Half Sigma: Smart People Tend to be More Secular

I actually previously discovered that Larry’s speculation is false. In the General Social Survey, it is primarily Wordsum score and not years of schooling which correlates with less religiosity. It should also be noted that the correlation of higher IQ with less religiosity was observed in the 1920s, before liberals took over the colleges. And even before the invention of IQ tests, it can be observed though the study of history that the elites tended to be more secular than the masses.

In the United States where belief in God is the norm, self-identifying as an atheist means you are likely to have thought about the issue, which indicates higher intelligence. But beyond this, it seems obvious to me that smarter people find the Bible hard to believe, so even when smarter people claim to believe in God, their religious beliefs tend to be more like universal Unitarianism than traditional Christianity with its reliance on supernatural events for which there is no historical or scientific evidence.

Obvious, but necessary to reinforce.