# Intelligence and Religious Belief **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 25, 2000, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693 "2000-08-25T05:21:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2000, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693/81 "2000-08-27T03:13:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Opus1 \* > It seems to me that one would have to be aware of God in order to love him, but not vice versa. Herein lies my greatest departure from the most commonly expressed legalisms of Church doctrine, and also a frequent point of contention with non-believers. I don’t think this is true at all. While that sounds incredibly illogical, those who know me will realize that seldom causes me to hesitate. If you can love your fellow man with a freely giving heart, and give unto them as the Lord bid those who know Him, when the time comes for you to meet Him, He will greet you as His own. For you have loved His spirit, though you did not know His name. Such trivia as creeds, and churches will not stand before Him. He will defend you to those who claim righteousness because they knew His name, and did not love you. I have faith that none shall be lost, but those who will not be saved. Tris ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2000, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693/82 "2000-08-27T08:04:17Z")
To all those who responded to my earlier post to this thread; 1. Reread the first line. Think. 2. I brought it up because nobody had yet–not because I thought I was the only one privy to it. 3. I don’t believe or follow it myself–I offered it as food for thought. 4. Whoosh! ---
**Author:** ![Spider\_Woman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Spider\_Woman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spider_Woman)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2000, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693/83 "2000-08-27T12:18:24Z")
That was quite beautiful. If I were to believe in God, that would be my concept also. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2000, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693/84 "2000-08-27T16:17:30Z")
> [@](#): > > …when the time comes for you to meet Him, He will greet you as His own. For you have loved His spirit, though you did not know His name. > [@](#): > > If I were to believe in God, that would be my concept also. “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” — Jesus Truly, we all are one. * * * [Yes, I do realize that the quote from Jesus is a sitting duck for anyone immature enough to analogize a first century reference to a creature of great value with a twentieth century English slang term for mindless follower. But it wasn’t for the benefit of adolescent jokesters that I posted it; rather, it was for the benefit of our atheist brothers and sisters like Spider Woman, Gaudere, Phil, and others, who have the wisdom to discern a point when one is made.] ---
**Author:** ![Raptormeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/dbc845/32.png) [@Raptormeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raptormeister)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2000, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693/85 "2000-08-27T23:46:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Opus1 \* > **Well RaptorMeister, I don’t quite understand your post. You say that you trashed the surveys because they were “biased in a big way,” but you failed to provide a single valid criticism. Furthermore, you even stated that you are unwilling to pursue them, but you’re sure that they have methodological flaws. It seems to me that you’re just rejecting the studies out of hand because you don’t like what they say.** Perhaps I should have been a bit clearer, at the expense of sparkling. 🙂 I wasn’t ‘trashing the surveys’ as such, so the title I put on it was misleading. As I made clear, I have no idea what the surveys said. But then neither does anyone else reading the list. It was the list itself that I ‘trashed’, because the reporting of the studies didn’t seem particularly objective to me. For example, any study which had results which diverged from the others had a little explanation as to why that study wasn’t top be taken seriously. Others which should have been noted (miniscule sample sizes) weren’t. All I did was approach it from the other direction. It was mostly tongue in cheek, that at least shuold have been obvious. So I wasn’t ‘rejecting the studies out of hand’, because I don’t know what they say; since you don’t know whether I agree with the conclusions, it’s a bit of a long bow to draw to say that I had an ulterior motive for rejecting them, and an even longer one to state what that motive was. > [@](#): > > **Also, if you had read my arguments with more careful attention to detail, you’d have noticed that it is quite a strawman to compare my position to those of Christians who get “warm fuzzies” whenever they learn that a certain famous person is a Christian. I’m not just pointing out: “Look! All of these famous, brilliant people are atheists. How wonderful.” Rather, I’m saying that the fact that people who have studied the universe the most are the least likely to believe in God, which is a problem for theism.