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Psychology Today: less intelligence = more religious. GAF prepares Fedoras

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Dead Man

Member
What was insulting about his response? It's the kind of picture you might find at r/atheism, just a bad attempt at "humorously" mocking "religious logic". It's not a rebuttal, it doesn't target only a very specific kind of Christian belief, it's a general "Lol, Christians" response. Rebuttal would imply that one looks at the specific terms used in their specific context, instead of that bullshit.

Putting "Homosexual is unnatural" at the beginning doesn't mean he's only targeting people with homophobe beliefs with his joke. I assume that might be the implication, but given that the entire part where Christian beliefs are mocked seem to have nothing to do with homosexuality other than the "natural" term, the definition of which is completely ignored, it really just comes off as a poor man's attempt at insulting Christians. Don't get me wrong, one can discuss this, but that's just not a very clever attempt.

The response is not particularly good either, but I'm not seeing why it would be insulting.
Saying it was from his grandmas chain email is insulting to his grandma if nothing else. But hey, you seem to have worked yourself up over a simple image macro as well, you have overthought this by a significant margin.
 
The wealthiest countries seem to have the most atheists. See the Scandinavian countries, Japan and even Holland

And no, America is not wealthy lol.

I personally can't take people serious when they tell me that the world is only a few thousand years old, I just can't. Or when they believe in fairy tales such as Adam&Eve. Reality check: Santa doesn't exist either. Uneducated mess and very stubborn as well. Bah

If I were to build a country, I would shut the borders for such people.

dat atheist intelligence
 

Majmun

Member
Religion doesn't have to be a bad thing. I'm muslim myself. I just think that the majority of people who practice a relgion are too dumb to practice it right.
 

KHarvey16

Member
I'm not even atheist.



America looks like a third world country in some parts. You can't find such situations in Scandinavia, Japan, Zwitserland or Holland.

The US is one of the wealthiest countries in the world by any objective measure. Its per capita GDP is larger than any of those you listed.
 
The US is one of the wealthiest countries in the world by any objective measure. Its per capita GDP is larger than any of those you listed.

I think he means the 'standard of living' or 'quality of life' index, in which many countries rate higher than the US. This is getting off topic though.
 

JCX

Member
The US is one of the wealthiest countries in the world by any objective measure. Its per capita GDP is larger than any of those you listed.

But you also have massive inequality within a few miles, i.e Detroit and Oakland County. Particularly in my example, the latter wants nothing to do with the former outside of sports teams and concerts.
 
But you also have massive inequality within a few miles, i.e Detroit and Oakland County. Particularly in my example, the latter wants nothing to do with the former outside of sports teams and concerts.


Which naturally means that religious people are dumb.
 
More interesting than the "intelligence" difference, which could be explained any number of ways, I found this:

In fact, atheists and agnostics scored higher on religious knowledge than any other group surveyed, including those who were “nothing in particular”[2], although Jews and Mormons also scored higher than the remaining groups interestingly enough. A breakdown of the results showed that Mormons had the most knowledge about Christianity, although atheists/agnostics and Jews knew more about Christianity than mainstream Christians on average.

Basically the more you know about religion and more specifically the more you know about Christianity, the less likely you are to practice it. That's a much more interesting finding IMO (and very much inline with my own experience with religion).
 

KingFire

Banned
I don't see the point in bringing someone up atheist as if it is something to acquire. I would teach my children to be critically thinking and leave it at that. The worlds religions would be discussed as just another facet of human anthropology. I was brought up religious and vehemently consider religious indoctrination to be child abuse, but no one ever taught me to be atheist; I would say it's the natural disposition of anyone capable of critical and broad thinking. That being said; I would like to see studies of intelligence in regards to susceptibility to cognitive dissonance - though this meta study of religion and intelligence is somewhat analogous.

I was trying to say that we are brought up in certain way, and since most people are brought up as religious, they need to exercise a certain degree of critical and broad thinking to get out of that paradigm and see the world in a different way (as evident by your and my cases).

My point is that atheists are not smarter because they are atheists, they are smarter because they were capable of breaking out of the system of thought that they used to believe to be absolute true for so many years.

And that's why the reverse situation interests me: if kids were brought up as strict atheists and religiosity was a minority, would we see the opposite results? That is, would we see a positive correlation between religiosity and intelligence?

