Do you think atheists are more intelligent than non atheists?

Hotale.com

In your experience I mean, the other atheism related thread was gone so far off topic that it makes more sense to open a new one.

In my experience? No, I've met atheists who are equally intelligent/dim as religious people and vice versa.

Don't talk about studies to a mad extent, keep it on a personal level if you can at all.

Vito Corleone

This won't go down well, but I'm going to be completely honest. When I find out someone is a theist I immediately see them as intellectually inferior. I've just always found all that stuff ridiculous and I find it sort of comical when I hear adults believe in it.

Hotale.com

Vito Corleone wrote: »

This won't go down well, but I'm going to be completely honest. When I find out someone is a theist I immediately see them as intellectually inferior. I've just always found all that stuff ridiculous and I find it sort of comical when I hear adults believe in it.

Honesty is the best policy

sullivlo

I personally think that atheists tend to be more intelligent because they haven't been taught not to question things. They seek answers through experiments and research rather than believe that the world was created in 7 days and a stale wafer is some dead lads flesh.

bnt

I honestly hadn't thought about the question until I saw articles such as this one in the Daily Mail, which quoted from a study:

The University of Rochester psychologists behind the study defined religion as involvement in some or all parts of a belief.

They defined intelligence as the ‘ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience’.

In their conclusions, they said: ‘Most extant explanations (of a negative relation) share one central theme - the premise that religious beliefs are irrational, not anchored in science, not testable and, therefore, unappealing to intelligent people who ‘know better’.

‘Intelligent people typically spend more time in school - a form of self-regulation that may yield long-term benefits.

‘More intelligent people getting higher level jobs and better employment and higher salary may lead to higher self-esteem, and encourage personal control beliefs.’

Note that these are statistical results. They tell you about trends in large populations of people. They do not tell you anything about individuals, and should not be read as such.

I don't have an opinion on this. What I think is irrelevant. What does the data show?

srsly78

Werner Heisenberg wrote:

“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”

The smart ballsy guys are agnostic :P

Banjo String

I don't know and couldn't give a shiny fcuk.

If someone could just get atheists to stop fcuking ramming their atheism down my throat, that'd be great.

They're as bad as Bible bashers tbh, quite Ironic they don't see that though.

Zulu

I tend to find anyone who sees themselves as intellectually superior as sadly damaged. As damaged as anyone else. Just naive to think they are more special then anyone else. Sad really

wazky

Why is it when you say your not an atheist you have the 'ah sure how could he rise from the dead or turn water into a merlot?'

Being religious encompasses many faiths and interpretations, doesn't mean your a die hard, pedal to the metal Roman Catholic.

Micky Dolenz

I don't know what to say.