A person with a decent education will be aware of the scientific process of progress in understanding through observation, testing, prediction and repeatability. Such a person will understand the power of the scientific method and how it has relentlessly destroyed previously held beliefs which were not based on the reason built up by technical scrutiny e.g. the sun is a fiery chariot, the earth is flat, disease is established by the evil eye etc. A person with a good education will be aware of the countless dead religions, the pattern of structured religion, the cargo cults, the fact that whatever religion one might subscribe to, it is a minority belief on the planetary scale. An educated person will always ask questions and will not accept unreasonable assertions and claims without convincing evidence. AN educated person seeks the truth and has the luxury to eschew superstition.

The Nazi regime was not a religious movement. The Jews are an ethnic as well as religious group, due to their historically isolationist settling and reproductive tendencies.
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Brainwashing is brainwashing, regardless of intent.
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SOME education gives you these skills. Most, it seems, is absolutely horrible, and teaches at most rote memorization. Which is backpedaling, as far as thinking for one's self goes. I don't know which half of the debate to put this point on.
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Some compelling reading, though it's obvious which half of the bias it has.

you missed my point about the Nazi regime....I was simply saying that intelligent people subscribed to an idiotic idea. Similar to religion. (though calling religion idiotic may be a bit harsh).

I am also a little confused by your 3rd point...
"SOME education gives you these skills. Most, it seems, is absolutely horrible, and teaches at most rote memorization. Which is backpedaling, as far as thinking for one's self goes. I don't know which half of the debate to put this point on."
What skills are you talking about?

What idiotic idea?

The idea that there is a supreme race.

Yes - there is only one race of humans.

Critical thinking skills. The tendency to question what's taught to you.

I mean religion in the belief in the supernatural context.

My question was perfectly clear. Here is the definition of the adjective 'religious' from Definr: 'relating to or concerned with religion or spiritual things; especially dedicated to service in a religion; "a monk of a religious order"; "spiritual leaders"; "religious books"; "spiritual songs" [syn: spiritual]'.

You also say that you believe that we are 'spiritual beings'. This I do find confusing - what exactly does spiritual mean? I assume (possibly wrongly) that a 'spirit' it some sort of supernatural entity or attribute.

You also state that 'Most religions don't believe in supernatural phenomenon' - really? How do you know this?

This has been measured, it's not a matter of opinion. See for example the references in "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins (2006).

And from personal experience (I did my phd at MIT and am doing a postdoc at Harvard) there are very religious people doing graduate studies here, but they are about 10% (in my measure), and about 30% mildly religious people (in my measure), far less than the proportion of religious people in the general population.

Perhaps the 70% of the student population you imply to be non-religious hide their self-flagellating biblical literalism as a result of their perceived superior intellects. :)

As someone struggling with how to recruit university students to our church, we have come to the general conclusion that below a certain age, religion is just not terribly important. That seems to come much later in life. Check in again when you're in your 40's and you'll probably find many of your classmates in your newfound church. I don't think it's a matter of disbelief, be it intellectualism or something else. I think it is much more a matter of other priorities. Remember that there is virtually no self-concept of death until the mid 20's, and I think that has much to do with it.

Depends on what type of education, if they develop their cognitive processes and an effective way of gaining knowledge, I'd say they'd be less likely to be religious since they would more likely be aware of when something is illogical.

Great argument! On the other hand, if they major in theology then they probably will be religious.

Wow this was a question that I really had to think about. Being religious myself I had to step away a bit from the question and really think about it. I would like to say No to this really bad but then I have to think about how I was raised and trying to get answers to questions myself and relised that I have to say yes. I remember as a child being drug to church by my mother and every time I asked a question about the world and church being chastised and told my curiosity was a sin and that is a matter of faith. as I grew older I stopped going to church. This is a part of the problem most churches tell children that asking questions is wrong. I know people in a lot of faiths that teach such blind ignorance. This is why we have such a gap in education levels. I have since found a faith that encourages questions and study. Here I how found very intelligent and educated people. but most religious people whenever there is an issue that may touch on a personal belief they put there hands over there ears and block out what is said. if we all though this way it would still be believed the world is flat. It saddens me that most religions on the earth haven't grown past this. In the end there will only be truth and there is nothing wrong with discovering those truths.

...and full of themselves.

No, it's not a fear of death. It is a reflection on where a person has been in life, a deeper passion to know more about the meaning of life, I think.

Life is simply far different - with far different priorities - at 40 than it is at 18. In many - I count myself in these ranks - it is a point in life where one looks back, weighs a life lived, and gains greater insight and wisdom into the world and into ourselves, and our place in the world.

