Are religious people pretty stupid?

[RKP5637]

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/01/26/are-religious-people-really-less-smart-on-average-than-atheists/

Of course, there are examples of extremely intelligent individuals with strong religious convictions. But various studies have found that, on average, belief in God is associated with lower scores on IQ tests. “It is well established that religiosity correlates inversely with intelligence,” note Richard Daws and Adam Hampshire at Imperial College London, in a new paper published in Frontiers in Psychology, which seeks to explore why.

It’s a question with some urgency – the proportion of people with a religious belief is growing: by 2050, if current trends continue, people who say they are not religious will make up only 13 per cent of the global population. Based on the low-IQ-religiosity link, it could be argued that humanity is on course to become collectively less smart.

One suggestion is that perhaps religious people tend to rely more on intuition. So, rather than having impaired general intelligence, they might be comparatively poor only on tasks in which intuition and logic come into conflict – and this might explain the lower overall IQ test results.

[Chainfire]

1. Some religious people are very smart

I think that some of those are just hedging their bets.....just in case. A lot of people, that for them, church is the only chance they get to socialize, a country club that will admit anyone. When I was a teenager I went to church because my girlfriend had to. Then you have them like my dearly departed MIL, who was plenty smart and a logical person, but she bought into the whole religion thing, straight from the heart.

It is dangerous to try to put "all" of any group into the same mold.

[RKP5637]

3. That's what the article concluded too!

Daws and Hampshire concluded: “These findings provide evidence in support of the hypothesis that the religiosity effect relates to conflict [between reasoning and intuition] as opposed to reasoning ability or intelligence more generally.”

[Boomer]

2. Wow. Talk about low IQ

There's so much wrong with this article that it's hard to know where to start. It's a jumble of illogic, ridiculous theories, lack of definitions, and a very unsound premise.

When I see something this bad associated with atheism, it just makes me cringe.

[RKP5637]

4. However, the article concluded ...

Daws and Hampshire concluded: “These findings provide evidence in support of the hypothesis that the religiosity effect relates to conflict [between reasoning and intuition] as opposed to reasoning ability or intelligence more generally.”

[doc03]

5. There seems to be a lack of an ability to

spot bullshit with some people that are otherwise very intelligent. I am not religious or claim to be very smart but I think I have an ability to spot a con man where others fall for him. I don't know how else to explain why any intelligent person could fall for Trump's bullshit. I guess they crave something to believe in.

[RKP5637]

6. Yep, I think your last sentence really sums it up quite well. He fed them a lot of lies

and BS. He knew what they wanted to hear, and he's a con artist, pretty much what they do. He used them for his benefit, but does not give a damn about them, or really, anyone else.

[doc03]

10. Many of Trump's supporters are the same people that fall for the

so called evangelical con men on TV. I know doctors, lawyers and even a company CEO that believe every damn word Trump says, I don't get it.

[RKP5637]

11. Yep! And send money now to me, except it's, TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP! He is really just the

opposite of what they piously profess to believe and with their righteous views in their minds (only).

[RKP5637]

12. That seems to happen quite often, the religious do not know everything

they profess to (or should) know.

[mitch96]

8. I don't get it..

If a man cheated on wife #1 with #2 (who got pregnant while he was still married
to wife #1).
He then cheated on wife #2 with #3 and then cheated on wife #3 with a porn star and Playboy model,
enjoys the full support of the party of "Family Values" and Conservative Evangelicals?
very dumb or conflicted people..
M

[RKP5637]

9. Ha, or just Republican Family Values! n/t

[mopinko]

13. there is a high correlation w epilepsy.

since a lot of ppl experience seizures as hallucinations....

no, but rly, that is a true fact.

[RKP5637]

20. Interesting! Never knew that. n/t

[mopinko]

21. was told to me by a devout mormon w epilepsy.

didnt shake her faith one bit. so, more to it, but...

funny tho. i had epilepsy as a kid. did 12 yrs of catholic school.
not one bit of it stuck.

[Mr.Bill]

14. I don't think religious people

are not intelligent. I think of them as people that need to have the answer to a very big question or they are not comfortable. When they ask me as an Atheist, "Okay, if there is no God, then how did we get here, who created the universe, blah,blah, blah." My answer is, first of all, I'm not saying there is no god. I'm saying that you have all these tidy answers to all the difficult unknowns of life. I don't know who or what created the universe, and neither does the Pope, the Pastor of your church, the Televangelists you send money to, or you. The difference is I am content with not knowing the answers to these questions, and you demand one and look to the people who say they have the answers.

