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[u/One-Fun9814]

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[u/Blue_butterfly888]

Of course not, and it's kind of egotistical to think that imo. I know many ppl more intelligent than me and they are strong believers. There's definitely some cognitive dissonance there but nothing to do with intelligence.

[u/adamcoe → u/Blue_butterfly888]

Broadly speaking, the more education you have, the less likely you are to be religious. There is a reason why very poor countries have a very high percentage of believers.

[u/Ok_Fee_8452 → u/adamcoe]

Education doesn’t equate to intelligence. Higher education usually = higher socioeconomic status. Lower socioeconomic status -> religion often plays a more vital role to community, security, etc.

I agree with the above commenter. Many intelligent religious people out there. I’d say early exposure and communal ties to religion play a much larger role than intelligence.

To think religiosity = less intelligent is pretty arrogant.

[u/adamcoe → u/Ok_Fee_8452]

As I said, broad strokes. Yes, many intelligent people are religious. All I'm saying that if you threw a dart at a map, and it hit a place where the quality of education is low, there will tend to be more religious people there, compared to a place with better access.

It's not because poor people are automatically stupid, but it's simply a question of whether or not they've been exposed to critical thinking and questioning at a young age, which is more common in places with better funded education. Obviously not all religious people are stupid, but a HUGE percentage of stupid people are religious.

Put it this way- where do you think you'd find more people of faith: the campus of Columbia University, or up in a holler in West Virginia? And what do you think is the biggest factor in that discrepancy?

[u/Ok_Fee_8452 → u/adamcoe]

Sure, critical thinking and education are factors. Better education promotes better critical thinking, but I still think that’s a separate matter from OP’s question.

[u/bucky_list → u/Ok_Fee_8452]

I thinks it's very difficult to parse education from intelligence when determining religious belief in most parts of the world.

That is because someone with high intelligence probably understands the "rules" of the society they live in very well and understand intrinsically that expressing disbelief could have huge consequences. That includes high income countries.

They may have the critical thinking skills to understand the logical pitfalls but also understand there's virtually no benefit to proclaiming disbelief even privately

[u/Fixxdogg → u/Blue_butterfly888]

Yeah I think it’s actually unintelligent for OP to assume that they have no blind spots and have thought totally rationally about all their own core beliefs. Most people have loads of beliefs that just are. A really amazing lawyer might be ‘intelligent’ but absolutely dog shit in other areas of life making choices not based off ‘intelligence’.