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[deadlock]

Check it out: Wikipedia's "Religiousness and intelligence" articleWhat do people think about this? I'm particularly interested in how religious people would explain why intelligent people are so much more likely to be secular than the average person. The "Interpretations" section of the article gives some explanations for this trend, but none of

Comments

[deadlock]

These are good points. Christians find a lot of happiness in their faith. They tend to be more charitable and all-around nicer to others, as well. These are obviously good things.

However, I believe the evangelical Christian conservative movement is a negative force in this country. Here are my two main reasons:

1) They tend to advocate equal time for teaching both creationism and evolution in school. This, I believe, could have negative economic consequences for the United States. While students in more secular countries, like China and Japan, are learning to appreciate and employ genuine scientific methods, students in the US are learning pseudo-science.

2) Christian conservatives tend to be in favor of limiting the rights of gays and lesbians. They also promote the myth that sexual orientation is a choice, which many people use to justify their contempt for gay people. ("It's okay to hate gays because they chose to be that way.")

Also, their objection to euthanasia bothers me personally, although I'm not sure it has quite the negative societal impact of the two reasons mentioned above. Did you hear about the Terri Schiavo autopsy results?

[lonesumlogician]

They tend to advocate equal time for teaching both creationism and evolution in school. This, I believe, could have negative economic consequences for the United States. While students in more secular countries, like China and Japan, are learning to appreciate and employ genuine scientific methods, students in the US are learning pseudo-science.

If it's just evolution they're disputing, that might not be that detrimental to our science and economy. Believing in creationism, won't make you a very good biologist, but you can still be a good computer programmer, engineer, statistician, investment banker, etc. I'm fine with teaching creationism as long as they state that it's a belief, not a fact.

Christian conservatives tend to be in favor of limiting the rights of gays and lesbians. They also promote the myth that sexual orientation is a choice, which many people use to justify their contempt for gay people. ("It's okay to hate gays because they chose to be that way.")

I think that's more of an issue of homophobia, not Christianity. Homophobes will always find reasons to contempt gays. If it's not Christianity, they'll find other reasons like: "Fags are spreading AIDS." A non-homophobic Christian would most likely be neutral to gays. This is just my non-scientific, self-extrapolating opinion.

[conniving]

Agreed. I think it is more than terrible that a lot of Christians have given Christianity a bad name with regards to homosexuals... Christians that express hatred for gays have absolutely missed the point. Jesus taught love and acceptance of others (not neccessarily of their actions, but a love and genuine compassion for all people, not merely the "pure" and "relatively sinless"). Christians are sinners, too, and I think we forget that too often and are too quick to condemn others when we should be worrying about our own actions.