Thread: The Nonreligious Are More Intelligent

Originally Posted by davej

this is pretty much the same as Christians are more moral then athiest thread over in R/S

These are from numerous peer reviewed and scientific journals. How are any of th biased or problematic? You are not actually saying anything here but demonstrating negligence.

Originally Posted by davej

I would also rather be the person I am today then to be brilliant and not have God in my life.
I may not be the smartest person in the world but I have a great job, i have a great wife and I have a great daughter. We make planty of money and want for nothing. And I owe that all to God and all the blessings he has given me...

Do you think that the nonreligious cannot have a great job, great wife, great family? Do you not think that people of every denomination feel just as passionate/delusional as you?

Either way the point remains - religious people are not as intelligent.

~

it came out of a scientific journal so it must be right.....
I didn't say that others couldn't have a great life. I said that i did and i wouldn't trade what i have and my faith to be "smarter".
Just because a person is a Christian or of any other religion does not mean they can't learn. it is if they believe it or not. basically what you are saying is that something shuts the brain off inside a religious person to where they can not learn. so are you saying that someone of religion doesn't have the functioning brain to learn? i don't want to assume you are saying something you are not.

and by the way, a statement like this

Either way the point remains - religious people are not as intelligent.

is just as bad as if i were to say white people are more intelligent then black
*i don't believe that by the way*

I find it interesting

that if you switch it around, and say "less intelligent people are more religious"

SUDDENLY

it's somewhat less offensive-seeming.

It didn't offend me ha ha... i just think it is ironic how everyone got their feather ruffled over in the religious are more moral thread but then i turn around and see a post like this.

Originally Posted by davej

It didn't offend me ha ha... i just think it is ironic how everyone got their feather ruffled over in the religious are more moral thread but then i turn around and see a post like this.

the thang is, that post had one (1) source and the people surveyed could have quite easily been lying about what they did. Would you tell a random surveyer you're cheating on your wife? What if the information got out? What if you were supposedly an upstanding member of the community except for your secret blackjack habit

why would you divulge something like that to anybody except maybe your psychologist?

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Anyway, I'd argue that you may not have total correlation = causation going here.

Do you have the importance of family and tradition for each country?

Is this actually about religious belief, or is it about acceptance of evolutionary theory? quite a difference

First of all, you should be applauded on a well thought out, well researched argument. In response to the title, I doubt it. In some cases intelligence and the ability to reason will inevitably lead to atheism, but there are billions of exceptionally intelligent people who firmly believe in religion, this being due to the power of brainwashing a young child. Thus, I would say that location and upbringing are the primary influences in wether a child grows up to be religious or not. That being said, as we develop out abilities to think critically and reason using logic I imagine atheism will continue to rise. So I'd be happy to conclude that higher intelligence increases the probability of atheism in an individual, but not that atheists are more intelligent.
That's just my take on it.

That's kinda fun, though to be honest I would have guessed. But is it that less intelligent people are more prone to religion, or is it that religion itself makes people more stupid?

Originally Posted by davej

is just as bad as if i were to say white people are more intelligent then black
*i don't believe that by the way*

If there was a scientific, unbiased study that researched the matter thoroughly and reached that conclusion, then it wouldn't be "bad". It would simply be the way things are.

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