Consistent Thinker

I admit that I have a hard time resisting the mathematical inequality mean skeptic/naturalist/nontheist IQ >> mean credulous believer IQ. I have seen many of us express this point of view. What merits do you think this idea has? Are there any ways in which it is shallow, over-simplistic, or short-sighted?

Godless Wonder

This subject has come up a few times before, and when it does
this "Godless Science" link comes up too. Here it is again, FWIW:
http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Jesus/Inte...20religion.htm

livius drusus

The most recent thread on this subject is just a couple of weeks old. Intelligence and religion

Gurdur

Doesn't exist. No overall correlation between religion and intelligence.
Possibly just as many expressing belief in Creationism ?
As many merits as the idea of Old Earth Creationism.
Like, the overall correlation doesn't exist ?

Consistent Thinker

I challenge you to address the statistics on the site that Godless Wonder linked to.

wade-w

I addressed this point in the thread that Livius linked to above. These statistics do not point to a correlation between intelligence and atheism. At most, they show there may be a correlation between a scientific or mathematical education and atheism.

Are all intelligent people scientists or mathematicians? There is another fundamental flaw here, that education = intelligence. There are highly educated people who are not all that bright, and there are many people with limited education who are extremely intelligent.

Consistent Thinker

What you said about correlations is true, however, I doubt that there is that much "play" in the statistical data to allow for the possibility that theists' mean IQ is actually greater than or equal to our mean IQ. Sure, some of those educated atheists may not be bright, but are there enough of these individuals to make the neutral or reverse conclusion plausible? I highly doubt it.

Gurdur

And there's even more to say about that, and other similar surveys which I've discussed in detail on this board before.
Suffice it to say: there is no correlation.
Doubt it as much as you like.
Seems to me you have a very religious faith in the IQ of atheists being higher on average than theists.
But let's face it: faith is all you've got. No evidence.
Oh, for heaven's sakes, go back and read the study yourself.

You have 40% of polled scientists believing in immortality, life after death, for crissakes.
That's not even fideism, that's straight classical Abrahamic monotheism of a high order of belief.
So obviously theism cuts right across all classes of education; and given the fact you have to have some nonce to become a scientist, then it cuts right across all I.Q. groupings.

Come back when you've got some real hard data to support your claim, not just faith.

Consistent Thinker

There is a difference between no correlation and a possible undiscovered correlation. At best, your posts demonstrate the latter.

I also have every right to cite anecdotal evidence, as long as I clearly mark it as such.

Gurdur

ROFL.
I posit,
"There are leprechauns living on Jupiter"
You cannot as yet prove me wrong.
So I will put your claims in the same basket as claims of leprechauns living on Jupiter.

Amazing !
You wish to back up your faith with statistically insignificant anecdotal "evidence" ?
It's a very common habit among many types of theist, you know.