I also like to tell them if Atheists ever take over the goverment, we promise to not make it say "There is no God" on all the money. Nor will we ask every one to sing "God Damn America" after the seventh inning of a baseball game.

[RKP5637]

18. ...

[sammythecat]

29. "God damn america"

Oh that's great. Made me laugh.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. Maybe not necessarily stupid,

but people who most fervently embrace the fundamentalist positions of various religions show a distinct inability to think realistically or critically about lots of things. They've been told they must accept their religion's teachings without question, and they never understand that most things need to be questioned.

We something very similar all the time on FB when people simply repost some piece of garbage because it fits their own biases.

[RKP5637]

16. Yes, and there is a lot of Group Think by them. And the conclusions was:

Daws and Hampshire concluded: “These findings provide evidence in support of the hypothesis that the religiosity effect relates to conflict [between reasoning and intuition] as opposed to reasoning ability or intelligence more generally.”

[Shermann]

17. I think an explanation for some is escapism gone wrong

Everybody needs to escape from reality from time to time. For some it is video games or music, for others it may be sports or whatever. The realities of the Cosmos are actually quite harsh, and that harshness isn't distributed evenly. Religion provides an escape from all that for some, but it isn't compartmentalized away from reality like the other outlets are. So those who linger in that world can suffer from this blurred vision of reality.

This explanation would be completely orthogonal to intelligence.

[RKP5637]

19. Yes, I think there is a lot to what you say. Also, some lead a very rough life and it gives

some solace that there must be something better. Also, it handles death if one has anxieties about what all of that means.

[Warpy]

23. Not at all. They're like non religious people--some smart, some not, and the rest in the middle

Early conditioning and being neurotypical play very large roles as they identify people with a certain group. The fact that the belief system espoused by any group breaks down to even the mildest questioning is irrelevant, it's compartmentalized away to be brought out when one is actively participating in the group or is under severe stress.

It has nothing to do with innate intelligence or the ability to be highly functioning in the concrete world.

It's just something I didn't get. I donb't get pro sportws or pop culture, either,

[RKP5637]

24. Well said!

[Boomer]

25. Thank you!

Religion plays a very strong emotional role in the lives of many people, and judging it by intellectual standards really misses the point.

Whatever it is that so many people crave and get from religion, I don't share that trait. I've never felt the need to intellectually refute a belief in god(s), I just don't believe. For me, life makes sense without a god in it, whereas it would be unbearably complicated and confusing if there was a god. There's no emotional payoff in belief, at least for me.

[Voltaire2]

26. well not according to the data, but I do understand why this gets people upset.

The claim isn't 'all religious people are stupid', it is that there is an inverse correlation between intelligence and religiosity. So yes of course some religious people are smart, some stupid, and most in the middle. But when compared to non-believers, as the article states, the average religious person does worse on various cognitive tests than the average non-religious person.

"As predicted, the atheists performed better overall than the religious participants, even after controlling for demographic factors like age and education. Agnostics tended to place between atheists and believers on all tasks. In fact, strength of religious conviction correlated with poorer cognitive performance. However, while the religious respondents performed worse overall on tasks that required reasoning, there were only very small differences in working memory."

[Warpy]

27. Testing bias

Sit people down in a room and test linear, logical things and you're likely to find lower scores among people who don't generally do linear, logical thinking.

[Voltaire2]

28. ok if that makes you happy.

But at least you agree that religious people are, on average, not good at logical thinking.

[demigoddess]

30. religion never made sense to me when I went to church and the people

were saying to their god, "do this, do that" and "give me this, give me that" "punish him, punish her". If their god is the boss why do they order him around?

[endinequalitynow]

31. Religious people tend to be anti-modern , but not all are stupid.

Religious people aren't all stupid. Thought history, many members of faiths contributed to society. Joining a religious group with many tribal rules can show that one is attempting to insulate oneself from the pressures of modernity. Looking for supernatural explanations for natural events can show that you can't accept reality.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

32. Can't speak for anyone else, but...

[RFCalifornia]

34. Some are very smart, but they're wrong

Smart people have been wrong before, and they'll continue to be wrong

Bias is the biggest enemy to true reason

[RKP5637]

35. Absolutely!!! n/t

[LiberalFighter]

36. There are those easily duped

And those that take advantage to dupe them to gain power and financial gain.

[RKP5637]

37. Absolutely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And over and over again, and they just don't comprehend how

they are used.

[old as dirt]

38. I think that this is silly.

Just because people come from different cultures with different histories and different religious beliefs and different worldviews doesn't make them stupid.