The more religious you are, the less likely you are to be intelligent, a new scientific study has found.As a devoted atheist my first instinct upon reading news of this survey was to think “too right!”
According to researchers, Christians - particularly fundamentalists who believe the Bible is God's word - have a lower IQ than those who are less religious.
A possible reason behind the finding was a tendency for more intelligent people to challenge religious claims, said one of the researchers, New Zealand psychologist Professor Tim Bates.
"If you believe in religion, you haven't really questioned things," he said. "Brighter people were less likely to feel that religion plays a dominant role in their life."
But I also know plenty of perfectly intelligent people who are firm in their religious beliefs, so I’m reluctant to assume all highly religious people are stupid.
And I often have to remind myself that, even I don’t choose to have an imaginary friend, that shouldn’t stop others.
I suppose there might be a link between religious fundamentalism and extreme stupidity, given that many of the positions taken by fundamentalists require them to close their eyes to the laws of science and the world around them.
Alternatively, scientists and doctors really do spend most of their time creating fake fossils and dinosaur bones in their secret facilities, and creating bogus scientific evidence that homosexuality isn’t just a personal choice made by the wicked. If so they really have me fooled. In which case, maybe I’m the stupid one. It could be that by championing science over superstition I am in fact doing the Devil’s work.
Luckily for the godly elect, my sins will eventually be purged by fire.
For those of you who choose to follow a deity but don’t happen to buy the whole “Adam and Eve were real” thing, I don’t think you’re dumb. Just mistaken.
But who am I to talk about what is real and what is fanciful? I continue to believe that Labour can win the November election...
This is not the first time I have seen a study that shows that religious people tend to have lower IQs than atheists. This is usually interpreted as atheists are therefore superior and more reasoned and religious people are unthinking. This is nonsense.
ReplyDeleteWhat is actually happening here is that people with high IQs tend to gravitate to those bastions of atheist thought known as universities. Little wonder that they adopt that world view.
Having spent many hours discussing matters of faith with atheists, I see no evidence that they have done any more thinking about religious matters than the common man. I certainly see no evidence that they have questioned the atheist world view that is thrown at them at university.
Of course, the real problem with the study you cite above, is that it confuses IQ with wisdom. These are not the same things at all.
from an academic point of view, belief in god is just as valid as the belief that there is no god. this idea was addressed in great detail by the danish philosopher soren kierkegaard, who was one of the grandfathers of existentialism.
ReplyDeletekierkegaard was a christian and a very respected theologian, but as he began to discover the ideas that are now modern day existentialism, he began to struggle to reconsile this with his theistic beliefs. he confronted these dilemmas in the book either/or, and what he came up with is now reffered to as "absurdism".
absurdism can be used to scrutinise any ideas, whether they be theistic or not, by applying the münchhausen trilemma. kierkegaard concluded that all beliefs and all logical proofs must be based on faith. theists choose to live their lives following a moral code that is prescribed by a religious institution, atheists or antitheists choose to live their lives based upon morals and ethics that they gather from other sources.
all of these positions require faith, faith that you are doing the right thing, which allows you to justify your actions to yourself. to take this to an extreme, scientists require faith that when they conduct an experiment, that the physical world they are observing actually exists.
perhaps people with lower iqs are more likely to participate in the more questionable activities conducted by organised religion (ie organised hate and interfering with government). but you can't look at organised religion simply as a vehicle for theism, because the motives of many religious communities and religious leaders reach much further than simply spreading their ideas and serving their members (ie the fundamentalist lobby, ect).
therefor i would suggest, that maybe the claim that theism is a symptom of lack of education and a low iq is, simply the opinion of an uneducated antitheist. an antitheist who doesn't understand the relationship between his own morals and understanding of the universe and faith.
"What is actually happening here is that people with high IQs tend to gravitate to those bastions of atheist thought known as universities. Little wonder that they adopt that world view."
ReplyDeleteAny evidence for the assertions in that statement Doctor? Nah, thought not.
I wonder why universities are 'bastions of atheist thought'
ReplyDelete