Why Are Religious People (Generally) Less Intelligent?

Author: Checkmate

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Something funny I would like to share. 

Stephen
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I don't know if this is fact but if it is the case, then probably because  they have had their heads filled by others and not been given the chance to fill it for themselves.
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@Checkmate
I don't know that I would call this funny, but it's actually a better article than one's I've seen making the same argument stating that atheists are smarter than the religious (which usually means Christians). Fortunately this article actually seems to imply that staunch atheism is equivalent to dogmatic religion.

The opponent to the religious in this article seems to be casual atheists and agnostics. The agnostic doesn't know if there's a God. The article maintains that agnostics are opened minded, which means they would have to be open-minded about God's existence. One of the areas staunch (or militant) atheists suffer in is either believing there definitely is no God/creator, or if there is it would have to be the impersonal God of deism.  If they're a true agnostic they would have to be more open-minded than a staunch atheist. This means they not only have to be open-minded to the creator having the ability to communicate with it's creation (humans), but also be open to the creator communicating with humans individually as opposed to universally.

And then they would have to be open-minded to this article being wrong since they don't claim God doesn't exist.


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@Checkmate
if it meant to be funny, ok but this is a common myth


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@Checkmate
Most people don't really understand spirituality at its most effective layer is a science, not even most religious types get it. So when intelligence and spirituality cross breed and meet in the middle you have a hybrid freak. A scientifically minded (analytical thinking) individual mixed with the dynamics of spirituality make for the most fascinating people.
Spirituality can be super intellectual as well as scientific, it's just rare to see unfortunately. What you have is the best of both worlds because really there's no reason for them not to work together (other than asserting opposing worldviews), both science and spirituality are the study of two distinct natures, they run parallel with each other and are relentless in the revealing of all the fine intricacies between the two.
It's really sad to see that for the most part people see religious framework as something distinct from science or intelligence when in fact they are very compatible, and what kind of personality types are attracted to either system is completely irrelevant to truth and reality.
The battle is not even between science and spirituality but between atheism and theism.

Perhaps, if any truth to it at all...."gullible" people work more with intuition rather than analytical thinking, and with religion there's less worry about an appeal to intellect when it comes to pursuing it.....in other words you don't have to be a genius to believe in God. It is not a requirement, on the other hand that doesn't mean that spirituality is not for the intelligent or logical thinker.
Given that, there could be more people that are religious that are generally less intellectually inclined but that doesn't make them wrong either, that's the irony of this lol. Stupid people could be closer to the truth than academically inclined individuals, because many times educated folk are just conditioned thinkers and actually less intuitive. To accept God one has to be more intuitive (perhaps "gullible") but to grasp the real framework and foundations of spirituality one also has to appeal to the intellect, be more intellectually inclined. It's possible the limitations of less intelligent people works in their favor.
One thing that is interesting to me, is that an analytical thinker has no more access to truth than a gullible person.

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@Checkmate
Something funny I would like to share. 
That is not even funny it is dumb and even the dumb guy who writes it is dumb because the first thing he said is I dove. That is so dumb its not even funny. Then he was talking about religious people so he was talking about all the false religions and those people are as dumb as he is anyway.
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@EtrnlVw

Most people don't really understand spirituality at its most effective layer is a science, not even most religious types get it. So when intelligence and spirituality cross breed and meet in the middle you have a hybrid freak. A scientifically minded (analytical thinking) individual mixed with the dynamics of spirituality make for the most fascinating people.
Spirituality can be super intellectual as well as scientific, it's just rare to see unfortunately. What you have is the best of both worlds because really there's no reason for them not to work together (other than asserting opposing worldviews), both science and spirituality are the study of two distinct natures, they run parallel with each other and are relentless in the revealing of all the fine intricacies between the two.
It's really sad to see that for the most part people see religious framework as something distinct from science or intelligence when in fact they are very compatible, and what kind of personality types are attracted to either system is completely irrelevant to truth and reality.
The battle is not even between science and spirituality but between atheism and theism.
It's sad because the article shows at least slight signs of improvement, in comparison to similar ones made by militant atheists. This article at least concedes a few bright spots (it's referral to dogmatic atheism, and mentioning there are intelligent theists come to mind).

Unfortunately, instead of the smorgasbord you just gave us, the author chooses to retreat to pulling out canned comments out of the militant atheist's cupboard with comments like Another way of putting it is that people with a high IQ are more likely to have faith in science, which isn't religion's best friends.

 The entire article is wrong of course, making a silly assumption that atheists and agnostics have the higher IQ. But I like to think they are at least recognizing the absolute absurdities we find originating from militant atheists.
ethang5
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None of such atheists ever answer why most of the great men of science were theists. It just goes to show that science has no friction with Christianity.
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@ethang5
 Yes, it's almost as if they confuse science to be a personality they can lure to their point of view.
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@Utanity
Maybe you could try to expand your vocabulary outside of the word "dumb".
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@Checkmate
Maybe you could try to expand your vocabulary outside of the word "dumb".

OK then you are being dumber.
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@ethang5
Your right because atheists write a lot of science fiction but they dont usually put christianity in it though. It is usually anti god things which arent even real anyway.
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@Utanity
I love how your vocabulary consists of insults I used when I was 6 
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@Utanity
Are you religious because your really proving my point here. 
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@Checkmate
In the scientific journal Intelligence, Prof Richard Lynn said a survey of fellows of the Royal Society - Britain's science academy - found that only 3.3 per cent believed in God at a time when nearly 70 per cent of  Britons described themselves as having a faith.
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@ethang5
That's just cherry-picking. I can name at least 10 atheist scientists from the top of my head. 
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@Checkmate
That was an interesting read, thanks. But i'm also curious to the level of intelligence of an atheist. I don't know. I would say close-minded is more suited to a hard core atheist. Bc quite frankly, no one knows. I hear a lot of smarter atheist call themselves agnostic atheist now. Which is much better in my opinion. One having to do with belief, and one having to do with knowledge. However, given what we can see about reality and just the platform that we exist in, i would say something like an agnostic spiritual atheist is the best label. I'm bias towards the spiritual side since i've witness events that cannot be explained by our current science, but to be agnostic atheist, and agnostic spiritual, i think is the most honest position a person can hold. I can see many platforms that would lead to spiritual implications, i can also see many, well actually one very strong argument, that we don't survive past death. To me, not surviving past death is easy... not much to think about there, just lights out. The implications of surviving death is a lot more interesting. I can see many interesting possibilities if that were true. 
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@Checkmate
The number doesn't matter. If the claim is that religion is the enemy of science, then even one great religious scientist invalidates that.

But if we go back to the last 500 years, I can name twice as many great scientists who were religious as those who were atheist. Almost every great advance in science you stand on today was accomplished by a theist scientist.

History shows us that being religious is not detrimental to being a good scientist at all. It's just that today, because of the way things have evolved, scientists need grants and peer reviews, so what is researched can be controlled, and results can be controlled. It has become political, and any scientist not towing the atheist PC line is refused grants, given poor peer reviews, and has his theories suppressed and castigated. 

And young people, not knowing history, or the current political nature of research science today, think the darth if religious scientists must mean that being religious impedes good science. There are many good religious scientist today, but like being republican, they keep that part of their lives unexposed, least they face the "tolerance" of the liberal left.
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@ethang5
The number doesn't matter. If the claim is that religion is the enemy of science, then even one great religious scientist invalidates that.
Your right and the other guy is just trying to stir because he knows that science comes from god anyway if you look at brother mendel because he invented peas using science which worked.