If religious people are as smart as atheists...?

Question

Why do less than 1/3 of students at Harvard believe in God in a country where 90% do outside of it?

Also, why is the national IQ rising and Christianity declining? Is this just a coincidence?

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

I'm just trolling, guys.

Answer 1

I don't know......a smart person like yourself should know the answer shouldn't they?

Answer 2

Not all the smart people go to Harvard.

You have to pretty much get a straight A average to get into BYU these days. 99.9 percent of those students believe in God. So what exactly is your point?

The IQ is rising because more people than ever are getting a college education.
Christianity is declining, if it even is I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt, because our society is becoming more self involved and would rather worship their cars on sunday than God.
Noone is getting smarter then deciding not to become a christian. Usually people drop out of their religion at high school/college level, not because they no longer believe in God, but because they no longer want to follow the rules of their religion.

Answer 3

being wise and smart are 2 different things. There are very intelligent people who do believe in God, so please do not say that I agree that I agree that atheists are smarter.What I do believe, it takes wisdom to be the person that God wants us to be,'He will frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent" is a quote from scripture. If atheists are as smart as you say that they are, how come they don't believe in God. Just a thought!!

Answer 4

Hmmm... Then Isaac Newton must've been pretty dumb then.

Anyway, your statistics are completely out of wack. I really doubt the truth in those polls, because I am sure that the general number of people out there who truly believe in God and consider Him to be their personal savior is far, far less than 90%, sadly. I think the migority of Americans don't really go strongly in either direction, I think most believe something along the lines of "Oh, I guess there could maybe be a God, and I guess maybe I'll go to heaven after I die, if I do go anywhere, but I don't really care... What effect does it have on me?"

How smart is it to think that this fantastic, incredible, complex world full of all this amazing, detailed stuff for these geniuses to study is an accident that just exploded out of nowhere?

Answer 5

It's not a matter of mere cognitive capacity. President Bush is a Yale graduate who's unable to make a speech without saying something silly; and he's far from the only one. IQ is a useful measure of certain forms of intelligence but it doesn't give us the whole picture.

I think that most believers -- including the fundie types -- are at least as smart as me. The only difference that I can see, is that their need for authority and direction in their lives (and even in their thinking) is stronger than their need for independence. They believe because they need to believe, not because they think they're right.

Answer 6

It says at your website that atheists are more willing to help the poor. I would define that as being kind, which you are not being when you ask this question. Do you think some Christian is going to say,"Gee! My IQ is 140. I guess I'll quit believing"? Your question doesn't change any more minds than similar questions from Christians.

Answer 7

Actually, your statistics confirm a teaching of Jesus, who said "... the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." Luke 16:8.

Therefore, if the "children of light" were as smart as nonbelievers, Jesus would be wrong, and would lose his claim to infallible authority.

Furthermore, Paul taught this was actually God's way of snookering the wise:

"But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty" 1 Corinthians 1:27.

So if Jesus and Paul are wrong, then we are just as smart as you and you should listen to our arguments in favor of our religion, even though we have erring leaders. But if they are right, y'all are smarting yourselves right into a big hurt. Delicious dilemma, don't you think?

Answer 8

While you're doing research see what the percentage is for Notre Dame. Oh yeah, when a person is on their death bed should they pray to the chancellor of Harvard?

Answer 9

Hey that's a great question! More people are wising up to reality and not just following family tradition of religious lives. We 4 kids are all atheists but mom and dad don't really know this, and they still believe all that stuff.

Answer 10

Having faith in God doesn't make people stupid, but it doesn't require much intelligence either. It's a lot easier to believe in something based on nothing if you don't think things through.

Answer 11

I don't think it's coincidence at all...

There are a good number of Christian sects that fail to recognize the value of an unbiased educational system, and that tend to place their emphasis on religious education rather than on the traditional areas of study that one would expect to find at secularly operated school. Putting large amounts of their limited number of educational dollars into teaching useless dogma is rather foolish, isn't it? Perhaps that kind of thinking is the greatest difference between a school like Harvard and one like BYU.

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