Why is level of education inversely correlated with religiosity?

Question

...A simple question to hear people's explanations of the trend.

Answer 1

Education requires an open and inquisitive mind and a willingness to learn facts.
On the other hand religion requires a closed mind and blind faith regardless of facts.

Answer 2

Religious education (which exists!!?) omits usually all knowledge which does not fit in its concept.
Education normally should incite you to go forward, ask questions and search for the right answers, where the religions have only one answer, the easy one.
But don't forget, that a lot of scientist had a religious education. The Jesuits schools were very famous. The monks promoted the knowledge and kept it for us alive.
You can be religious and open minded. Heisenberg said once, that he sees God in the quantum movements.
You can believe in God without taking the bible by the letter.

Just got a look on new answers.
Granny Annie, you're another example for what I said!

Answer 3

Helllooo, where did you get that hare-brained idea?

I hold three, count 'em, THREE doctorates, plus a master's. I wouldn't call that UNeducated. I read, write and where the pronunciation is known, speak 17 languages, 12 of them dead. I'm a theologian (comparative and dogmatic), an anthropologist (specialty in archaeology), and a geologist (specialty in early land vertebrate paleontology).

You dumb down the populace with the current public school system and of course you're gonna get a bunch of yayhoos who can't spell their own names the same way twice. That has a lot more to do with liberal, "sophisticated", anti-theistic educational experimentation than with any religious faith.

Add to that the philosophy that he who grabs the mostest is the bestest and the results are as we see all around us. But NEVER make the mistake of thinking that only the UNthinking have faith!

Do NOT judge the Faith by the examples set by fundamentalists whose motto is "Leave your brain in the lobby and welcome aboard." That's as unthinking as anything you're railing against!

Answer 4

i dont think you have a leg to stand on in that statement:
level of education is inversely correlated to religiosity

Answer 5

Why is level of education inversely correlated with religiosity?

It isn't. While polls may indicate that statistically this is the greater case, it is not a relationship that has a direct correlation whereby as a person's education increases to a certain level they will have no religion whatsoever or if a person has no formal education they are guaranteed to hold religious beliefs.

There are many intelligent atheists and there are also many ignorant atheists.

Here's one example to demonstrate the point about Christians.

http://www.tektonics.org/scim/sciencemony.htm

Scientists of the Christian Faith: A Presentation of the Pioneers, Practitioners and Supporters of Modern Science

This listing is by no means definitive, or complete. There are/have been literally thousands of Christians involved in the sciences.

Dr. Francis S. Collins is Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He currently leads the Human Genome Project, directed at mapping and sequencing all of human DNA, and determining aspects of its function. His previous research has identified the genes responsible for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington's disease and Hutchison-Gilford progeria syndrome. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. For the rest of his credentials, click on the link here: http://www.genome.gov/10000980. Collins spoke with Bob Abernethy of PBS, posted online at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/transcripts/collins.html, in which he summaries the compatability of fact and faith thusly:

"I think there's a common assumption that you cannot both be a rigorous, show-me-the-data scientist and a person who believes in a personal God. I would like to say that from my perspective that assumption is incorrect; that, in fact, these two areas are entirely compatible and not only can exist within the same person, but can exist in a very synthetic way, and not in a compartmentalized way. I have no reason to see a discordance between what I know as a scientist who spends all day studying the genome of humans and what I believe as somebody who pays a lot of attention to what the Bible has taught me about God and about Jesus Christ. Those are entirely compatible views.

"Science is the way -- a powerful way, indeed -- to study the natural world. Science is not particularly effective -- in fact, it's rather ineffective -- in making commentary about the supernatural world. Both worlds, for me, are quite real and quite important. They are investigated in different ways. They coexist. They illuminate each other. And it is a great joy to be in a position of being able to bring both of those points of view to bear in any given day of the week. The notion that you have to sort of choose one or the other is a terrible myth that has been put forward, and which many people have bought into without really having a chance to examine the evidence. I came to my faith not, actually, in a circumstance where it was drummed into me as a child, which people tend to assume of any scientist who still has a personal faith in God; but actually by a series of compelling, logical arguments, many of them put forward by C. S. Lewis, that got me to the precipice of saying, 'Faith is actually plausible.' You still have to make that step. You will still have to decide for yourself whether to believe. But you can get very close to that by intellect alone."

Answer 6

A higher rate of gullibility makes you more prone to be drawn it to religions and its imaginary gods. The more education a person has the less likely he or she is to be very gullible.

Answer 7

1) The religionist's answer - Education causes you to trust more in yourself and less in God.
2) The atheist's (and my) answer - The more education you have, the more you are likely to realize that religion is a sham.

Take your pick.
.

Answer 8

The more education you get, the harder it becomes to believe what religions claim

Answer 9

Religion is more attractive to the ignorant

Answer 10

Because the more you accept what is wrong the more you refuse what is right