Several studies have been published that indicate that people with higher education tend to be more atheistically inclined than those with lower education. Satan prefers to dumb it down so everyone gets it: studies show that religious people are dumber than the rest.
But, in spite of the taunt-value of such research, The Prince of Darkness demands intellectual honesty. Old Nick is not convinced of the conclusions.
His Infernal Majesty notes that higher education cultivates abstract thinking. A university-trained person is likely to think in more abstract terms than a primary school drop-out. This phenomenon affects survey-based research.
For example, a survey question asking whether the respondent believes there is a god who personally decides everyone’s fate is very concrete. It practically asks whether the respondent believes there exists a human-looking being that has a personal relationship with you. To the Christian whose faith is very concrete, this may very well sound like the god he believes in, and he will answer “yes” on the questionnaire. But another Christian whose faith is more abstract may think of “God” as a guiding principle by whose example one’s fate in the afterlife is determined, and is likely to answer “no.”
Such a survey would conclude that people who think abstractly tend to be atheists. Yet, the two thought patterns are identical in the sense that both respondents believe in some entity whose demands they should meet, and for the same reason. The latter view is no less superstitious than the former; it is only more abstract. An ill-phrased question can make seminal differences in such surveys, and fields that are highly open to interpretation—such as people’s personal religious beliefs—are markedly vulnerable to careless phrasing.
Satan thinks that people with higher educations are no less religious than their less educated (and, although it is politically incorrect to say so, therefore as a general rule less intelligent) brethren. The difference between smart and dumb people is not how religiously inclined they are but what their religious narrative is. The smart, religious person may sound like an atheist to the dumb, religious person, and the latter may seem fundamentalist to the former—but it is the same basic belief. Neither is less religious than the other; they are just religious on their respective levels of intelligence. To the brainy individual, his religion is intelligent, and to the half-witted person, the religion is dumb—but it is the same religion.
And thus the Angel of the Bottomless Pit regrets to conclude that higher-educated, smarter people are no less religious than dumb folks. They are not the atheists that surveys may indicate. Religion transcends intelligence. Education is no bulwark against religion; it only makes superstition sound smarter.