Why Are Educated People More Likely to Be Atheists? | Psychology Today

The more education a person receives, the more likely they are to become atheists (1). Non belief also increases with intelligence and income. Residents of more educated countries see religion as less important (link is external) in their daily lives (2).

Why are highly educated people more likely to be atheists? There are two categories of explanation. Either religious people lack a capacity for skepticism, or they choose to make a blind leap of faith and subscribe to the belief system adopted by their religious community.

The Santa Claus Analogy
According to a deficient skepticism view, educated people are more capable of critical thought. They subject the claims of religious teachers to more intense skeptical inquiry. This is rather like older children asking themselves how a fat man can navigate a 9-inch chimney flue, magically reemerging next to the Christmas tree with packages measuring more than a foot in three dimensions. Older children connect these absurdities with a pattern of suspicious movements by parents and draw the inevitable conclusion that Santa Clause is a charade perpetrated by parents on children. Younger children are more trusting and less skeptical.

Logical though the rational-capacity explanation for atheism is, it is not entirely satisfactory for different reasons. Rational capacity does not always translate into religious skepticism, as noted for the distinguished scientists of past eras who were rabidly religious for the most part. Similarly, in religious countries, people may well stop believing in Santa Clause when they grow up but still hang on to their religious belief system. So it takes more than skepticism to separate people from their religious faith.

Why do religious people trash some implausible beliefs but keep others. Perhaps they get something out of the beliefs they keep. Once a person grows up, their parents no longer shower them with gifts during the holiday season so that they have no particular reason to sustain their credulity concerning Santa Claus, although they do pass on the belief to children.

If religious beliefs do not yield tangible benefits for adults, they may yield emotional rewards. The emotive aspects of religious belief can persist despite development of improved reasoning ability. Religious beliefs and rituals may continue to help adults to feel good. Belief and disbelief are more a matter of feelings than of reason.

Why elevate the emotional aspects of religious belief over the cognitive, or intellectual ones? One possibility is that religion functions as a form of emotion focused coping. It provides a defense against life's difficulties and disappointments.

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Why Are Educated People More Likely to Be Atheists? | Psychology Today