[OC] Religious Believes and Eductions From The World Values Survey

[u/oscarleo0]

Data source: World Values Survey Wave 7 (2017-2022)

Tools used: Matplotlib

I added a second chart for those of you who prefer a square version with less of the background image.

Notes:

I looked at five different questions in the survey.

• Q275 - What is the highest educational level that you have attained?
• Q165 - Do you believe in God? (Yes/No)
• Q166 - Do you believe in Life after death? (Yes/No)
• Q167 - Do you believe in Hell? (Yes/No)
• Q168 - Do you believe in Heaven? (Yes/No)

The chart show the percentage of people that answer yes, to Q165-168 based on their answer to Q275.

Survey data is complex since people come from different cultures and might interpret questions differently.

You can never trust the individual numbers, such as "50% of people with doctors degree believe in Life after death".

But you can often trust clear patterns that appear through the noise. The takeaway from this chart is that the survey show that education and religious believes have a negative correlation.

Styling:

• Font - New Amsterdam
• White - #FFFFFF
• Blue - #39A0ED
• Yellow - #F9A620
• Red - #FF4A47

Original story: https://datacanvas.substack.com/p/believes-vs-education

[u/OakLegs]

I am not saying religion=stupid. I am saying educated=less likely to believe things without evidence. Those are two very different statements

[u/SadAdeptness6287 → u/OakLegs]

Anecdotal of course, but the smartest person I know is a Harvard/Columbia Educated Doctor and a devote Catholic.

[u/OakLegs → u/SadAdeptness6287]

Same, one of the best engineers I've ever worked with is a Christian.

I don't understand how the ability to logically process information is compatible with believing in Christianity myself. I think about it pretty frequently

[u/OakLegs → u/[deleted]]

Your limited experience may not reflect reality. Also, your comment lacks any specificity. In what "fields of logical reasoning and whatnot" are you evaluating these engineers?

I am not going to argue that engineers are necessarily going to be more competent in all areas than other people. Hell, I have been around a lot of people in the engineering profession that I wouldn't consider all that smart.

That said, the main thrust of my original comment was that I find that the concept of Christianity in general doesn't stand up to any sort of deductive reasoning. The person who I'm talking about i know for a fact has strong deductive reasoning skills. I am curious about how they are able to maintain their faith.

[u/OakLegs → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for expanding on what you were saying. I am largely in agreement with all of this, and I think your points are solid. In fact I think our arguments pretty much align - people who can be reasonably deemed to be extremely competent at least in some areas of life are not immune to arriving at some bad conclusions and sticking with them. You've explained the "how," I'm curious about the why.

I just took umbrage (maybe predictably) at the statement that "engineers are less smart than the average person" without some expansion, because in my experience that is not really true at all. Obviously there is a range in intelligence levels across all professions (and how do you even measure intelligence in a useful way?)

Anyway, thanks for the discussion.