Are Athiests more intelligent than people of faith?

There are plenty of philosophers, scientists, novelists, essayists, and engineers that fall within the vast spectrum of intellectuals who would also consider themselves strong believers of some form of theological ideology.

On the other hand there are many atheists that live their lives in the blue collar industry as plumbers, painters, taxi-drivers and brick layers, and some who didn't completed their secondary or tertiary education.

These examples on their own cannot "prove" any point as to who would be more intellectual than the other, and so we cannot possibly conclude that the level on which intelligence is measured upon is based on theology or atheism.

A "man of science" fits in both categories, since science has not yet contradicted religion; only theories have. Mainstream society too frequently forgets this. Since theories are still grouped in the category of speculation, one cannot assume that a man of faith falls outside the realms of "reality", and neither can he be labelled as ignorant.

Many of the philosophical ideologies presented by atheists and in particular regarding such concepts as the big-bang theory or Darwinism, is still in fact theory. The very thought process on what "might" or "might-not" have occurred in the history of the universe is in itself a belief; and therefore one may argue that atheism ultimately is a belief system in its own rite.

Just because these concepts are popular today, doesn't necessarily provide a means to measure intelligence.

The Atheist Faith

If we look at the deeper constructs of atheism, it is in actual fact a "rejection" of the concept of God; however that doesn't necessarily mean that atheists don't believe in an entity that binds the universe together.

In reality, atheism tries to justify concepts based on logical reasoning and deductions from specific findings that mankind has been able to muster over the ages.

Such concepts like the theory of evolution has only managed to allow mankind to establish reasoning based on 200 species of fossils over a period of 2 million years. That is, in perspective, similar to reading one page of a 10,000 page novel and then trying to explain what the book is about.

When scientists decided to change their focus from archaeological proofs to the more intricate molecular structures of mankind, more questions rather than answers had arisen.

Based on the lack of conclusive evidence, atheists were drawn to maintain the theoretical elements of their explanations, and some convinced themselves that "surely" the concept of natural selection is "more truer" than any other concept, thus as we witness today, most believe that natural selection is indeed fact.

But in reality, this falls into the categorisation of faith. Belief that natural selection and not a creator of all things is the source of our existence, is in itself a belief.

There are many atheists that understand that "random" selection based on trial and error cannot be possible as a lottery cannot construct such a sophisticated organism like the human being, and therefore the concept that "mother nature finds a way to adapt life" rings more clearly than most other theories.

It is fitting that we call it "mother nature" almost personifying the nurturing entity of nature, just like those who follow star-signs and believe that astrological alignments control our destiny, or New Yorkers who believe that finding a nickel is the city's way to communicate to them.

Ultimately, whether we call it Mother Nature, "the city that protects us while we sleep", the ultimate entity, the creator of all things, God, Allah, or whatever our hearts desire us to call it, the human being naturally seeks solitude with a greater force, even if we don't consciously admit it to ourselves.

Atheists today out-rightly reject the concept of an old man with a white beard sitting in a cloud shouting "good person", "bad person", and justifiably so; especially when most people don't adapt well to discipline from a man-like figure they don't relate to. But that does not necessarily mean that their faith of an entity greater than they can perceive wouldn't exist, rather only that they reject the dogmas of cultures that have taken over the spiritual authenticity of religion, and ultimately corrupted it with their own superstitions and traditions.

Lesley Hazleton - A Jew Reading the Koran