Bottomline?

1) Yes, overall, educated Americans are less Religious .

2) Among Christians, educated ones attend church, but seem less deeply committed.

Christians love to topspin PEW. Probably PEW itself is partly responsible

A highly intelligent conclusion.

Normally scientists are above that, when it comes to most subjects. However, some scientists are somewhat religious when it comes to certain matters, like ethics. And in so, when they speak about those particular matters, you can see their emotional religious preference, coming out.

So it is understandably still hard to get really objective science of religion. And truly unbiased surveys. Even today.

Some studies, fortunately, look more objective. But PEW studies aren't always among them.

But we can dig into the data enough and look for correlations that make it sound like the answer might be no when it is really yes. These people are fun to watch as they look for things to support their view of the world.

I do understand that the correlation between education and atheism is a positive one. I know many people who have not been to college that are brilliant. I know people with a PhD that are not. That does not change the correlation between education and atheism.

Not sure what that has to do with the article, but you are correct.

There is also a correlation between economic privilege and ACT scores. Which is why I don't think ACT scores are indicative of intelligence.

But, again, the author of the article you link to seems to be digging pretty hard in the data to try find something that might obfuscate the positive correlation they don't like.

what that actually means on a practical level.

What's the mechanism? If we are privileged and less religious, what's the causal link, in your view?

My, how thin-skinned.

The specific implication attempted is that U.S. atheists as a group are more educated because as a group they are more intelligent (insert your preferred word, logical, rational, what have you).

I call bullshit on that implication. The simple fact is they, as a measurable demographic, have more education, especially post-graduate, because they have more means and more access.

It is utter narcissistic arrogance to ignore that and say the correlation is "because we're smarter".

"The specific implication attempted is that U.S. atheists as a group are more educated because as a group they are more intelligent (insert your preferred word, logical, rational, what have you)."

Let me re-phrase that for you, because that didn't make any sense.

'The implication is that U.S. Atheists as a group are more intelligent because as a group we're more educated. '


That's compatible with a privilege/access bias. The thing you said is completely backwards.
This is actually part of the reason I am so interested in US education policy, because behind reading the bible, the second most effective way to mint new atheists is a liberal education.

The meaning in the original post is clear.

It is claiming that the relationship between education/intelligence and religiosity is not so simple as Greater Intelligence = Less Religiosity.

Overall it is true, but if you look at just the religious population, more education/intelligence does not precipitate a clear falloff in religiosity on average, and within just that group.


My personal bias, and partial dismissal of that idea is this; if you want to select an in-group to examine, I do too, and I look at the membership of the National Academy of Sciences. Sub-7% religious now, yes?

But I take the PEW data at the same face value of the OP's article claim; the relationship between education/intelligence and religiosity is not so simple of a function. That's all.

First, science has little to do with religion, unless it has somehow designed a replicable test for God.

Second, the population of individuals who are professional scientists has markedly different characteristics from the population at large.

I'd love to see the matrix you use to determine one's level of privilege.

Still don't know what that has to do with the article in your OP other than it possibly being wrong one more way.

Fortunately others have looked in on the problem of privilege and atheism.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/07/atheism-and-the-class-problem/

This article is that those that are the "new atheists" (a stupid term, if you ask me) aren't writing about issues of class, economics, and social justice. It does not address the causality issue of the article you post.

As to whether current atheists are writing about class, I don't see the problem. Nobody is going to those talking about social justice and demanding they talk about atheism. "Yeah, Sen Sanders, we realize there is a huge economic disparity in this country, but what about atheists." The good thing is that we can all handle multiple issues in our mind at once. I can read what Sanders has to say about the economy and what Dawkins has to say about religion and I can actually make both a part of who I am.

But, hey, back to your original point. There is a correlation between education (which doesn't mean you are necessarily smarter) and atheism even though your article digs hard to show that that may not be true in 100% of cases (which, of course, is what correlation means).

Unless I'm reading your responses incorrectly, I would think you don't really want to talk about the problems with the article you posted, but instead want to red herring into something else. Good thing I have a solid memory of what the original point was.

You really shouldn't speculate on what other posters want or don't want. If I didn't want to discuss the article I wouldn't have entertained your replies at all.

The original point, which I'm not sure you grasped, is that educational level is not a reliable measure of belief or nonbelief. Even though that is what antitheists frequently post and more frequently suggest.

What I added to the OP is that educational level is a more accurate predictor of privilege than belief.

Yet your article says:
"higher levels of education are linked with lower levels of religious commitment by some measures, such as belief in God, how often people pray and how important they say religion is to them."

And thank you for agreeing to "entertain" my reply. I feel blessed.

socialistic fashion.

The contortions and spin of some are interesting when anything that might approach being positive is said about religion.

PS:

I was just informed that my later post was identical to yours. I searched by headline and posted when I found no matches.

Don't sweat any dupe. It bears repeating.

Do you start with ethnicity? How does immigrant status feed into it? Is it the income of your family as you were growing up, or the income you have as an adult? That there's a correlation for the latter and level of education is not surprising ,and is arguably not about 'privilege' at all; someone who works hard in their education, shows themselves very able, and gets better jobs as a result, may be doing it all under their own steam.

The usual privileges are economic class, race, religion, ethnicity, gender, education, et cetera.

But I agree with the idea that all privileges depend on their proximity to control of the means of production. That relationship trumps all other privileges in a capitalist society.

The other privileges are a means to preserve and control that proximity. The ruling class manipulates white christian men to vote for a predator like trump by promoting their racial, religious and gender privilege, as if those were of some values in themselves, despite being against any particle of their economic self-interest. That is simply classic Marxism.

Guilliame can speak for himself.

that you say is "a more telling demographic characteristic of atheists". What study (or studies) were you thinking of?