[Mistress Cookie]

I found this article on Compuserve today, and was actually relieved I wasn't "smart" enough to create a link. But here it it.

Guess Who Doesn't Believe in God?

People who have high IQs are less likely to believe in God than people of average and below average intelligence, according to Richard Lynn, emeritus professor of psychology at Ireland's University of Ulster.

Lynn claims that the general decline in religious observance over the last century is directly related to a rise in average intelligence. The smarter we are the more likely we are to shun religious services? Not so fast. Lynn's critics charge that his analysis is simplistic.

London's Telegraph reports that Lynn has previously provoked controversy with his research that links intelligence to race and gender. Now he's taking on God.

Lynn insists that of all the population, university academics are the least likely group to believe in God. He bases this conclusion on a survey of The Royal Society, a learned society for science that serves as the academy of sciences in the United Kingdom, in which he found that only 3.3 percent believed in God, compared with 68.5 percent of the general population of the U.K. In the 1990s, a poll of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States found that only 7 percent of its members believed in God, while a 2008 Harris Poll found that 82 percent of the general U.S. population believes.

"Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ," Lynn told the Times Higher Education magazine. "Academics have higher IQs than the general population. Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs tend not to believe in God."

And it's not just highly educated adults. Lynn says most children in elementary school believe in God, but as they grow into adolescence and their intelligence increases, many begin to have doubts. As the populations of 137 developed nations have become more intelligent in the past century, their religious beliefs have declined, he insists.

A dangerous trend: "Linking religious belief and intelligence in this way could reflect a dangerous trend, developing a simplistic characterization of religion as primitive, which--while we are trying to deal with very complex issues of religious and cultural pluralism--is perhaps not the most helpful response," Gordon Lynch, director of the Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society at Birkbeck College, London, told the Telegraph.

Still, Dr. David Hardman, principal lecturer in learning development at London Metropolitan University, acknowledged to the Telegraph, "It is very difficult to conduct true experiments that would explicate a causal relationship between IQ and religious belief. Nonetheless, there is evidence from other domains that higher levels of intelligence are associated with a greater ability--or perhaps willingness--to question and overturn strongly felt institutions." Including the church.

The study findings have been published in the journal Intelligence.

--From the Editors at Netscape

[Ezekiel Bathfire]

OK, I put the link in...

Lynn says most children in elementary school believe in God, but as they grow into adolescence and their intelligence increases,

I thought that intelligence remain roughly constant throughout life - did the author mean, "The experience and ability to apply their intelligence increases..."?

[Capt. Aaron Portway]

The poor dope has no idea what he's talking about. Those Ivory Tower academics are all Godless pinko queers! The reason that so few of them believe in the Lord is because they're all brainwashing each other while they're buggering each other!

It's not about intelligence, it's about the so called "education" these people get in their dens of SICKular "learning" that these heathens call universities.

Education? More like indoctrination if you ask me. The only education I need comes from the greatest textbook of all time, the KJV 1611. Praise!

[Mrs. Mary Whitford]

Obviously they're so retarded they can't tell the difference between "intelligence" and "hatred and desire to sin".

[Nobar King]

Considering the intelligence level of most of the atheists who post here to try to disprove Jesus, I'd say they're significantly overestimating them. That doesn't mean that all True Believers are real geniuses, either. Look a the people who say they believe in Wicca. That should be like 10 marks off of your IQ in itself.

[Pastor Isaac Peters]

Jesus knew that the hellbound trash would say that.

Luke 10:21: In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.

[JennyD]

Originally Posted by Ezekiel Bathfire

OK, I put the link in... [/font]I thought that intelligence remain roughly constant throughout life - did the author mean, "The experience and ability to apply their intelligence increases..."?

Brother Bathfire, perhaps the author doesn't realize that IQ testing is done in elementary school, and is believed to be unchanging throughout life.

It seems to me this is the perfect argument in favor of homeschooling . . . to prevent one's Christian children from being exposed to secularists' demon spawn and developing this rebellion against God!

[Mistress Cookie]

What puts the whole thing in perspective is that Jesus did NOT attend college...or even high school, that I've heard of.

You don't need some expensive university to teach you good from bad.

[Gang-o-phone]

It would seem right that we 1st look at the standards they use to find these intelligence levels. If one is of the belief that they were not created, but somehow related to chimps, they would be viewed by the rest of the world, as more intelligent than those of us here. With that in mind, I am sure the more "intelligent" people do not believe in God.
Also, as our Bible has been translated from old and sometimes verbal tounges, there can be some room for minor errors. This is why some of these "intelligent" people make statements like; "The Flintstones was not a documentary. Today there is a real shortage of burning bushes that talk and women that turn into pillars of salt. In the real world, its lions 17, christians no score!" I could go on and on, but I am sure none of this trash is new to you. They also claim that "faith, is believing in what you cannot prove, or worse, believing against what can be proved.", and, by their way of thinking, they are right! I just wonder how right they will feel after they die? I know how I will feel, how about you?

[Nobar King]

Originally Posted by Gang-o-phone

Today there is a real shortage of burning bushes that talk and women that turn into pillars of salt.

You just aren't looking in the right places, brother.

[Gang-o-phone]

Dear new friend, please do not confuse my statement of the common worldly view, with my opinion.
Thank you.

[Nobar King]

Maybe you can clear that up, because I can't.

[Gang-o-phone]

With pleasure!
"It would seem right that we 1st look at the standards they use to find these intelligence levels. If one is of the belief that they were not created, but somehow related to chimps, they would be viewed by the rest of the world, as more intelligent than those of us here. With that in mind, I am sure the more "intelligent" people do not believe in God."
On my 1st line, I did qualify the standards 'they' use, this would not be our standards. I do believe those that think we are related to chimps would believe themselves to be most intelligent, and it is no surprise that they do not believe in our God.
My ending below was ment to show where I stand, in relation to "them". All of my statements that were examples of how they run us and our Bible down were in quotation marks, so as to not confuse them with my opinion.
"I just wonder how right they will feel after they die? I know how I will feel, how about you"
Sadly, 2 of you have taken me wrong here, so I will take credit for my error in style. I will take NO credit when I am refered to as an Atheist!
I hope I have cleared this up?

[Nobar King]

Can you write that in normal American English?

[Bob4God]

Yet another examples of sin-loving atheist "academics" trying to make Christians look stupid.

Bible-believing fundamentalist Christians are the smartest people on Earth! We don't hold silly diplomas in science and history, we hold a personal relationship with the Creator of the Universe! PRAISE!