I seem to remember reading a report several years ago on some research (yes, I know this is all a bit vague) which had found that science graduates who do believe in Christianity tend to be of the fundamentalist variety. The suggestion was that they were unable to read the Bible in any way other than as a textbook.
Perhaps God values love more than intellect.
Impossible.
That reference frame in which truth is constant.
You’re right. I apologize for painting with so broad a brush in my indignant snit. In fact, I find my faith in God to be eminently reasonable.
You’re right again. I gave Opus1’s assignment of intelligence exclusively to scientists a validity it did not deserve.
Thanks for setting me straight, BlackKnight. 
Remember, please, that there are different kinds of religion, too. We might differentiate between abstract religions (we worship the creator/ruler of the universe as God) and animist religions (we worship what we can see as God). Many of the most intelligent people I know are animists.
Intelligence (although very difficult to define) is very likely a necessary prerequisite of noteworthy accomplishment in the broad area known as Science. It is certainly not a prerequisite of strong faith. The fact that the correlation exists does not surprise me. Nor does it distress me. Perhaps I am stupid, but being smart never seemed all that wonderful a thing to me.
Being among the highest percentile in any divergent characteristic among humans seems to carry with it a cache of worthiness. If some thing is good, more of it is better, and so, naturally the most of it is best. Therefore the opinions of those in that divergent minority are of greater desirability than other opinions. Obviously Michael Jordan is better at judging the relative worth of hot dogs than I am. When the particular question cannot be decided in your favor by any defined normally distributed majority (argumentum ad popularum fails) a new defense must be arranged. Enshrining the portion of the population that agrees with you provides a new base for your popularum. Very clever argument and one for which only intelligent people will discern the invalidity, and most of them already agree.
But I cannot deny that many people are smart, and are atheists. I won’t bring up the dumb atheists, because they are dumb, and their arguments don’t matter. The dumb Christians do matter, though, because Christ has to be Lord of all, not just Lord of the elite. Yes, it seems that Proof of God is again denied to us.
But then, I never thought proof was part of it, nor intelligence, nor education. That doesn’t mean that I despise those things, only that they are not matters of faith. Thomas Aquinas was very smart. He tried to use that in service to the Lord. But the Lord loves fools as much as wise men. Wise men love who they wish.
Tris
Satan:
Perhaps the deeply religious feel that MENSA meetings are a waste of time better spent doing good deeds.
I don’t mean for that to sound snappish (well, maybe a little ;)), but I think it’s pretty true as a principle. The deeply religious who are also excellent thinkers tend to realize that their time is best spent in service of G-d, as rabbis and priests, religious teachers and counselors. Especially since secular academia has become hostile toward religious attitudes lately, driving some who might have considered adding a secular professorship to their resume to decide against weathering that atmosphere.
The places where this intelligence survey finds its samples are those which the real religious thinkers just aren’t. If these surveyors would take a semester to participate in a Talmud class in a Bais Midrash, they’d find very rigid application of logic, reasoning and intelligence (albeit accepting certain principles on faith, but hey, every system of logic has some postulates)…and the puzzle-solving sort of skills that MENSA prizes. However, that same intelligence drives these thinkers to realize (based on the necessary religious postulates) that their time is best spent in religious pursuits.
First of all, I think TheRyan would do better to read Aquinas and Anselm instead of the Cliff Notes. A comment such as this:
reveals only basest ignorance. TheRyan, when you have read Cur Deus Homo, the Proslogion, and the Summa Theologiae, then perhaps we can talk about Anselm and Aquinas.
I believe we should consider pre-Christian religions as well. They potentially less incendiary and they provide us with ample intellectual figures whose skills are practically above dispute.
The great minds of the ancient world seem religious to me in their own way. Many of the rejected popular custom and embraced their own metaphysics and epistemology.
Plato – The grandfather of theology. Just check out the Republic and the Timaeus.
Pythagoras – Perhaps the greatest religious mystic of the ancient world, his teachings in math, music, and religion endured for centuries.
Porphyry – One of the last great pagan philosophers and scientists, he was a strong believer in asceticism and monotheism.
Cicero – Though he was cynical about the existance of popular deities, he was deeply influenced by the Stoic tradition. The Somnium Scipionis is a magnificent statement of his cosmological and metaphysical beliefs.
Lucretius – Perhaps the most intellectual poet in Roman history, he wrote a didactic epic on Epicurean principles, some scientific, others purely religious. He practically worshipped Epicurus as a deity in his own right.
Enough examples, or shall I provide some more?
Fact is, I am not inclined to equate metaphysical questions with intelligence. I believe that some people have a greater awareness of the “reality” around them, and that some people simply have a lower threshhold for confidence judgments. Any idiot can deny and deny something in the face of “evidence” others would consider conclusive. For some, the natural world and the course of history is enough evidence that Divine Providence exists and takes an active role in the world. For others, myself included, this kind of teleological evidence just doesn’t cut the mustard. All the same, belief in such things does not correlate with intelligence, certainly not in the traditional way it has been defined so far.
