The big news today on Yahoo was what many atheists and humanists have assumed all along: Religious people are less intelligent than atheists, according to scientific studies.
This isn't big news, but it is nice to see some science behind the theory actually being shown. For those who haven't seen the article, check it out here: Religious people are less intelligent than atheists
Now, I'm unable to access the databases to read the actual journal articles, but 63 scientific studies that go back decades all show a negative correlation between religious belief and intelligence. I would love to be able to read the articles and tell you how strong the argument is, and get some actual numbers and assess the studies from the perspective of the scientist, but I have to rely on the Yahoo article for now. Something in that article did jump out at me, though, and I want to see this expanded on.
The researchers pointed out that "People possessing the functions that religion provides are likely to
adopt atheism, people lacking these very functions (e.g., the poor, the
helpless) are likely to adopt theism". This vague allusion to the role religion plays on the poor is exactly the issue I run into where I live, and see in dealings with some of my family.
I'm, as my moniker states, stone broke, and I lack any links to churches, save for the ordination by the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, that would provide any assistance to my family, and while it sucks not having a church type community that we could lean on and help in return, I have serious issues with lying to myself and to others to get a handout by going to church. I do have a family member, however, who I feel does so. I won't name names, but she joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints a couple years ago. She was ripe for the plucking, if Stephen Fry's theory on the LDS church is true (Stephen Fry Big Think Video); she is of a certain age, and her children have all left the nest and are far away (and don't deal with her much), plus she's poor as hell. Now, I don't know how much of it she actually believes in, and I don't ask because I feel someone's beliefs are something that are not my business, but she was really struggling before joining the church, and now the church helps her pay her bills, got her job training, and helped her get through school, and she gets the promise of her family being reunited with her in the afterlife. When she told me she was joining it made me question her intelligence, and her reasoning behind it.
I have friends who are LDS, nearly all of them were born into it, and I don't have issues with the church as a whole; in fact in regards to taking care of their members and having a sense of community it is one of the best around in spite of the oddball things that members must do to show the strength of their faith. My problem is that I think the LDS church, as well as others like the Baptists and the Jehovah's Witnesses, prey on the ones who are down and out, offering help with a heaping side of fire and brimstone. I remember when I lived in the poor parts of the Pacific Northwest, a church group would rent out the community center once a week and offer kids activities to keep them off the streets and away from the gang violence that happened often. It's the only time having a photographic memory paid off; they paid money to kids who could remember the most bible verses, and the more one remembered, the more they paid. It's also the last time I read the bible, because afterwards I was disillusioned by the whole church idea, especially when the Jehovah's Witnesses started coming to the door and talking to my mother once a week. That separation became stronger after the move to Vegas, where in the trailer park we lived in the first year had a bus coming every Sunday from the nearby Baptist church to pick up kids to take to church while their parents slept off their hangovers. Then once my family moved from the trailer park to Little Cuba/Little Mexico, we had our fair share of missionaries coming by trying to spread the word of their makers, but save for the JW incidents my family was relatively safe from people really pushing to convert to anything until we kids left home. Even my two closest friends in high school, both of who were (and still are) very involved in the LDS church, didn't push converting to their faith. But I digress.
My musings tonight from this article make me seriously wonder how intelligent some people really are; and if I am truly still an outlier, like I am in every other study I tend to be in, being poor and a humanist. What is really the threshold for the intelligence to reject religion? Where must one be in their ability to reason and think critically to be able to make the leap from religious belief to a freedom from religion? How does one become a poor non-believer when there are churches around that are willing to help, so long as you pledge your soul to their particular style of guilt and morality? Where is the line that protects the intelligent child from being sucked into a system of divine servitude? And how does a free thinking parent teach their child how to avoid being drawn in blindly?
