The more educated you become, less religious you are.

As a matter of fact:

Correlation between intelligence and faith:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/...nce-and-faith/



Blue dots each represent a country, the rest speaks for itself.

The more educated you become, less religious you are.
The less educated you are, more religious you become.

so, if you were religious you would be concerned that someone is watching you and you'd fear hell...you got no balls

I'm a believer...the demons believed...lots of people believed that weren't wearin dresses

pm me...i'll buy you a wig and some lipstick

The problem with this is the implication that is made without understanding the true correlation.

A popular study shows that children who eat breakfast do better in school. Does this suggest that if you go to the lowest ranked schools and hand out breakfast burritos, that they will improve in ranking? Maybe it does, but what it more likely means is that children who don't eat breakfast come from lower income families that either neglect or can't afford 3 meals a day, because they are lower class and have lower intelligence to begin with, which has been genetically passed down to their poor-performing kids. Eating breakfast is not the cause necessarily, but the effect.

The implication of intelligence/theism is that only stupid people could possibly believe in God, because there is no God, and smart people obviously figured this out.

What this could mean instead is that people with higher intelligence perform better in school, get better paying jobs, and don't need to depend on God as much, since they depend on their finances, where as people with lower intelligence don't make as much money and are forced to seek God since finances are not an option, and possibly the cause of many problems. This doesn't imply that God doesn't exist, but that those who don't depend on God choose to not seek Him.

That is one of many possibilities, but to directly correlate two events and conclude that they are independently linked proves very little.

The irony. It drips.

This thread is so much worse than I imagined when I saw the title.

you mean it doesn't have the content for atheists to further build their suppression network. and of course a professing christian wouldn't touch this **** considering the overwhelming majority are in love with their lives and not god...how would this real **** gel with their confusion.

if you read my posts in the thread it has nothing to do with you or any human really...i used it as a communication means towards god. if i wanted to communicate with atheist i would have titled the thread "atheists are cowards"...if i wanted to comunicate with christians i would say "**** off you arrogant life-loving prick ****".

this post wasn't even directed to you...you're nobody to me...you don't exist to me. think about that.

somebody deleted my recent "murder" post...snap

Haven't been following this thread and im sure its been said before, but atheism is the lack of belief (lack of faith), so you don't need faith to be an atheist, because faith is defined as believing in something without proof.

Sure. 'Freakonomics' is worth a read if you like this sort of thing.

Why isn't it likely that the correlation between intelligence and religiosity is caused by the fact that less intelligent people are less likely to question what they've being told and to have been exposed to alternative views.

I started a thread about this not to long back - The Relation Between Intelligence and Religiosity.

It turned into a debate about whether or not it's right to urge a particular religious belief on children, but the report that prompted me to start the thread is worth a read.

Likely is too strong a word for these types studies. Of course it's possible that less intelligent people are less likely to question, and that's the end of it. But there are too many unknowns that need to be controlled for, which becomes difficult to pinpoint the true connection.

It's like trying to determine why some indigenous tribes have longer life spans. You can't just grab one aspect that is not shared with other cultures and attribute everything to that one thing. You would need to run this experiment hundreds of times with hundreds of control groups, which would be impossible and wildly unethical. You can't just say, well this group eats rice every meal, and this group does not, so rice is the answer. Rice could be the answer, but it's likely more complicated than that.

It is interesting to note, that even close to 2000 years ago, when Paul was writing, Christianity flourished among the "lower classes," in a time when atheism was unheard of, and certainly not justifiable.

This makes sense from a Christian perspective in that wealthy people, usually the upper class, have a hard time accepting the message.

"And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

what if the rich man signs away all of his possessions while on his death bed. could that maybe slip him in heaven's back door?

Perhaps because they don't need the comfort that religion provides?

Religion has been described as 'the opiate of the masses', it would certainly suit the people with money to keep the masses distracted wouldn't it.

Is the act of signing away possessions the thing that gets people into heaven?

It's amusing to me how you fight so hard against people making arguments like what Naked_Rectitude is making in the other thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=333

But yet you like to take a single line (potentially out of context, depending on your precise economic views are) and try to hold that up as being a meaningful explanation.

(I don't even disagree with your first sentence. It's true that religion fills a role for the poor which helps it to thrive there. But the jump from that idea to some sort of semi/pseudo Marxist view is a huge leap of faith for someone who doesn't take anything on faith.)

Yeah, I think that is very true.

I think distraction is a two way street. The wealthy are distracted from God by money, and the poor are distracted from wealth by God. Doesn't mean that either group is "keeping" anyone distracted.

According to Jesus, it's a prerequisite . Dying rich and expecting to go to heaven, its like failing math 101 and expecting to get into calculus

Okay, but your analogy should be cramming for math 101 and expecting to pass calculus.

I don't see how what you're talking about makes sense.

I don't think that's true, it's more difficult, but not necessarily required.

no, that shouldn't be my analogy. my analogy was fine. yours is much less good. but i like how you butchered my analogy, made it much worse, and then said i'm not making sense. point aaron!

are you saying that it's possible for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle?

would you atheists stop struggling in my thread...

would you christians stop picking on 'em...

Sorry, I should have included the rest of the passage.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Matthew 19:24-26