Jun 12 2008
Intelligent people less likely to believe in God!
A new study by Lynn of Ulster University revealed that intelligence and atheism are linked together and people with higher intelligence quotients are less likely to believe in God as they have logical mind.
A team of Researchers, led by Professor Richard conducted a survey of Royal Society fellows which found that only 3.3 per cent believed in God — at a time when 68.5 per cent of the general British population described themselves as “believers”.
Researchers say that university academics are less likely to believe in God than almost anyone else.
“Why should fewer academics believe in God than the general population? I believe it is simply a matter of the IQ. Academics have higher IQs than the general population. Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQs tend not to believe in God,” leading British newspaper The Daily Telegraph quoted Prof Lynn as saying.
According to Prof Lynn, most primary school children believed in God, but as they entered adolescence — and their intelligence increased — a large number of them started to have doubts.
Moreover, he said that religious belief had declined across 137 developed nations in the 20th century at the same time as people became more intelligent.
The study results published in the latest edition of the Intelligence journal also got criticized by some of the people. Prof Gordon Lynch of Birkbeck College, London, said it failed to take account of a complex range of social, economic and historical factors.
“Linking religious belief and intelligence in this way could reflect a dangerous trend, developing a simplistic characterization of religion as primitive,” he said.
Hence it is doubtful to say whether intelligent people are less likely to believe in god or not but the study says that most of intelligent are like that. However, exceptions are always there.
