God makes you stupid, researchers claim

A psychology researcher has controversially claimed that stupidity is causally linked to how likely people are to believe in God. University of Ulster professor Richard Lynn will draw the conclusion in new research due to be published in the journal Intelligence, the Times Higher Education Supplement reports. Lynn and his two …

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a boffin results in lack of common sesne

I've dealt with some highly qualified (up to and including Professors) who lack comon sense so I'd rather be a semi thick, god bothering geek thanks.

[Lee Whitfield]

Interesting theory...

As a religious man I have seen my fair share of persecution from those people that obviously have higher IQs than myself.

While I sit being tolerable of other people's beliefs (or no belief) I am consistently scorned by others and their 'higher thinking'.

What a pity it is that more people don't take more interest in pure religion - this being practicing what you believe.

I might also point out the following statement from the article:

"Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population."

Seems as if he's calling everyone stupid here. I personally went to university but don't really consider myself an academic in the sense that this man means, but I do have an IQ of 143. I believe in God and I am not ashamed to admit it.

I am reminded of a quote I once heard... "If your mind is not open, please ensure your mouth stays the same way."

[Alan Fisher]

Logic.....

Douglas Adams puts it best;

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing". "But," says man "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

[Carl]

God made me stupid

So, as your intelligence increases, your understanding (or ability to understand) of science means that you are more likely to spot the gaping 'holes' in creationism I guess.

I always thought that the reason that there were less stupid comments on El Reg articles on a Sunday was because IT pros don't work weekends - now I know it's because they're all at church...

Intelligent Person: My god man, you are the stupidest fool I ever met

Religious Person: It's not my fault, it's this blasted book I found in a drawer in my hotel room

Intelligent Person: Oh, I'm soooo sorry for you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems true statement in case of G Dubya Bush...

...God told him to attack Iraq and Dubya did.

[Rich]

Obvious

Sounds pretty obvious to me.

I am stupid. Therefore I don't really understand much and I'll latch on to what beliefs (however irrational and nonsensical) other people have.

I am intelligent. Therefore, I have a mind of my own and can see right-through the loony irrational beliefs that are proclaimed by other (less intelligent) people.

The whole idea of God is just plain silly. It's a figment of (some) human's imagination and has no place whatsoever in the modern world.

[Jamie]

religion

religion is just an institutionalized way of social control

[Colonel Panic]

Second-order correlation

AKA, the skeptics mantra - "correlation does not prove causation".

The poorer you are, the less percieved control you have over your life (google "internal locus of control" and "social status"). You are more likely to attribute your bad job, bad housing, bad health to external forces (star sign, evil spirits or bearded supernatural white guys with divine status)

The poorer you are, the lower you will tend to score in IQ tests (google "underfunded schools").

Not suprisingly therefore the two tend to co-occur.

Likely too that IQ will correlate with driving Bentleys - for the simialr reasons (with some statistical outliers for footballers)

[Anonymous Coward]

IQ idiots

Anyone who thinks that the complex socio-cultural phenomenon of "intelligence" can be reduced to a number is an idiot. Particularly if it involves interpreting squiggly lines and boxes in a 30 minute quiz.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...Lynn pointed out that most children do believe in God..."

Actually, children are not born believing in God.

They are dragged along to church/temple services, encouraged to pray with family and brain-washed as much as possible before they have the ability to resist and learn for themselves, so as to perpetuate the myth.

www.venganza.org

[Angus Wood]

Correlation != Causation

Two variables being positively or negatively correlated does not necessarily mean that there is a cause and effect relationship between them. They may be varying in response to another independent variable.

If you drive a Ferrari then you're highly likely to have a very nice house. These variables are correlated but there is no causation.

That the more intelligent a person is the less likey to belive in Yaweh/Allah/Zeus etc, is not in any doubt, many many studies have confimed this both in specific territories (yes, including the USA) and in global surveys. Of course there are exceptions to this, dumb atheists and smart god botherers but they are outliers.

