may also have something to do with the system of Social Rewards. Perhaps in Job Interviews care is taken to screen out any applicants that are guessed to have any Religious Affiliation. These Religious People become impoverished. Their children grow up poor and in the worst schools. So they test lower in Standardized Intelligence Tests.

But does this prove that Religious People are inherently less intelligent or only that the Atheistic Ruling Classes have successfully persecuted the Religious Minorities or Proletariat.

Yeah, perhaps the study should have reported on what Great Pricks the Atheists are that they have successfully kept the Religious People out of the Schools in England. Probably something of a Free Mason thing going on too, I would guess.


What we see here is your total inability to produce a cogent argument.

You are clearly not aware that a belief in god is a requirement if one wishes to become a freemason.

[Myles]

The thread is about the likelihood that intelligent people will believe in "god" - not specifically the Christian god, but any god at all.

You were the one who mentioned Christianity. Would you like to broaden the discussion to include people who do or do not believe in Thor, Wotan and countless other gods ?

[YinyangDK]

Are you suggestring that intelligence is a function of the number of brain cells we have ?

Im suggesting that the more braincells available, the more likelihood for higher intelligence.
Sure there are people today that are as dumb as the average stoneage person.

[Myles]

Im suggesting that the more braincells available, the more likelihood for higher intelligence.
Sure there are people today that are as dumb as the average stoneage person.

I'm just not sure we know what we mean by intelligence and in what manner the brain functions to produce it.

[John99]

Im suggesting that the more braincells available, the more likelihood for higher intelligence.
Sure there are people today that are as dumb as the average stoneage person.

I think you are wrong on both points. The first may be true for how the human brain is designed but humans are NOT the only organism's with a brain.

The second point is interesting because you equate information with intelligence but an individual with no access to information can have the same capacity to learn as the one with unlimited access. TBH, i think that second point is wrong on so many levels. You can prove this by showing that the human brain has evolved, become more powerful, or changed at all beyond a specific boundary. Meaning the natural limitations inherent in its design. Can humans do things such as changing diet to maximize the capabilities of the brain? Can this change be so widespread as to be believed to be a permanent change?

And then you have to take into account if the information you are putting into your brain is even accurate. So you have all this information processed and stored but what if most of it is wrong, do you lose points for all the wrong things? usually no and the reason is because everyone was wrong or the acceptance that this information was correct but turns out that it was not.

Suppose that evolution (the theory) turned out to be wrong. Would we say or think that the people who believed in it were stupid?

I am not looking to start flame war but since i can be honest and dont really care what people think i can say that for me it can go either way. Now if i had zero knowledge of all cursory information attached to it and there was zero history of this theory and someone came along and told me "well this changed to this and this started in the primordial soup and then these things swam then they started walking then they started flying" TBH i would think that person was insane.

Can i be wrong? YES. In some ways i would rather put this to rest because to me it does not really matter much either way. The fact remains that what people can be made to believe or perceive as normal is really quite amazing. All it takes is time and other people to be a part of it and really they can believe anything.

Bear in mind that i could care less about any of this because it will not do anything to alter my existence.

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.

The problem with this statement is the phenomenon known as "the sheeple effect", Asking about very personal and potentially embarrassing details about an individual is always going to yield results that are not or may not be even close to accurate. Many just want to tell people what they want to hear and few have the desire to go against the grain. This is even more true the higher one goes up the social ladder to acquire the information. You can ask a homeless person in the street these questions and every one of them will be honest and really what brought them there but mere circumstance.

Just to clarify and to avoid any confusion i never adhered to any organised belief system and have been an Agnostic from as early as i can remember. That was due to the way i was raised more than any specific choice. I see more to support the possibility of something more but this would be consider circumstantial. Humans have many unique abilities, so much potential and to have that simply cease to exist at as an example 30 years seems to me to be a good enough reason for further examination. And in the end what does all this matter anyway? Because on the other side of the coin is the fact that the only real guarantee is our existence here and now. And that is not circumstantial- in this case i use the term circumstantial in its relationship to evidence.

[(Q)]

intelligent people become prone to relying on their intelligence as opposed to their spirit, or what may be called instinct. and may i point out that it's the intelligent people in the world that all of us "dummies" can blame for the fucked up mess we have to live in every day, all in the name of science,all in the name of technology, all in the name of progress.

kudos to you for turning a paradise into hell. you're all so fucking smart. ha, ha, ha, ha.

We are in the state of affairs today as a result of centuries of theist decision-making processes, theist mindsets and theist rule, the same theist mindset you possess today.

Of course, you demonstrate in your post exactly what the OP predicts. Thanks. :)