A group of scientists have discovered that atheists are more intelligent than religious people.

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Miron Zuckerman, Jordan Silberman and Judith A. Hall from the University of Rochester and the Northeastern University combined the results of multiple scientific studies comparing the intelligence levels of these two groups of people and they discovered that the 63 different cases all showed a significant negative between intelligence and religiosity.

This was also stronger between religious beliefs and religious behaviour – so basically people who believe religious teachings are probably less smart.

Being religious in these studies was defined by beliefs in the supernatural and offering of property as sacrifice. It also included taking part in communal rituals and, “lower existential anxieties such as death due to belief in supernatural agents”.

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The only thing we don’t know from these studies is why non-religious people are more intelligent, but apparently the difference changes with age. At university, the cleverness divide is the strongest. One explanation is because smart students are more likely to enjoy atheism as a form of non-conformity. The smarter students are going to say “bollocks” to their parents’ teachings about a big man in the sky and all the rest.

These realisations are observed in students as:

The separation from home and the exposure to a context that encourages questioning. This may allow intelligence to impact religious beliefs.

Using analytic (as opposed to intuitive) thinking, more intelligent college students may be more likely to eschew religion. If atheism is disapproved of at home, higher intelligence may facilitate resistance to conformity pressure.

In later life, more intelligent people are likely to get married, which makes them less reliant on the stability and function that religion provides.

Those are some interesting, albeit controversial findings. I mean, I guess it makes sense. If you truly believe that God is a man or evolution doesn’t happen, then your brain has to be wired differently to someone who can see clearly that those beliefs are absolute codswallop. If you’d like to read the full study, you can find it HERE.

To read about how religion is about to die out anyway, click HERE.