Education level does play some role, but the key determining factors are related more to personality. Atheists and agnostics have more questioning, analytical, and independent personalities.

We're so concerned with trends and the makeup of individuals who identify with us, lol.

Atheists have one thing in common: They do not believe in God. That's it. There is no baseline for entrance into this club and it's an easy assertion to arrive to, given enough time. There are no IQ requirements.

College education in the US is different than in Europe. As someone pointed out, there are far more religious colleges here. More than that, religious institutions from K through grad school. You never have to break that cycle.

So it's not surprising, if true.

Nice article, i have a video.

Just because you have a degree doesn’t mean you possess critical thinking skills. School teaches WHAT to think not HOW to think. That probably has something to do with it.

The "God" thing is complicated. We've been steeped in as a species for tens of thousands of years (and even more), and so it has become ubiquitous in our way of thinking. It's like water to a fish. I suspect that until we find another "story" to replace the ones having been told since we became conscious, we'll be playing god for generations yet to come.

I draw the opposite conclusion: looking at the data, there is (mostly, with one exception) a general albeit slight trend toward less religion among the more educated. For example, only 46% of those with a college degree say religion is very important vs 53 and 58 for less educated folks. Likewise 55% say they believe in God with absolute certainty vs 65 and 66%. And 11% identify as atheist or agnostic vs. 8 and 4% of those with less education. The only thing I see that challenges this trend is that, across different Christian traditions, those with college degrees are more likely to say that they attend weekly. Two possibilities (I only skimmed the article, so not sure if they addressed these and refuted them): 1) if you have a college degree you have great economic stability and thus more likely have the time to spare to go (perhaps less likely to work on Sundays or other times when services are held, etc.) and 2) they may be more likely to see their place of worship as a part of social networking. I see this aspect of religious faith a lot in the South (or, I should say, I hear about it). I certainly can see how it works for my family too. A third point is to note that Americans are more likely to lie about attending religious services (they'll say they attend more often than they actually do); if I didn't misread the data here, it looks like about a third of Americans claim to attend weekly. I had seen previous data that suggested that the number was closer to 20%. The same reports that suggested that attendance was around 20% (of those who attend weekly) is actually in line with actual attendance in Europe -- where people are more likely to lie about attendance -- but saying that they don't attend when they actually do.

why would that be surprising? college grads don't automatically lose the superstitions, prejudices and delusions of their parents and their upbringing just because they attended some classes. it's not as if they've been deprogrammed!

g

It's important to recognize that this is a journalist's attempt to summarize a somewhat complex data set. Data from the Pew Institute is generally not considered that biased by the social science academia. The real story here is that Christians are a different population than atheists, agnostics, and adherents of other religions. If you remove Christians from the analysis (and Muslims) it shows that for most everyone else there is a relationship between more education and less belief. However, it could be that disbelief develops during education OR equally possible given the data that people who are already nonbelievers are more likely to seek out more education. These data can't make a claim on that question at all.

Many will not acknowledge they are atheist or agnostic and the religious rest have never really examined why they are religious. If you ask them why they are religious you will find out most have never ask themselves the question and they become very uncomfortable when asked to examine their reason for being religious.

96 % of the scientists listed in England and the US identify as athiest.

It has nothing to do with “school” but more with life experience. Not everyone who goes to school is “super smart” in this system. You got mama/papa bank? You got yourself a college diploma - even if it’s from the most useless department.

I think religion is so engrained throughout generations that even when people are educated with facts, they can't let go of something they've believed all their lives. I still struggle with this, even though my brain know better.

I think it might be useful to find out if this is so in other developed countries or if it applies only to the better educated in USA. I have a feeling that you will find this is an American phenomenon. Why it is so begs another set of questions!

I expect a much larger percentage are simply religiously unaffiliated and never give such labels a thought at all.

Are these US stats or World Wide?

Look at atheists among the members of the National Academy of Sciences etc. the percentage of believers is well below the general population. I think I read where physicists have the lowest percentage of believers.

I think it's very interesting that they are mostly concerned with church attendance and not whether the respondents actually place importance in their faith, or even believe in God, despite indetifying as Christian. The headline could just as easily say that more educated church-goers are less likely to believe in God.

To quote the immortal Tyler Durden, "sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken".

Religious belief is not an intellectual pursuit, quite the opposite in fact. It demands blind faith, i.e. a suspension of critical thinking. How else could normally rational, intelligent people believe that we were all created by an old man in the sky? ?

What I glean from this is that smarter people are more inclined to escape religion but that very few people 'half-escape'. You're either in or you're out but higher educational attainment correlates with being out. I think this is pretty standard human behaviour - if you looked at falling gym attendance, say, you would probably find that fewer people were going to the gym at all; not that the same number of people were going less often.

[pewforum.org]

I have to say I'm pretty sceptical of a study done by pewforum making claims contrary to all if not most previous findings. Aren't they a religious right wing think tank?