A priest from the Bishop of Arizona's office once reflected on the time he met Desmond Tutu, a fellow Anglican. He saw this little short man from quite a distance, and realized who he was. He walked over, just hoping to shake his hand and introduce himself.

The guard brusquely told him that the Archbishop had no time for him. He understood. He was this lowly canon from far away Arizona, surely he meant nothing to this world icon.

No, Tutu interrupted. Of course he had time and he was delighted to meet his acquaintance. He wanted to know all about him. Tutu told him that every time he met another person, he felt that he needed to drop to his knees in prayer, because he knew that he was truly seeing God in every single human being.

Wow. That's never left me, obviously. The Archbishop is quite correct.

It's not a fear of death that attracts me to God. It is not a spiritual "sucking up". It is a sense of awe and wonder I see about me every day. It is seeing that touch of all that is good and holy in every person, in every thing, in His creation. It is that which drives me to seek Him, that I may better understand Him, better serve Him.

That gives me such peace of mind, such rest to a weary soul, such incredible love and fulfillment, that I do not think, with all respect, a person of only 18 years can truly appreciate.

Not meaning to be disrespectful, mind you. It is simply a matter of life experience. At 18 you have the world before you, all is new to you. I am much farther down the trail, have seen much, and experienced far more. When you are further along in your life, I think, this will perhaps mean more to you than it does now.

Why was I suddenly unable to sleep once, so much so that I decided to get up at the unreasonable hour of 3 a.m., and drive my truck west toward El Paso one night many years ago? Surely I could not understand it then. Within minutes, a very injured pair of men about your age flagged me down in the pitch black night. They had been in an accident, and the car was so far off the road it couldn't be seen. They had been there for hours, trying to get help. Why was I there? You tell me.

About 25 years ago, I worked for a contractor for the local gas utility as a gas leak inspector. They'd give me a map that covered one square mile, and it would take days or weeks to cover it all.

Somehow, that one day, I started a new map right where I did. I found a leak the very first thing, right after setting up my equipment. It was near a building, and, sure enough, there was gas underground right up the building wall. Enough to call the gas company and get out a repair crew. By the time they came, I still hadn't been able to determine where the center of the gas leak was, but now it was their job to fix it. So I left.

Gas is explosive at concentrations of 4 to 16%. The supervisor told me the next day that it was a good thing I found that leak. The grocery store on the other side of the wall had 3 1/2% gas concentrations, and was full of people.

Makes you wonder. You serve a purpose in this life, whether you know it or not. Knowing God, I know my purpose a little better than before.

I read recently that being selfless does not mean that you think less of yourself, it means that you think of yourself less.

That is what knowing God is: the certain knowledge that there are greater things than my self interests. That knowledge has served me well.

An interesting article entitled 'Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God''.

"There are no reasonable scientific explanations for miracles such as the beginning of the Earth, the onset of human life, etc."

Are you being serious? So, the memo about the big bang and evolution just passed you by, huh?

"In fact, the more educated one is and the more they delve in to mysteries of the universe the more apparent it is that there was a divine intervention that made all of this possible."

Wrong, IQ and religious belief and inversely proportional. The higher a person's IQ, the less likely they are to believe in God. Please don't let the absolute beauty of nature blind you into God of the gaps type arguments.

"The gravitational constant, if it were off by one part in a hundred million million, then the expansion of the universe after the Big Bang would not have occurred in the fashion that was necessary for life to occur. When you look at that evidence, it is very difficult to adopt the view that this was just chance. But if you are willing to consider the possibility of a designer, this becomes a rather plausible explanation for what is otherwise an exceedingly improbable event--namely, our existence."

You see, this is one of those huge misunderstandings about statistics, and how properly to use them in an argument. Our existance is BECAUSE of the conditions for it being available, not the other way around. This type of argument starts from the wrong perspective. "Isn't it amazing that the universe had exactly the right conditions for us to be here?" Nope. We're here because we are what evolved BECAUSE of the conditions. If the conditions were similar, something else would be in our place thinking "Wow, I can't believe the universe has the exact conditions for us to be here!" I'm suprised this isn't perfectly clear to such a brilliant man.

I believe science and God are completely mutually exclusive. When the conception of Gods came around, it was to explain the (then) unexplainable. The original Gods were characters who would control the sun, make the crops grow, makes the tides rise and fall. If we all took a second out to think about where the idea of God started from, we would be well aware that "that" version of God has been moulded into something undisprovable. Science pushed the physical God into a metaphysical wishy washy nonsense. We don't NEED the idea of a God anymore, and trying to keep it in our world by making him more and more and more of a nothingness is stupid. God is dead.

