http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_intelligence

Religiosity and intelligence is a subject that studies the correlation, if any, between religiosity and intelligence.

Topics dealing with the measurement of intelligence are often controversial. Critics in these areas examine the validity and fairness of cognitive testing, as well as the problems in the definition and operationalization of the other measurements under discussion, in this case religiosity. Many of the issues pertaining to the investigation of group differences in intelligence vis-à-vis religiosity are also raised in the investigation of race and intelligence—a better established, though even more controversial, area of intelligence research.

In scientific research, correlations can't be automatically assumed to imply causation: even if a positive or negative correlation can be found between intelligence and religiosity, it doesn't mean that one is causing the other. (See also: spurious relationship; and the logical fallacy: correlation implies causation).

In 1986, the magazine Sceptic summarized studies on religiosity and intelligence [1]

All but four of the forty-three polls listed support the conclusion that native intelligence varies inversely with degree of religious faith; i.e., that, other factors being equal, the more intelligent a person is, the less religious he/she is.

Conclusions

In this essay:

1. sixteen studies of the correlation between individual measures of student intelligence and religiosity, all but three of which reported an inverse correlation.
2. five studies reporting that student bodies with high average IQ and/or SAT scores are far less religious than lower-scoring student bodies;
3. three studies reporting that geniuses (IQ 3+ standard deviations above average) are much less religious than the general public;
4. seven studies reporting that highly successful persons are much less religious in belief than are others; and
5. eight old and four new Gallup polls revealing that college alumni (average IQ about one standard deviation above average) are much less religious in belief than are grade-school pollees.

Some examples from this overview:

One study of a group with IQs over 140 found that of men, 10 percent held strong religious belief, of women 18 percent (Terman, 1959). Sixty-two percent of men and 57 percent of women claimed "little religious inclination" while 28 percent of the men and 23 percent of the women claimed it was "not at all important."

A study of Mensa members found that they had fewer religious beliefs than the typical American college alumnus or adult (Southern and Plant, 1968). It is not clear whether Mensa members are representative of high-IQ people in this regard.

Students attending higher-ranked schools have fewer religious beliefs than those attending lower-ranked schools (Caplovitz and Sherrow, 1977). (It should be noted, however, that the ranking of schools is a highly debated issue, and most highly-ranked schools in this survey came from states that were generally less religious.)

Five of these studies concerned how liberal or conservative a person's religious views were, as opposed to whether a person was or was not religious in the first place. For example, among eminent scientists, Lehman and Witty (1931) found that Unitarians were most overrepresented with 81 times the proportion of Unitarians in the U.S. population. Quakers were second with 7 times the corresponding proportion.

An article in Explorations: An undergraduate research journal (2004) found, while noting that the unrepresentative sample limited generalizations, no significant correlation between religiosity levels and IQ scores. However, a significant negative correlation with self-reported Quantitative SAT (QSAT) scores. The author suggests that the SAT scores reflect learned rather than inherent reasoning ability and that "the negative associations among QSAT, religiosity, and prayer fulfillment may be due to learned skills in reasoning, perhaps influenced in the home by the father’s education level."[2]

[edit] Beliefs among scientists

In one study, 90% of the general population surveyed professed a distinct belief in a personal god and afterlife, while only 40% of the scientists with a BS surveyed did so, and only 10% of those considered "eminent."[2]. Another study found that mathematicians were just over 40%, biologists just under 30%, and physicists were barely over 20% likely to believe in God.[3]

Nearly 38 percent of natural scientists -- people in disciplines like physics, chemistry and biology -- said they do not believe in God. Only 31 percent of the social scientists do not believe.[3]

A 1998 survey[4] by Larson and Witham of the 517 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences showed that 72.2% of the members expressed "personal disbelief" in a personal God while 20.8% expressed "doubt or agnosticism" and only 7.0% expressed "personal belief". This was a follow-up to their own earlier 1996 study[5] which itself was a follow-up to a 1916 study by James Leuba[6].

[edit] United States

A June 2006 Gallup survey stated, "Seventy-two percent of Americans are certain there is a God and have no doubts, while another 14% think that God probably exists and have only a few doubts. Only 3% are certain that God does not exist. There are no significant differences in belief in God by age. Men, those living in the East and West, those who are college graduates, and those with high incomes are less likely to believe in God than others." [4]

[edit] Reported "importance of religion" and statistics among nations

The Pew Global Attitudes Project surveyed opinions by nation with the question "How important is religion in your life—very important, somewhat important, not too important, or not at all important?"[5] The report finds that Americans are much more religious than people living in other wealthy nations. In the U.S., 59% of people reported religion was "very important", as compared to 30% in Canada. In this way, the views of Americans are more simliar to people in developing countries than those in developed countries. The study found a correlation between the percentage of people reporting that religion was "very important" and the national per-capita GDP. It can be further stated that the nations who scored as most religious tended to have low science scores according to TIMSS.[6] Also an inverse correlation at Nationmaster can be found between mathematical literacy and church attendance[7]. (Although labor regulation and police per capita were far stronger inverse correlations) No significant inverse correlation showed up for scientific literacy[8] or reading literacy[9] however.

Susan, these tender little nuggets of religious wisdom are solid gold. Thanks for the laugh. I would also like to provide the following reference material:

www.angryflower.com/aposter3.jpg

Here are some posts on youtube in response to a blaspheme challenge. I think you got something there, Susan. (I'm dirtgirl, btw. I was on a break from gardening when I signed up for youtube).

rebelmisft (5 days ago)
Thats where you are wrong. It was people like you that thought they knew everything that would do such stupid things. You think our society has reach the full extent of knowledge. Instead, we put our faith into little magic pills now. Which you may be addicted to. Creationism CAN NOT be proven wrong. No scientist has been successful at doing so. Actually, some scientists are coverting for that exact reason. Arrogance and anger blinds YOU! Your not as smart as you think.

dirtgirl5998 (3 days ago)
Read much?

rebelmisft (3 days ago)
"Dar ferrr?" You are a retard.

dirtgirl5998 (2 days ago)
I'm assuming you are a Christian. So, therefore, you have just shown every one that you cannot back up your bullshit with facts and need to resort to name calling. A mentally retarded person would have one up on you because you believe in an invisible friend.

dantrenner (1 day ago)
I agree that name calling is stupid, but there's a cure for ignorance while stupidity is a terminal condition. Let's see any one of you atheists argue with Apologetics Press scholarly treatises on these very subjects. You haven't even begun to think till you grapple with one of them.

I loved some of them - "Your stupid god is real" - I don't have a stupid god. You do, but he is fake.

"your gay" - that's a sentence fragment - my gay what?

And incidentally, why would someone tell a woman she is gay and then tell her to suck a cock? Someone mustn't read profiles.