Pew Survey: Atheists Know More...

Countdown with Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, 9-28-2010

Respondents to the survey were asked 32 questions with a range of difficulty, including whether they could name the Islamic holy book and the first book of the Bible, or say what century the Mormon religion was founded. Atheists and agnostics scored highest, with an average of 21 correct answers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/us/28religion.html?_r=1

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[adrianaesque]

@cosmicgtr We DO know more. We explore all religions and come to the conclusion that they're all preposterous. We also expand our horizons for when we debate with religious people, which frankly isn't needed most of the time since religious people barely know shit about their own religion anyway.

Nowadays, religion is something you adopt and are born into because of your parents and family. So, you accept it. You do not question or explore it. Thus, the ironic incompetency of religious people.

[winterstellar]

@cosmicgtr All studies, every survey, all work done on the subject have shown that the less religious people are, the higher their IQ is and their level of education. In general that's what you always see in such studies. One relevant example: Among the members of the National Academy of Science, less than ONE percent answered in a survey that they believe in a god. Those guys are the smartest of the smartest, virtually:)

[winterstellar]

@sgreen71778 No, I haven't. I have a book store service on my smartphone with a quite extensive library/selection of books...maybe I'll find it there? Thanks, anyway:)

[sgreen71778]

@winterstellar Have you read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond? I think it will answer your question.

[joegt123]

Symbolic cannibalism of the magical zombie.

Yay.

[winterstellar]

@winterstellar But I have been thinking about a funny, non-scientific "theory" of mine lately. The least intelligent nations are the sub-saharan ones, and they have 0 percent neanderthal DNA. My idea/hunch/"theory" was that the interbreeding with neanderthals was beneficial. The neanderthals were dumber but had bigger brains, so their brains' "wiring" couldn't have been as good as our homo sapiens' What I've been thinking is that the hybrids maybe got the combination of bigger AND better brains?

[winterstellar]

@ikcjjtt It is cultural, at least to 99,9percent. The most religious countries also have the least proper schools, the most illiteracy and the most sermons and preaching. A kid stands a smaller chance of growing up to be an Einstein in such environments.

[ikcjjtt]

@winterstellar my point was these religionous studies make very little sense of thier correalations if you wiki race and intelligence. There have been a huge amount of studies done on race and intelligence, and no conclusive evidence has been found for the cause. So if we just add in religion in the place of race, we are just confusing people even further. There is a distince difference in the IQ between the "races"-ancient or not its still there. And no consensus as to why.

[winterstellar]

@winterstellar Haha! I think it was the PEW study, by the way.. (I didn't check which video I was at before now,hehe. Cheers!

[winterstellar]

@ikcjjtt "Race"..? Im guessing you're american...? Culture or ethnicity or social backgrounds are words used in "european",but you still use the ancient "race".. Am I right,are you american? Never mind, the question was about studies on the correlation between education, knowledge, IQ etc , and religion/non-religion. Just wiki for instance*correlation between religious belief and intelligence* .There have been hundreds of studies through the decades,(one just weeks ago on knowledge of religion:)

[ikcjjtt]

@winterstellar im looking for a youtube video to explore the relationship between religion and IQ. Cause i find it odd that such a study is even done to begin with. We have YET to come to a conclusion about race and intelligence, so throwing in religion just further muddies the entire issue.

[fdasherv]

Religion is like a software license agreement.  People just click yes without reading it.