“I don’t know if this was a misprint

What is more, the survey shows a far stronger correlation between education and certain “irrational” beliefs: for example, only 29.6 per cent of those without even an elementary education believe in telepathy, compared with 51.8 per cent of people with degree-level education.”

Half of those with college degrees believe in telepathy? 20 percent more then those without any education? What are they being taught?

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I’m not sure if I like the slant of this article - it seems to start from the standpoint that we need to explain how atheists can lead normal lives without religion, rather than asking why we need religion at all.

Also, there are degrees and degrees - it would be interesting to see statistics for the proportion of atheists amongst those studying scientific disciplines and those studying the arts. My guess is that if you’re studying classics, you’re more likely to be religious than if you’re studying engineering.

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I agree, this article does seem to be suggesting that “non-believers” can only now fit into society, which we all know to be false. Atheists and Agnostics have been pushing human progress for centuries. I think that’s probably a factor in why people who seek university level education tend to be less religious. Studying Science as you said Adam probably has a greater output of non-religious students, but the arts do as well, studying the classics includes some of the very earliest philosophy we have in print. The arts also encompasses social sciences such as psychology, anthropology, etc. The arts also has History and Philosophy, the very study of which leads one to question religion, how can you look at human history and not see religion as a destructive force.

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“Religion” results from MIND-CONTROL!

“Religious” people are devoid of ability for serious CRITICAL THINKING!

Higher Education ‘requires’ ‘serious’ “Critical Thinking”!

“Critical Thinking” people     refuse to believe in “Ghostly-Spparitions” or, that ‘Fairytales’  are ‘true’!

INFINITY REFUTES “DIVINITY”
THERE NEVER WAS NOTHING
UNIVERSE IS INFINITE
“CREATOR’ IS A THIEF’S ARTIFICE!

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CORRECTION:

“CRITICAL THINKING” PEOPLE refuse to believe in

“GHOSTLY-APPARITIONS” or, that “Fairytales” are ‘true’!

“Faith is for Fools”!

Religious ‘child-molesters’ brainwash’  and ‘corrupt’ the minds of innocent children and fools and indoctrinate them with a lying “Dogma” about “Ghosts” and ‘someone’ who never ‘lived’ having “Died” and come back to life”!

Rational people in this 21st Century do not credit the words of aboriginals who ‘SWORE’ the “World” was “Flat”, and prertended to know how ‘IT’ ALL BEGAN’!

Find a ‘BEGINNING” and then; ‘attempt’ to describe ‘it’!

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@Acupuncturist

“Half of those with college degrees believe in telepathy? 20 percent more then those without any education? What are they being taught?”

I would suspect this is not a misprint, but a result of a poor survey.

It seems likely that those without any education don’t know what ‘telepathy’ is. So, when they are asked the question “Do you believe in telepathy?” they’re going to play safe and say no.

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“ATHEISTS”  ARE   BORN!

“ATHEISTS”—- “RATIONAL-PEOPLE”—- ARE BORN!

‘Most’ all people are ‘born’ “RATIONAL”!  ‘Free’ of entanglements with evil crooked schemes designed to enslave and control people, and use them for accumulating vast wealth, and unregulated, irrepressible power at any cost!

“THEISM” IS AN ARTIFICE OF SCHEMERS! 

“THEISM” is a ‘virtual ‘ponzi-racketeering device used with the intent of eventually controlling the World! 

“Atheism” is the “RATIONAL” ‘reaction’ to the ‘‘atrocious’ criminal operations of “Religions”!

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If Oxford is anything like it was 40 years ago, when you could have found an equal amount of atheists, you should take those opinions with a very large pinch of salt. It has always been very fashionable, at that stage of life, to be a free-thinking atheist. I keep bumping into the most vociferous of them at church. As he claims, he only goes to see which of us was the biggest hypocrite.

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@ Adam Newby

There has been some research on the type of thing you describe, and I am fairly certain you have actually gotten it backwards. Not with science and humanities, but with your specific examples. Engineers are fairly likely to believe in gods, though not as likely as mathematicians. Psychologists and Biologists are the least likely to believe in gods (probably due to the auto-debunking of the soul and special creation, respectively). I don’t remember the specific taxonomy of how the different disciplines all are represented, but I know those few things were correct in the survey I read. I’ll try to find it again and post it here.

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Given how emotionally intense and pervasive religion can be in the lives of very young children, I do find it interesting that some individuals are impervious to the combination of ego manipulation, threat, enticement and social bonding that holds most people to religions whose myths are difficult to believe.  It is true that during university studies, the social environment can sometimes temporarily draw the religious into a new social circle made up of agnostics/atheists, and that once back into the working world, these “critical thinkers” will quickly revert to their original tribe.  It’s all a matter of who offers the strongest bond at any moment.

However, there are a few agnostics/atheists who never responded to religion, even in households permeated by the beliefs and rituals of a single religion.  I’ve known a few individuals like this and I have been curious about what made them indifferent, even as children, to the experience of religion.  It is worth asking how a child comes to the conclusion that the entire adult world on which he or she depends is wrong.

Why not study this remarkable difference?

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Can someone give me a definition of religion?

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Where do atheists come from?  Silly question.  We come straight from Hell, of course!

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religion is a non-logical attempt to explain metaphysics…...er…i guess…,

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