I would personally advance the opinion that there IS a third variable, and that variable is the external pressure of society in the form of "one does what is most conformist in the society you are in because that uses the least energy" which critically, has a feedback effect. Atheism breeds atheism, religiosity breeds religiosity.

[George Johnson]

Want the truth and the way?

Get some copies of Andy Hamiltons hilarious radio comedy Old Harry's Game, that's the truth my friends.

If it all fails and I'm wrong and doomed to spend eternity with my arse on fire, then I'll certainly have plenty of company, what with the Slashdot, El Reg readers and all people with whom I share my "heavy" musical taste!

[Anonymous Coward]

Average IQ

IQ tests were originally designed to average at 100, but that's not accurate anymore.

First, the IQ of the population has shifted over time, with a general upward trend. You can't shift the test baseline, otherwise an IQ of 100 measured ten years ago would be lower than an IQ of 100 today (think of the controversy there is over A levels getting easier, then imagine it from a million self-important Mensa members worldwide - ugly).

Second, the original tests were calibrated against white folk, who, according to the test results, are thicker than asians as a group. So they don't represent an average over the population as a whole.

Mainly though, IQ is a real world, measured figure not a mathematical abstract. Saying "it can't shift' is bollocks, it just does, like magnetic north or the length of a year. The measured average of a small sample group surveyed some 80 years ago is not an indicator of a measured average of the whole population today, and if that brings measurements of something as poorly defined as "intelligence" off the pedestal and into the mud with the rest of sociology, that's a good thing in my book.

For the amusing antics of those who stake too much on these figures, check the history of some of the "high IQ" groups at http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/history.html. My personal favourite is the Giga Society, who alllow only the cleverest 1 in a billion (limiting their membership to about 6 and a bit).

[Anonymous Coward]

Spelling

I think all this argument proves is that Reg readers have terrible spelling.

Devine?

Nonsence?

[sally marshall]

Case proven

Dark wrote "What complete Bollocks! Most of the erudite people the world has known have beleived in some form of Devine Entity."

If an inability to spell is related to intelligence I think the point has been well and truly proven for this person anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh... but what about...

Ok, but what about people that believe there likely ARE "non-obvious type creatures"... (i.e. there's more than just these 3 dimensions we can see)... but that they're *not* automatically our friends, and that any plan(s) they have are *definitely* not in our best interest.

i.e. think of the farmer looking after the sheep. "Sure, I *do* have a plan. But you wouldn't understand it. Don't worry though, I love you and it's in your best interest to follow my instructions".

Er.... No Mr Farmer. Fuck off. :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Really???

I would say that this reports smacks of bias looking for evidence and not worth the paper it is printed on. And as for faith, even if you are an athiest, you still have faith, a faith that, despite the evidence for contrary, says that you are here by complete chance and accountable to no one.

[ImaGnuber]

Yikes!

So higher number of non-believers among the highly intelligent so that would indicate that most of the nasty weapons, man-made carcinogenic chemicals blah-blah-blah are produced by those who don't believe in (any) God?

Yikes! Not nice people.

(non-believer here)

[Tom Hobbs]

Does it work the other way?

Not very interesting research.

Being a believer (and leaving the question of my intelligence as an exercise for the reader) I can't say I buy into it much. Not really a suprise, I suppose.

If the research says that the more intelligent you are the less likely you are to believe in God, it surely follow that the less intelligent you are the more likely it is that you believe in God.

Now, go into your local town center and find a decent sample of the most stupid people you can find (measured in a way separate from their religious beliefs) and count how many are devout followers of one religion or another. I don't know, but I'm fairly confident in my guess, that there won't be a high percentage of believers.

Maybe belief isn't linked to IQ after all.

No IT angle, no science-y angle and no Paris angle. Is my disappointment in relation to my intelligence also?

[Anonymous Coward]

hope springs eternal

"average IQ is an excellent predictor of what proportion of the population are true believers, across 137 countries"

If that is true, then the average Australian must be considerably more intelligent than the average American, as we are a great deal less religious.