I made a bold assumption here: most people are brought up in a religious way. I based this assumption on the fact that most of the world population is religious, so it makes sense that, on average, religious people bring up their kids in a religious manner.
 
The wealthiest countries seem to have the most atheists. See the Scandinavian countries, Japan and even Holland

And no, America is not wealthy lol.

I personally can't take people serious when they tell me that the world is only a few thousand years old, I just can't. Or when they believe in fairy tales such as Adam&Eve. Reality check: Santa doesn't exist either. Uneducated mess and very stubborn as well. Bah

If I were to build a country, I would shut the borders for such people.

What kind of Christians have you spent your life around that believe all of the above?
 
When my parents forced me to go to the Pentecostal church I heard the preacher tell the congregation that the follower of satan will know the Bible better than you. This fellow was giving them an excuse to be ignorant. I never believed in god and they knew it so I was not liked there. I asked them once if god had got the ball rolling on evolution, that was an unpopular statement.
 
Seems fairly obvious. Intelligent people probably tend to have more scientific knowledge than people of lesser intelligence.

Scientific knowledge lays down the rules of how things work. If you hear something that doesn't fit within those rules, then it's likely not credible. Though it's still important to not dismiss everything, as we are only human, and there is still much we don't know.

But nonsense like Adam and Eve, the tower of babel, the earth being 6000 years old, etc goes against everything we have learned as a civilization.
 

Sheroking

Member
Seems fairly obvious. Intelligent people probably tend to have more scientific knowledge than people of lesser intelligence.

Scientific knowledge lays down the rules of how things work. If you hear something that doesn't fit within those rules, then it's likely not credible. Though it's still important to not dismiss everything, as we are only human, and there is still much we don't know.

But nonsense like Adam and Eve, the tower of babel, the earth being 6000 years old, etc goes against everything we have learned as a civilization.

IQ isn't at all measured in knowledge, though.
 

icy_eagle

Member
Holy shit, the smug in here is bad enough to label this thread as a choking hazard. I recently converted from atheist to Christian and its been a real interesting journey. I see the old me sitting there, closed-minded and pre-judging people when I found out they were religious. I was writing off somebody's opinion or thoughts on the subject because I was sure they didn't know what the hell they were talking about, or that they could ever have a point. I was certain they were indoctrinated or a product of their upbringing, or some other condition. It was only when I started to actually look into things and combine what I thought I knew as an atheist with what I had learned about Christianity, that I started to really open up to the possibility that certain things could be true.

Not saying I expect you all to convert right now, I'm just saying I changed my mind when I was sure it would never happen. Open up, don't judge people, and be willing to ignore the loud idiots (Westboro Baptist, etc.) who really just get in the way and confuse things. That's all I'm saying, GAF. I'd like to think that doesn't mean I'm an idiot.

There's nothing inherently judgemental or close-minded about atheism as you seem to want to put it. That's entirely on yourself as an individual. Oh and as someone already pointed out, it kinda seems like you haven't left these properties of you behind as successfully as you think.
 

SmartBase

Member
The wealthiest countries seem to have the most atheists. See the Scandinavian countries, Japan and even Holland

And no, America is not wealthy lol.

I personally can't take people serious when they tell me that the world is only a few thousand years old, I just can't. Or when they believe in fairy tales such as Adam&Eve. Reality check: Santa doesn't exist either. Uneducated mess and very stubborn as well. Bah

If I were to build a country, I would shut the borders for such people.

From the old Wikipedia since I can't be bothered going deeper:

As of 2012, about 67.5% of Swedish citizens are members of the Church of Sweden.

76.2% of Norwegians were members of the state Church of Norway as of the end of 2012.

By the end of 2013, 75.2% of Finns were members of the Church.

As of 1 January 2013, 79.1% of the population of Denmark are members of the National Church.

So they're just hypocrites who haven't yet figured out this novel concept of the separation of church and state.

Yes I know a large percentage aren't religious and that Finland's not Scandinavian, but I'm an equal opportunity discriminator.

/rant
 

Wiktor

Member
Not surprising. Majority of the world is religious. That's the default state for humanity. Most atheist arrive at their lack of faith on their own and that goes hand to hand with intelligence.
 
So they're just hypocrites who haven't yet figured out this novel concept of the separation of church and state.

