Atheists vs. theists in terms of intelligence

How come atheists are so much smarter than theists in general? Like for example, 71% of the National Academy of the Sciences is atheist while the general population of the USA is 3% atheist. And in places like the UK, the Royal Society is like 91%...

atheist. And for surveys on the great scientists, atheists are sitting on the 75% mark, way ahead of the 3% of the general world population. What could be the reason for this?

Sources:

A study has shown atheism in the west to be particularly prevalent among scientists, a tendency already quite marked at the beginning of the 20th century, developing into a dominant one during the course of the century. In 1914, James H. Leuba found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected U.S. natural scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God (defined as a personal God which interacts directly with human beings). The same study, repeated in 1996, gave a similar percentage of 60.7%; this number is 93% among the members of the National Academy of Sciences. Expressions of positive disbelief rose from 52% to 72%

***The parents of the scientists created these scientists. The scientists themselves created their own ideas.***

But who created those parents and granparents and other generations and the world and the UNIVERSE for that matter? Scientists ONLY have theories to explain it, there is no concrete proof. I agree that it does make more sense that religion but TO ME personally there has to be some degree of faith to explain what science can't explain.

Also to get back to your original questions. I think the reason why poorer people choose religion.. is well. because the are poor and generally uneducated and don't understand the more complex world of science and all that. Also religion gives them faith to believe that there is more to this HELL HOLE of a world that they are currently living in.

Also in the article you are speaking OF scientists, which doesn't make out that LARGE a portion of the population. Many well educated people in other industries are theists. So in order to see if atheists are really that much more cleverer that theists, we'll need to see some world figures of atheists vs. theists and the industry or situation they live in.

well, in the end...you will find that the theists were the smartest of the two groups in question.

A lot of atheists appear smarter because they tend to rely on scientific findings, theory etc. It's not that theists don't look at science at all for anything, we just are more concerned with the creator of all of this. Who created these scientists? Who created their ideas? Who created their ability to think and ability to apply these thoughts in the real world? People like me are led by faith and not by sight. It appears to be very childlike. It is. Does that mean that it's not smart, or the right way to think?

The parents of the scientists created these scientists. The scientists themselves created their own ideas. The question I was asking more about is why are the demographics of atheists so vastly different from theists? The average atheist is a professional, lives in the first world, highly educated, affluent, scientifically minded, and prosperous. While the average theist in the world is third world, poor, uneducated, superstitious, malnourished, knows next to nothing about science, and downtrodden. Of course becoming an atheist won't make you smarter, it probably turns out to be that smart people turn out to be atheist while less intelligent people turn out to be more religious.

Well for a start, some of the richest men in the world are atheists, they are not even in the field of science. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, atheist. Warren Buffet, richest man in the world and pioneer of finance, atheist. George Soros, another very wealthy atheist. Steve Jobs, computer revolutionary and founder of Apple, atheist. Linus Trovalds, inventor of open source Linux platform, atheist. Why are some of the most innovative and richest people in the world atheists when they constitute only 3% of the world's population?

But who created those parents and granparents and other generations and the world and the UNIVERSE for that matter?

Easy: Evolution through natural selection. And the universe? The big bang.

Scientists ONLY have theories to explain it, there is no concrete proof.

Scientists 'only' have theories (note that the scientific definition of theory is quite different from the lay-definition), but notably, nobody else, theologians included, have anything better. Science presents the best explanation we have for these things, and its inability to explain some things (so far) merely reflect's humanity's incomplete knowledge. And it'd be pretty boring if we _did_ know everything anyway.

Science is not the only answer, it is the best answer.

***Evolution through natural selection. And the universe? The big bang.**

I agree with you they might explain it the best...but in the end they are only THEORIES...that is why they call it the big band THEORY...as for the rest of it...actually believing those theories to be correct...requires some faith.

**And it'd be pretty boring if we _did_ know everything anyway.***

AGREED

***Why are some of the most innovative and richest people in the world atheists when they constitute only 3% of the world's population?***

But are their faith..or non-faith.responsible for them being rich and successful?
I.e why are they successful and rich..is it because they are atheists? and does that then mean that atheism is better because it could get you richer? lol...but that's what you asking isn't it...haha...I see your point. Also to get a bit off the topic...some of the main scientists in history e.g. einstein and newton...weren't actually atheists. But then again...that was history.

I understand you point...I just still don't think that choosing to believe in something necessarily makes you less intelligent. I think choosing to believe in something CLOSE-MINDEDLY hampers your intelligence...and that could then validate your claim or atheists.. who are GENERALLY (not all of them though) more open minded.

I agree with you they might explain it the best...but in the end they are only THEORIES...that is why they call it the big band THEORY...as for the rest of it...actually believing those theories to be correct...requires some faith.

Argh. No, as I already said, the scientific definition of theory is different to the lay-definition of theory. As Wikipedia says, The term is often used colloquially to refer to any explanatory thought, even fanciful or speculative ones, but in scholarly use it is reserved for ideas which meet baseline requirements about the kinds of observations made, the methods of classification used, and the consistency of the theory in its application among members of that class. These requirements vary across different fields of knowledge, but in general theories are expected to be functional and parsimonious: I.e. a theory should be the simplest possible tool that can be used to effectively address the given class of phenomena.

So the Big Bang and Evolution are only a theory in the same way that gravity and the standard chemical model are only theories. And no, no faith is required to believe them - that's the _point_ of a scientific theory.

But are their faith..or non-faith.responsible for them being rich and successful?
I.e why are they successful and rich..is it because they are atheists? and does that then mean that atheism is better because it could get you richer? lol...but that's what you asking isn't it...haha...I see your point.

