Correlation between intelligence and religious belief

[BC1980]

Yes. It's the same old thing you always hear: religious people blindly follow things without any empiracism.

 

I think your statement is generally true though. When I've asked someone why he/she is a Christian, I've only had one person state logic as the reason. This person said he found it more likely that God existed than not. All the other people I've asked, they usually give you a story about how the religion speaks to them, how God was there for a crisis in their life, how Christianity offers more hope and love. It's all emotional, feel good stuff. I can even say the same of myself. I've yet to read any scholarship that convinced me that Christianity is based on hardcore fact. I've read a lot that certainly suggests there is a possibility, but we don't have black and white facts. The very nature of the religion requires that you take a leap of faith and leave empiricism behind. Now, we could debate WHY so many people choose to do so.

 

I grew up in the church, and it was a moderate church. Not a church that would be considered extreme in any way. My denomination was and is Methodist. I grew up and still live in a place where it is considered socially unacceptable not to be a Christian, so I've talked to a lot of people over the years.

[M30USA]

I think your statement is generally true though. When I've asked someone why he/she is a Christian, I've only had one person state logic as the reason. This person said he found it more likely that God existed than not. All the other people I've asked, they usually give you a story about how the religion speaks to them, how God was there for a crisis in their life, how Christianity offers more hope and love. It's all emotional, feel good stuff. I can even say the same of myself. I've yet to read any scholarship that convinced me that Christianity is based on hardcore fact. I've read a lot that certainly suggests there is a possibility, but we don't have black and white facts. The very nature of the religion requires that you take a leap of faith and leave empiricism behind. Now, we could debate WHY so many people choose to do so.

 

I grew up in the church, and it was a moderate church. Not a church that would be considered extreme in any way. My denomination was and is Methodist. I grew up and still live in a place where it is considered socially unacceptable not to be a Christian, so I've talked to a lot of people over the years.

 

I continuously find that Scripture is more and more real--to the point that it can get quite scary. Some of the implications of what's in those books, when you really digest them, are unsettling even for the believer. But I still say, yes, it's more hopeful than not believing.

[BC1980]

I continuously find that Scripture is more and more real--to the point that it can get quite scary. Some of the implications of what's in those books, when you really digest them, are unsettling even for the believer. But I still say, yes, it's more hopeful than not believing.

 

Do you think there is a bias? We are seeing what we want to see? We have come to a predetermined conclusion that Christianity is the ultimate truth, and that colors our thinking. Certainly, the same could be said of atheism or any religion. I have doubts that I could ever be objective with regards to Christianity.

 

I was raised in the church, and it was a great comfort to me in my early years. I have very positive associations with it. I stepped away from Christianity for several years in my 20s, but I came back around at some point. The reason was that it just "felt" right and gave me hope. Don't you think all of those positive associations from childhood color my thinking? For the most part, I WANT it to be true. However, I can find no hard evidence that Christianity is the ultimate truth. Trust me, it's not for lack of trying either.

[M30USA]

Do you think there is a bias? We are seeing what we want to see? We have come to a predetermined conclusion that Christianity is the ultimate truth, and that colors our thinking. Certainly, the same could be said of atheism or any religion. I have doubts that I could ever be objective with regards to Christianity.

 

I was raised in the church, and it was a great comfort to me in my early years. I have very positive associations with it. I stepped away from Christianity for several years in my 20s, but I came back around at some point. The reason was that it just "felt" right and gave me hope. Don't you think all of those positive associations from childhood color my thinking? For the most part, I WANT it to be true. However, I can find no hard evidence that Christianity is the ultimate truth. Trust me, it's not for lack of trying either.

 

Saint Augustine said that the will/belief governs everything. This doesn't mean will/belief can actually create reality or change reality; but it means that human beings are not primarily governed by reason or intellect. We are governed by will/belief. First we determine what we want to be true, then we formulate logic and reason to support that. It's hard to see how these two concepts work together. Most peoe tend to only see one side and forget the other. Reality is fixed and objective; yet we don't see the world objectively but rather through the filter of our will/belief. The hard part, and the goal of human beings, is to progressively align our will/belief with what is fixed and objective. This can take time. It takes trial and error. Perhaps this is why God gives us time to sort through it all.

