Diogenes, are you out there? Statistics? Intelligence?

Question

Diogenes said, "Statistics show that atheists tend to be more intelligent, much better educated, and considerably older than the average Christian."

I assume Diogenes considers himself one of the "atheists" who are of "higher intelligence than the average "Bible reading" Christian and yet, he failed to back up his statistics.

That is not very intelligent. Show the source for such an inflamatory statement like that!

Any one else is free to answer this question too:

Where are or who issued the "Statistics [that] show (that) atheists tend to be more intelligent, much better educated, and considerably older than the average Christian?"

And BTW Diogenes, what a coward, no e-mail allowed to you right! And so I post it on Answers for everyone to judge!

Good source JP and Salient - anything more recient than 1978 - that is 29 years old!

Scratch that: Bad Source - That site is filled with all kinds of garbage and strewn with viruses - it is a web site partially dedicated to Christian bashing - not all of the studies were conclusive, all of them were very old and not all proved the statements that accompanied them .... so over all Really bad source - I will try to find the original article from SA. Keep trying!

Answer 1

I don't know who Diogenes is on here, but the real Diogenes was a cynic, and Greek philosopher. He was born in Sinope (in modern day Sinop, Turkey) about 412 BC (according to other sources 399 BC), and died in 323 BC at Corinth. Details of his life come in the form of anecdotes ("chreia") from Diogenes Laërtius, in his book The Lives of Eminent Philosophers.

Diogenes of Sinope is said to have been a disciple of Antisthenes, a cynic about whom Plato says in Phaedo was present at the death of Socrates. Diogenes, a beggar who made his home in the streets of Athens, made a virtue of extreme poverty. He taught contempt for human achievements and a return to animalism. His was a relentless campaign to debunk social values and institutions.

Diogenes believed human beings live artificially and hypocritically and would do well to study the dog. Besides performing natural bodily functions in public without unease, a dog will eat anything, and make no fuss about where to sleep. Dogs live in the present without anxiety, and have no use for the pretensions of abstract philosophy. In addition to these virtues, dogs are thought to know instinctively who is friend and who is foe. Unlike human beings who either dupe others or are duped, dogs will give an honest bark at the truth.

Diogenes was a self-appointed public scold whose mission was to demonstrate to the the ancient Greeks that civilization is regressive. He taught by living example that wisdom and happiness belong to the man who is independent of society. Diogenes scorned not only family and political social organization, but property rights and reputation.

The most shocking feature of his philosophy is his rejection of normal ideas about human decency. Performance artist, exhibitionist and philosopher, Diogenes is said to have eaten in the marketplace, urinated on the man who insulted him, defecated in the ampitheatre, and pointed at people with his middle finger. Sympathizers considered him a devotee of reason and an exemplar of honesty. Detractors have said he was an obnoxious ragpicker and an offensive churl.

Despite having apparently nothing but disdain for Plato and his abstract philosophy, Diogenes bears striking resemblance to the character of Socrates. He shared Socrates' belief that he could function as doctor to men's souls and improve them morally, while at the same time holding contempt for their obtuseness ("a-tuphos").

It seems as though the Diogenes on Yahoo Answers thinks himself better than the rest of civilized humanity and all he actually turns out is to be the offensive, uneducated, uninformed cad he believes the rest of society to be.

As to the post previous to this by Salient2, the most recent study listed there, albeit long-winded and uninformative, was in 1980, and in every case, pitted the scientific and educational communities against standard society. The "scientific community" and "educational community" for many years and internationally speaking, has been staunchly against anything that is faith-based and has worked diligently to stamp out anything that promotes religious faith simply because they have none. The findings cannot be trustworthy, then, since the testers themselves have a vested interest in the outcome of the results. They are tainted, like evidence in a trial that has been collected by a CSI who is the wife of the person who was murdered.

Even you admit that "The contemporaneous Gallup poll showed 2/3 of US population believed in afterlife, so scientists were far less religious than typical adult."

Just because they make their money in education or science does not mean that they are more intelligent than the typical adult. Einstein himself stated that the more he studied the universe, the more he believed in a higher power. Your citings and lists prove nothing and show even less to people of faith.

Hope this helps...

Answer 2

Source:

http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Jesus/Intelligence%20&%20religion.htm

Answer 3

I haven't any morals, yet my IQ is bordering on genius, and that i'm in an somewhat low payed interest (presently, approximately to return to examine, to have the flexibility to stroll in to a intense payed interest) so the place does this placed me on your theory-approximately morality?

Answer 4

Only Atheists are smart enough to understand the statistics.

Answer 5

Paraphrased and summarized from The Effect of Intelligence on Religious Faith, Burnham P. Beckwith, _Free Inquiry_, Spring 1986:


1. Thomas Howells, 1927
Study of 461 students showed religiously conversative students "are, in general, relatively inferior in intellectual ability."

2. Hilding Carlsojn, 1933
Study of 215 students showed that "there is a tendency for the more intelligent undergraduate to be sympathetic toward ... atheism."

3. Abraham Franzblau, 1934
Confirming Howells and Carlson, tested 354 Jewish children, 10-16. Negative correlation between religiosity and Terman intelligence test.

4. Thomas Symington, 1935
Tested 400 young people in colleges and church groups. He reported, "there is a constant positive relation in all the groups between liberal religious thinking and mental ability...There is also a constant positive relation between liberal scores and intelligence..."

5. Vernon Jones, 1938
Tested 381 stydents, concluding "a slight tendency for intelligence and liberal attitudes to go together."

6. A. R. Gilliland, 1940
At variance with all other studies, found "little or no relationship between intelligence and attitude toward god."