Much as I admire the finer qualities of my fellow Aussies, however, I can't say that I have observed in them any evidence of superior intelligence.

It is a defining characteristic of the human mind that we can both believe the unbelieveable and deny the undeniable. I suspect that this is a survival characteristic, without which we would all be terminally depressed.

As such, I doubt that it is greatly affected by intelligence.

[Steve]

Re: Einstein

"Didn't Einstein say God does not play dice with the universe? I wonder what he would say about this research. "

He is reported to have said that as an attempt to argue against the theory of quantum mechanics. Fortunately he was wrong, if he hadn't been we wouldn't have an internet on which to talk about silly statistics.

There is a certain obviousness to the result though, you're more likely to pick up on the inherent contradictions in the common definitions of god if you are more intelligent. You are also more likely to recognise a logical paradox if you have been formally trained in logical analysis.

@John Hartmann

"Then why is that every atheist I have ever met has been a very low IQ prat that pretends to know everything?"

Because God hates you and he's smart enough not to send his own people to annoy you. Or maybe the intelligent atheists leave when they see you coming.

[Kenneth Ross]

Isaac Newton?

Might not have been exactly orthodox, but no doubt that he believed in God.

[fred]

oops

Manhatten part 2. lol. I'm with this practical joke http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Islam (since the thread is going this way)

[Guy Herbert]

Decline in pirates...

It might have done, you know: Fewer pirates > more shipping > increase in global wealth and health through trade and spread of technology > more population. Pity for the theory that piracy is on the rise.

That said, even though a correlation between religiosity and stupidity sounds plausible, the research as presented sounds awfully feeble. Why pick on FRSs and not, say, Bishops - or history dons - as a group representative of intelligence?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cause and effect

I don't think religion makes you stupid; but its not very conducive to actually USING your intelligence.

I've met a lot of very smart, but uneducated, people in my life; this leads me to believe that most people have reasonable intelligence, but they haven't always made good use of it.

Religion tends to suppress learning by claiming all answers are already known (you just have to read The Book very carefully), with the extreme case being denial of facts like "the Earth goes round the Sun" despite the evidence and use of violence to discourage real learning.

What this survey shows is that academics (people with enquiring minds) tend not to be religious; although it seems obvious, this is worth pointing out as it may encourage those who feel that their talents are being wasted in a religious culture to break free and actually use their natural abilities.

Religion is happy to waste peoples' talents and have them chanting in ignorence, billions of them, while the few who break free of the restraints move on and discover the real universe.

The irony is that religious fanatics are happy to make use of scientific learning and the resulting technology, but only to tighten their grip on the uneducated masses. I wonder if Iran would be able to develop nuclear technology if it hadn't already been done by others? I seems to me that this is just a cynical adoption of science and technology to ensure that their brand of religious intollerance can't be easily overthrown.

Man's understanding of the physical world, and the wider universe, is being increased by a small percentage of mostly non-religious people who have made full use of their intelligence, imagine how much could have been done without the shackles of religion.

Please note that I'm not saying that individual people with a religious belief haven't made a contribution to science and technology, but the overall effect of religious institutions has been to supress learning.

Anon because I'm sure that this will wind a few people up...

[Eric Olson]

Err

A couple of things. First, any test of intelligence, be it the much maligned IQ test, or the SAT and ACT for American college candidates, or the GRE, MCAT, LSAT, etc for graduate studies in various fields in the US, is adjusted occasionally to make the 100, or whatever the numerical scale is, to be the median of the bell curve. This is either done by altering the test to make it more difficult (or easier if the sample is consistently scoring lower than the old median) or by changing the scoring scale. So it is quite possible that through revisions of the testing procedures and scoring that the median today would have been 1 or even 2 Standard Deviations above the median in the past. Plus, while we might think otherwise due to things like Darwin Awards and news stories, I think that the general intelligence of the population have increased from what it was 100 years ago.

