Are atheists smarter than Christians?

Question

Yes, this has been done, but I have not seen the angle I am taking.

I am not going to posit "belief in God is stupid," or "smart people follow scientific theory." No...instead I am going to base my question on a very simple observation:

The average Christian on Yahoo! Answers clearly has a less ability to write a coherent sentence that adheres to the grammatical rules of English than the average atheist here.

I've noticed this frequently. I find myself giving a "thumbs down" every time I run across a Christian whose answer to damn near every question is a variation on

cuz god sez to do eet

You don't find reasoned arguments where facts are laid out, followed by reasonable argumentation from those facts (even if it was argumentation from Scripture, that would be a start). And too often, you don't even find such niceties as proper punctuation, spelling, and other grammatical necessities, even though there is a spell check available!

Why is that?

Reading some of the first answers to this question, I can't help but wonder if some people are very clever when it comes to irony...

...or ironically just very stupid.

Details Part 2:

To the chick with the silly comment about "writing sentences with big words."

Yes, I do think I am smarter than you, because I can write sentences using big words.

That pretty much PROVES that I am smarter than you, by nearly any measure of intelligence. That is why writing ability is tested in school.

I could foam at the mouth about "blah blah blah I are t3h sm4rt3r cuz I r a big money making people and I solve Riemann sums in my hed" but that would be pointless because it's unverifiable. I could be making it up.

On the other hand, everyone here can see how well I write, and how well you write.

You'd understand that if you were smarter than you are.

Details part 3!

There's a lot of "Some Christians are really smart and some atheists are really dumb" and "some people speak other languages and don't write well."

You missed an important part of my question: the concept of the "average" Christian or atheist.

I'm pretty sure being foreign isn't going to have a huge impact on the averages. There's going to be just as many foreign people who do not know how to write well of either camp.

The fact that some people of this group are smart and blah blah blah really does not address the "average" writing ability of either Christians or atheists on this site at all.

My argument was relatively narrow, so please stick to criticizing it on its own merits.

Answer 1

I understand the word "smart" to refer to native intelligence and I simply cannot bring myself to accept that Christians are fundamentally stupid or that they lack the ability to learn. I think the effect you are describing is attributable to education. There is no doubt that the more education a person has, the less likely they are to be a Believer. This has been confirmed time and again and in a variety of cultures.

Also, I used to belong to Mensa and they did a survey among their own membership. They found belief had little to do with intelligence, at least among a population of folks with 130+ IQ's. They did find an inverse correlation to education. My memory can't recall the exact statistics but I recall high school graduates were roughly 90% Believers and PhD's were about 70% Non-believers. I know with certainty that the membership of the National Academy of Sciences, America's finest scientists, is 94% positive atheists.

I conclude it's not about smart/stupid, but rather educated/ignorant. When I grow weary of the hostility here, I visit the hard science forums. The folks there are much more civilized. (Present company excepted, of course.)

Answer 2

Because the modern computer world, has come on us all, and the modern speech is here as well.
Personally, I use MSN quite a lot, and I will you the "MSN language" when I am chatting, but when I am on Yahoo answers, all my answers are in proper English. I am a 15 yr old Born again Christian, I am in year 12, I have a high English academic standard, and I disagree with you, that atheists are smarter. I have an IQ of 125. Personally, my opinion is that you Atheists are the ones with problems, one day you will stand before God, and give an account. Oh! And there won't be any people "Telling God a thing or 2" All because some Christians use improper English, doesn’t make them a mentally disabled person. Maybe we would like to go around, and count the amount of Atheists that use bad English in public eh? It goes both ways, improper online English is universally accepted, and all because you're an atheist, and saw a few spelling errors here and there, by good Christians, doesn’t give you an excuse to come and flame down all the Christians, with the fact that Atheists are smarter. I'm a born again Christian, I go to a Conservative Baptist Church, and I'm proud of my Christianity.
Thanks

Answer 3

Yes, I have noticed that some people don't spell everything correctly and don't always use the proper punctuation but I overlook it. As long as I can understand what they are trying to say, then I just read it and go on. I haven't really noticed if the writers are Christian or atheists.

What I find so amazing is some of the views that people have. I must lead a sheltered life because I have never known personally anyone who claimed to be an atheist. I have never heard of anyone having such harsh opinions against people who try and live for God.

By the way, I do occasionally use Spell Check when I think I might need to. I hope I'm not one of those illiterate Christians that you are referring to.