7. Donald Gragg, 1942
Reported an inverse correlation between 100 ACE freshman test scores and Thurstone "reality of god" scores.

8. Brown and Love, 1951
At U. of Denver, tested 613 male and female students. Mean test scores of non-believers = 119, believers = 100. Percentile NBs = 80, BBs = 50. Their findings "strongly corroborate those of Howells."

9. Michael Argyle, 1958
Concluded that "although intelligent children grasp religious concepts earlier, they are also the first to doubt the truth of religion, and intelligent students are much less likely to accept orthodox beliefs."

10. Jeffrey Hadden, 1963
Found no correlation between intelligence and grades. This was an anomalous finding, since GPA corresponds closely with intelligence. Other factors may have influenced the results at the U. of Wisconsin.

11. Young, Dustin and Holtzman, 1966
Average religiosity decreased as GPA rose.

12. James Trent, 1967
Polled 1400 college seniors. Found little difference, but high-ability students in his sample group were over-represented.

13. C. Plant and E. Minium, 1967
The more intelligent students were less religious, both before entering college and after 2 years of college.

14. Robert Wuthnow, 1978
Of 532 students, 37% of christians, 58% of apostates, and 53 percent of non-religious scored above average on SATs.

15. Hastings and Hoge, 1967, 1974
Polled 200 college students and found no significant correlations.

16. Norman Poythress, 1975
Mean SATs for strongly antireligious (1148), moderately anti-religious (1119), slightly antireligious (1108), and religious (1022).

17. Wiebe and Fleck, 1980
Studied 158 male and female Canadian university students. The reported "nonreligious S's tended to be strongly intelligent" and "more intelligent than religious S's.

Student Body Comparisons-

1. Rose Goldsen, Student belief in a divine god, percentages 1952. Harvard 30; UCLA 32; Dartmouth 35; Yale 36; Cornell 42; Wayne 43; Weslyan 43; Michigan 45; Fisk 60; Texas 62; N. Carolina 68.

2. National Review Study, 1970 Students Belief in Spirit or Divine God.
Percentages: Reed 15; Brandeis 25; Sarah Lawrence 28; Williams 36; Stanford 41; Boston U. 41; Yale 42; Howard 47; Indiana 57; Davidson 59; S. Carolina 65; Marquette 77.

3. Caplovitz and Sherrow, 1977
Apostasy rates rose continuously from 5% in "low" ranked schools to 17% in "high" ranked schools.

Niemi, Ross, and Alexander, 1978
In elite schools, organized religion was judged important by only 26%, compared with 44% of all students.

Studies of Very-High-IQ groups.

1. Terman, 1959
Studied group with IQ > 140. Of men, 10% held strong religious belief, of women 18%. 62% of men and 57% if women claimed "little religious inclination" while 28% men and 23% of women claimed it was "not at all important."

2. Warren and Heist, 1960
Found no differences among National Merit Scholars. Results may have been effected by the fact that NM scholars are not selected on the basis of intelligence or grades alone, but also on "leadership" and such like.

3. Southern and Plant, 1968
42 male and 30 female members of Mensa. Mensa members were much less religious in belief than the typical American college alumnis or adult.



1. William S. Ament, 1927
C. C. Little, president U. of Michigan, checked persons listed in _Who's Who in America_: "Unitarians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists,
Universalists, and Presbyterians are ... far more numerous in _Who's Who_ than would be expercted on the basis of the population which they form. Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics are distinctly less numerous."

Ament confirmed Little's conclusion. He noted that Unitarians, the least religious, were more than 40 times as numerous as in the U.S. population.

2. Lehman and Witty, 1931
Identified 1189 scientists found in both _Who's Who_ (1927) and _American Men of Science_ (1927). Only 25% in _AM of S_ and 50% of those listed in _W'sW_ reported their religious denomination despite the specific requests to do so, "religious denomination (if any)." Well over 90% of the general population claims religious affiliation. The figure of 25% suggest far less religiosity among scientists. Unitarians were 81.4 times as numerous among eminent scientists as non-Unitarians.

3. Kelley and Fisk, 1951
Found a negative (-.39) correlation between the strength of religious values and research competence. [How these were measured I have no idea.]

4. Ann Roe, 1953
Interviewed 64 "eminent scientists, nearly all members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences or the American Philosophical Society. She reported that, while nearly all of them had religious parents and had attended Sunday school, 'now only three of these men are seriously active in church. A few others attend upon occasion, or even give some financial support to a church which they do not attend... All the others have long since dismissed religion as any guide to them, and the church plays no part in their lives...A few are militantly atheistic, but most are just not interested.'"

5. Francis Bello, 1954
Questionaired or interviewed 107 young (<= 40) nonindustrial scientists judged by senior colleagues to be outstanding. 87 responded. 45% claimed to be "agnostic or atheistic" and an additional 22% claimed no religious affiliation. For 20 most eminent, "the proportion who are now a-religious is considerably higher than in the entire survey group."

6. Jack Chambers, 1964
Questionaired 740 US psychologists and chemists. He reported, "the highly creative men [jft- assume no women included] ... significantly more often show either no preference for a particular religion or little or no interest in religion." Found that the most eminent psychologists showed 40% no preference, 16% for the most eminent chemists.

7. Vaughan, Smith, and Sjoberg, 1965

Polled 850 US physicists, zoologists, chemical engineers, and geologists listed in _American Men of Science_ (1955) on church membership, and attendance patterns, and belief in afterlife. 642 replies.

38.5% did not believe in afterlife, 31.8% did. Belief in immortality was less common among major university staff than among those employed by business, government, or minor universities. The contemporaneous Gallup poll showed 2/3 of US population believed in afterlife, so scientists were far less religious than typical adult.