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.

I mean, it's the Times of India, a newspaper country currently run by Hindu Nationalists! But anyway, Hinduism is more spiritual than a singular deity type religion.

Because many highly intelligent people are clever enough to know they do not know everything. Mystery wonder, and awe are all central to any religious view. Many people of faith hold that those 'stories' in whichever tradition you are looking at, are of meaning without being literally scientifically 'true' they are known as Aetiological myths. Incidentally, many people blindly accept scientific truths without any research, understanding or experimentation themselves.

With all of your academic accolades, you still seem to have missed the point of this thread, despite it being very transparent.

The thread is not questioning the intelligence of religious people vs non-religious. It is questioning the beliefs, thinking patterns and reasoning of those who do believe this.

Incidentally. Having worked with my fair share of academics, I've experienced a great many whom are academically very educated and very well read on their chosen subjects, but whom I would consider unintelligent in a great many other areas, and lacking in critical thinking skills. That would be for another thread though.

Thank you all those whom have contributed genuinely and honestly to the thread, without going off topic too much. There have been some very well thought out posts here, from opposing sides. Definitely many that I'll be thinking on for a while (I'm still going through each and every one).

I realise this is not a politically correct thread, but my intention genuinely wasn't to upset anyone. I have attributes many would associate with negative connotations (including being less intelligent), it doesn't make it true, of course. I genuinely try and understand these are just opinions. A world without opinions would be bland indeed (even when I've been on the receiving end of the negative result of them!).

Sorry, I think you are the one who has not grasped the original question, OP said quote "Do you believe those who are religious have lower intelligence, in general because they believe in a God, than non believers/non religious people?" That is exactly the point I was discussing, and exactly the point you said the thread was not about.

I'm an atheist. No, I don't think people who do have a faith are less intelligent than those who don't. That woukd be absurd. Each to their own. I'm glad we have so many differences; we help each other to learn & grow.

I actually admire folk who believe. It's a passion devotion and hope I just don't have.

I know three vicars, two of them oxbridge grads who went to read theology after finding their faith. Seems to be a relatively common thing among clergy ime.

I am the OP.

I'm very certain what my thread what about, and that you have missed the point entirely.

I'm sure you'll give some more examples of your phd's to convince me however, that I am wrong on what my own thread is actually, about.

I went to church today, because it's Palm Sunday.

I'm an IT director for an international consultancy firm and the last time my IQ was measured, it was around 155.

TBH, I am agnostic, because I believe it's the rational position to take (see: Bertrand Russell).

I grew up in the Church of Scotland and while I don't have a 'firm faith', I find the sense of community and the opportunity for a wee hour of mindfulness every now and again quite comforting. I don't think Jesus minds.

Spot on for the religious folk I know.

both my husband and me are muslim and ee both phd and have six figures salary. Your statement its really degrading i think. Clearly we both are not stupid. Faith its what keeping me alive. When i’m so down in life i still have faith in God that god will help me. And every problems no matter how bad it is its gonna passed. Its all because i have faith in my religion

In addition, it's very easy to find supporting theories for your argument when you misquote in an effort to change the context of the original statement, questions, and post in it's entirety.

Quoting the sentence you did, whilst leaving out the rest, isn't really reasonable - the rest of the post is absolutely needed for context - particularly this part: 'I'm just genuinely interested to know if this is a commonly held view, or not, and if so, why you think this way.'

A pretty important part of my original post to intentionally omit.

Interesting question. It depends on the scale and depth of belief, for example it’s possible to believe in ‘god’ without the biblical or written nonsense various religions like to use to trap and govern believers with.

A truly logical person can quite clearly understand how ridiculous the notion of ‘religion’ is.

Blind faith relies on a lot of naivety.

Whilst I don’t think being religious equates with lower intelligence I do think that the most religious countries/ areas often have the least educated populations.
I also question women who if/when they get into a safe place where they can break away from religions (that basically control women much more severely than men) still choose to live by that religion.
Why would a woman want to be dictated to about contraception, abortion, covering her hair or body, who she can mix with etc?
I can only liken it to victims of domestic abuse and think that it may take them a long time to realise how much they have been controlled.

If you believe that belief makes you unintelligent, then is your belief unintelligent too? How many lying jailers does it take to change a lightbulb in a quantum world?

I only mentioned my qualifications (not a PHd incidentally) because the poster accused me of being 'too lazy and scared' to engage with writing on the topic. It was genuinely not clear to me OP that you didn't mean you wanted to discuss whether people with religious beliefs were less intelligent than people without it, because you asked that exact question. I was not changing the context, I was expanding on the argument that your question directly leads to. The fact that you want to know why people think 'one way or another' about your question, is the very content of all of my posts. I seem to have offended you by giving an answer you didn't want to hear. I had not intended to offend or misrepresent you. My posts are all totally logical and legitimate answers to your question.

