mpjh wrote:john9blue wrote:Interesting... although I'm not that concerned because many great thinkers were religious. There are definitely more impressionable types in the lower IQ range who are less likely to question religious dogma.
Where is your evidence of that. My experience has been that IQ is only a social construct, and that "higher" IQ people are simply closer to the elite of the mainstream and more likely to agree with the prevailing ideology; while lower "IQ" people are more likely the oppressed in that society and more likely to challange the prevailing ideology. So I see quite the opposite of what you claim.
Oh really? Then perhaps you should research the percentage of a poor population's belief in God, with a more affluent one. Across the board, the more suffering, the less educated, and the tougher the life, the more people believe and more strenuously the people believe in God. Unfortunately, in some places, its all they have. Its simply ridiculous to suggest that a poor country, with people starving is rebelling against the system, and thinking about the different arguments for God or against. They are praying every day, in hopes that their children survive, and while I have no doubt they question the existence of God, I also suspect, they dont give it too much thought, because for many unfortunately, all they have to be happy, is the promise of a life after this one that is full of joy, because they just lived an entire one in misery.
I agree it isnt about Intelligence per-se, and that the IQ test is obviously affected by education, nutrition, and many other factors. But the more people are educated, certainly it seems the less likely they are as a population to believe. I believed for half of my life myself, and if I lived in a sheltered world, and didnt see everything that was happening in the world, all the different religions, all of the different psychological aspects of humans, and how they have evolved, and didnt ponder, and to some degree study them as much as I have, then I too might never have questioned my beliefs.
And while every case is different, for me, I simply stopped believing, because the rational side of my brain simply just didnt believe it any more. It analyzed all the facts, and factors, and simply stopped believing in something, that it felt realistically didnt exist. Believing in make believe is very easy, it just takes a leap of faith and a little imagination. Its something that humans are uniquely able to do, and very well at that. For me there have just been too many examples in history of entire civilizations believing in these constructs, which are no different than the Gods that people believe in today, to make me think that there is actually one real God, and that entire civilizations and groups have been wrong about thiers, but that there is actually one out there that got lucky enough to believe in the correct one.
I simply dont believe a God of Pure Good, absent of evil, would make it that difficult to believe in him. And while everyone who believes will simply say its the peoples fault...well, thats like saying the group of chipmunks that got burned in a fire was wrong, and the group that got missed by the fire were right....its just pure simple luck, and while its a nice self defense argument for someone who does choose to believe, the argument doesn't hold any logical weight. Like so many other things in most religions, they simply dont make sense, and are contradictory on a basic level.
In the end, the basic argument for religion, is that people cant believe that something so incredible as the planet earth and the cosmos simply happened without purpose, and by accident. Its too much of a leap of faith, and for some strange reason, its easier for them to believe that something, or someone created it, and only....and I mean ONLY because someone told them that someone created it. If you were born egyptian, you believed in RA, in Greece, greek mythology, isreal: judaism, Ireland, christianity....or...wican before christianity....
For the great percentage of the population of the planet, people simply believe in the God they were told to believe in, and never question it for their entire lives. Mostly, its because the human brain knows full well, how dangerous it is to stop believing, or even question inherent beliefs that were learned very early in life. It resists them, because somehow biologically, it knows that questioning them, will be far more difficult, and possibly even traumatic both consciously, and sub-consciously. Further, believing in God is infinitely the safer option. For a non-believer, they accept the fact that they will spend eternity with punishment of some kind for not believing. For a believer who believes till their last breath, they will never pay a price for their belief. For their entire lives, and for eternity, they will know they were correct, because if they are wrong, they will simply never know it.