No, the original poster isn't suggesting that Atheism makes you rich or smart; he's suggesting that those who are smart are more likely to be atheists.

**No, the original poster isn't suggesting that Atheism makes you rich or smart; he's suggesting that those who are smart are more likely to be atheists.***

His original question is how come atheists are so much smarter than theist in general? Doesn't that then (after reading his post) imply that he means that the fact that they are Atheist is what makes them so clever?

It can be interpreted in a few ways.

His original question is how come atheists are so much smarter than theist in general? Doesn't that then (after reading his post) imply that he means that the fact that they are Atheist is what makes them so clever?

No, correlation does not imply causation. If I said how come mensa members are so much smarter in general, it wouldn't imply that joining mensa makes you smart.

good point...

I think the true percentage of atheists is higher than 3%. One thing I've discovered is that there are a lot of closet atheists. A recent survey found that more Americans said they wouldn't vote for an atheist for president than wouldn't vote for a woman, black, or Muslim. Atheists are probably the most unpopular minority in America but all we have to do is keep our mouths shut and nobody knows. At my last job I worked for a devout Mormon. After I quit I made the rounds saying bye to all of the people I worked with and several of them told me that they too were atheists but kept it to themselves because they feared that if more people knew that it could limit advancement in their career. Of course someone like Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, and Steve Jobs don't have to worry about prejudice against them any more so they have the luxury of being able to be open about their worldview.

The brightest computer scientist and physicist that I ever worked with was a devout Christian so I've learned not to make generalizations about the relative intelligence of believers and atheists.

I am so glad I have God in my life. I am also glad I have not had to spend one minute of my time trying to prove his existence. HAHAHA! That is not my job. How much time does an atheist spend on disproving Gods existence?

Did the report happen to mention anything about the percentage of humility, modesty or hubris displayed amongst atheists?

I am also glad I have not had to spend one minute of my time trying to prove his existence. HAHAHA! That is not my job. How much time does an atheist spend on disproving Gods existence?

It's not really necessary to disprove something there's no evidence for. How much time do you spend disproving the existence of fairies?

The parents of the scientists created these scientists. The scientists themselves created their own ideas.

The parents of the scientists didn't create the scientists. They had sex, and a child was born due to a reproductive process that they did NOT create.

Scientists may have created their own ideas, but why is it possible for them to form those ideas? They created their own brain too? The big bang did it? I know they don't pray to anybody, but if they did would they pray to Fred Hoyle? I just looked some information up on him and it's interesting. Well about a month ago I learned that Fred Hoyle was the one who came up with the big bang theory. I just now found out that in 78..the year I was born he came to the conclusion that...this universe HAD to have been intelligently designed!

In his book The Intelligent Universe (1983): Life as we know it is, among other things, dependent on at least 2000 different enzymes. How could the blind forces of the primal sea manage to put together the correct chemical elements to build enzymes? According to his calculations, the likelihood of this happening is only one in 10 to the 40 000 power (1 followed by 40 000 zeros). That is about the same chance as throwing 50 000 sixes in a row with a die. Or as Hoyle describes it: The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein... I am at a loss to understand biologists' widespread compulsion to deny what seems to me to be obvious. (Hoyle on Evolution, Nature, Vol. 294, 12 November 1981, p. 105)

Interesting...I was viewing Fred as being an enemy once I heard his named mentioned on Jeopardy that day. But now...I realize that the creator of one of my most hated theories one day saw the light! There may have been a big bang, but what CREATED it?

You're not answering the question, I am asking why atheists are smarter than theists.

The answer is THEY AREN'T

you couldn't see what I was getting at by what I posted?

Now this guy was an atheist when he came up with the big bang theory. But he came to see how it was RIDICULOUS. And also evolution.

if atheists are hanging on to things like this, one made by a guy who later saw it's silliness, how can you say that they are smarter? Because there are some mega rich atheists? Please!

Not really, all I saw was a bunch of garbage and playing around with semantics, not getting really getting anything done. Also, there have been plenty of studies on atheistic and anti-religious people since the 1920's that show they happen to smarter on average than theistic and religious people.

Source:

Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs tend not to believe in God.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2111174/Intelligent-people-less-likely-to-believe-in-God.html

some people just don't want to learn. intelligent people less likely to believe in God? Interesting. What are they going by? Personal observation? IQ scores? What is considered intelligent by these people? Intelligence is simply a person to person thing. Some people take things like school and general learning more seriously then others. Simple as that. Do I take back what I said above about theists being smarter than atheists? nope. Why? Because ...seriously...if you know that you nor anyone that you know of walking this earth created things like life...then...to me...denying God is just stupid. But when you talk about academic pursuits, I believe that it isn't dependent on whether or not one is a believer or not. I was a pretty good student in school, went on to college..etc, and the same is true for many around me. I don't typically follow statistics. Being a black guy we are typically included in many negative statistics on a daily basis. So if somebody is smart, give him the accolades. If someone is not, give him a book and tell him to start reading. Statistics are overrated and can be blown out of proportion when reported in either a positive or negative direction.

All you are talking about is your own perception of intelligence. There is already a definition of intelligence and that is what the studies go by, not some pseudo-definition you made up. I am not even debating if supernatural deities exist or not, I am simply asking why atheists are smarter than theists, which I have provided many sources for. When the academic elites in the most developed countries are vastly more atheist, it makes you wonder how atheists who are 3% of the world population are dominating intellectual societies in the margins of 50%,75%, and even up to 90%. Why, why, why?