Comment by Alan C on May 6, 2013 at 6:19pm

And another study:

It seems there is some strong evidence that the more intelligent a person is the less he/she believes in the existence of God. In a study done by the psychology department at the University of Edinburgh last year, Gary J. Lewis, Stuart J. Ritchie, and Timothy C. Bates looked at links between lower levels of intelligence and high levels of religiosity.

http://www.midus.wisc.edu/findings/pdfs/1197.pdf

Their findings showed that intelligence was significantly and negatively associated with measures of religion, especially fundamentalism. What was demonstrated was that those with greater cognitive skills are able to form more open-minded (antiauthoritarian) attitudes than those with lesser cognitive abilities. In other words, greater intelligence leads to more open mindedness and individualism; resulting in an intellectual conflict with the arguments made by religious scripture and leaders. This is particularly true with fundamentalism’s literalistic interpretation of scripture. 

In another study done three years ago, Average Intelligence Predicts Atheism Rates Across 137 Nations, by Richard Lynn, John Harvey, and Helmuth Nyborg, the authors reviewed evidence pointing to a negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief in the U.S. and Europe. 

http://davesource.com/Fringe/Fringe/...Lynn-et-al.pdf

The factors included not only evidence pointing to a negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief; but also lower percentages of those who are extremely intelligent holding religious beliefs compared with the general population, a decline of religious belief with age among children and adolescents as their cognitive abilities increase, and the decline of religious belief during the course of the twentieth century as the intelligence of populations has increased.

The authors mention 38 other studies that found a negative correlation between intelligence and religious belief; and a study in the Netherlands that reported agnostics scored 4 IQ points higher than believers. In another study it was demonstrated that those who responded to “not religious at all” had the highest IQ. 

In the 1990s, a study of members of the American National Academy of Sciences reported that seven percent believed in the existence of God, as compared with approximately ninety percent found in the general population. In Britain, it was found that 3.3 percent of Fellow of the Royal Society believed in the existence of God, while 78.8 percent did not believe. 

It seems clear from these studies that intelligence/cognitive abilities determine one’s acceptance of religious mythology.

Comment by Gregg R Thomas on May 7, 2013 at 12:30am

@ Elizabeth Williams ;

When you leaving...I wanna go too. :)

Comment by Gregg R Thomas on May 7, 2013 at 12:40am

P.S. I have an extra towel. :D

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