THE THINKING CHRISTIAN

Some studies seem to suggest that religious people are less intelligent then agnostics and atheists.

Quote:

Association was stronger for college students and the general population than for participants younger than college age; it was also stronger for religious behaviour.  For college students and the general population, means of weighted and unweighted correlations between intelligence and strength of religious beliefs ranged from -.20 to -.25 mean r=-.24).  Three possible interpretations were discussed.  First intelligent A meta-analysis of 63 studies showed a significant negative association between intelligence and religiosity.  The people are less likely to conform and , thus, are more likely to resist religious dogma.  Second, intelligent people tend to adopt an analytic (as opposed to intuitive) thinking style, which has been shown to undermine religious beliefs.  Third, several functions of religiosity, including compensatory control, self-regulation, self-enhancement, and secure attachment, are also conferred by intelligence.  Intelligent people may therefore have less need for religious beliefs and practices.

Miron Zuckerman, Jordan Silberman and Judith A. Hall The Relation Between Intelligence and Religiosity: A Meta-Analysis and Some Proposal Explanations.

The present study examined whether IQ relates systematically to denomination and income within the framework of the g nexus, using representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY97).  Atheists score 1.95 IQ points higher than Agnostics, 3.82 points higher than liberal persuasions, and 5.89 IQ points higher than Dogmatic persuasions.  Denominations differ significantly in IQ and income.  Religiosity declines between ages 12 to 17.  It is suggested that IQ makes an individual likely to gravitate toward a denomination and level of achievement that best fit his or hers particular level of cognitive complexity.  Ontogenetically speaking this means that contemporary denominations are rank ordered by largely hereditary variations in brain efficiency (i.e. IQ).  In terms of evolution, modern Atheists are reacting rationally to cognitive and emotional challenges, whereas Liberals and, in particular Dogmatics, still rely on ancient, pre-rational, supernatural and wishful thinking.

Helmut Nyborg, The intelligence-religiosity nexus: A representative study of white adolescent Americans, Intelligence, Volume 37, issue 1, January-February 2009, Pages 81-93.

 End of quote.

I don’t know exactly how the authors behind the study came to their conclusion that religious people are less intelligent than agnostics and atheists.  How independent was their research?  What I do know is what’s said in the bible about the correlation between religion/faith and intellect, particularly in the new testament.  John 3:16 says already something, namely “That God so loved the world that he gave Jesus, so that anyone who believes in him would not perish, but have eternal life.”  And in 2 Corinthians 5:19 “That God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.”  Reconcile is what you do if you want to make things work again with someone else, don’t you?  In this case with everyone in the world who wants to reconcile, for God loves the whole world.  Nothing is said about how smart you have to be to reconcile.  But, God was in Christ, believed in what he was doing and was undoubtedly very intelligent.  Nice thing is, we are invited to be in Christ too!  The apostle Paul said “I am a man in Christ.”  Paul was definitely not a dummy, pretty academic really, had written almost half the new testament.  And the apostle Peter was a fisherman, didn’t do bad either, he wrote the other half, together with John, James, Mathew, mark and Luke, to name a few.  Some were academically minded, others to a lesser degree.  But, for God that makes no difference, because it clearly says in Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor freeman, man nor woman, for all are one in Christ.”  And so on, you could add to that “Neither intelligent nor less intelligent.”  It’s all the same!  Jesus is for everyone and he is the word that was in the beginning, the word that was with God, and the word was God, (John 1:1).  Word is a translation from the original text of the new testament, of the old Greek ‘logos’ that had a broad meaning.  I.e. an idea, thinking itself, opinion, speech, reason, discourse.  But in this case, it seems to refer to all of the cognitive abilities of God.  That same word became human and lived among us, it says in John 1:14.  Jesus that is!  And what is intellect when you are confronted with the one who put together the whole of the universe and who also understands the complexities of being human better then anyone and what we need.  And would that not be reserved for intelligent people, but only for the less intelligent?

It is perhaps significant that the message of Christ, that first took hold in Israel, got its greatest hearing in the then Greek speaking world.  Which is after all the cradle of western rational thinking, empiricism and scientific research in general.  The ancient Greeks really thought about everything under the sun.  Not for nothing they gave us words like philosophy, psychology, anthropology, theology, atom and many more that even today are part of our own language.  But the culture that took human thinking to unprecedented heights, also embraced the logic that is embedded in the gospel (message) of Jesus Christ.  Which is why many of the churches that are mentioned in the new testament were in the Greek regions.  Especially Paul the apostle worked very hard there.  It says in Acts 17 from verse 18 that in Athens a group of epicurean and stoic philosophers wanted to debate with him.  They took him to a meeting of the Areopagus, the place that also housed the highest court of Ancient Athens.  And they said “we would like to know about this new teaching that you are bringing.”  It so happened that the people of Athens and the strangers living there, more then anything else, loved to talk to talk about and listen to the latest ideas.  Paul took up the challenge and explained the gospel to those present.  When he spoke about the resurrection some of them began to ridicule him, but others said “we want to hear more of that!”  Some people even joined Paul and started to believe.  One of them was Dionysius, who was a member of the high court.  A judge no less who must have had considerable intellectual capacities to fill that function.  Yet, he was one of the people who believed.  If you take all these things into account than how can anybody say with certainty that religious people are generally less intelligent than agnostics and atheists?