A survey of Royal Society fellows found that only 3.3 per cent believed in God. Why is the figure so low?

Question

Intelligent people 'less likely to believe in God'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2111174/Intelligent-people-

http://royalsociety.org/

"The Royal Society, the national academy of science of the UK and the Commonwealth, is at the cutting edge of scientific progress."

Answer 1

If a scientists cannot tell religions are human inventions then they are in deep deep trouble. They are denying their own logic.

Answer 2

i don't trust surveys

they only ask a small number of people, then say those people represent anyone not surveyed

Answer 3

It's due to intelligence.

Answer 4

Science has shown atheists have a higher intelligence than people with a strong religious faith. The difference is 5.8 points according to findings in developmental psychology!!!    

More members of the "intellectual elite" considered themselves atheists than the national average.

Only 7 percent of members of the American National Academy of Sciences believed in God. Whilst only 3.3 percent believed in God in the UK’s Royal Society.

Several Gallup poll studies of the general population have shown that those with higher IQ’s tend not to believe in God."

Evolution in action with Christians getting left behind like the monkeys and apes before them!!!

Answer 5

I was once told i haD S**T for brains by my local pagan/atheist, Obviously an Anti-Christ. I was refusing and still am REFUSING the conversion to worship and bow to EVIL.

that was a while ago, now i think of that moment on the bus outside my local shop, i can only SHOUT with JOY, I REFUSED PRAISE GOD. What would i be doing now if i panicked and took his advice..... of course no one is joining me in that celebration, they  seem to prefer the evil.

My bible says JESUS SAVES.

I DON'T THINK EVIL ALLOWS MANY PEOPLE TO ASK GOD FOR HELP. NOR DO I THINK THAT THE DEVILS THAT THEY KEEP IN THEIR HOUSES HAVE MUCH LOVE FOR GOD.

plus the wicked LOVE EVIL.... the Bible says so.

  ((( it also says the curse of God is on the house of the WICKED )))

Nicely it also says, DON'T TRUST DOGS, Jesus even turned away from a Dog in the bible when she begged for her child to be healed.

She begged again gave a plea, but he replied and said IT'S NOT GOOD TO PUT THAT WHICH IS HOLY BEFORE DOGS. She gave a reply which was oddly from the heart and he said, go your child is healed.

Also it says trust not what men say or do to you. Praise the Lord.

The other quote in the New testatment regarding Dogs says... "put not that which is holy before dogs or swine, less they trample on YOUR PEARLS and TEAR YOU TO PIECES."

Answer 6

Because they truncated it to one decimal place.

Answer 7

Because they're pretty clever people.

Answer 8

As education goes up, religious belief goes down. Use your imagination as to why that would be. :)

Answer 9

Because religion hampers science?

Answer 10

the answer is in the question, if you are intelligent and have the sort of intelligence that questions abstract concepts and different types of 'truth' then you are less likely to believe in a fairy story

Answer 11

The right wing have misplaced self belief.

Believe in someting bigger than yourselves.

Answer 12

its low because instead of people giving the reason, "God did it." as an explanation to matters, we have science to prove it.

Answer 13

They do have the "good example" of the Chruch of England.  

Answer 14

It is not so much a persons intelligence but there thinking analysing and education level. Once you get to question the whole religious/superstitious edifice it collapses into the pile of dust that it is.

Answer 15

I don't think you have to be particularly intelligent to not believe in god but scientists are taught to question everything and examine results in the light of current evidence and as soon as you look at any religion in this way it does not make any sense and of course the if there is no sense in something it is by definition nonsense.

Answer 16

The more you're taught to question everything the less acceptable faith typically becomes as an answer without collaborating evidence.  It's the same reason you see very few PhD candidates outside theology and politics (but you have to wonder how much of that is real and how much is for show as with all things political) who have a belief in god.

Answer 17

i don't believe anything coming form Britain- besides you have to state that only 3.3 percent of the scientists studied don't believe in God. It's basically what they were taught- they're just regurgitating what their teachers taught them

Answer 18

I couldnt find the survery on the royalsociety.org site... perhaps my Theism also proves an inability to navigate websites :)

The Telegraph article was interesting to some degree and have copy pasted one quote below :

"Dr David Hardman, principal lecturer in learning development at London Metropolitan University, said: "It is very difficult to conduct true experiments that would explicate a causal relationship between IQ and religious belief. Nonetheless, there is evidence from other domains that higher levels of intelligence are associated with a greater ability - or perhaps willingness - to question and overturn strongly felt institutions."

The Enlightment brought us an ability to question, to use reason to challenge accepted norms, to accept that which can be proven. Thanks goodness we have this but we should not be fooled by thinking we have reached the pinnacle of comprehension.

I read the above quote in this way ...

People who believe in reason and need facts do not believe in a God. Well that doesnt surprise me but certainly does not mean a lack of Theist intellect.

Using a sample of the nations "Intellectual elite" or using IQ as a barometer is simply unreliable in true verifiable and scientific means.  

Questioning/Reason etc cannot be ever disprove someones Faith and neither should it attempt to as there are many mroe worthwile and verifiable theories out there that time money and intellect can be spent on

Thanks for the question as it does remind me and others that the domain of Intellectualism does not reside with Atheism and when I see quotes from people claiming Intellect in this way simply debases the claimaints own intellect.

Answer 19

education is the key, about how our earth was created, and having an open mind to evolution and that when you consider the creationists believe that the world is 6,000 years old, when all the scientific evidence supports an age of around 1.4 billion years. Then we are growing away from believing en masse because we have seen our leaders and the established church in fighting and not able to agree on much. Any normal person must choose their path and i really think that if you look at this logically people are doing just that and finally not towing the line that there is an all seeing all encompassing God.  

Answer 20

You might look for an article which asks this question of society members. Faith is personal.

Answer 21

the smartest man in the world believes in God.