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Atheists outperform theists at nearly all reasoning skills

Twilight Hue

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Nakosis said:
God is a concept created by man's ignorance and is completely useless.
Well useless with regard to reality. Still some folks managed to convince others that a God exists and that God's existence, or their "knowledge" of God's existence gives them some kind of authority.
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It doesn't come as any surprise. ;O)

I mean we live in an age where some people still think the Earth is flat.
 
charlie sc

charlie sc

Well-Known Member
KenS said:
Highly subject to question. IMHO.

Too many famous religious scientist to support that position. :rolleyes:

Again... " Internet-cohort studies"

Internet-cohort studies? Hardly a cross-section.

"The relationship between religiosity and intelligence has been an important topic amongst scientists and the public for some time (Harris, 2004; Dennett, 2006; Hitchens, 2007; Dawkins, 2008)."

Harris, Dennett, Hitchens, Dawkins??????????


Sounds more like "I'll scratch your back if you will scratch mine". :rolleyes:
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This is slightly deviating from the topic, but do you know of any famous scientists who think/claim the opposite :p ?
 
Salvador

Salvador

RF's Swedenborgian
I've mentioned previously the following couple of reasons why atheism makes more sense to me than theism:

There's zero evidence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, highly benevolent supernatural deity; so then, there's good reason for us to be atheists rather than theists.

Atheists take the logical default position that any magical fairies likely don't exist until proven otherwise; whereas, theists take the nonsensical default position that their version of some magical fairy likely exists until proven otherwise.
 
Nakosis

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Ellen Brown said:
Yaokfine.
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Doesn't it seem like nonsense to you that man, or any particular human being has any knowledge about "God"? Do you think someone has more knowledge than you or that perhaps you have this knowledge yourself?

If you do, you have your reasons. I'm just hard pressed to find any reason that is reasonable

I don't know anything about a God, don't have any good reason to believe anyone else does, did either.
 
Kenny

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
charlie sc said:
This is slightly deviating from the topic, but do you know of any famous scientists who think/claim the opposite :p ?
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"Researchers found that church attendance has as much effect on a teen's GPA as whether the parents earned a college degree."

"Students who attend religious services weekly average a GPA .144 higher than those who never attend services, said Jennifer Glanville, a sociologist at the University of Iowa."

Church Attendance Boosts Student GPAs

Hmmmm... :rolleyes:

Then, we have a more realistic and honest approach vs a world-wide biased internet approach:

Religion vs. IQ - Are Religious People Stupid?

As far a intelligent religious people:

100 Scientists Who Shaped World History

They break the curve you suggest.
 
Salvador

Salvador

RF's Swedenborgian
KenS said:
"Researchers found that church attendance has as much effect on a teen's GPA as whether the parents earned a college degree."

"Students who attend religious services weekly average a GPA .144 higher than those who never attend services, said Jennifer Glanville, a sociologist at the University of Iowa."

Church Attendance Boosts Student GPAs

Hmmmm... :rolleyes:

Then, we have a more realistic and honest approach vs a world-wide biased internet approach:

Religion vs. IQ - Are Religious People Stupid?

As far a intelligent religious people:

100 Scientists Who Shaped World History

They break the curve you suggest.
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"Miron Zuckerman, Jordan Silberman and Judith A. Hall from the University of Rochester and the Northeastern University conducted a meta-analysis (that's a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies) of 63 studies that showed a significant negative association between intelligence and religiosity."

Zuckerman, Miron; Silberman, Jordan; Hall, Judith A. (2013-08-06). "The Relation Between Intelligence and Religiosity". Personality and Social Psychology Review. 17 (4): 325–354. doi:10.1177/1088868313497266. PMID 23921675. Lay summary – The Independent (2013-08-12).
 
Ellen Brown

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member
Salvador said:
"Miron Zuckerman, Jordan Silberman and Judith A. Hall from the University of Rochester and the Northeastern University conducted a meta-analysis (that's a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies) of 63 studies that showed a significant negative association between intelligence and religiosity."

Zuckerman, Miron; Silberman, Jordan; Hall, Judith A. (2013-08-06). "The Relation Between Intelligence and Religiosity". Personality and Social Psychology Review. 17 (4): 325–354. doi:10.1177/1088868313497266. PMID 23921675. Lay summary – The Independent (2013-08-12).
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Or perhaps arrogance and meekness?
 
SomeRandom

SomeRandom

Still learning to be wise
Staff member
Premium Member
Ellen Brown said:
Or perhaps arrogance and meekness?
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Arrogance is associated with both high and low intelligence, as far as I’m aware. I suppose colloquially it is associated more with higher intelligence. Though how arrogant do you have to be to adamantly claim something exists without verifiable proof?
Meekness is an odd one to throw in there. Were the participants too meek to participate in a survey? Or did they just not know the answers?
 