People have faith or not for many reasons. It is unfair to place them into such restrictive categories.

I suspect it is not a coincidence that almost all other posters on this thread have also interpreted your question in a similar way. You have had to apologise and clarify your position to many on here, but you only seem to take issue with me.

A meta-analysis and an updated analysis by the same research group have found a measurable negative correlation between IQ and religiosity. The correlation was suggested to be a result of nonconformity, more cognitive and less intuitive thinking styles among the less religious, and less of a need for religion as a coping mechanism.

So yes, the evidence confirms that religious people are, on average, less intelligent.

There is an absolute minority whom have been insulted by my post, and mistaken that I myself am asking if people of faith are less intelligent than those without, rather than the question of, does anyone think this, is it a commonly held belief, and why people who believe this, think that way. You are part of that minority. That's the problem with being offended - it tends to cloud judgement somewhat. I find it easy to conclude that if someone misses that I am the OP until it's reiterated, they might also miss the point of the post until it's reiterated - it's hardly a stretch, is it?

The vast majority of contributors managed to grasp the context absolutely fine.

I didn't need to apologise to clarify. I wanted to reiterate my original point, to those whose missed it the first time, which is entirely their own failing.

Sometimes it helps to admit you're wrong, made a mistake, or didn't read a thread carefully enough, 'shouldntbeonhereagain'. I get that the ability to do this is extremely difficult for a great many of people, regardless of education status or intelligence level (however it is measured) and they instead prefer to stubbornly fight their corner.

My original post is crystal clear. The error is with your comprehension skills. I'm glad I reiterated my original post, it seems this has worked to get the message through on this occasion. Repetition does produce results!

It begs the very fair, and very reasonable question of how you define intelligence.

I've met a fair few PHD scientists. Some with overall very high intelligence, across multiple areas. Some, (who I'm sure very knowledgeable in their field) when both they and I faced with a machine we've not come across before (but which you would expect they would know what it's purpose/functioning is due to their line of work) whereas you would not expect someone in my position to know, they could not find the button to even switch it on, much less figure out how it worked, whereas I could.. - this is not a one off. I've experienced many similar scenarios where these critical thinking skills seems to be missing in very educated people, whereas I'm missing the in depth education and knowledge on the specific area of they knowledge they have.

I think it's very reasonable then that it wholly depends on what you perceive, or measure, intelligence to be. An earlier poster mentioned, I believe, and I've actually recently had this discussion with someone in person (unrelated to the topic of religious beliefs) a vast difference between intelligence and education, and I'd wholeheartedly agree.

In many areas intelligent parents who study admissions criteria find religion & attend church to get into schools. I didn't but I did get mine baptised as a back up if I didnt get my nearest multi faith diverse school which I actually wanted. I know loads that went to church to get their stamps

I think, like it or lump it, its clear from the thread that some people do believe those of faith less intelligent than those who are 'faithless'. It doesn't mean they are correct. There are also plenty who do not believe this. It doesn't mean they are correct. This was the purpose of the thread - to determine if it's a commonly held view, and of those who do believe this, why. Some have used resources from scientific studies, some have used other reasons personal to them.

Do you think there is a difference between educated and intelligence, or do you think they are one and the same? Do you think culture and upbringing has had a significant impact in your beliefs? If so, what if that culture and specific experience of upbringing was removed from the equation?

I am genuinely glad your faith brings you such hope and comfort. I daresay there are a great many 'faithless' people who wish they could believe, so they could gain similarly.

One of the things people who have this idea about the religious being stupid say, again and again, is that there is no "proof", and that religious belief begins in faith.

Which is true to some extent (though often not in the way such people think, many philosophers would say their "belief" in god is based on rationalist thought, and they think atheism to be illogical and irrational - that's not the faith part of their belief system.)

The bigger issue though is that they fail to understand that there is not a single coherent thought system in existence which does not begin with "faith" and things that can't be proven. They all begin with a set of assumptions about what is real, and what we can know, and how we know things.

This is one reason why Richard Dawkins, for example, almost immediately went astray in his book and it was clear to any person with a background in philosophy that he didn't understand what he was talking about - he took it as self-evident that we can know things only through empirical observation and that scientific methods of knowing are the only ones.

That's deeply naive - anyone who knows anything about the study of epistemology would know that is something a brand new undergraduate would be embarrassed to have written. That kind of logical positivism is considered quite a difficult position to defend by most philosophers, and yes, it does need to be defended - it isn't self-evident at all that physical or scientific proof is the only way to know things, or that the only real things are things that can be measured or observed physically.

The important thing ultimately is to know what assumptions we are making, and why we are choosing those over another set of assumptions, and what the limits are around choosing.