[anne1707]

Sorry but the topic is whether there is a correlation between not being religious and being more intelligent. It is not about scripture or some other form of theological debate.

 

So back on topic...

 

Do you agree or disagree with the premise that as more intelligent people are more likely to challenge and question then as a result they are not religious (whether throughout life or making that decision later on in life)? And why do you think that?

 

 

As for my opinion, I think there is some merit in the argument. As an intelligent person, I am not going to believe something without question and if those questions have no satisfactory answers with good evidence, then I will still not believe.

[nofeelings22]

Omg... people are going to virtually hang me here.

 

I see a definite negative correlation between religion and intelligence, or at least beinga go getter.

 

My view is religion is religion is fine, for those that need it. Those that need guidance and rules and to believe they aren't responsible for their own destiny.

 

Others, we prefer to think for ourselves and be responsible for our own destiny.

[M30USA]

Omg... people are going to virtually hang me here.

 

I see a definite negative correlation between religion and intelligence, or at least beinga go getter.

 

My view is religion is religion is fine, for those that need it. Those that need guidance and rules and to believe they aren't responsible for their own destiny.

 

Others, we prefer to think for ourselves and be responsible for our own destiny.

 

The universe is governed by rules. Call it whatever you want: religion or math. You can't escape these rules without harming yourself. It's a logical inevitability.

[nofeelings22]

The universe is governed by rules. Call it whatever you want: religion or math. You can't escape these rules without harming yourself. It's a logical inevitability.

 

Which probably proba explains why I chose physics as a career path originally.

 

But I was really referring revering to the 10 commandments and whatnot. Stuff you should be able to reason out on .your own, but that some need to read and follow.

Edited December 22, 2014 by nofeelings22

[carhill]

IMO, someone can be intelligent/intellectual and still have a strong spiritual/belief system. Personalities have facets and our minds are complex, in that we can be concrete thinkers in one area of contemplation and completely abstract in another, or any blend thereof.

 

One thing I have noted, in general, amongst those in my social circle who do believe strongly, in addition to being highly educated and demonstrating intelligence, is that they tend to adopt a 'live and let live' mindset with regards to religion and spirituality, validating differences in belief systems and agreeing to disagree where irreconcilable conflicts occur. Faith can be important to them, personally, but it isn't something they lord over others. Perhaps that's part of the faceted thinking aspect.

[anne1707]

IMO, someone can be intelligent/intellectual and still have a strong spiritual/belief system. Personalities have facets and our minds are complex, in that we can be concrete thinkers in one area of contemplation and completely abstract in another, or any blend thereof.

 

Totally agree and this was stated in the article plus my OP. Life/we are very complicated.

 

One thing I have noted, in general, amongst those in my social circle who do believe strongly, in addition to being highly educated and demonstrating intelligence, is that they tend to adopt a 'live and let live' mindset with regards to religion and spirituality, validating differences in belief systems and agreeing to disagree where irreconcilable conflicts occur. Faith can be important to them, personally, but it isn't something they lord over others. Perhaps that's part of the faceted thinking aspect.

 

I know people like this too. One person in particular comes to mind who is very intelligent (science based career) and also very committed to his church yet he never pushes his beliefs on to anybody. I respect him very much indeed.

[BC1980]

Do you agree or disagree with the premise that as more intelligent people are more likely to challenge and question then as a result they are not religious (whether throughout life or making that decision later on in life)? And why do you think that?

 

If we're measuring intelligence solely on IQ (which the article does), I'm not sure I can agree that people with a higher IQ are more likely to be less religious. Possibly, even probably, those with a higher IQ would be more likely to question their religious beliefs. However, I don't feel that cold, hard logic is enough to make most people abandon religion completely. As humans, I think we are primarily driven by emotions and usually make decisions based on our "gut instinct," as we often call it.

