IQ Studies Show Christians Intellectually Inferior To Atheists

By Thomas Keyes
Feb. 10, 2005

In September, 1999, the prestigious magazine, Sciemtific American, published figures showing that while 90% of the general American public believes in a personal God and an afterlife, only 40% of scientists who are BS-degree-only holders so believe and only 10% of scientists regarded as eminent believe in a personal God or an afterlife.

In a 1998 survey of more than 500 members of the National Academy of Scientists, it was found that 72% were atheists, 21% were agnostics and 7% believed in God. A very similar breakdown was found in relation to belief in an afterlife.

Results of a survey published in Skeptic magazine the same year showed that about 40% of scientists in general believed in God. In particular, 40% of mathematicians, 30% of biologists and 20% of physicists were believers, according to the study. These figures tend to agree with the Scientific American figures for BS-holders, while the figures for the NAS correspond more closely with the Scientific American figures for eminent scientists, as would be expected.

This is a direct quotation from Free Inquiry magazine, 1986: "Is it more logical to be a Christian? Is religion the natural choice of a smart person familiar with more of the evidence? Not according to a broad consensus of studies on IQ and religiosity. These studies have consistently found that the lower the IQ score, the more likely a person is to be religious."

http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/feb/article156.html

Take THAT you Freeper “Christian” Coalition knuckle-draggers!

:popcorn:

You're right, this is going to be interesting:popcorn:

Seems the red flag isn't working...

Either that, or the bull is blind.

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

Would some kind atheist please explain it to me?

:party:

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

Yep.

...I see nothing there or in the link to indicate that they actually measured people's IQs, but rather did a correlation between beliefs and education level. I work in Academia, I can guarantee you that holding an advanced degree is no indication of a high IQ.

We can't have a game when only the spectators show up...

I want my money back!

n/t

in Spearman's g to find an IQ poll relevant,interesting....

BTW I'm an agnostic, I'm secure enough in my beliefs that I don't have to put others down for theirs...

I must have missed that.

and it doesn't change the main point of the post.

Unfortunately I only have a few minutes at the moment to banter, my apologies to those with uhh, popcorn.

:popcorn:

"These studies have consistently found that the lower the IQ score, the more likely a person is to be religious."

The religious part meaning ANY religion, I would add - not limited to fundies

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

glad to see you are doing productive things with your time.
:shrug:

:popcorn:

Great mind. Great scientist. Devout Christian.

Yes, we can toss numbers all over the place. Not really the point. The claim isn't that all people are the same. It is that we all have the same rights. I am fighting for the rights of zealous Christian fundamentalists just as much as I am fighting for the rights of atheists such as myself. I don't really give a wet slap who is smarter.

Though he did find common cause with his Jewish heritage in his later years.

He quite adimantly came out concerning his atheism. He was quite upset that people kept trying to tie him to god.

Interesting stats

http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001523.html?entry=1523

That's really interesting. Not only the correlation, but the overall IQ scores. Who'da thunk they were that low...

The *insecurely* religious-- meaning the ones who need everyone to think like they do -- not all religious people. Hey -- don't want to get involved in a war here, so I'm clarifying-- anyway this gives a big heads-up as to why the religiously insecure are so anti-education and intellectualism. They know education leads to skepticsm. Not neccesarily to atheism, but definitely to questioning the belief system they were indoctrinated into as children. I've always thought the person who finds their faith through education and personal searching easier to talk to about religion than the ones who have never questioned their indoctrination. I'm not anti-religion of any sort. I'm for whatever gets you through this world, but I can't discuss faith with fanatics. I love studying religions of the world, they history of belief and the anthropology behind it all.

But anyway, this is old news and let's face facts, it's pretty obvious that the more educated a person is, the less likely they are to be religious.

For example I'm the only college educated person in my family. I have a BS in history/poly-sci, a masters in Early American Colonial history and an MBA -- and I'm the only atheist in my family.

The rest of the people in my family never graduated high school, still managed to hold onto their decent paying blue collar jobs in our recent economy changes, yet all profess a belief in god. I don't belittle that belief and they don't call me a godles heathen. It works for us.

I have no idea my IQ but I love to study politics and history and I'm a religious person. They should do an IQ test on people who vote republican vs. people who vote democratic. Now that I'd like to see. ;)
Why else do the republicans use religion as a factor for gaining votes? All you have to do is claim to be "pro-life/pro-family" and against all things science and be a religious person. Why else do the republicans put out all this propoganda about things? Why else do they have Bush be seen as such a religious person? So they can claim "oh he wouldn't do that! He's a Christian!" Education is always the key.

Man, terrible article, and I say this as an atheist/agnostic (generally speaking). Jumping to the conclusion regarding IQ correlation is spurious at best; those same deductive skills would paint a shabby portrait of the author's IQ, but I'll not engage in that folly.

"All and all, I think it's safe to say that Christians are intellectually inferior to atheists."

Whatever, dude, hope your ego feels better after that bout of self-stroking.

And, I would like to know who authored that 1998 study of 500 members of the National Academy of Sciences because they (or he/she) certainly were not grounded in philosophy or logic. To wit: Agnosticism and atheism are NOT either/or. These are two different concepts, but not exclusive. All individuals are agnostic/gnostic AND atheist/theist in relation to specific deities. Not one or the other.

It obviously clouds judgement

IQ is not a scientific measurement.

.

All an "IQ" is, is a score to say how well people with one type of neurological bias perform at standard tests. It's kind of like giving all dogs a test that Collies perform well at and then pronouncing Collies the "superior dog".

The IQ test as we have it scores people at how well they perform tasks considered important in Asian/European dominant cultures. The larger an aggregate, the lower the score will be overall. The smaller a grouping, the score will appear artificially higher also, and therefore give a distorted picture of the whole.

I say this as an agnostic who scored 145-60 on IQ tests throughout school. Everyone has their own special genius. This test just charts one type.

Christians who are fundamentalists will be as adept at such abstractions as a fundamentalist atheist. Both require a certain concrete psychology

This post is nothing more than flamebait and offensive to DUers who consider themselves Christians.