Highly religious, lowly IQ?

According to an original research article published by Frontiers, it is well established that religiosity correlates inversely with intelligence. Psychometric population studies, according to the research, have now firmly established that religiosity influences cognitive style and that religiosity and intelligence negatively correlate. Meaning, religious people have lower IQ than non-religous people. Frontiers is the 3rd most-cited and 6th largest research publisher and open science platform in the world with 3.8 million citations. Meaning, the research holds some truth. However, other researchers also have their own opinions. According to an article in the American Psychologist, a journal published by the American Psychological Association, religiosity and intelligence are both complex topics that include diverse variables, and the interactions among those variables are not always well understood. For instance, intelligence is often defined differently by different researchers; also, all scores from intelligence tests are only estimates of intelligence, because one cannot achieve concrete measurements of intelligence (as one would of mass or distance) due to the concept’s abstract nature. Religiosity is also complex, in that it involves wide variations of interactions of religious beliefs, practices, behaviors, and affiliations, across a diverse array of cultures.

The point that this column would like to make is that we have no such research undertaken in our society. That, without research, we are all like the proverbial “man in a dark cellar at midnight without a light looking for a black cat that is not there.” And that, we should encourage research and analysis. Interestingly, if today a research was to be conducted in our society, it is very likely that the research work published by Frontiers could possibly be proven right. According to Gallup, another global analytics firm, less developed and poorer countries tend to be more religious, perhaps because religions play a more active social, moral and cultural role in those countries. Mis-governance, rampant corruption and poor economic conditions are arguably related to low intelligence quotient of the given populace (because intelligent people would not accept mis-governance nor would they embrace rampant corruption or keep their economic conditions poor). And, as mentioned above, religiosity correlates inversely with intelligence – that is, we are so religious that our IQ is so low we can’t even call a spade a spade!

Faith leaders in our society have a daunting task ahead. Maybe it is about time to rethink our theology. The spiritual needs of the people are now different than what it was a generation ago. When our faith leaders fail to tend to the spiritual needs of the congregation, there will emerge a vacuum only to be filled by something else – religiosity. And religiosity leads to all the chaos in the world.

Mokokchung Times