As to the IQ test in and of itself. People consistently rail against it, hating the idea that some words and figures on paper foretell how smart or dumb you are. Couple that with the other pop psychology out there and the focus on "other" intelligences, whether as a way to get grant money or to really try to make those who are "average" or "below average" feel better, and you have the confusion that is present.

However, there is a vast body of research and test results that indicate that IQ is positively correlated (as one goes up, so does the other) with job performance, school performance, GRE, SAT, and GCSE scores, longevity, income, and emotional health, while negatively correlated with crime, juvenile offenses, depression, smoking, being obese, and traumatic injury.

Now, these all range from correlations of +/- 0.81 (technically accounting for 66% of the variablity seen) to as little as +/-0.19. However, they are statistically significant, even if the effect size can be anywhere from large to small. Again, this is correlation, not causation. It's very difficult to ascertain causation when you can't set up multiple groups and introduce variables and controls. There are ways, but they are math-intensive. Without reading the actual paper by this researcher, I can't say what conclusions were drawn and why, and if the press (even the Reg) is misreading, misstating, or distorting the research... or if there was a poorly written press release by the researcher or journal.

[Mark]

Lesson 2

Don't listen to the talking snake. That goes double for the women...

[Dan]

@AC

"My point since 1985, now how do you get it into their thick skulls?"

You don't, you accept that the purpose of religion was to ensure law and order in ancient societies - i.e. pork meat is unclean (because we haven't worked out how to cure meat or invented fridges yet) so just trust us, don't eat it. Stupid person: "ok".

Note: NOT denigrating a particular religion above, merely making the point that religious beliefs provide guidelines for life, ensuring that less intelligent people are protected.

Scientist because, well if you have to ask, you're probably religious...

[Mark]

"The average IQ is by definition 100."

Unfortunately for you, that isn't the definition.

Not that the definition of IQ is much to talk about, either. Nor is the utility of IQ.

[Adair]

15 minutes of fame

...some people really are gagging for their fifteen minutes.

This puts me in mind of a wonderful treatise proving that tomato juice is the most poisonous substance on the planet. One piece of evidence cited for this 'fact' was that fish die when put into a bowl of tomato juice.

Now, if I can just interest you in this bottle of snake oil I happen to have...

[Anonymous Coward]

I Gess Smart Peepoll Kant Spel

Mine's the one with "Ownlee Tecknikill Ejookation Mattirz" on the back.

[Jonathan]

Average IQ...

I remember hearing that the average IQ is 100 because individual IQ is expressed as difference from the norm.

Now I dont know how IQ tests are scored, but surely one would have to adjust each test to get a mark out of (or over) 100? And that would mean you need to already know what the actual average is. For example, if there were a simple test where the maximum mark is 200, and the average for the population is 133, and you wanted to make it centred around 100, wouldnt you have to divide by 133 and multiply by 100?

I remember hearing about the use of a bell curve, but how would you know much to adjust each score to make them all average 100?

Personally though, I'm not surprised at all. Look at the US - its full of people who vote for Bush and think evolution is a lie. Coincidentally, most of those are Christian.

[Mark]

@combatwombat

Try this little bit of statistics.

Group A: God Botherers. Average intelligence 98. Standard Deviaton: 40

Group B: Rationalists. Average intelligence 102. Standard Deviation: 42

Group C: Me. Average intelligence +Inf. Standard Deviation: All of them.

[Chika]

As for me...

I'm just waiting for the inevitable FoTW...

[Anonymous Coward]

@ James 11:46 GMT

@ James - Didn't Einstein say God does not play dice with the universe?

This part of your comment seems to be apropos of nothing, however, yes he did say that. But as I remember it was because he didn't want to accept the possibility of probability (Quantum theory).

Since experimental proofs of quantum physics now exist it just goes to show that even Einstein can be wrong about some things, (and suffer from a tendency to superstion).

[Chris Hunt]

@James

"Didn't Einstein say God does not play dice with the universe?"

