IQ compared to Religiosity

Today I saw a post going around about IQ related to how religious a person is.  I don't put a whole lot of stock in it as far as pointing to some random religious person and saying that I am smarter than them, because I have quite a few religious or partially religious friends who are very intelligent.  The focal point of this post, however, will be on certain trends that have been found amongst those who are non-religious.  In the few places I "researched" there were some similar correlations reported.  Typically atheists average about 6 IQ points higher than strict theists with people of varying degree of religiosity falling in between the two edges.  While you would probably be correct in saying that Atheists in general have higher IQs, a difference of 6 points isn't a terribly large gap so in the end its not "brainiac" vs "Can't tie my shoes" but more like "Average Joe who reads the newspaper" vs "Average Joe who doesn't read the newspaper."

There are also a few racial trends, at least in the USA, there are higher rates of Atheists in the Caucasian and Asian populations but lower rates in African American and Hispanic populations.  In this case I don't believe it is an inherent attribute of the race so much as the two populations are not afforded the same opportunities and education that others are lucky enough to have been born into.  But the systemic prejudice here is an issue for another post.

The next demographic, age, seems to correlate with the general population's rise in Atheism.  Over the last 60 years, the rate of people who are atheist, agnostic or non-religious in general has risen from 2% to about 20% of the population.  That is 1 in 5 people.  If you look at the distribution as well, 55% are 35 and younger, 30% are 50 and over with a peculiar 15% making up the 36-49 range.  I have no data to support this, but I do believe that age range, during their formative years, coincides with the rise of evangelism, though it is also a smaller range than the other two, at least with respect to age itself.

Men are more likely to be non-religious than women.


The most important one though, in my opinion, is the rate of criminality and religiosity.   One of the misconceptions of Atheism, and it is promoted heavily in many churches, is that atheists are morally corrupt and societal deviants, which transfers over into criminals.  Sometimes it is only perpetuated by the perception that having a faith makes you a good person and leaves the rest unsaid about those without religion.  Unfortunately for anyone who wants to perpetuate this stereotype, its dramatically false, almost to the point of non-existence.  Of those incarcerated, a whopping 1/10th of 1% lack any sort of religiosity.  That 1 in 1000 inmates.

So hows that "Atheists are degenerates" idea fit up against that?