Do you believe those who are religious

[Toobluntt]

have lower intelligence, in general because they believe in a God, than non believers/non religious people?

I ask because I saw a comment as such on another thread in AIBU, and it's something I've heard/read before, that some people (obviously non-believers) question the intelligence of those who believe in God, or follow an organised religion.

I am not saying this is what I believe, I'm just genuinely interested to know if this is a commonly held view, or not, and if so, why you think this way.

Maybe read some of the studies, before deciding that they haven’t considered any of these issues?

Because dismissing something without doing the reading and thinking about it, whether because you don’t like the look of it, are too lazy or feel attacked, is pretty indicative of low intelligence.

I have to be honest i married into a Jewish family and some of the things they do "just because everyone else does" makes me think they're incapable of thinking for themselves

I've thought about this a lot recently for personal reasons.

I know some objectively intelligent people who have deep faith. However, if I'm honest, the people I know well with this deep faith often have experience of trauma or challenging mental health or historic experience of abandonment and so on. Their faith seems to provide something they have been otherwise denied. Of course, my sample size is tiny and irrelevant to wider debate but I suppose I do see evidence of religion linking to the traits possessed by an individual.

However, there's a lot to be said for tribalism. I ask my students all the time if they'd worship football and footballers as much if they hadn't grown up with it, used it as a space to belong themselves or instead experienced a world where other sports receive adequate funding and adulation. They maintain they love football and it's their religion. I maintain that it's objectively only okay as a sport and their adoration is more complex than that!

But I think that practices are a large part of Jewish identity, which is an ethnicity as well as a religion, and that (for non-believing or agnostic Jewish friends of mine), there can be a strong sense of preserving tradition, especially for those who lost relatives in the Holocaust and feel a pressure to pass such things on, regardless of their individual beliefs. I’ve been at Shabbat dinners where I’m pretty sure no one was a believer as such.

@KarstRegion dinners and traditions etc make sense to me. It's some of the abstaining from certain things, some of which they have an answer for (what it says in the Torah) but some they literally have no idea why people don't eat/do XYZ but do it anyway.

Not just insulting but goading and slapping down those who believe in God.

I'm no worshipper but for peace of mind feel there is a God but in the back of mind I know I'm wrong.

People, many have to believe in something and as long as they do not push their beleifes on to another, let them do as they wish

This is one of the most insulting threads I've read.

I don't believe, but part of me wishes I did have that faith as it's something that you will always have in your core.

One of my team members is Christian, and we had an hour or so chat on Friday about Easter and the premise behind various things. It was really interesting for me to hear, as while I may not believe the events necessarily happened, it was great to hear from an actual religious perspective (and not just taught in schools). It gave me an appreciation for Easter, while not selling me on the religious beliefs behind it.

He's also extremely intelligent and thoughtful, so no, I don't think believing in a religion makes you less intelligent. There are plenty of people out there who do silly things, religious and not, so I don't consider religion as a marker for someone's intelligence.

Yes, I do . Some of the things that religious people believe are, in my estimation, off the chart . My husband's ex , for instance, appears to be fairly intelligent, but she firmly believes that exactly 144,000 people will go to heaven ( and coincidentally they will all be members of her church). So yes I do question the intelligence of some religious people like her and her fellow believers.

They may well be intelligent but they lack critical thinking ability in that one area. Does it matter? Probably not.

Karstregion - I think you are saying I haven't read some studies which link low intelligence to religious belief. Is that correct?
Thanks for the advice, but I have spent plenty of time engaging with material on the subject, scientific and otherwise. I am a Theology graduate and have a Masters in philosophy of religion. I am also a former teacher of A level philosophy.
Your answer suggests that perhaps you didn't fully understand my post. Perhaps I should clarify- it is not that I am too 'lazy or scared' to look at scientific studies in this area. Rather, that the question about whether religious people are more, or less, intelligent than non religious people is unhelpful and reductive. Therefore, to advise me to look into studies that attempt to demonstrate the inverse correlation between the two concepts is misguided. Reiterating a link between the intelligence and religious predisposition within a scientific study only serves to reinforce the limitations of the scientific process (not in general but specifically for this question). The idea is flawed.ans ill-defined, and the concepts are not related. The debate is not usefully served by quantitative studies using mistaken assumptions as their premise. Incidentally, I do not consider myself a religious person.

No, because everyone has beliefs.