That's because there are so many of us in the universe to play dice with, and He can't be everywhere at once. Oh, hang on...

[Liam]

hmmm

finally :)

shock new in... people who believe in santa also not as clever :)

@ Panos

"Maybe they do, but they are also some of the most socially inept people as well. So how is that linked to religion then?" - thats just due to most academics being shunned by society, they often specialise so heavily in a specific area that they fail to grasp such basics as a sense of humour and social skills. a lot of academics (from experience) also have little or no common sense...

i think the thing is now that we can actually have a good stab at how it all started... rather than like in days or yore when our ancient cousins thought things like volcanoes were gods to be feared etc...

when arguing with a god botherer they still often fail to believe that evolution exists (we can PROVE it ffs lol) are seem blinkered into this religeous brainwashing

@ By JonB

"Announcing a paper that demonstrates that Muslim fundamentalists are stupid.." - erm, arent these the same 'brainboxes' that seem to think the way to win a war is to let one of your side kill themselves and hopefully take out 1 or 2 of the enemy. yeah - proper clever them lot eh? :) they also go heavily against their own religion (murder/suicide) to try and tell us how bad we are...

now all we need to do is rid our government of this foreign religeous nutter eh? :)

@ han Hartman - "Then why is that every atheist I have ever met has been a very low IQ prat that pretends to know everything?" i think in this day and age MOST of english society is athiest (im not talking of the immigrants here as we know many come from religious backgrounds). i know of very few people now that would call themselves religious. many people will say they are unsure, mainly i guess to hedge their bets.

@ By Hywel Thomas - "atheism and cake ?" - IM AN ATHIEST (since i was about 5!) and i love cake... hmmmm maybe you are onto something :)

[Mike]

IQ is not Intelugunce [sic]

The IQ "test" is flawed as, if you do two IQ tests (close to each other) you will normally score more on the second one, this is because you learn how to solve the problems, you're not magically smarter.

I had an officially tested IQ of 155 (genius) when I was in my early 20's, it's likely that it's dropped now due to the shift in knowlege, but I also scored as low as 120 about the same time. This measures logic and the ability to solve puzzles based on facts, the existence or otherwise of god can't be based on facts, because facts (truth) deny faith, and god "exists" only because of faith (see Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy).

Faith does not stand up to logic, and if you define intelligence as logic then yes, people of faith are stupid, but if you define intelligence as the ability to make an argument, breath of knowlege and ability to conjecture, then people of faith are not stupid.

Let's face it, Hitler (a man of faith) was very clever, and George Bush (a man of faith) isn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re. Religion teaches a lack of critical thinking.

To Chris: If you're going to use a quote, at least check your references:

You said "Lesson 1: don't eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge."

And the actual quote is "...you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge OF GOOD AND EVIL, for when you eat of it you will certainly die." (Gen. 2:17 - NIV. Emphasis mine)

In short - the knowledge implied here isn't about the ability to discern between good and evil. It's about the ability for Adam and Eve to make that decision for themselves, effectively ignoring God completely, for which God (if you believe the message of the book containing this quote) made his beings mortal.

Question: You're driving down an open road one night, and suddenly you see a moose in road: Do you A, swerve and/or stop to avoid it? Or do you B, ignore it completely and insist on driving through it anyway?

Which did you choose? Doesn't matter - that you've accepted the moose is (or perhaps might be) there and made a decision on that factor demonstrates some intelligence. Which is the right choice? Depends on whether you're willing to take the time out to see it from the Moose's perspective, really!

Conclusion:

More meaningful research please - Being clever, or even having a high IQ doesn't mean or imply wisdom, or just plain being right. Statistics in subjects like this are meaningless when one cannot control the subjects of study and record (and recreate) the response. Until that point, they are observations - not scientific facts.

[/sermon]

[Graham Dawson]

@Stewart

"Cogito ergo Deus absconditus"

I think, therefore god buggered off?

