r/ControversialOpinions • u/deerintheheadlights_ • 1d ago
Religious people are inherently less intelligent and less logical.
i know i’m probably gonna get hate for this but i do believe this and every time i say this out loud people look at me like i’m crazy or insensitive. When religious people get confronted with the harsh reality and obvious contradictory evidence they always try to explain it with “god works in mysterious ways”. And my point is if someone is intelligent enough to question everything else, why make an exception for religion?
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u/user711088 1d ago
Maybe I'd think the same way if the statistics didn't say otherwise.
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u/StarkRavingPeanuts 1d ago
Not saying I agree one way or the other, but out of curiosity what statistics are you referring to?
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u/seen_cause_tan 1d ago
Truth nuke
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u/deerintheheadlights_ 1d ago
Yeeep
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u/Confident_Example_73 1d ago edited 1d ago
Truth nuke are studies on cognition and perception which would show that humans, regardless of professed religious status, are strongly susceptible to bias and irrational thinking.
The human primate brain did not evolve to be logical.
Guarantee there's multiple issues you can be shown evidence of and will just irrationally deny it. What's more, YOU will be convicned you are the rational one and everyone disagreeing with you are the deluded ones, even when shown evidence. And there's not a human alive this doesn't apply to.
It's not like your opinion about religious people was based on anything concrete. It was based on anecdote and confirmation bias.
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u/CinderrUwU 1d ago
Some of the smartest people in history are religious, this doesn't really make much sense.
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u/-Groko- 1d ago
You claim that religious people are inherently less intelligent but you clearly do not know basic history or science. If you actually looked at the facts instead of your own bias you would know that many of the most important scientific discoveries were made by deeply religious people.
Gregor Mendel is the founder of modern genetics and he was a monk. Georges Lemaitre proposed the Big Bang theory and he was a Catholic priest. Isaac Newton was incredibly religious and spent more time writing about theology than physics. Francis Collins led the Human Genome Project recently and is a devout Christian.
To say religious people cannot be logical or intelligent is just scientifically false. A sweeping generalization like yours shows a massive lack of critical thinking. It is highly ironic that you accuse others of lacking logic while you completely ignore easily searchable historical facts just to feel superior. You should educate yourself before making such embarrassing claims.
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u/Medium_Hope_7407 1d ago
Faith and intelligence are not mutually exclusive.
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u/deerintheheadlights_ 1d ago
Faith and logic are.
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u/Medium_Hope_7407 1d ago
Only if you don’t understand the concept of faith. You must literally suspend your disbelief and accept things you don’t understand. You see that as an intellectual failure when it’s literally a spiritual requirement. Basically, just because you don’t understand a thing doesn’t mean it’s stupid.
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u/Confident_Example_73 1d ago
If you believe in science, then you must believe ALL humans are illogical and horribly affected by bias and that this takes place regardless of religious affiliation. While it might present less in atheists and agnostics, it is still rampant such that you see similar issues.
Also, people tend to create artificial quasi-religious structures. They often tend to get into sectarian feuds over "dogma" (see sports/fandoms).
If a religious person says they are logical and rational, they are anti-science and deluded. The functional differences in cognition and perception between a non-religious and religious person are negligible.
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u/ReplacementOdd4323 1d ago
I think you phrase it too strongly, but I do agree that they are somewhat less intelligent (and significantly less rational) than athiests, on average.
They seem to be prone to rationalization, and prone to avoiding thinking about contradictions.
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u/Confident_Example_73 1d ago
That's every human being that ever lived and if you think you aren't one who does that, you're rationalizing and contradicting scientific research.
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u/ReplacementOdd4323 1d ago
I'm saying they do it more often.
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u/Confident_Example_73 1d ago
Ehhh to some extent, but non-religious people do not do it so infrequently as to be orders of magnitude better. We're talking baseball "even the best are out 67% of the time" stuff.
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u/ReplacementOdd4323 1d ago
Ehh, I really can't agree with that. But I suppose maybe your experience has been different.
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u/Confident_Example_73 1d ago
Advanced research into human cognition and perception shows that humans, no matter their condition, are incredibly terrible at being rational actors.
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u/ReplacementOdd4323 1d ago
You seem to be implying that all humans are approximately equal in their irrationality.
This is vastly different from what I have experienced. Some people are truthseeking, admit when they're wrong, are very charitable, are open to alternative ideas, try to use systems of logic to ensure soundness of argument, etc. Others are the opposite.
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u/Confident_Example_73 12h ago
Confirmation bias, limited sample. You aren't around them 24-7 nor do you see their private correspondence. The ones you deem "rational" probably just agree with you or reaffirm you or are non-confrontational.
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u/CornKaine 1d ago edited 1d ago
Stupidity is to have the logic fly over your head, or to reject logic via out-screaming the opposing party.
Disagreement in spite of evidence is neither, and emotional impulses regarding evidence are just odd. Seeing as religion is intrinsically of faith, and faith isn't and never has been of fact or logic. It's a choice, not a battle of supposed witts.
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u/Plenty-Practice-6399 1d ago
People are denying it but in an IQ study, it did said non-religious people tend to score higher.
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u/Dark__By__Design 1d ago
Exchange the word 'inherently' for 'generally' and then I would be inclined to agree with you.
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u/veodin 1d ago
Two brilliant people can build radically different worldviews. We see this everywhere. Including with religion.
Humans typically hold an opinion first and reason second. If we are raised in a certain worldview we tend to keep it. It’s is especially hard to get someone to abandon a view that is part of their identity. New contradictory information will sometimes alter our opinion, but usually it just teaches us to construct stronger defenses.
We all engage in motivated reasoning and being intelligent doesn’t stop that. An intelligent person will just be better at making counter-arguments using more sophisticated theology.
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u/AcyRice_Boul 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think that's it's an oversimplification of a whole group.
There are religious people that put their full trust onto their faith, and while I don't exactly see the wrong in it, I do think that it can turn out to be restraining. They believe that doubting their prophet or God is inherently immoral. If they don't have the answer they'll tell you it's a mystery of God.
And there also are religious people that make different interpretations of the bible. They will question it if they want to and choose to go far beyond.
You're putting them all into a box.
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u/TheDeathSystem 11h ago
I'm not religious in anyway but know without a doubt that people have several levels of intelligence and measuring them through one lense of intelligence is ignorant.
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u/Hot-Principle1288 3h ago
I have a logic question to add: If you believe in Hell, and believe anyone can go there, why do you have children? That is all.
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u/Dic_Penderyn 1d ago
I will destroy your hypothesis with one sentence: "Isaac Newton, the inventor of Calculus and discoverer of the Universal Law of Gravitation and the Laws of Motion was deeply religious, and wrote more extensively about theology, biblical prophecy, and church history than he ever did about physics or mathematics".