I do think that those who believe religious people are less intelligent are lacking in intelligence themselves.🤔

I've attended 4 different churches during my life and feel that the congregations tend to fairly represent both the local area and the general population as a whole

So in my current church we have retired people, teachers, charity workers, unemployed people, accountants, military personnel, some people with learning disabilities, a farmer, several single mums from the local council flats, office workers, a person who came to faith whilst in prison for drug offences, university students, a man who has won a medal for bravery, medical staff, etc etc etc

You really cannot generalise with regard to intelligence. I would have been more interested if the question was regarding how many religious people follow their particular religion because it was the one they were brought up with and how many people have converted from no religion/another religion

We know a terribly clever couple who are devout Catholics. It always surprises me.

Honestly I think it depends what they believe. If they believe earth is a few thousand years old and evolution isn't real, then yes, I think they are less intelligent. But I appreciate that is in no way the majority of religious people. I don't think being religious in general makes you less intelligent.

Smartest man (a lawyer) I ever worked for was a devout RC. It worked for him and no way was his intellegence below par.

DH is religious, though increasingly less so. He is incredibly intelligent. But he only maintains his beliefs by deliberately not thinking too hard about it. I think blind faith does rely significantly on willfully ignorance...

No I don't think this. But i do think religion has different sides the spiritual side and the religious convention or rules side. I would never associate spirituality with high or low intellect, it's a different thing entirely. As for the followers, it takes all types. I know people who blindly follow Catholic practices and in some cases yes, they do it because they are sheep and don't question it, but for many they do it because its what is familiar and comforting and its part of their culture. All cultural practices are a bit stupid really if you analyse them! Criticising a Catholic for going to the stations of the Cross on Good Friday is no different to criticising an Indian for wearing a sari etc and it's just as disrespectful. I grew up in Ireland at a time of a huge cultural shift from being a deeply Catholic environment to a typical Western/ European country and these type of discussions came up a lot and still do with friends as we raise our kids now. I find non believers can be a bit sneery, whereas religious people understand that everyone does not see the world as they do. Personally I don't have a deep faith but wish I did as my friends who believe in heaven and the power of prayer tend to be more content. I don't ever question those who are more or less spiritual as i think that's really rude and offensive, however anyone who preaches religion from a fundamental level is well avoided IMO.

Would suggest you read some Kierkegaard, OP. Atheists sometimes work from the basis that believing in God is irrational, therefore people who believe are less likely to be intelligent (why would an intelligent person believe something without evidence?) For religious people, however, that’s often the wrong yardstick- belief isn’t something to be measured as rational or irrational but is instead non-rational- the leap of faith (leap into faith) is a commitment of the passions, unconnected to rationalist concepts like evidence and argument.

It’s a bit like falling in love. You can make all sorts of rationalist arguments against it- after all, the evidence is that your beloved is not in fact objectively “the most wonderful man in the world” but actually a fairly average estate agent called Steve etc etc. But making these arguments won’t convince the person in love that they’ve made a mistake, because it’s not a position they’ve arrived at through objective reasoning- it’s another sort of thing entirely.

Only if they use their religion to spread hate/cause harm to others- homophobia, sexism, racism etc.

I think some have been brainwashed, but no can't see that they are any less intelligent

Good question. I think there is a degree of gullibility and also the need for comfort. It's almost childlike. The need to feel safe.

I haven't RTFT, but think it's more down to a person's capacity for suspending disbelief, rather than intelligence.

I hung out in a couple of groups in my teens and twenties which have now come to be considered bona fide cults. We were all smart, educated people who were attracted to various aspects of these groups.

I distinctly recall, like the memory of a physical sensation, coming up against specific aspects of belief and doctrine which, to me, felt like a bridge too far, but at the time, like deciding to take a running jump off a cliff, I decided to suspend this feeling of disbelief and align my thinking with doctrine. A very, very disconcerting experience.

I've discussed this with a colleague who is religious, who believes this is essentially part of the great mystery of spirituality and religion; being able to surrender or subordinate your human, subjective, limited understanding to a greater truth. Like an ultimate act of trust.

I had this discussion with the birds in the garden and they Said what ever. Of course there is a divine being

No one’s suggesting they can’t do as they wish, though. The OP asked a question. An overwhelming majority of credible studies have found an inverse relationship between religiosity and intelligence, even allowing that there are disputes in research circles about precise measures of intelligence and of religiosity. I provided links upthread, but they’re easily findable online. To be honest, some of the responses on here tend to bear out those findings.

I think many people enjoy belittling others for their differences. People need religion because it meets profound and complicated needs they have. I'm agnostic but I don't think it's any different to saying 'people who support and believe in Capitalism are less intelligent' because it does not serve their needs but sees them working themselves to death to have a better white kitchen than their neighbours toiling for a more eco E car than the one up the road, the whole time blood pressure rises, depression rockets and standard of living falls.