Speaking as a man holding religious views, I have to say I found this whole idea very silly. Of course I would say that, wouldn't I? I'm just a stoopid christian...

I would have hoped that the creators of the report read up on European history, though. It was syncretism (which my spell checker apparently doesn't recognise) between Greek philosophical thought and early Judeo-christian belief in a rational God that allowed the creation of our society. The idea within christianity for most of the last 2000 years is that God, being rational, would create a universe of rational rules that could be studied and discovered. The scientific principle eventually grew out of this belief in the rationality of the universe as expressed within the nicene creed and other christian get-togethers, which is why subsequent dips into irrationality and anti-scientism from the church were never able to last long. In one sense the very concept of the trinity is an odd mathematical problem that has promoted a very sharp mind. The arguments over that concept alone forced the great thinkers of the past to actually think. The idea of critical thinking is central to christian syncretism.

On top of which, by banning polygamy and banning concubinage, christian society removed one of the most potent disincentives to progress by giving the majority of men a chance to have their wife without the big man coming along and taking it away. On top of this, the removal of the power-plays and constant questing for favour from the male in polygamous marriages increased the rights of women incredibly. It also prevented inbreeding to a great extent, by reducing the ability of certain powerful men to dominate the gene pool, and consequently allowed a much greater genetic mixing to occur, and allowed smart people, who otherwise wouldn't have had the chance, to propagate. That was a side-effect of course; I doubt a bunch of priests got together and said "Lets increase our genetic viability!"

Then again, with priests, who knows?

All of these things are rational ideas. It was Christianity that propagated them across its sphere of influence. I freely admit that these ideas could have propagated in as many other ways as you can imagine but, it was a religion that actually *did* it and it was often the most fervent believers in that religion that were also, generally, the smartest, because christianity, for much of its life, encouraged rationality and education and provided an incentive for the ordinary man to improve himself. It's gone downhill a bit recently but that's just one of those things...

If you want another example then lets go to India. There, mathematicians were working with complex trigonometry and algebraic equations that would make your eyes water when the Arabs were still worshipping their pantheon and the Greeks still wondering what to call themselves while they hacked each other to pieces. They did it because they were inspired by their beliefs to seek out the rules that governed their lives, rules they believed were put in place by their gods to run the universe. I imagine some of it involved working out angles for the kama sutra as well but that's by the by, the main point is that their religious life encouraged this sort of highly critical thinking.

Whilst it's quite likely that critical thinking tends to lead to a rejection of religious ideas, I would doubt that the lack of a religious experience is a necessity for critical thinking. The idea that religion prevents critical thinking is false, as I hope I've demonstrated; what actually prevents critical thinking is a lack of critical thinking, and that can afflict even the most accomplished scientist if they've got their own little idea they don't want to give up. Just look at the whole AGW debate.

I do find it fascinating that the increase in atheism can actually be matched up to a general decrease in educational standards. It all depends how you draw the graph really. :)

[Law]

how long before...

... the religious nut jobs (as opposed to the nice ones) start proclaiming the researcher a tool of the devil, Satan's lapdog, and for people to start asking for their dismissal for blasphemy or something....

Anybody who's been watching Reaper recently know's how cool the devil can be though - he's a hoot!! :)

Demon-gates - just because.

[Damien Holley]

odd

Odd conclusions (although not unexpected from the psychological establishment)

two points:

1. IQ is probably the worst method of measuring intelligence given the majority of questions are not based around learning aptitude or reasoning, but already learned knowledge.

2. In my experience of the scientific community in general, (not just academics) my friends cover quantum physics, biology, chemistry, Rural science, Entomology, computer science, mathematics, . These range from full-blown PHD's down to Masters levels, most are published. Amongst these people, the proportion of people who believe in a God or something of that nature, is substationally higher than the rest of the population.

In fact if you look at major innovators and scientists of times past, you will find the majority who made major breakthroughs actually believed (or at least stated they did) in a god.