I would say yes but not because they are less gullible. Because they are more convinced in their own ability to reason things. They become the epitome of everything rational and logical. And so, for them, to believe in something that they themselves did not create would seem foolish to them and weak.

I would say it's more of pride then of actually being smarter than the insignificant little ones that believe in God.

Doubtful, there were highly educated people who bought into the Nazi regime. Coming from a strict Catholic home and being an atheist myself, I can understand why a person finds a need to believe in a god. For many, it is a comforting thought that religion offers. For others, the idea of religion is pounded into your head from the moment you are able to understand language. My sister has a 4 year old boy who, without even having a clear concept of the world, already knows about god. I don't want to be a complete ignoramus and call it brain-washing because I think parents truly think they are doing the right thing. But you certainly become as trained to believe there is a god as you do to feed yourself. This is a very difficult nut to crack later in life. I know for me, it wasnt an easy transition to become an atheist. However, keeping on topic, I don't think it was necessarily me being educated alone that led to my decision. I think time, experience, and the desire to question everything were factors as well. And I don't think that because a person is well-educated that this automatically accompanied by the need to question the status quo, otherwise why would we have all these republicans (haha...totally kidding!). Also, a truly educated person would also know that scientifically you can never rule out the existence of a god until it is disproven (which it can't be either) so I can completely understand why some may choose to opt for religion. It comes down to choosing to subscribe to "Faith". We all live our lives using this sometimes. I have "faith" that every morning I leave my house, I wont be hit by a bus. One can only hope that education will make people more understanding with there beliefs, more open to talk with those who disagree, and less extremist when it comes to religion.

Wow, so those labels are absolutely biased. At any rate, I think it's a matter of upbringing and personality. More and more people across the education spectrum are becoming less and less religious. I don't think it's a matter of education but changing societal and cultural norms.

How is being religious akin to being "gullible"? There are no reasonable scientific explanations for miracles such as the beginning of the Earth, the onset of human life, etc. In fact, the more educated one is and the more they delve in to mysteries of the universe the more apparent it is that there was a divine intervention that made all of this possible. Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute since 1993 (whom I would think it would be hard pressed to call him "uneducated"), states in the article linked below,

"The gravitational constant, if it were off by one part in a hundred million million, then the expansion of the universe after the Big Bang would not have occurred in the fashion that was necessary for life to occur. When you look at that evidence, it is very difficult to adopt the view that this was just chance. But if you are willing to consider the possibility of a designer, this becomes a rather plausible explanation for what is otherwise an exceedingly improbable event--namely, our existence."

I don't believe that Science and God must be mutually exclusive. I believe that God created the Universe and everything in it, and advances in Science give us more insight in to how all of these things work together. Science does not disprove the fact that there is a God who created everything, it merely gives us a greater understanding of how all of this works.

The beginning of the earth is fairly well understood as is the onset of human life. There is of course much that is not known but that which still eludes scientific inquiry is certainly not 'miraculous'. A miracle is an event which subverts the laws of physics

Gullible people are easily deceived by definition. To me, people who believe in entities or events coloured with much detail without a scintilla of reasonable evidence have had their gullibility exploited.

'The beginning of the Earth' and the 'onset of human life' are both quite well understood as a result of scientific inquiry. Mysteries which persist around these events are amenable to science and in no way considered 'miraculous' or otherwise beyond the scope of reasoned, physical law-obedient analysis.

That quote from Francis Collins whistles with holes in its logic.

There is absolutely no sound reason to believe god(s) exist.

Just because you happen to be a disillusioned and pessimistic individual that has subscribed to the cult of Atheism doesn't mean that God can't exist. I don't think that being educated has anything to do with a lack of belief in God. It's a matter of modern culture, it's now "cool" to be an atheist and therefore more and more people have abandoned religion. True more people with lower education tend to be religious but that, more than anything else has to do with the fact that those people are looking for something to be hopeful for. Rich, arrogant educated people see themselves as above religion. Give me some proof that a divine being doesn't exist.

I'll grant the possibility that I am both disillusioned and pessimistic but I haven't subscribed to atheism - I don't feel the need to use that label. Certainly, God can exist just as flocks of inkjet printers could exist on Neptune. I don't believe people are abandoning religion for a 'cooler' alternative. A truly religious person worthy of the title 'believer' would be unable to discard his or her faith. Those who make the motion to 'leave' their church for professed atheism to my mind were never truly religious to begin with. As for proving that a divine being doesn't exist - prove that Neptune is inkjet printer-free!

Yes, far more than education. Historical patterns corroborate this.

