IQ and Belief in God

Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God' posted on StumbleUpon, Jun 13, 2008

This is an interesting article, which if drawn further would presume that those who don't believe in God have high IQs.

Yet for all this, those with high IQs are still susceptible to logical fallacies and irregular ratiocinations. The daily news is rife with examples.

IQ measures, without troubling ourselves with the Flynn effect, cognitive ability, intellectual ability, not raw native 'intelligence' which frequently manifests in circumstances and episodes of daily life. IQ tests only what it can measure: spatial, language, mathematical and memory abilities. Yes, the operational word is abilities. And there are many more abilities than are tested as are found in the arts or persausion as in salesmanship, oratory and leadership, all in their best performance frequently called genius.

Coming back to abilities, this would be like having a test for sports ability, measuring reflex, jumping, running, throwing and kicking, and weight resistance abilities. You'd probably say, 'But wait a minute, there are other abilities that can be measured, too.' Yes, for cognitive measures as well.

Nevertheless, in the end, cognitive ability testing distills into one number, called IQ. It would hardly be accepted if physical ability measures were measured and displayed as one number. People might say it's upsurd. I'd agree, even in the case of a number called IQ.

Without extending this, I'll get to the point. People with a high number in anything, whether money, friends, medals, trophies, or abilities are by themselves irrelevant to a belief in God. There is something else that's going on.

It is most likely that those with high IQs are socially comfortable under professional disciplines that obviate institutional religious discipline and, as a result, have no need for a 'master' called God, and find their cognitive status and access to modern auxilaries of technology gives them a sense of independent dominion over life - and a feeling they are the measure of all things.

And this now begins to touch on the subject of their belief.