 

I think it would be more possible to make an argument that based solely on those with a high IQ (meaning we don't take anyone with an average IQ into account), there could be less religious people in that group vs. the general population. Am I making sense? Not sure I worded that the best way.

[evanescentworld]

All I know is I've never met a stupid Buddhist.

Stubborn, opinionated, argumentative, voluble, articulate, yes.

 

Stupid?

Nope.

Never.

[anne1707]

All I know is I've never met a stupid Buddhist.

Stubborn, opinionated, argumentative, voluble, articulate, yes.

 

Yep. I've met that one too.

[evanescentworld]

...Small world, innit...?

[BC1980]

All I know is I've never met a stupid Buddhist.

Stubborn, opinionated, argumentative, voluble, articulate, yes.

 

Stupid?

Nope.

Never.

 

I've never met a stupid Jew either. My first BF was Jewish. As a culture, they seem to value education very much. Also, there are no tenants of belief in Judaism, so it encourages debate.

[todreaminblue]

“The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past. He cares as little for what will be as for what has been; he cares only for what ought to be. And for my present purpose I specially insist on this abstract independence.”

 

 

― G.K. Chesterton

(christian apologist)

 

 

Staunch defender

 

Chesterton also successfully debated some of the leading anti-Christians of his day, such as George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Bertrand Russell and Clarence Darrow.17 Against Darrow, he was much more successful than William Jennings Bryan, winning the audience vote about 2–1. One report stated:

 

‘At the conclusion of the debate everybody was asked to express his opinion as to the victor and slips of paper were passed around for that purpose. The award went directly to Chesterton. Darrow in comparison, seemed heavy, uninspired, slow of mind, while G.K.C. was joyous, sparkling and witty …. quite the Chesterton one had come to expect from his books. The affair was like a race between a lumbering sailing vessel and a modern steamer. Mrs. Frances Taylor Patterson also heard the Chesterton–Darrow debate, but went to the meeting with some misgivings because she was a trifle afraid that Chesterton’s “gifts might seem somewhat literary in comparison with the trained scientific mind and rapier tongue of the famous trial lawyer. Instead, the trained scientific mind, the clear thinking, the lightning quickness in getting a point and hurling back an answer, turned out to belong to Chesterton. I have never heard Mr. Darrow alone, but taken relatively, when that relativity is to Chesterton, he appears positively muddle-headed.”

 

I was favorably impressed by, warmly attached to, G.K. Chesterton. I enjoyed my debates with him, and found him a man of culture and fine sensibilities.—Famous atheistic lawyer Clarence Darrow, who decisively lost a debate with him.

 

‘ … As Chesterton summed it up, he felt as if Darrow had been arguing all afternoon with his fundamentalist aunt, and the latter kept sparring with a dummy of his own mental making. When something went wrong with the microphone, Darrow sat back until it could be fixed. Whereupon G.K.C. jumped up and carried on in his natural voice, “Science you see is not infallible!” Whatever brilliance Darrow had in his own right, it was completely eclipsed. For all the luster that he shed, he might have been a remote star at high noon drowned by the bright incandescent light of the sun. Chesterton had the audience with him from the start, and when it was over, everyone just sat there, not wishing to leave.

 

…

 

 

there are great christian minds........there are not so great christian minds....G.K Chesterton is actually my ancestor......I also have an ancestor who was a martyr for his faith ...a learned man......my family for the most part has always had faith in god.......and intelligence seems to have been passed on...not that you would know it from my posts....but i do have a high iq...i have intelligence enough to understand i really know nothing......

 

 

 

I think what is more important than actual intelligence is how you treat people, how accepting you are and how you try to make a difference in the world for the better.......this debate on who is smarter or if intelligence correlates with faith......intelligence i believe is a gift from a higher source to be used for the betterment of man not to get lost in a circular argument but to have progressive thoughts and ideas that make things better for all people....believers and non believers alike....deb.......

[evanescentworld]

I've never met a stupid Jew either. My first BF was Jewish. As a culture, they seem to value education very much. Also, there are no tenants of belief in Judaism, so it encourages debate.