Answer 4

Generally even though I am a Christian I would have to say Atheist have more education. That doesn't mean they have disproven God by any means but being presented with every viewpoint of the world can lead you to question the validity of your own more often. WHen someone generally lives in a bubble where Christianity is accepted and other viewpoints are not experienced then they will not leave this. It is interesting to see second and third generation atheists though because a lot of them stick to their family's tradition in a similar unquestioning manner and have much worse arguments. Hippies are a good example.
You should not assume this means Christianity has no logical backing though because many atheists such as CS Lewis and Lee Strobel have become Christians through intellectual investigation.

Answer 5

Most christians are hard working and always on the go. They don't have time to think about why there here and they just accept a simple lie to make their lives seem to have meaning.
I wouldn't call myself an atheist exactly, but I'm lazy so I have quite a bit of free time to think and come up with the conclusion that no one can really proove with-in ashadow of a doubt what they are preaching or researching. The reason I don't nessacarily consider myself an atheist is because I hope that there is more to life than just death(reincarnation, God, angels...) because if there isn't why do we insist on maintaining this life.

Answer 6

Not everyone has English as their first language. You shouldn't ridicule the people who speak English as a second language because if you learned and spoke Urdu I would say you were an intelligent person even if you didn't speak it perfectly. Learning an entire language is not that simple. As for those who speak English as a first language, I can't defend them. I don't think there is a correlation between intelligence and non-belief in God. Instead, I think it has to do with the fact that most atheists are educated people and don't have the need to believe in God after they find explanations through scientific reasoning. There are few atheists who don't have an understanding of evolution. So yeah, atheists are smart people but it doesn't mean believing in God is a sign that you are unintelligent and are unable to be open minded.

*praying that I made no grammatical mistakes* :P


edit: ok..but I said that because the 2nd poster was voted down even though her first language was not english. Thats the reason for my rant. I'm not christian, btw.

Answer 7

Smartness has nothing to do with christianity or atheism. There are smart atheists and there are smart Christians. On the other hand, there are also dumb atheists, and there are dumb Christians. One cannot be too simplistic with this, nor can one use generalities.

And then, there are people who have never learned to talk or write in good grammatical English, even college graduates, and that is a shame. Most educated foreigners who have a different mother tongue can write and speak more grammatical English than U.S. born Americans. I think it is because Americans take things for granted and do not think it is important to speak in English correctly, but that is a shame, because it is your own language. You should be proud of it.
Although I have adopted the USA as my own and have become a naturalized citizen 20-some years ago, I always strive to speak and to write in a way that is decent and gramatically correct.

Answer 8

Atheists tend to think about these questions and put a good deal of thought into their answers. I think most of the christian respondents on Y!A only know how to parrot what they've read on a website or have been told by their pastor. They're not likely to look critically at what it is they believe because that would be anathema to their faith. Such behaviour is stifled at a very early age in a christian's life. I know. I was one up until I was about 12 and began questioning.

Now, that's not to say that christians don't have critical thinking skills or aren't intelligent. I'm sure many are quite adept at cynicism and skepticism in their daily lives. They are simply incapable of using the same systems of logic when it pertains to anything that has to do with their faith.

As to the deliberately poor grammar and refusal to use spell checking. I believe that is purely generational. Younger people today rush at anything they do on the internet. That's why they use 'cuz' instead of 'because'.

Also, this is a leisure activity for many and I don't think they see the significance of posting on the internet because it seems like such a temporary realm. I've always thought of every idea and word I write as my legacy, to be of lasting value and importance. I like to make sure I get my ideas across clearly and hope they have some impact. Even seemingly inconsequential opinions like this.

Answer 9

What I find so amazing is some of the views that people have. I must lead a sheltered life because I have never known personally anyone who claimed to be an atheist. I have never heard of anyone having such harsh opinions against people who try and live for God.

By the way, I do occasionally use Spell Check when I think I might need to. I hope I'm not one of those illiterate Christians that you are referring to.

Answer 10

It's what I like to call text messagese. I've joked in the past that God says "thou shall not murder" and yet Christians go about murdering the English language on a daily basis here.

In general, atheist questions and answers tend to be easier to read, and follow the rules of grammar closer. If this leads to smarter (as one could easily assume) then yes. This obviously, as I'm sure has been pointed out above me, is not black and white, as I have seen some very stupid atheists, and some well read Christians. I just don't get how people who type like in your example, can be so sure they have the truth when it's obvious they haven't done a lot of reading.