3. A problem with surveys is that often only those who feel strongly about something will fill them out. if a survey system was used here the results are already skewed.

[Jonny F]

Average IQ *can* increase over time

Average IQ can increase or decrease over time.

In year N you have the average test score, and define that test score as IQ 100.

In year n+1, you can find the average test score is higher. You define the average test score that year to have an IQ of 100, AND the average IQ went up.

What IQ or belief system do you need to understand that?

[Rob Pomeroy]

Ah good, more pointless expensive research

Surely all this "proves" is that those who are wealthy and better educated (let's call them 'Westerners') are more likely to be arrogantly self-sufficient? In some populous places such as India, average levels of education are very low and average levels of theistic belief (of varying kinds) are very high. But surely there are many more logicial inferences to be drawn than that there is a causal connection?

I wonder how much money was spent on this research...

For the record: way above average IQ. And way above average, rationalistic belief in God. Yes you did read that correctly.

[david wilson]

@Panos

>>"Academics have higher IQ - Maybe they do, but they are also some of the most socially inept people as well. So how is that linked to religion then?"

Maybe being socially ept is correlated with being able to confidently make statements one doesn't *really* believe in deep down -

"There is one God and His name is YHWH/Kevin/whatever"

"[deity] just happens to agree with all my personal prejudices"

"[deity] is merciful and loving. That's why [deity] just killed your child!"

"Yes, you *do* look nice in that"

"Wow, I'm *really* interested in your favourite football team or new car".

Maybe, for some, organised religion is good practice for lying with a straight face?

[breakfast]

Taking questions seriously

I wonder whether more academic types might spend a little more time thinking on the question "do you believe in god" than others, partly because they belong to a culture of questioning things in depth. People from other parts of society are perhaps more likely to answer without really thinking about it in the same way- if you were to examine the beliefs in both groups in more depth you may find people with similar beliefs giving different answers.

[The Power Of Greyskull]

High IQ?

Disappointingly, I notice that only 20% of those sampled were in the top fifth.

This is terrible - what can be done to improve matters?

[Anonymous Coward]

RE:Cause and effect

Sir, you speak nonsense...

1)"Religion tends to suppress learning by claiming all answers are already known ... with the extreme case being denial of facts like "the Earth goes round the Sun" despite the evidence...

This was actually a widely held scientific belief in the middle ages. The church chose the wrong side, but it was not about control, but poor maths (Science...)

2) "Religion is happy to waste peoples' talents and have them chanting in ignorance, billions of them, while the few who break free of the restraints move on and discover the real universe."

For example the many worlds theory, a belief biased in little more than an easy answered to the uncertainty principle.

3)"I seems to me that this is just a cynical adoption of science and technology to ensure that their brand of religious intolerance can't be easily overthrown."

The US claim this, Iran claims it wants nuclear power, surely an enlightened way forward given the problems the world has. The problem the US seems to have is that Iran wants to control its own power, and not buy their reactors, which would presumably come with the same tie ins and problems as US war teck the UK buys.

4)"Man's understanding of the physical world, and the wider universe, is being increased by a small percentage of mostly non-religious people who have made full use of their intelligence, imagine how much could have been done without the shackles of religion.

Please note that I'm not saying that individual people with a religious belief haven't made a contribution to science and technology, but the overall effect of religious institutions has been to suppress learning."

The start of genetics, astronomy, chemistry botany and mathematics was all laid down by Christians, mostly monks. Anatomy, medice, pharmacology by notable Muslims (who also had a big part in early maths and astronomy).

I find it strange how many evangelical atheists are happy to believe so many lies yet claim they are free from dogma.

[Old Fart]

Think For Yourself

The theism argument transcends time! No proponent/opponent will ever be able to convince the other side. The belief in a "supreme being" is a personal issue. Religion, on the other hand "poisons everything." Whether you are a card-carrying member of an organized religion or not, do yourself a favor and read Christopher Hitchens' "god Is Not Great." For you commuters, it's also available on a six-CD set.