Thief

Thief

Rogue Theologian
charlie sc said:
more likely to use intuitive decision making.
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do you really think so?
believers are more intuitively inclined?

and that is a bad thing?

oh ….btw
I had a cdrom published by the Mensa org
I scored 125

and I out performed my coworkers in ALL of my employments

soon to retire.....well accomplished
 
W

whirlingmerc

Well-Known Member
charlie sc said:
Atheists are better at reasoning(E.G. logic problem solving) than the religious. I'm sorry agnostics, you're just bellow atheists :p A proposed explanation, from this study, why atheists tend to have high IQ than theists is that religious people are more likely to use intuitive decision making. To confirm this theory, the study found working memory increased with religiosity(I.E. strength of belief) but decreased with reasoning/cognitive skills and deductive reasoning stayed the same all-round. Similarly, apostates(I.E. converts either way) showed similar results. This study suggested it's not an impairment but rather a bias, "religiosity effect reflects cognitive-behavioral biases that impair conflict detection, rather than general intelligence." The authors conclude from the results that religious people tend to forgo logical problem solving when an intuitive answer is present. Therefore, if the intuitive answer is it seems like god-did-it or it's a supernatural answer, then nothing else need be examined. Nonetheless, from these results, this cognitive bias seeps into more than just religious dogmatism and axioms. Religiosity generally makes people worse at reasoning. Interestingly, working memory increases with religiosity/dogmatism(not as much as the atheist though) and deductive reasoning is the same as others. Perhaps some people can explain why they think this is the case?

This particular study had 63 235 participants, in total, of all age groups, education and country of origins. These variables were also cross examined to see if there were conflicting co-variables - there were none. The online tests took about 30+- minutes to finish and gave the participants a plethora of test, such as:The Grammatical Reasoning Task, Colour Word Remapping (CWR), Interlocking Polygons task, Paired Associate Learning (PAL), Spatial Span and Self-Ordered Search, Spatial Rotations tasks and so on.

So, my question to you is, how certain are you god(s) exists?
1 = Absolute Certainty, 2 = Strong, 3 = Not Certain, 4 = Very Doubtful, 5 = Atheist

Of course, you may critique the study or anything else. If you are going to question the study, I recommend you put your thinking caps on and either read it(it's free) or give some constructive criticism. Just saying something is wrong, especially if the thing you're against has evidence, is an assertion. Assertions can be answered with assertions and are pointless beyond words. In other words, put because after you said something :)

snd5lbO.jpg
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God uses the humble and is opposed to the proud.

Knowledge can puff up but love edifies.
 
charlie sc

charlie sc

Well-Known Member
Thief said:
do you really think so?
believers are more intuitively inclined?

and that is a bad thing?
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Not necessarily a bad thing, and I'm sure it has an evolutionary advantage. However, I think this line of reasoning is not useful anymore.

Thief said:
oh ….btw
I had a cdrom published by the Mensa org
I scored 125

and I out performed my coworkers in ALL of my employments

soon to retire.....well accomplished
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I've found the people that give me their rounded high IQ numbers highly dubious. I usually find these people show grammatical errors, inability to discern nuanced arguments, unable to understand what I'm explaining and then I have to explain it to them. They also give these IQ numbers from online sources, unknown tests and/or cd-roms :p
IQ tests done right are performed by professionals and usually cost money. That's because IQ tests aren't just multiple choice questions and consist of many different aspects, some are even physical objects or the method of the problem solving. Online tests are prone to cheating, and may not even reflect any of the actual test performed by professionals. In other words, it's more for sales and popularity than accuracy.
I'm pretty sure these people that profess their genius IQ number would like to keep their real scores to themselves once they do an actual IQ test. It's also humorous that these people don't know this in the first place or how IQ tests work.
 
charlie sc

charlie sc

Well-Known Member
whirlingmerc said:
God uses the humble and is opposed to the proud.

Knowledge can puff up but love edifies.
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If religion was all love, I don't think anyone would complain. Btw, I don't see Buddhists trying prohibit marriage laws for homosexuals or telling people they'll go to hell :p
 
charlie sc

charlie sc

Well-Known Member
Lyndon said:
You're argument is totally stupid and totally bigoted, another reason why this forum has degenerated so far, to massive personal attacks on believers with no moderation ,and even moderators participating in the crxp.
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Thief gave his personal opinion and I gave mine. He also asked a question, which I answered from my opinion. This was not an argument. However, if you think I'm wrong in what I said, show it. Don't just say it's wrong. This is equal to, "I don't like it because it hurts my feelings." My intention is not to hurt feelings, but if what I said it true then people should have a long look at themselves if it still hurts their feelings. Btw, I wasn't targeting any specific group.

The OP is science though.
 
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