{"id":128,"date":"2021-02-17T21:02:03","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T21:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesecularcommunity.org\/blog\/?p=128"},"modified":"2021-02-17T21:02:03","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T21:02:03","slug":"several-research-studies-find-that-skeptics-are-brighter-than-religious-believers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesecularcommunity.org\/blog\/2021\/02\/17\/several-research-studies-find-that-skeptics-are-brighter-than-religious-believers\/","title":{"rendered":"Several Research Studies Find That Skeptics Are Brighter Than Religious Believers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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by James A. Haught<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several research studies find that skeptics\nare brighter than religious believers. More than 60 scientific reports were\nanalyzed in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review<\/em>,\nwhich said the results \u201cshowed a significant negative association between\nintelligence and religiosity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newsweek\n(May 18, 2017) summed up the article:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAtheists\ntend to be more intelligent than religious people because they are able to rise\nabove the natural instinct to believe in a god or gods. Having a higher intelligence\u2026allows\npeople to override these instincts and engage in more rational, and therefore\nenhanced, problem-solving behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nreport titled \u201cWhy Atheists are More Intelligent than the Religious\u201d in Psychology\nToday<\/em> (April 12, 2010) commented:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMore\nintelligent individuals are more likely to be atheistic than less intelligent\nindividuals. For example, among the American sample, those who identify\nthemselves as \u2018not at all religious\u2019 in early adulthood have a mean childhood\nI.Q. of 103.09, whereas those who identify themselves as \u2018very religious\u2019 in\nearly adulthood have a mean childhood I.Q. of 97.14.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly,\na 2016 study by the Pew Research Center found that doubters are better-educated\nthan believers are. Chief researcher Conrad Hackett told The New York\nTimes<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe\nhigher the level of education in a country, the larger the share of people with\nno religion tends to be. Atheists and agnostics, or people with no religion in\nparticular, have higher education levels than the religiously affiliated do in\nthe United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frankly,\nI\u2019m surprised that the I.Q. gap is only six points. I would expect it to be\nlarger, because most of the world\u2019s brightest people\u2014outstanding thinkers,\nscientists, writers, reformers and others who left their marks on history\u2014have\nbeen religious skeptics. Here are some, and their views:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to John Adams:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe\nday will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as\nhis father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the\ngeneration of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Albert Einstein wrote in The New York Times<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\ncannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation,\nwhose purposes are modeled after our own\u2014a God, in short, who is but a reflection\nof human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death\nof his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or\nridiculous egotism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Twain wrote\nin his journal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\ncannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be\nreligious \u2013 unless he purposely shut the eyes of his mind & keep them shut\nby force.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emily Bronte wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVain\nare the thousand creeds that move men\u2019s hearts, unutterably vain, worthless as\nwither\u2019d weeds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sigmund Freud wrote in a letter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNeither\nin my private life nor in my writings have I ever made a secret of being an\nout-and-out unbeliever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thomas Paine wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll\nnational institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear\nto me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind,\nand monopolize power and profit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thomas Edison told The New York Times<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\ncannot believe in the immortality of the soul\u2026. No, all this talk of an\nexistence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our\ntenacity of life\u2014our desire to go on living\u2014our dread of coming to an end.\u201d\n(Edison also said \u201cReligion is all bunk.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voltaire wrote\nin a letter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChristianity\nis the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever\ninfected the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clarence Darrow said in a speech:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\ndon\u2019t believe in god because I don\u2019t believe in Mother Goose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President William Howard Taft said in a letter declining the presidency of Yale\nUniversity:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\ndo not believe in the divinity of Christ, and there are many other of the\npostulates of the orthodox creed to which I cannot subscribe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luther Burbank told a newspaper:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs\na scientist, I cannot help feeling that all religions are on a tottering\nfoundation\u2026I am an infidel today. I do not believe what has been served to me\nto believe. I am a doubter, a questioner, a skeptic. When it can be proved to\nme that there is immortality, that there is resurrection beyond the gates of\ndeath, then I will believe. Until then, no.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bertrand Russell wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy\nown view of religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of\nfear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Bernard Shaw said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt\npresent there is not a single credible established religion in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leo Tolstoy wrote,\nin response to his excommunication by the Russian Orthodox Church:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo\nregard Christ as God, and to pray to him, are to my mind the greatest possible\nsacrilege.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Darwin said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe\nmystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us, and I for one must\nbe content to remain an agnostic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kurt Vonnegut said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSay\nwhat you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a\ncapacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gloria Steinem said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy\nthe year 2000, we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human\npotential, not God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michel de Montaigne, creator of the essay, wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMan\nis certainly stark mad: he cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the\ndozen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baruch Spinoza said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPopular\nreligion may be summed up as a respect for ecclesiastics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further,\nBeethoven shunned religion and scorned the clergy. Abraham Lincoln never joined\na church, and once wrote a skeptical treatise which friends burned in a stove\nto save him from wrecking his political career. And the motto of Margaret\nSanger\u2019s birth-control newsletter was: \u201cNo gods, no masters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bright\nminds throughout history have doubted supernatural gods, devils, heavens,\nhells, miracles and the rest of church dogmas. Today\u2019s freethinkers can be\nproud to share this fine heritage, which sparkles with higher intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About James A. Haught<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haught\nis editor of West Virginia\u2019s largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette<\/em>,\nand a senior editor of Free Inquiry<\/em> magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by James A. Haught Several research studies find that skeptics are brighter than religious believers. More than 60 scientific reports were analyzed in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review, which said the results \u201cshowed a significant negative association between intelligence and religiosity.\u201d Newsweek (May 18, 2017) summed up the article: \u201cAtheists tend to be more intelligent … <\/p>\n

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