** Fair comment in the first instance - I didn’t interact with your arguments at all; then again, I didn’t intend to. With what I wrote above in mind, what I was trying to say was this: IMO, the spaghetti-on-the-wall list of studies is useless for drawing conclusions on whether there is a link between intelligence and religious beliefs. However, otherwise intelligent people (their own definition!) take it as some sort of affirmation of their own beliefs. I contend that the list provides no such affirmation. Note, not that the studies provide no affirmation, but that the list of studies provides none. So why would people be uncritical of such a list? Do you have a better explanation than mine? ---
**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2000, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693/86 "2000-08-27T23:48:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > Truly, we all are one. What about the goats? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2000, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693/87 "2000-08-28T01:23:39Z")
This I understand clearly: > [@](#): > > I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. This I don’t: > [@](#): > > What about the goats? How 'bout you, brothers and sisters? Does anyone know what he means by “goats”? ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2000, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693/88 "2000-08-28T05:38:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > How 'bout you, brothers and sisters? Does anyone know what he means by “goats”? Matthew, Chapter 25, verses 32 and following. The goat is used to refer to those who did not honor the spirit of the Lord, and refused him food, and did not offer him comfort when he came to them, as the “least of these, my children.” It is a continuation of the metaphor of the shepherd. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2000, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693/89 "2000-08-28T06:21:27Z")
…there need not be a correlation between intelligence and belief in God. Belief in God only requires **faith**. I know very intelligent people that have faith and I know very ignorant stupid people that have faith. I also know very intelligent people that agnostic, atheist, and uncommitted Jews and Christians. I think that you would also find an equal number of ignorant stupid people within those same categories. _Later Nyc_🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2000, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693/90 "2000-08-28T10:51:55Z")
**Tris** Yes, but those goats have established their own reference frame. Mr. Mullaney is very bright, and knows that God will not bend the will of men. Or goats. So we can’t be sure that’s what he meant. Remember, he believes that money is evil. Perhaps he believes that goats are as well. ---
**Author:** ![dal\_timgar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@dal\_timgar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dal_timgar)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2000, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693/91 "2000-08-28T14:03:42Z")
suppose intelligence, knowledge and emotions are 3 seperate things. as children we are most emotionally sensative and any religious upbringing has SOME effect. people that get emotionally locked into religion use their intelligence to RATIONALIZE their beliefs and may reject infromtaion that doesn’t correspond to those beliefs. the atheist may be religious reactionaries tho. just because people playing religious power games are a$$holes that doesn’t PROVE there is no God. just MAY mean that God lets people be a$$holes. in ancient times joining the religious caste was a way out of backbreaking work. the smart people may have taken that route. now there are a lot of other things to do with your brains. only mentally lazy dummies that want followers dumber that they are want to push religion. ``` Dal Timgar ``` ---
**Author:** ![Ptahlis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a8b319/32.png) [@Ptahlis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ptahlis)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2000, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693/92 "2000-08-28T18:54:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Ryan \* > \*\* > I’m sorry if I sounded combative before, but I really don’t understand this position. Just what is wrong with discussing whether whites are more intelligent than blacks? > \*\* Well, nothing at all, if the discussion were contextless. Unfortunately, it is not. I have a problem in general with sociological studies when they are based on ill-defined or ill-understood terms. Intelligence is one such. Even the word “race” itself has no agreed-upon quantifiable meaning, even to geneticists. Also, I cannot think what one actually _does_ with the results of any such study. Even though it is impossible to generalize the characteristics of a group onto an individual member, people still try to do so. I can think of lots of ways such ‘knowledge’ could be detrimental, but no way that anyone could use it in a positive manner. Therefore, I wonder at the motivation behind the studies themselves, and I think of dull axes waiting to be ground. