(December 17, 2017 at 7:02 am)Wololo Wrote: Even with all the flaws of the research posted in the OP it's substantially better than the "study" you're linking to. Work done by rcc researchers in the most catholic university in Europe is inevitably going to toe the line of "we have the conclusion, now lets find something to support it".
My reading of the whole situation is not that atheists are more intelligent (at least in a way that is statistaclly significant), but that they are better educated, especially in critical thinking (the tools which allow you to deconstruct an argument anf find flaws, logical inconsistencies and outright lies), thus why you see university educated people likely to be atheist and post grads even more likely still.
That's right, there will be bias on either side of the argument. A radio program spoke about this survey and it was supposedly found that churches are more likely to consist of the lower classes in society, which are relatively uneducated. While this speaks well of charity, it isn't necessarily a reflection of the 'brains' of all religious people either.
But to obtain an education in a university, you have to be able to absorb atheist ideas. And if the intellectually ambitious of society are being filtered through this system, then of course there will be a measurable correlation between the educated and atheistic philosophies.
