From: sdoe@nmsu.edu (Stephen Doe)
Subject: Re: iq<->religion: connection?
Organization: New Mexico State University
Distribution: world,public
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 22:28:10 GMT

In article <1992Dec22.172158.11967@hsr.no> onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam) writes:
>In article <1992Dec19.224717.1993@prime.mdata.fi>, iikkap@mits.mdata.fi (Iikka Paavolainen) writes:
>|> Am I seeing wrongly, or is there a connection between one's IQ and one's
>|> religiousness? Of all people I know, I know only about 8 exceptionally smart
>|> people (IQ>125), and all of them happen to be atheists. On the contrary, the 
>|> dumbest people I've seen (eg. unable to use a remote control) are the most
>|> religious. Observing other atheists that I don't know (from this group for
>|> example) leads me to make a conclusion that on the average, atheists have a
>|> much better sense of logic (and thus usually have a higher IQ) and think much
>|> more clearly than religious people. From my own experiences, I can say that
>|> freeing oneself from the grasp of religion requires a certain level of logical
>|> thinking. Coincidentally, all these 8 people are mathematically gifted.
>|> When I speak of atheism here, I mean it to be a lack of belief in any god or
>|> superstition.
>|> Opinions?
>|> 
>|> BTW, if this offended you, go to a church instead of coming to alt.atheism.
>|> --
>|>  __/|_  ,  ,--------------------------------------------------------------,
>|> /o    \/:--| Iikka Paavolainen / iikkap@mits.mdata.fi, in Espoo, Finland  |
>|> \__~__/\:--| "I won't have a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent."    |
>|>    `    `  `--------------------------------------------------------------'
>Although I think that you are right in general, I wanted to add that all (6)
>the exceptionally smart people  I know (IQ>125), including myself, are Christians 
>except one who is an atheist. 
>
>Religion is often connected to feelings. Feelings are unintelligent and if you
>yourself are not very intelligent, your feelings will make sense and seem 
>coherent. How often haven't you heard Christians say "Listen to your heart"? Such
>a statement shows that they allow their feelings to rule their world. This is
>harder for someone whose rationale exceeds her feelings. She will be more able to 
>cut through and behave rationally despite of her feelings. She will also be able
>to see that her feelings are *not* coherent and therefore is less likely to
>become religious.

I'm not very impressed by all this anecdotal evidence flying around.
8 or so people aren't very good statistics.  Many of the most
influential people in Christian history (Luther, Calvin, Wesley etc.)
were *very* intelligent.  In fact, I would think that the intelligent
believer, internalizing the psychological ploys that biblical belief
boils down to, will suffer *more* than the rank and file believer, and
will be more firmly enmeshed in the biblical scheme.

I have yet to see a satisfactory definition of intelligence, one that
doesn't boil down to how well one does on some arbitrary intelligence
test.  

It isn't illogical to presuppose a supernatural realm, unperceived by
our senses, any more than it is illogical to suppose that the Many
Worlds Hypothesis is a reasonable interpretation of quantum mechanics;
it's just that such speculations are far-fetched.  They have the
virtue (from the believer's perpsective) of being non-disprovable.

I become very uneasy when I see people say "Oh the religious are
dumber (or smarter) than others on average."  It can too easily 
degenerate into an ad hominem attack, in which one dismisses beliefs
one disagrees with because one believes one's opponent lacks
intelligence.  Being intelligent is no guarantee that one is right.

SD