Those numbers are inflated as until some years ago, being born to parents of whom one was in the Church of Sweden automatically made you a member of the Church of Sweden and you had to explicitly request to leave it, which many simply can't be bothered to do, even if they don't believe and never go to church.
 

Scrooged

Totally wronger about Nintendo's business decisions.
From the old Wikipedia since I can't be bothered going deeper:



So they're just hypocrites who haven't yet figured out this novel concept of the separation of church and state.

Yes I know a large percentage aren't religious and that Finland's not Scandinavian, but I'm an equal opportunity discriminator.

/rant

The thing with Scandinavian countries is that most of the people simply respect the church because it's been a part of their culture for so long. Most of the people who claim to be members of the church actually don't believe in Christianity. And I'm pretty sure they don't give the church any significant power in regards to the government.
 
The thing with Scandinavian countries is that most of the people simply respect the church because it's been a part of their culture for so long. Most of the people who claim to be members of the church actually don't believe in Christianity. And I'm pretty sure they don't give the church any significant power in regards to the government.

Plus, many would like to have a traditional wedding/funeral even if they don't believe. Because tradition.
 

SmartBase

Member
Those numbers are inflated as until some years ago, being born to parents of whom one was in the Church of Sweden automatically made you a member of the Church of Sweden and you had to explicitly request to leave it, which many simply can't be bothered to do, even if they don't believe and never go to church.

I know I was just ranting.

The thing with Scandinavian countries is that most of the people simply respect the church because it's been a part of their culture for so long. Most of the people who claim to be members of the church actually don't believe in Christianity. And I'm pretty sure they don't give the church any significant power in regards to the government.

I know because I lived there and am from there, but you still pay church taxes as a member so in fact you do to a degree.

Now back to arguing about fedoras.
 
From the old Wikipedia since I can't be bothered going deeper:



So they're just hypocrites who haven't yet figured out this novel concept of the separation of church and state.

Yes I know a large percentage aren't religious and that Finland's not Scandinavian, but I'm an equal opportunity discriminator.

/rant

Don't know about the Church of Sweden, but I believe you automatically become a member of the Church of Norway when you are born if any of your parents are members. It doesn't cost anything and it doesn't do anything. Many people probably don't even realise they are members of the Church of Norway, nor care even if they do. You gotta send a letter or some shit to get out.
 

crozier

Member
I'm always hesitant about these studies because inevitably it points to minority groups (specifically black and Latino, who are more religious) being less intelligent than whites and Asians. IQ is fairly meaningless and says a lot more about a white, middle class education than it does about innate smarts.
 
More interesting than the "intelligence" difference, which could be explained any number of ways, I found this:



Basically the more you know about religion and more specifically the more you know about Christianity, the less likely you are to practice it. That's a much more interesting finding IMO (and very much inline with my own experience with religion).

Basically how i became an atheist or more someone that is not a fan of organized religion.
 

Settin

Member
Did you know there’s a direct correlation between the decline in Spirograph and the rise in gang activity? Think about it.

It's interesting data, but it ultimately doesn't mean much.
 

ciridesu

Member
I can't really be bothered to check the whole article, and I guess the conclusion could be true to some extent... But this part puzzled me:

"The authors estimated that the average difference in IQ points between believers and nonbelievers ranged from 6.2 for non-college samples to 7.8 for college samples. This difference is roughly half a standard deviation in size, so this represents a reasonably substantial effect rather than something trivial."

Half a standard deviation? That would imply that their sample size is miniscule, and that it is actually opposite to what the article claims: it would present trivial, insignificant variation.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
I find it absolutely fascinating how incredibly intelligent people can be religious. The cognitive dissonance is astounding.

There is no cognitive dissonance. Intelligence is based off of seeing logic and having reason. Religion is based off of faith.
 
How do you quantify religiosity? Tests exist for intelligence but 'how religious am I' would seem to be a subjective judgment a person makes about themselves.
 

SBH

Member
For Finland I can say that the church did a study in 2011 and 27% of people believed in the christian god.
It's just that we are most often made members of the church as babies and you have to quit it yourself. Parents do the tradition of giving a name at the baptism and then we are members.
 

jaxword

Member
There is no cognitive dissonance. Intelligence is based off of seeing logic and having reason. Religion is based off of faith.

He's probably referring to the cognitive dissonance of using evidence for believing X but not needing evidence for believing Y. In other words, picking and choosing what counts and does not count.
 
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