Does intelligence lead to atheism?
Not necessarily, there is a difference between intelligence and wisdom.
I think perhaps where as Intelligence applies to the application knowledge, wisdom is more applicable to understanding and utilisation of experience, human nature and sensory input
Intelligence is simply the ability to gather and apply appropriate knowledge in a critical and practical way.
If you have no knowledge, or inaccurate knowledge or decide not to gain certain knowledge for the sake of an abnegation of responsibility and a peaceful life you can be very intelligent and still an utter fool.
This is how you can have a brilliant author and physician who writes intelligent and wonderful detective stories, and yet in real life thinks fairies live at the bottom his garden and that his wife can talk to dead people.
(Arthur Conan Doyle in case anyone did not get the reference)
I guess that addresses the conundrum of how IQ tests can be used to determine the intelligence of someone like the French "Wild Child. They usually use geometric figures and other such non-informational devices.
Most scientists are atheist or agnostic. People with higher level of education tend to be liberal. Just sayin...
I have a super smart friend who is somehow a young earth presuppositional Calvinist. Blows my mind, but he is convinced the rest of us are blinded to the truth.
Perhaps one has to differentiate between being a believer in something divine and just belonging to a religious congregation, perhaps in the way that someone has a nationality without having any patriotic feeling. Giordano Bruno, Gregor Mendel and Georges Lemaitre are prominent examples of people who were professionally religious without being mentally incapacitated by their religious mandate.
Animals are supposed to be less intelligent than us. Do they have religion? I doubt it. So, does that mean they are actually more intelligent?
Not exactly.
interesting reference/list
Not necessarily.
Everyone knows some very intelligent folks who believe, and fervently so.
The difference is the faith in holy spirit - the hand of a god through woman and man that allows them to suspend an otherwise inquisitive nature.
They need it. Others dont.
Intelligence leads to the realisatiom that there is no omnipotent off-planet rewarding and punishing Father God.
It also leads to the recognition that there is a creative consciousness which is the source and cause of the existence of all manifest things, evidently including us. And therefore gets keen seekers to search for what "that" might be .....
Creative consciousness? So, like a god? I respectfully disagree with that assessment.
Usually, atheists are better at understanding reality than religious folk, though not necessarily.