Why do atheists tend to have higher IQ's than religious people?

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   thunkfulthinkerposted 10 years ago

   Why do atheists tend to have higher IQ's than religious people?

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2. 61

   thunkfulthinkerposted 10 years ago

   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article … tific.html
   
   I'm sure there are many other articles that talk about this. I just happened to chose this one.

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      thunkfulthinkerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      *choose

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   cjhunsingerposted 10 years ago

   As we can all draw a picture, all is in a matter of degrees of talent. As we all possess the ability to reason, here too,  not all are equal. That we all can be objective and in that we are not equal. I do not think the Atheist is smarter, and I am an Atheist, it is more of an innate talent to reason more objectively or perhaps, differently, in terms, of abstractions.
   Such people tend to be less trusting of the crowd and tend to be poor followers. They could never be part of a lynch mob, unless they were leading it.
   Certainly, Atheist is not synonymous with success, nor good leadership, as Stalin would put that to rest, as well as many others. So, of what value then is Atheism?
   Being an Atheist my first instinct with regards such studies is skepticism, even though they tell me how smart I may be. As an Atheist I resent being put into a group, that is not who I am. To identify as an Atheist, for me, is problematic, as my thinking is much more complex than a single statement.
   So many people today are identifying as Atheists without really knowing why they are not theists, Perhaps, this study says that if a become an Atheist people will think that I am smart. Now look what we have done to the neighborhood.  So many questions, so little time, so few answers.

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      lone77starposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Well said, CJ. Yet, I've built a lifetime on thinking objectively and with complex abstractions, and I'm deeply religious in the sense of spirituality. Skepticism is flawed with bias. Restraint with humility is a better paradigm.

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   LoisRyan13903posted 10 years ago

   Interesting before I became a Christian my IQ was about an 80.  Then when I became a Christian in college it went up considerably.  I guess it depends on the individual rather than the group.

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5. 74

   lone77starposted 10 years ago

   Dumb! False. Ignorant.
   
   In my family, between my brothers and myself, I have the lowest IQ. All of us are very spiritual. My IQ is 139 (though it has tested at 141, once).
   
   Religion or lack of religion has nothing to do with IQ. Some of the biggest intellects in history were very religious people -- Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo and many others.
   
   The biggest problem in the world is not religion, but Ego. Ego destroys religions, governments, science, businesses and more.
   
   Being spiritual or religious can help those with low IQ, but it has helped people with high IQ, too -- especially when they can see what spiritually blind atheists cannot.

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      LoisRyan13903posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Well said.  IQ tests are very biased.  In a Sociology class I took an IQ test geared towards African Americans and I scored very low something like 40

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      cjhunsingerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      lone
      I would think that the biggest problem in the world is that one should be subservient to any government or any theistic mandate. This leads to a theocracy, which can only lead to a nightmare, as history shows.

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      thunkfulthinkerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Belief nor disbelief is a cause for intelligence, but there can be correlations and could possibly be a cause to the correlations. But that is all up for debate and something that is near impossible to prove true or false.

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