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Is 500 small? How many would you have liked? With 500 people, the standard deviation is less than 2.5%. Of course, that’s not very meaningful, since the exact percentage difference was not mentioned in very many studies (a valid concern that, strangely enough, I don’t recall anyone else mentioning. I wonder if my pointing out additional flaws in studies that support my position will confuse Spider Woman even more.) \*\* True enough that 500 may not be too small. But 5 of the studies were done with samples less than half that, ranging down to a measly 64 people. I wouldn’t trust a study of 64 people to generalize any human quality to the remainder of the populace, even right- or left-handedness. > [@](#): > > * * * > > > [@](#): > > > > Some of the questions asked would also tend to lump Buddhists, Pagans, New Agers, and Hindus in with the non-believers by their phrasing! > > - > > This would reduce the sensitivity of the study. If the study noticed a difference despite this reduced sensitivity, that suggests that the difference is rather large! \*\* This _could_ reduce the sensitivity of the study. It depends on the questions asked of course. It could also be a clever way of redrawing the lines so that some of the most intelligent with religious convictions were not included in the sample of believers. The wording of many of the studies leads me to believe that intelligence was not correlated well with religious faith. Various comparisons of liberal versus conservative religious attitudes, studies comparing denominations of believers (which is hardly of much use if the question is belief/non-belief), the measure of apostasy rates, the question of whether **organized** religion were important, and pronouncements like “show … no preference for a **particular** religion,” and, “intelligent students are much less likely to accept **orthodox** beliefs,” to be far more indicative of a correlation between intelligence/achievement/a career in science (depending on which study you use) and the acceptance of religious dogma. It could well be argued that Polycarp, Triskademus, and Libertarian, just to drop a name or three, might be “sympathetic to atheism,” evince “liberal religious attitudes,” are “much less likely to accept orthodox beliefs,” or judge organized religion to be not especially important, or would claim no particular religious affiliation. We know that these and others here are very firmly in the believers’ camp, yet the studies’ conclusions are worded so that they may all slip through the cracks and end up counted as non-believers. However, the general thrust of the page referenced is to convince us that _belief itself_ is inversely correlated with intelligence. These studies may, at first glance anyway, seem to do so. But even a cursory second look reveals that there are too many holes, too much wiggle room in the tiny bits of information given us, to rely on it. Mere religious belief doesn’t seem to be what was tested for, so I have to say that the page is far less convincing to me than it seems to be to others. Again I will close with a personal note. I read your list of reasons why you think atheists are in general, more intelligent than their religious counterparts. I agree with them. Like everyone else, I would like to think that my beliefs faithfully (pun intended) represent reality. I will, however, allow for the possibility that the religious folks really are tuned in to something I am not, which, if true, makes all the illogical arguments a moot point. Therefore, I do not trust my own objectivity enough to make a pronouncement about the general intelligence of the considered believers, nor what bearing that may have on the ultimate truth of their arguments. I have to reserve the right to withhold judgement when I cannot be certain I am giving the other side its fair consideration. (Republicans, however, are fair game:)! ) ---
**Author:** ![Spider\_Woman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Spider\_Woman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spider_Woman)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2000, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693/93 "2000-08-28T21:26:29Z")
> [@](#): > > * * * > > Is 500 small? How many would you have liked? With 500 people, the standard deviation is less than 2.5%. Of course, that’s not very meaningful, since the exact percentage difference was not mentioned in very many studies (a valid concern that, strangely enough, I don’t recall anyone else mentioning. I wonder if my pointing out additional flaws in studies that support my position will confuse Spider Woman even more.) > > * * * I didn’t catch that the first time around. Who says I’m confused? Confusing, maybe, but not confused. Hmmmph. Back to the business at hand: Ptahlis says: [QUOTE] Finally, I will venture a personal opinion on the whole issue regarding intelligence and religion. Intelligent folks can and do believe in all sorts of things, from religion to atheism.\* Unconsidered adherence to dogma, whether religious or secular, that is a sign of lack of intelligence.\* [QUOTE] [italics mine] To this I would add,. . . or a sign that questioning authority or the status quo was strongly discouraged in the person’s or peoples’ families of origin. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-and-religious-belief/30693.md?page=4)