Why?

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It would be coincidence that the two groups ended up with one being more intelligent than the other when both have the same capacity for intelligence. Where as religious people and non religious people have attributes that would effect their intelligence specifically, where as skin color has nothing to do with that. A large portion of Atheists had religious parents, therefore those Atheists specifically you can assume question their beliefs and are more skeptical. Arguing further, on average a religious person is more likely to accept nonsense than a non-religious person. Now again, I'm not saying you do but take the estimated 63% of Americans who are Creationists as an example, or people who believe in Astrology. Just about all the time, these people are religious. Luckily barely anyone still thinks the Earth is flat. And the reason Atheism is so trendy among those interested in math and science could be due to those same people figuring that maybe everything can have a natural explanation, as opposed to a supernatural one.

That seems to be the case with few atheists, and well, with anyone regardless their belief system, because, well, it often happens that some people discredit a different view as being stupid or ridiculous for not for adhering to a specific point of view which they seem convinced to be the 'truth' or to be 'so obvious', but then, the belief in something to be 'the obvious truth' or a 'fact' is a belief after all and can and should be questioned as well.

I actually don't see any difference from theists and atheists in regard of intelligence, few people can very well say that materialistic reductionism regarding reality may be an intellectual problem not more or less than of Christianity, not to mention that a Christian can have a higher IQ than an atheist, so the intelligence to support a view over the other becomes meaningless.

So, yes, when it comes to delusions given the case, I agree with that.

Basis for this claim? I've never heard anyone promote such an explanation as that.


There is a positive correlation between atheism and belief in assorted types of quackery, such as astrology, "alternative" and homeopathic medicine, various superstitions, and other nonsense. So your claim here is the opposite of true.


The notion that belief in a flat Earth was once common is a myth. Even the primitive Ptolemaic astronomy, upheld by the medieval Catholic Church, described a round Earth. The roundness of the Earth was known since the ancient Greeks.

(Unrelated, I know, but it's a pet peeve of mine)


Not really, just there is a popular conception that science and religion are in opposition (fueled largely by a subset of religious people), and so scientifically-minded people will tend to dismiss religion without looking further.

I'm not saying that the number of intelligent people believing in a specific claim has necessarily something to do with the veracity of a claim, but there is a correlation between higher intelligence and atheism.

That's great but we're deflecting my point. Emperor = LOTS of resources, peasant = guile, a pair of sandals.




Could be but we're both still just talking about events that happened that shaped the present. Its neither here nor there to the idea that to get stapled to global consciousness something has to hit with a fair amount of impact (especially a revelatory message). Its not impossible to say that it came about by natural evolution of ideas but still, one can't escape the idea that it's just odd.



I thought decadence, bread and circuses, and Roman's refusing to fight and having to hire mercenaries to pick up the slack for their laziness was the main narrative on the fall of Rome?

Give it time to become more socially acceptable than theism and I guarantee that will change.

What I got from your url was that most studies found that people that were much less religious scored best. Much less religious compared to a once a week church goer, not necessarily an "Atheist". I was expecting something a little more conclusive, correct me if I misread the summary.

I am not a religious person. But, I do understand that religion is not just about worship but about History, Philosophy, Literature and on and on... It encompasses all of these and more. You don't have to believe in any of it. But, maybe recognize how Christianity has preserved much about the last 2000 years that may had been lost without this constant in western civilization. Not saying that what is preserved is perfect but it all reveals much about humanity and is better than having nothing to go on.

And, to answer the original question, of course I am going to answer, Why Not.

Caesar was never Emperor - he created emperors and an empire. Therefore he is still at least as relevant than Jesus; It could be even argued that Julius Caesar is most important person ever lived.



It is not that odd - the inner decline of the Roman Empire after 200 changed the evolutionary environment in which ideas flourish. Governments (or rulers) play sometime "evolutionary selection" with ideas in promoting some or suppressing some. Of the wide variety of ideas in the late phase of the Roman Empire from traditional cult in the Roman and Greek Gods via a long list of eastern cults (Midras, Isis - to name only the two most prominent ones) and different variants of Christianity the variation, what we call today "Christian faith" survived because it had been promoted by Constantine and his successors on some obvious reasons.



That's more than over simplistic: The Roman Legion did not consist in its majority since the first century of born Romans (or Italians), but of other people of the empire. Also the army was quite small (approx. 120'000 soldiers for an empire from Scotland to Egypt and from Romania to Morocco). The problem lied deeper in a decline of the production and a cut-off of slave workers. Also in a drain of silver and gold.

Well anyway thanks for the history trivia.

That article didn't impress me much. It gives a very short summary of a number of different studies, most of which are of college students. College students are just getting away from home for the first time (most of them anyway), and are thus more likely to question anything their parents told them and want to assert their independence.

Many of the surveys seem to be presented in a false light -- often they measure "how religious" by whether you belong to a more conservative religious denomination or have more liberal religious views.

But I think even if the article had been written better and even if its point could be completely proved, that argument still misses the point. There is the implied explaination that the reason for this correlation is that people choose atheism because it's a smart thing to do. That implied explaination doesn't take into account fads (including intellectual fads), or the fact that human beings aren't dispassionate, unemotional intellects -- it is very human to make a decision for one emotional reason or another.

I still think that generalized disdain on the part of atheists for the religious is unwarranted and silly.

You're just shifting terminology here -- replacing 'intelligence' with 'capacity for intelligence'.


Wrong. Religion and irreligion are concepts; they don't get passed down genetically. Skin color isn't the only thing distinguishing 'black' from 'white'. The difference in skin color is a genetic thing, as is intelligence. You are merely assuming that people with very different ancestry have approximately equal intelligence. I'm not arguing against that assumption, since I make that assumption too, but you haven't proved that assumption, or the other assumption you make about religious people.


Or it could be an intellectual fad. The Trouble with Physics is a very interesting book about a particular such fad popular in theoretical physics.

Making this argument kind of misses the point. If atheism is popular among the more intelligent because it is more reasonable, you would think it would be easier to just show how much more reasonable it is, instead of appealing to a statistical average of certain people's opinions without any knowledge of how or why they came to the conclusions they did.

Not necessarily so. There is a built in tendency among us Hominids version 4.0 to believe in The Great Ape. Many smart Hominids, version 4.0 have this defect. That is why there are very few atheists in foxholes and earthquakes.

ruveyn

And, at least to some degree, because they are smart enough to stay away from them and not pray to be saved because they are there.