 

('Tenets'..... )

[TheFinalWord]

Does anyone here conduct psychological research? I have a lot of questions. I do not doubt the integrity of the researchers, but this is not my area of expertise.

 

Meta-analysis is a quantitative technique that seeks to gauge an effect size across several studies. However, the technique has several limitations and that is with measurements that have very tangible outcomes. Overall, I question how religiosity can even be measured accurately? Here is from the article:

 

We coded whether the religiosity measure involved beliefs, frequency of church attendance and/or prayer, or participation/membership in religious organizations. A “mixed” category included studies that reported correlations for more than one type of religiosity measure. Although measures of beliefs were heterogeneous with respect to the focus of the belief (e.g., belief in God, belief in scriptures, beliefs in spirits), there were not enough studies to allow a more detailed classification.

 

How can someone claim to precisely measure something like religiosity? IQ is a psychological construct, yes, but the consequences of IQ usually pretty tangible and measurable (e.g. IQ vs. productivity [e.g. we can actually measure how many sprockets employee x makes per hour and compare that to their IQ], etc.). I would like to know how religiosity is operationally defined (as well as reliability and validity of the construct) before I could give an opinion. Several of the studies in table 1 use different methods to measure religiosity. I did not have time to see if the authors conducted a quality assessment of the studies they reviewed.

 

I would suggest spirituality would be more important as a mediator or predictor of intelligence; however, I would surmise the best we come up with would be some proxy measure of spirituality.

 

In the article the authors state:

 

We also coded the number of items in the religiosity measures, expecting measures with more items to be more reliable. However, this variable did not produce any results of interest.

 

This makes me even more curious about how religiosity was measured, and if it can even be measured in an accurate enough way as to quantify it for comparison against other quantitative variables.

 

If the way to measure it is only a belief in a deity(ies) (yes/no) or how many times do you go to church (as some of these seem to indicate), that would seem inadequate to me as a measurement of religiosity. Heck, even for believers I do not think a belief in God could be dichotomized into a "yes/no" at all times. Most believers go through low periods in life where God feels so distant you question, and even completely doubt, His existence.

Edited December 22, 2014 by TheFinalWord

[pureinheart]

 

I would suggest spirituality would be more important as a mediator or predictor of intelligence; however, I would surmise the best we come up with would be some proxy measure of spirituality.

 

 

Reallly, really good point TFW:)

[M30USA]

TFW, quantitative as in church visits per year? Even that says very little, lol.

[pureinheart]

there are great christian minds........there are not so great christian minds....G.K Chesterton is actually my ancestor......I also have an ancestor who was a martyr for his faith ...a learned man......my family for the most part has always had faith in god.......and intelligence seems to have been passed on...not that you would know it from my posts....but i do have a high iq...i have intelligence enough to understand i really know nothing......

 

 

 

I think what is more important than actual intelligence is how you treat people, how accepting you are and how you try to make a difference in the world for the better.......this debate on who is smarter or if intelligence correlates with faith......intelligence i believe is a gift from a higher source to be used for the betterment of man not to get lost in a circular argument but to have progressive thoughts and ideas that make things better for all people....believers and non believers alike....deb.......

 

Complete awesome post Deb (as usual). How intelligent is it to 'hate' or be a hater? My parents were extremely intelligent people, way beyond the norm- then there was me. I was more of 'the heart of the matter' person. Academically I've mostly scored high, but can't sit in a classroom- drives me nuts. It wasn't until my conversion that there was a desire to learn. Not wanting to fill my head with a bunch of nonsense that could not be used in daily living/work, always looking for the practical applications.

 

Deb, I believe you have a high IQ and what is truly amazing is that you have common sense also. IME the two typically don't go together. I don't know what my IQ is, although it would blow your mind what my actual training is...lol

[TheFinalWord]

TFW, quantitative as in church visits per year? Even that says very little, lol.

 

Some of the studies seemed to include that as well as church membership as part of the way they measured religiosity. I'm not sure how many though. But if they are using Pearson's r as a correlation coefficient, they are quantifying religiosity somehow. Something like the amount of times a person prayed or attended church is quantifiable so I can see why they would use it. Pearson's r measures linear relationships between variables. For example, height and weight have a linear relationship.

