People with higher IQs are less likely to believe in God

[NaRvIcK DeViL]

People with higher IQs are more likely not to believe in a mythical Deity,

Professor Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at Ulster University, said many more members of the "intellectual elite" considered themselves atheists.

The decline in religious observance over the last century is directly linked to a rise in average intelligence, he said.

Professor Lynn, who has provoked controversy in the past with research linking intelligence to race and sex, said university academics were less likely to have religious beliefs than almost anyone else.

A survey of Royal Society fellows found that only 3.3 per cent believed in God - at a time when 68.5 per cent of the general UK population described themselves as believers or agnostic.

A separate poll in the 90s found only seven per cent of members of the American National Academy of Sciences believed in God.

Professor Lynn said most primary school children believed in God, but as they entered adolescence - and their intelligence increased - they started to question the belief system.

"Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population. Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs do not to believe in God."

He said religious belief had declined dramatically across 137 developed nations in the 20th century at the same time as people became more intelligent.

But Professor Gordon Lynch, director of the Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society at Birkbeck College, London, said it should have also taken into account the complex range of social, economic and historical factors.

"Linking religious belief and intelligence in this way would encourage the trend of developing a simplistic characterisation of religion as primitive" he said.

Dr David Hardman, principal lecturer in learning development at London Metropolitan University, said: "It is very difficult to conduct true experiments that would explicate a causal relationship between IQ and religious belief. Nonetheless, there is evidence that higher levels of intelligence are associated with a greater ability - to question and overturn strongly felt religious beliefs."

[Scottish_Republican]

Most people follow the establishment, including scientists. Science is not immune to nonsense - witness the stuff about dark matter, it's what holds various theories together but is totally unproven. A little too convenient.

I don't think it is anything to do with IQ, it's more to do with the fact it is highly acceptable to be atheist/agnostic in our society. While buying into consumerist nonsense. If they were in the Soviet Union, all the scientists would be (openly) atheist, and support Stalinism. In a Muslim society, they would be openly Muslim.

[keyhole kate]

Originally Posted by NaRvIcK DeViL

......Professor Lynn said most primary school children believed in God, but as they entered adolescence - and their intelligence increased - they started to question the belief system......

Thank phuck for increased intelligence, eh?
We're getting there!

[Scottish_Republican]

Originally Posted by keyhole kate

Thank phuck for increased intelligence, eh?
We're getting there!

No, we're not. You're looking at this from a purely Western perspective.

The vast majority of people in this world are religious, and that figure is growing, not shrinking.

Anyway, even the most brainy atheists also believe a load of horse manure as well. Including that English public school boy.ious

[Scottish_Republican]

Originally Posted by keyhole kate

Thank phuck for increased intelligence, eh?
We're getting there!

No, we're not. You're looking at this from a purely Western perspective.

[keyhole kate]

Don't kid yourself. More and more, people all around the world, not just the West, are beginning to question 'blind faith'....slowly but surely inroads are being made.
Horse manure is a pungent, concrete, matter of fact. And a damned good fertilizer tae boot!

[NaRvIcK DeViL]

Over Eighty years ago, Marmaduke Pickthall, the British scholar of Islam and translator of the Quran, wrote: "It was not until the Western nations broke away from their religious law that they became more tolerant, and it was only when the Muslims fell away from their religious law that they declined in tolerance."

When you teach the biggest lie in society to your kids the second they pop out of the womb as they do in so many parts of the world to the point that religion encompasses their life totally, and if anyone that even questions their so called faith you will instantly be threatend with death will only lead us down one road.

Hopefully one day in the future we Atheists will be more pro-dominant instead of as subservient as we are now, I think we should do this sooner instead of later because the religious fundamentalists of all faiths are going to get a lot of people killed and over what ?

Religion is an insult to human dignity, a tool used by a minority to enforce their morals on everyone else whether they like it or not. History shows what can happen in the name of religion.

With or without religion, good people will still do good things and bad people will still do bad things, but for good people to do evil things? It takes religion.