Higher IQ's

[Shuffle]

There have been many studies that show the higher your IQ is, the more skeptical you will tend to be. That is all I am pointing out. Isaac Newton invented calculus and he was a christian. He probably had an extremely high IQ. Instead of being skeptical towards his religious belief, he was skeptical towards what most scientists thought during the time, and then tested his own hypothesis. I did already point out that poorer people tend to be more religious, and less educated, but that factor is canceled out when IQ is measure within the same country.

I know realize that I should have worded the thread better. I should have said ask if theists cared that the higher your IQ is the more SKEPTICALLY minded you tend to be, creating MORE of a chance to be non religious. I understand that throwing smart-bombs was a mistake, and I apologize. I was making half-assed assumptions that were not warranted.

[Pyrrho]

Does it worry any theists that atheists have higher IQ's? I know this does not mean that religious people are dumber than atheists, but it does point to a correlation between intelligence and religiosity that needs to be discussed.

If I was believed in god and was faced with this fact, I would seriously question whether or not the smarter people know better when it comes to a god's existence. I didn't want to raise any assumptions, I just wanted to here what the resident theists had to say.

I was not aware of the correlation when I was a theist, so it did not concern me.  Here, by the way, is a link to some info on this topic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosit...telligence

But if I had been aware of it, I would probably not care very much.  In order to care, one must trust that IQ scores are meaningful and relevant.  I have not seen sufficient evidence that IQ is as important as some say it is.

Also, there is a very important difference between average ability and abilities of particular individuals.  Given just the IQ score of someone, one cannot tell whether the person is an atheist or not.


Now, I do remember being told that more education was correlated with irreligion, and that bothered me as a Christian.  The excuse that was given was along the lines of atheist professors indoctrinating students, but I was not convinced by that at all.

Anyway, it was not a decisive factor in my deconversion at all.  It is not itself a proof of anything regarding the existence of god or the truth or falsity of religion.  So I don't think theists should be too worried about it.  What they should be worried about are all of the inconsistencies and absurdities of religious belief.

[Jenny A]

I'm around the 140 range with my IQ.  I'm average.

Uh, 140 is nearly three standard deviations above the mean.

Yeah but he's not very bright, so he doesn't know that.

[TheRealJoeFish]

My IQ is about 9 inches long.  Is that good?

MY IQ IS 14 INCHES LONG AND 6 INCHES WIDE

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help me i am freakishly deformed

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[Cephus]

Theists think they are smart.  They "think" that.

There's a difference between being smart and being rational.  One is about potential, the other is application.

[Cephus]

Is that really so?

Yes, however most claim that it is due to religious people being born in poorer countries with less access to education. I don't accept this explanation, because, when religious and non religious people are compared in the same countries there is a higher IQ average in the non religious side.

There have been dozens of studies done since the 1930s that consistently show that religiosity and IQ are inversely proportional.  There are many, many others that show that religiosity and education are likewise inversely proportional.  The smarter you are, the more educated you are, the less you tend to be religious.  Many of these studies have been conducted solely in the United States, it isn't about poor education in other countries, it's an apples-to-apples comparison.

[Jenny A]

Yes, however most claim that it is due to religious people being born in poorer countries with less access to education. I don't accept this explanation, because, when religious and non religious people are compared in the same countries there is a higher IQ average in the non religious side.

There have been dozens of studies done since the 1930s that consistently show that religiosity and IQ are inversely proportional.  There are many, many others that show that religiosity and education are likewise inversely proportional.  The smarter you are, the more educated you are, the less you tend to be religious.  Many of these studies have been conducted solely in the United States, it isn't about poor education in other countries, it's an apples-to-apples comparison.

Then you should have dozens of citations to them.  Ante up.

[Dystopia]

Yes, however most claim that it is due to religious people being born in poorer countries with less access to education. I don't accept this explanation, because, when religious and non religious people are compared in the same countries there is a higher IQ average in the non religious side.

There have been dozens of studies done since the 1930s that consistently show that religiosity and IQ are inversely proportional.  There are many, many others that show that religiosity and education are likewise inversely proportional.  The smarter you are, the more educated you are, the less you tend to be religious.  Many of these studies have been conducted solely in the United States, it isn't about poor education in other countries, it's an apples-to-apples comparison.

I 100% agree but it's still an implicit coeteris paribus because you don't consider any outside variables, just religion and education or religion and intelligence. Still, I don't like using this as an argument or a reason to brag myself because it's basically a modified version of an argumentum ad populum (i.e. Because the majority of smart people are not religious, being religious is wrong).

[Cephus]

There have been dozens of studies done since the 1930s that consistently show that religiosity and IQ are inversely proportional.  There are many, many others that show that religiosity and education are likewise inversely proportional.  The smarter you are, the more educated you are, the less you tend to be religious.  Many of these studies have been conducted solely in the United States, it isn't about poor education in other countries, it's an apples-to-apples comparison.

Then you should have dozens of citations to them.  Ante up.

I've got a list of studies dating back to the 1930s at home, I'll have to look it up, but you can always check out the University of Rochester meta-study that looks at 63 different studies done and comes to that conclusion.  Anted up.

http://psr.sagepub.com/content/early/201...8313497266

[Cephus]

There have been dozens of studies done since the 1930s that consistently show that religiosity and IQ are inversely proportional.  There are many, many others that show that religiosity and education are likewise inversely proportional.  The smarter you are, the more educated you are, the less you tend to be religious.  Many of these studies have been conducted solely in the United States, it isn't about poor education in other countries, it's an apples-to-apples comparison.

I 100% agree but it's still an implicit coeteris paribus because you don't consider any outside variables, just religion and education or religion and intelligence. Still, I don't like using this as an argument or a reason to brag myself because it's basically a modified version of an argumentum ad populum (i.e. Because the majority of smart people are not religious, being religious is wrong).

It's just looking at correlation, that doesn't imply causation at all.  It also doesn't engage in value judgements.  Religion is right or wrong regardless of the intelligence of the people who believe it, we can only determine that based on the evidence that exists for the claims made by religion.  Unfortunately, there isn't any actual evidence, so...