On average how much more intelligent are atheists then Christians?

Question

There must be studies into this somewhere! does anyone know where?

Answer 1

approx. 40 - 60 IQ points.

Studies have revealed that Christians tend to do poorly on IQ test because they are unable to "think outside the box." It is also a reason why they tend to not do as well in school in subjects such as critical thinking, philosophy, etc.

16. Norman Poythress, 1975
Mean SATs for strongly anti-religious (1148), moderately anti-religious (1119), slightly anti-religious (1108), and religious (1022). So, thats an average difference of 126 points on an SAT test between a religious and non-religious persons.

And I just love how the Christians have nothing important to say about this other than you made a grammatical mistake.... Its not like you made a statement that Atheists ARE more intelligent - just that you posed a question. So, they make a personal attack, as they have no other weapons in their armament.....shame, eh?

Answer 2

What a childish and uninformed question. They aren't higher, intelligence is not based on religion, nor can it be measured thereby. When you take an I.Q. test, it is not Bible Trivia...It is common knowlege, which you would have know if you'd ever taken one.
I can tell you however that in school aged children, most of the times those from Christian homes tend to have the higher scores, because they know how to sit still, listen to the teacher, and actually retain what they have been told. Why don't you check out studies of homeschooled kids, (predominately Christian,) compared with those of public schools? At first the homeschooled kids scores were much higher -- that is until the kids who got kicked out of public school started homeschooling....and even though I haven't checked lately, I'd bet they still are.
The Christians that I know are very intelligent, some are millionaires... I.Q. scores of 127 and the like... Hate to disappoint you... Well, not really!


P.S. There is a difference in being blind - not being able to see the sun, and in closing your eyes and saying that the sun doesn't shine. Ignorant just means lack of knowledge, information, or awareness. To, me stupid is when you refuse to open your eyes, so you wander all your life in the dark, when all around you people are soaking up the suns warmth, and using solar energy... You get what I am saying, I hope. Doesn't take a really high I.Q. to figure that one out.

Answer 3

There are studies on this and most do seem to indicate atheists on average have higher intelligence then the "religious" however the studies are some what dubious.

Most were done by atheists out to prove that specific point and I'm not a aware of any that took a random sampling of average people, but instead were done with primarily students.

The reason this is significant is that more intelligent people are more likely to question what they grew up with, so at a young age they are likely to be atheists (as most parents are religious) but other surveys show as people develop life experience they are more likely to develop their own religious beliefs.

Answer 4

Yes there was a good study done at Ryerson U.
The studied 500 individuals from each.
Seems they found.....
Atheists
were prone to have 35% more debt (Out of 100,000k base)
Had an average of 3 friends (rounded off of course)
At least 1 child with behavioural problems
Alcoholism in 45% of Atheists.
Drug abuse 30%
25% had a criminal record.
Education was average 2 years of college.
85% had blue collar positions.

Christians
Had a 5% debt
Average of 8 friends (long term)
Alcoholism 2% Drugs 1.5%
10% had a criminal record
Education average of 4 years college
60% had positions of authority at work

The study is accurate to +/- 4 percentage points.
There is more which has to do with behaviour but I think it answers your question.

Answer 5

It has nothing to to with religious beliefs. It has everything to do with the individual. I have known some highly intelligent Christians and I have known a few Christians who were "knobs" of society. Just like atheists have their "knobs" and intellects. I would imagine the Christians derived from the southern United States perhaps might lack a few IQ points. There's even a stronger chance if you are a Christian and you spend more than 3 hours a week watching some Nascar related event, than yer a dumba*s. Well I better go. signed, a Christian who has some intelligence and only watched 45 minutes of Nascar weekly.

Answer 6

There will never be agreement, Christians define belief as a quality of intelligence, and the atheist takes the opposite stance. There have been many great discoveries in science made by people who call themselves Christian, although it's probably fair to say scientific advancement has been considerably held back by religious beliefs in the past. My personal position is that all religious belief is wrong. That doesn't make me more intelligent, although I'd like to think so...

Answer 7

Science, logic, reason, and critical thought have long been regarded (by religious people) as the enemies of religion. Considering that those are the tools of highly intelligent people, it should not come as a huge shock to learn that intelligence (or lack of it) has some connection to religious belief. In fact, there are about 40 studies, conducted over the past 80 years or so, that reveal a statistically significant NEGATIVE CORRELATION between intelligence and religiosity. In plainer language, that means that they found that the more intelligent a person is, the LESS likely that person is to be religious... or, reciprocally, the LESS intelligent a person is, the MORE likely that person is to be religious.

If you think about it, those findings make a lot of sense. Intelligence tests mainly provide an indication of reasoning ability and problem solving ability... logic, reason and critical thought. These are the very qualities that see through religion, and recognize it for what it is; i.e., religion cannot survive the glaring light of reason and critical thought. This was well understood by important figures in religious history. This is why the early church destroyed all the 'tainted' (non-canonical) writings, which were in conflict with dogma... Greek philosophy, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, engineering... all the good stuff. By this means, Christianity dragged humanity directly into the Dark Ages.

Just to illustrate the point, let's see what Martin Luther, the 'father' of protestantism, had to say about 'reason' and secular knowledge:

"Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God." ~ Martin Luther

"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but -- more frequently than not -- struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God." ~ Martin Luther

"There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason... Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed." ~ Martin Luther

"Reason should be destroyed in all Christians." ~ Martin Luther

Christianity is essentially a criminal business enterprise... in fact, it is the world's longest running and most successful Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) scam. The product they are selling is the illusion of 'salvation'... and the 'pay plan' doesn't kick in until after you're dead. Meanwhile the victims (having been deceived into believing that it is their God-given duty) are out there recruiting MORE victims. What a racket! FORTUNATELY, it only works on those who are gullible enough, and sufficiently lacking in critical thinking skills, to fall for it. UNfortunately, THAT accounts for about 75% of the population of the USA. (There are a lot more people who DON'T know how to think properly than there are people who DO know how to think properly.) That is why there are a lot more religious people in the USA than there are 'Free-thinkers'... including Atheists. Also, Christians are generally too dense to realize that proselytizing (spreading the 'good news') is a key element of the Christian MLM MARKETING PLAN, which was instituted after Christianity lost the political power that had previously allowed them to simply torture and kill anybody who did not comply. Now, they obliviously try to just pester and annoy people to death, through persistent obnoxiousness. If you stop to think about it, you will realize that Christians are very much like the Borg, on Star Trek Next Generation: "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." I would not be surprised to learn that thoughts of Christianity provided the 'creative spark' for the Borg concept.

Interestingly, statistics on supernatural beliefs count the USA on a par with backward, developing Third World nations, rather than among modern, advanced industrial powers.

Answer 8

Atheists are much more intelligent and civilized than Christians. Only an atheist has the capability to describe the secrets of the universe. Christianity was created thousands of years ago because mankind just couldn't comprehend something so complex at the time so they created a false god to make it seem simpler. I just told this to someone with another question about religion an hour ago. You should read it to understand my philosophies on the universe.

Answer 9

On average how much more intelligent are those with Blue eyes compared to those with Brown? Same queston different wording. There are very brilliant and very idiotic people too on both sides. So where do you fit? This is a stacked question in favor of atheist, too one sided if you want a non biased answer ask a non biased question.

Answer 10

The atheists do studies, but the Christians don't.. The atheists will become as intelligent as the christians when they have evolved another million years...