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There are quite a few studies that confirm this, the most recent one: http://onefuriousllama.com/2011/09/11/another-study-links-intelligence-to-lack-of-religiosity/

Are non-religious people smarter than religious people? If yes, is this a correlation or is there a causal relationship?

Sam I Am
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Alex
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    don't confuse cause and effect: religious people get the answers to life's questions offered to them prechewed and told they should just accept them – ratchet freak Sep 30 '11 at 23:51
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    Well, there have been studies that confirm this. There have also been studies that confirm that religious people live longer than atheists. I suppose it's all balanced then, isn't it? –  Oct 01 '11 at 00:08
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    While it would be personally satisfying to say that, I must say that the biggest contributor to a person's belief in supernatural is the level of indoctrination they receive from their parents/family/friends. (I can't find any specific papers that are neutral enough for this site that support this for the purposes of an answer, but look at a map of religious adherents and notice the consistency.) – Larian LeQuella Oct 01 '11 at 03:10
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    @Larian - heh... thanks for saying it better than what I was trying to type at the moment. Now, question is - given the studies that show religious people are on average happier than non-religious, may be they aren't as dumb as they are made out to be :))) – user5341 Oct 01 '11 at 03:14
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    Define Smarter. I know PHD's that cannot tie their shoes or remember to eat. – Moab Oct 01 '11 at 03:53
  • I think it is more *education* than *intelligence*. In a similar environment, a person with higher education (especially scientific education) will be less likely to be religious than one with a lower education. If I know that lightning is just an electric discharge I will not believe that it is due to some invisible being in the sky that is pretty mad at me... – nico Oct 01 '11 at 07:13
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    This question seems speculative and argumentative to me. The claim is that there is a negative correlation between IQ scores and religiousity. The question suggests lack of intelligence is the main *cause* of supernatural belief, which is a very different issue, and almost impossible to answer. So let me ask a question back: What sort of evidence or study do you think could reasonable answer the question? If there isn't any, this should be closed as Not Constructive. – Oddthinking Oct 01 '11 at 07:24
  • @nico - The linked study makes it fairly clear that it is _both_; correcting for education still leaves a strong effect of intelligence. – Rex Kerr Oct 01 '11 at 07:25
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    @Oddthinking I've made the question more neutral and split the question in two (correlation and causation). – Sklivvz Oct 01 '11 at 08:32
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    @Sklivvz - the question still remains highly speculative, due to the fact that it doesn't define "religious" - or, as Moab noted, "smarter". There are plenty of people who **religiously** believe in Marxism while not believing a word of Bible. Most of them consider themselves "smart". Then there are people who believe in "life force"/"chi"/"auras"/etc... – user5341 Oct 01 '11 at 10:40
  • @DVK: Maybe low IQ causes happiness & long life & many offspring. Maybe religiosity causes low IQ :) – Mike Dunlavey Oct 01 '11 at 12:59
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    @Mike - Too many maybes for skeptics standards, sorry. – user5341 Oct 01 '11 at 14:14
  • @DVK: I believe they mean "self-identified as religious" – Sklivvz Oct 01 '11 at 16:37
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    @Sklivvz - that's precisely the issue with the study. If you're going to study how IQ relates to religious susceptibility of the brain, you need to include ALL religious activity, not just something that is an "established religion" - most people who fervently believe in auras or communism wouldn't self-identify as religious yet exhibit full fledged religious cognition. Excluding them invalidates whatever statistics you have as they become meaningless correlations. – user5341 Oct 02 '11 at 05:03
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    @DVK: I disagree that their aim is to measure "religious susceptibility". I also disagree that in many cases they measure anything but atheism. Put it this way: I am not surprised that the average religious person has average IQ. I am much more surprised that the average atheist has a higher IQ... – Sklivvz Oct 02 '11 at 08:04
  • @Sklivvz - sorry, wasn't clear. I didn't say THEY aimed to measure "religious susceptibility" - I meant simply that measuring anything else is kind of useless. As far as your second question, I'm gonna use Fermat defense - after 5 mins of writing a comment response, it doesn't fit here. I might try to blog it since it is a very good question you're asking. – user5341 Oct 02 '11 at 13:23
  • This question only makes sense if you **exclude belief in supernatural fantasies that give one comfort but otherwise are ridiculous** from a discussion on intelligence. Maybe I'm being hardline, but to exclude that makes absolutely no sense to me. Would you be asking this question if it was phrased slightly differently, for example: "are people who don't believe that they are Napoleon smarter than people who do?" "Are people who are not superstitious smarter than people who are?" If they seem like valid questions, then I'm confused. – Ralph Lavelle Dec 06 '11 at 12:44
  • I think there should be studies where we have IQ and religions and see tables. I know jews have awesome IQs. I also know that most of them are atheists. I also know that most people in national academic of science are agnosis or atheists. –  Feb 28 '12 at 08:30
  • Intelligence has nothing to do with it. It depends on a persons type of education and how they think. If a person uses deductive thinking, that looks at various evidence before they form a belief, they are more likely to be atheist. If they have already formed a belief system and later looked at evidence and patterns to support that belief.. They are more likely to have religious beliefs. The same holds true for superstitions and belief in the supernatural. –  May 16 '14 at 15:06

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You can read the answer right off the study: no, lack of intelligence is not the main reason because the correlation coefficient between IQ and various measures of religiosity are not that large (e.g. -0.25 for fundamentalism). It is an important reason, as is education (as the study explains, the correlation persists when level of education is accounted for). A combination of extreme education and IQ does seem to be enough to virtually eliminate strong religious belief. (This is a broadly supported conclusion, though causation is not determined.) The inverse correlation with IQ holds, at least roughly, with belief in the paranormal also--the effect is frequently seen but is not so strong as to appear to be the only important factor.

The other factors are hard to pin down. Some studies indicate that religiosity of children (once adult) is not strongly correlated to that of their parents; others find cases where the transmission is more reliable. Religious beliefs of friends and spouse are strongly correlated (see first link), but it is unclear to what extent this is cause vs. a consequence of having the beliefs. There is very likely some strong societal or parental component given that, for example, 2/3 of the residents of Utah identify as Mormon, and the "natural increase" of the population is considerably larger than the "net migration" (as found in a table of Utah demographics linked here).

Rex Kerr
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    Your example showing "extreme education and IQ" leads to no religious belief shows no such thing. It only includes scientists, which is only one form of education, and doesn't mention IQ at all. – Oddthinking Oct 01 '11 at 07:28
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    @Oddthinking - I added a link with more evidence--see Terman 1959--and changed from "religious belief" to "strong religious belief", which is what the data shows. – Rex Kerr Oct 01 '11 at 07:41