Which are so, so important. If I were a conspiracy theorist I'd say religion persists due to the cynical cultivation of an underclass via the ruination of the educational syllabus. A population who are easily pleased, have predictable if not generally lower expectations and have not had the value of knowledge, the pursuit of truth and the desire to learn drilled into them are a population of sheep easily lead by religious dogmatic assurances.

What is religion anyway? A set of philosophies and values that affect the roles we play in society. I think education, especially in the U.S., has done its best to eradicate the values that do not correlate with the idea of Capitalism. Most religious values conflict with the idea of capitalism and consumerism--hence they are blockages to the people who stand to make a lot of money.

Are educated people less likely to be religious: No. They are religious, they merely value other things. Instead of valuing people, nature and relationships, they are taught to value the almighty dollar.

Most religions don't believe in supernatural phenomenon and the question posed has nothing to do with the supernatural--it has to do with religion. I think I have answered that sufficiently.

To answer the new question: are educated people less likely to believe in supernatural phenomenon such as: ghosts, aliens, magic, tarot cards, fortune tellers, etc.?

Well, I can't speak of other educated people, but I have graduated from college and I've come to the conclusion that what many would call supernatural I would call fiction. However, I do believe that we are spiritual beings--with that comes the possibility of ghosts.

I think you need to clarify the question next time.

I think you'd have a very difficult time making this argument with my rector, who was a tenured professor and head of the history department at a major university in Oregon. Nor would you have much success with the majority of our parishioners, who come from academic backgrounds at the University of Arizona. While there is probably a good argument to be made that those with higher educations are less likely to be fundamentalist Biblical literalists, that is hardly the case in my own liberal Episcopal church, among many liberal churches.

I'm answering "No" but let me clarify...

Statistics show a reverse correlation between education and religious or spiritual participation. But, there is no proof that the education causes the disbelief. Isn't it at least as likely that someone who questions the world around them (including their religion) will seek more information and therefore more education?

So people only join churches later in life because they are afraid of what will happen to themselves after death? So basically it's just the fear of death putting the fear of God into these people. You aren't making a very good case for religion in intellectual circles at all.

There seems to be an assumption posed within this topic that uneducated people are more religious. Proper wording for this topic would have been: Does religion have a positive or negative correlation with an individual's level of education.

Yes, that's a less sexy question, but it's more valuable because it's unbiased.

Now, on to the substance. First, something important to understand is that religious leaders from major world religions must possess an undergraduate college degree and additional certification from formal post-graduate seminary schools. Depending upon the religion at question, these additional schools will have different names.

These people obviously have a higher level of education than average. However, that only answers the question that some better educated people are more religious than the average person.

(My assumption being if you study religion to that degree you are more religious than average.)

To fully answer this question, I would need statistics about the number of highly educated people who attend church more often than the average person or who engage in religious practices more often than the average person. I do not have those stats but that doesn't mean they do not exist.

It is my suspicion that there is no correlation between an individual's level of education and his/her religious fidelity. I think the tendencies that cause an individual to be religious are unrelated to the ones that cause us to seek out education and both the highly religious and the highly education can possess the qualities of one another.

That is, the qualities that cause an individual to be highly religious and highly educated are _not_ mutually exclusive.

I strongly disagree with you. I personally feel that for the younger generations, religion is a very important issue; the only problem being that the younger generation are far more equiped in these days to come to their own choices about their religion, rather than it being forced onto them from ther parents.

We live in a world now where information is constantly available. At home, even out and about, it's just so damn easy to find out whatever you want almost instantly. This creates a serious problem for religion. Religion has passed from generation to generation with parents teaching their children about their religion. Basically, forcing it upon them. When any piece of information you want is simply a google away, it becomes far harder to imbed fairytales into younger minds. We're all far more savvy now, with a far greater understanding of science.

It's once again down to science versus religion. We're all clued up these days, and if we don't know something, we pop on the net to verify, check it out, look at counter arguments and make up our own minds. When you subject religion to this kind of scrutiny, I'm afraid it's going to lose out.

The younger generation knows exactly what it's talking about when it comes to religion. We're not the least religious generation ever simply because we don't care. We're the least religious generation because we're the most clued up. I find it insulting when people assume "oh, those silly young kids don't care about religion."

Anyway, in regards to the original argument: IQ and religious belief are inversely proportional. That's a fact. The more intelligent you are, the less chance there is of you believing in God. That speaks volumes.

"oh, those silly young kids don't care about religion."

They don't.

The question could be rephrased: Are people who have been thoroughly exposed to curriculum X less likely to accept curriculum Y? What about religious education?

The question fails to take into account that educational institutions share a common root with religious institutions.

Yes if a program of indoctrination is thoroughly administered, it is less likely that radically different systems will be given much respect.

"Education: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding" ~ Bierce