MR
Of course, at TOPS (Top One Percent Society) meetings, what we did mostly was sit around making fun of MENSA. 
I really don’t like the whole idea of this thread. It bothers me after seeing thoughtful, intelligent posts from the likes of Polycarp, Triskademus, Libertarian, CM_Keller, and others that such a question needs to be asked, or that exceptions have to be made for them. “Sure, you guys are fine, but most of the other folks that believe your hokum are really dumb.”
Part of the flaw that leaps out at me here is that preselecting scientists as the pool from which to draw, biases the sample. I would contend that equally brilliant people who are not drawn to the quantifiable world are unrepresented here, or at least underrepresented. How surprising is it that people driven by a fascination for the measurable and testable give less weight to faith than empiricism? Somehow, I think the game is rigged, or at least skewed from the start.
It is undoubtedly true that there is less pressure to be religious than there has been previously, and there are more places to become educated without necessarily enduring religious teaching. It is also true that there are more career opportunities in the sciences, and more people than ever going in to these careers. So the question might also be “Are non-religious people drawn to science careers more than religious people?”
On the other hand, what about a study of people who do volunteer work? If we were to survey charities I believe we would find that there were higher numbers of religious folks there compared to the general populace. Would it be fair to conclude then that “Studies show religious people tend to have more compassion than nonreligious people?”
I am going out on a limb here, but here is one hypothesis.
It is probably safe to assume a (strong) positive correlation between intelligence and income levels. Now, I do not know if this is true, and I didn’t find any studies supporting this, but there could be a negative correlation between economic status and religiosity. It’s possible that people whose material needs are fulfilled, are less inclined to search for a god. They might be less likely to feel a need for anything else than to just enjoy a good material life. Some may focus on maintaining or increasing their wealth, and this focus might not co-exist well with a search for spiritual truth, especially if the subject believes that religiosity implies frugality.
Another factor, as someone has already pointed out, is probably the secular education systems in the industrialized world, and also the secular media. When the mainstream culture doesn’t have a consistent religious component, it is more likely that the world viewpoint that one develops will also be secular. It would be interesting to see what is the correlation between religiosity and intelligence in countries where religion is a part of the mainstream culture.
lambda:
Conversely, it’s possible that those who have found G-d are less inclined to consider material wealth (beyond what’s necessary for food, shelter, etc.) important to them. They might very well be followers of the Talmudic dictum (or its equivalent in Christian theology) “Who is rich? He who is satisfied with his lot.”
Chaim Mattis Keller
Chaim
I guess the Christian equivalent would be this:
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” — Jesus
Oh, I agree. This would only underline the tension between wealth and religiousity. I mean: if more intelligent tends to imply wealthier, and wealthier tends to imply less likely to become religious, then more intelligent would tend to imply less likely to become religious. The fact that religious tends to imply less wealthy doesn’t seem to weaken this argument (but I might miss something here.)
Of course, there are also the intellectuals from academia who poot around in their 1960 Ramblers and teach for chicken feed, contrasted with the brainless opportunists who make fortunes in network marketing.
[… shrug …]
Quoting Satan’s quote:
the key word here is correlations. That implies that these sets of statistics have a quantifiable relationship between each other, and does not at all imply causality.
So there are probably lots of intelligent people in other fields who do believe in God (sic) and some scientists who do also.
And the causation of the correlation between the sets of statistics mentioned here could be something like what Ptahlis mentioned, or it could be something similar, like parents of people who eventually grow up to be scientists are more likely to come from an atheistic background than those who grow up to be ballerinas or sculptors or _________ (insert occupation here), or something entirely unknown at this time.
If the intelligence thing implied by correlating those two sets of statistics were really true, the Great Debates on religion in this forum would not be nearly so interesting, and would be over very quickly.
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In olden times, pretty much everyone, brilliant or not, was religious.
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The works of the few non-religious have been filtered out, while the works of religious people have been given more emphasis and support.
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Frankly, these “brilliant” people seem by and large to be rather poor thinkers when it came to religion. From what I can tell, Aquinas and Anselm were idiots. Is the Uncaused Causer or Ontological Argument really the best theology can offer?
Okay, I guess you want your (duplicate) post to have some attention:
Gratuitous. And vague.
Ditto.
Hmmm. Well, let’s see if you can inspire the hearts of men with a good syllogism.
I’ll probably be argued with about this, but look at the Pope.-How many languages does he speak again?
Well, I am convinced.
I mean, anyone who holds down the submit button for 13 hours has demonstrated an intellectual capability I can never hope to rival.
Really.
I am in awe of the intellect of such a mind. Eat your heart out Aquinas!
Tris
It can reasonably be argued that Einstein was “religious”.
How about my equally brilliant post earlier?