 

A meta-analysis is not doing any new research; it's basically combining a bunch of studies to increase sample size. The findings are only as good as the original studies they are pooling together. Usually authors will provide a quality assessment of the studies so you can gauge the original research. They may have published a quality assessment, but I did not have time to read the full study.

 

I'm not too familiar with purely psychological research though. The types I normally read have some tangible outcomes such as meta-analyses of clinical trials. They may have psychological constructs such as attitude towards intervention adherence, or they may be providing education and evaluating knowledge increases, but there will ultimately be some physical outcome variable that is accepted among the researchers as a valid measure for gauging efficacy (e.g. blood pressure, lipid profile, etc.).

 

To me I would say spirituality would be a more interesting variable to study, but I do not know how you would measure it. It would have to be quantifiable if you want to compare it to other quantifiable measures (e.g. intelligence and spirituality). Spirituality (if it is actually a valid construct; I imagine that would be up for debate) may interact with mental health or psychology (e.g. intentionality), but technically spirituality should be immaterial and not purely psychological. If not than we're not really talking about spirituality in the way we are probably thinking about it, but merely classifying psychological constructs in some other way. I imagine we could get a proxy measure somehow. I know some research has been conducted looking at religion/spirituality and mental health, but I could only comment as a layperson. Overall, I am pretty naive about this area of research. Thanks to OP for providing though. Interesting!

Edited December 23, 2014 by TheFinalWord

[Robert]

Let's keep the posts about the topic please, thanks

[umirano]

Intelligence and and religiosity are obviously not easily objectively defined. So the debate is slightly abstract.

 

Personally I don't know any excessively intelligent believers. The people that seem most intelligent to me (capable of abstraction, insight, analysis, coherence in thought) are not religious. The believers I know are not very highly qualified and do not stand out as very critical thinkers or witty people to me. I know some non-christians who at the same time believe in a higher spirit, another god or astrology. Simply not believing in a particular god does definitively not make one an intelligent person. Not believing in any god(s), but holding absurd claims of another sort (like this one guy who claims the 2011 tsunami was caused by israeli underwater nuclear bombs) are equally worthy of contempt.

 

I don't find believers non-intelligent per se. I find all arguments for believing weak and unfounded. And I wonder why otherwise intelligent people argue for a world view (as comfortable it may be) knowing how intellectually weak the arguments are.

 

I have found that most believers online and offline never really looked at why they believe. I have found that many people cannot differentiate between (supposed) usefulness and truthfulness of religion. Most believers do not understand that Pascal's wager is not an argument for existence, but a hedging strategy. Believers generally fail to understand the concept of Ockham's razor.

 

I don't think believers actually cannot understand the aforementioned concepts intellectually. I think they actively refuse to do so because they don't like the consequence (which would be to discard all unfounded beliefs, including religion).

Edited January 4, 2015 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[autumnnight]

If I assume the gray haired man who walks by my house each morning at approximately 8:30 is a Nazi spy, that is irrational.

 

The word "irrational" is frequently applied to a belief by others who do not hold that belief. This illustrates a slight misunderstanding of the word irrational. I say that because most of the time, they are basing the use of the word on its connotation, along with their assumption that most people do not want to be called irrational.

 

There are many beliefs and philosophies I find irrational. That does not mean they necessarily ARE irrational. So when I use that word, what I am really doing is making a subjective judgement. And since the word rational implies objectivity, then I am being irrational when using it in that context.

 

I believe intelligence can be broken down into an assortment of attributes, of which IQ and educational level are only two. I was always intrigued by Gardner's work in the multiple intelligences, though I confess that according to his tests I lack spatial reasoning. Maybe that is why I depend so much on my Garmin I also find the discussion of emotional intelligence interesting. For example, I find those who have a deep seated need to use large, multi-syllabic words in order to condescend to others whose beliefs they eschew to be typically lacking in emotional intelligence.

 

I'm not Buddhist either, but I do find their philosophy of living with others without judging to be quite emotionally intelligent.