The article made for interesting reading.

couple of points.
Those in a life of academia are:

1.  for the most part, failed individuals that cant make it in the private sector, and need the security of a tenured, or union position.
2. Drawn to academia some what because of a calling.   Well, if they are non-religious, it certainly isnt for a calling then,...is it ?

3.  The mostly leftist-Elitist academia congregate together in the Socialist/Marxist realm of comfort.
They, along with the Media elite believe they can bring their socialist agenda to the people by indoctrination of the youth, and flooding the media with wacky science, anti-Religion and anti-capitalism......all in the final goal of a Marxist world society of conformity to the.........hehe....group ?? yea sure.  To the leaders of the central power.

BW,

Lol. That's only true in Political Science, History, Sociology, Psychology, and a few other departments. They adhere to something called post-modernism - truth is relative, we should empower the weak and disadvantaged, and often post-modernists have very relaxed standards etc. Personally, I think post-modernists are full of it, and there is a reason I attend a college where the philosophy department is strictly an 'Analytic' department. When the Philosophy Department is Analytic, I have found that post-modernism tends to also be weaker in other departments as well. In what is very rare, our Political Science department is very non-post modern. Seriously, if you do not have empirical support for what you're saying, they implicitly tell you to stfu. Moreover, they teach with a distant tone, and never try to get anyone to commit to a social cause or rally. Our History department is the same way. It's really cool. They teach giving you the entire social and political climate behind all the events, and they outright make fun of post-modernists (I asked my history professor last semester what he thought of post modernism, lol).

In short, BW, what you are talking about only applies to post-modern departments. When the professors are you-better-provide-strong-evidence, they tend to be very informative and open to counter arguments. My professors are awesome this way, all of them have been open to argument, treat truth as absolute, and demand that an argument be defended. Where I go to college, my professors are willing to engage in discussion, and the professors have the attitude of 'you better have a good argument or stfu.' Moreover, if you can defend your argument, I have found that they will respect you. What's even better, is that their political views tend to be centrist or center right.

Anyhow, share your hatred for post-modernism. Stop bashing the Academia. The fields in Science and Math, moreover, are almost never post-modern. Ever notice a difference in their attitudes toward truth among those departments?

______

Anyhow, I used to think this as well, but in my experience - I am from the upper middle class and interact with highly educated and intelligent people on a daily basis - intelligent Americans tend to be religious. Atheism/Agnosticism is just very rare in this country. However, I will say that in the US, intelligent people give more cause/effect explanations rather than "zomg God is testing my faith again!" or making the pretention that God favors them for their hard work.

the guy repeatedly confuses intelligence with education and i agree with his critics that his conclusions seem quite simplistic.  i agree that less educated people are less likely to question the beliefs they were raised with, making them more likely to believe in a God.

@ Arfeg

"WZF is BW gibbering about? O_o"

I know, its too difficult for you to comprehend.
Big people are discussing something here.......
Its better to not write anything, and go away, it is above your level of intelligence.

BW seems to think that the ideal of life is just making money rather than improving your mind.

It shows.

that is a result from the indoctrination universities and any sort of formal education do to their students.  They take their captive audience and pass on their views and ideas.  so yes educated people are less likely to be religious.    but that doesnt meant that those without formal education are unintelligent.

"So Avo..... Once again, you play both sides of the argument with a non-post.

You agree w/the critics.
and you agree with the premise of the article."

another non-post? i almost always take a stand on the issues, i have too. it is obvious that less educated people are less likely to question their religion; but the conclusions that the guy trys to draw from it are idiotic.

"
i heard from some science ppl the more they dived into their science, the more they came to believe there had to be a creator, cuz everything is so ingeniously put together"

i've heard that too, i think just from a chemist though, and chemists are a [pedometer] up bunch.

"If you had a professor stressing Adam & Eve, and that Moses parted the Red Sea, forget it....he/she would be run out of the university, disgraced, never to hold a position again."

Becaue there's no Scientific evidence, no way to apply the Scientific Method, and in the case of A&E it defies what we already no to be true about biology (I'm not even talking about evolution).  This is why I don't like Ben Stein's movie because it looks at the firings the wrong way.  They were fired for proposing, promoting, and pushing a hypothesis with no Scientific basis, for not doing there job as scientists.  It had nothing to do with religion it'd be the same if a chemist said he had a formula for an elixir of life that would make you young but couldn't show the formula, produce a sample, or even conclusive test esults.  He'd be laughed out of his job if he tried to push that.

"God is a human invention to cope with death."

My thoughts exactly and I'll admit I'm not all that intelligent.

"And DPS - i've seen less than convincing arguments for many biological givens (evolution) than it would take for me to believe them - you're a very faithful fellow "

As I mentioned I wasn't talking about evolution I was talking about the long term effects of inbreeding.  We KNOW that if the only people you can have children with are 1st degree relatives you are going to run into problems.

DPS,
did you see the movie?  If you understand how tenure works its supposed to be pretty much impossible to get fired after you have it.  "Exceptions" were made beause of this distastful research but that goes AGAINST research freedom that tenure was set up to protect.  And, some, of their research was funded by outside sources.

"Smart people tend to make more money than poor people, no?"

No- I think thats a flawed assumption

smart person : ("leftie"), " i could make moey by doing x, y or z but those options are bad because it will harm a,b, or c

Dummy : (right winger) I can make money by doing x,y or z: so ill do that.