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When psychologists first studied the connection between religion and intelligence, in the 1920s and 30s, they came to the conclusion that atheists were more intelligent, on average, than their religious counterparts. But further research showed a murkier picture, and by the 1970s the general conclusion was that there was no difference between atheists and the religious.

More recent studies have started to shove opinion back. They seem to be showing that there is, after all, a difference—albeit with some caveats and nuances. Here's a couple of recent ones.

Miron Zuckerman, at the University of Rochester in New York, along with colleagues has conducted a meta-analysis of all the previously-published studies. A meta-analysis is a statistical tool used to pool together different studies, so that you can see the overall picture.

Altogether, Zuckerman dug up 63 studies, dating back to the 1920s. He found that, although there was a lot of variation, there was clear evidence that "the higher a person's intelligence, the lower the person scored on the religiosity measures."

Intelligence is not specific. It is a measurement of how well one is capable of differentiating between different information and recognizing different patterns, from a clinical standpoint, once you remove all the subjective supposition concerning the definition of the term. In this way, intelligence can be applied to nearly all cognitive functions involving logic, reason, comprehension, or active memory. Obscuring the definition of intelligence wit your own self-made mumbo-jumbo is just equivocation in this instance, and will not help us to try to understand this better.

There are many more ideological atheists in the world now than even just 50 years ago. Mostly fueled by a negative reaction of society to Christian and Muslim fundamentalism. For which they often lump all religions into a single category without any kind of distinction—and still claim they are "smart atheists" when doing so.

All people like Dawkins done that to keep the war raging between stupid theists and their stupid atheist counterparts. That is how they make a living. That is how the priests he condemns makes their living. Neither group is particularly smart. And as a religious person myself, I have yet to come across at ground level either a theist or an atheist who claimed to be smart who was capable of actually demonstrating that in any effective way. Thinking is not their strong suit. If it were, they wouldn't be ideologues.

I don't think Dawkins is a particular smart man either. I think he is very knowledgeable and a relatively descent writer, but he still uses all the same old logical fallacies that any other idiot uses. And most of his debates just amounts to him brow-beating his opponents with facts about the church in the past, and faulty generalizations about the minority, but most vocal and intolerant of modern Christian groups.

The fundamentalists only make up about 12% of Abrahamic religions world wide (with there being no comparison in Eastern Dharmic religions). But Dawkins, "smart atheist" that he is, treats this as the majority threat. But then, this is exactly what you would expect from a propagandist, which is exactly what he is.

Makes no sense to criticize Dawkins on the basis of being what he intends to be. He is not propagandist by accident, he is one on purpose. And religious people getting all mad about the ignorance he preaches is just what he expects and hopes will happen. Because it is the ire of the Christians that further fuel his popularity. It impresses the less intelligent atheists and adds to his authority among his flock.

Neither the theists nor the atheists can help but continue to be manipulated by these kinds of people on both sides of the divide. Because as I said, they don't really think for themselves. They just follow the voices of the most vocal leaders of their communities. Lemmings chasing after other little lemming asses until they all leap off the cliff together.