MachineMachine /stream

For some reasons it seems to be anathema to say that there might be an intrinsic reason for the correlation between educational level and the rejection of religion: atheism takes training, and is more difficult. We accept that in medicine, physics and mathematics, but, for reasons of political correctness, it is very much considered a faux pas to say the old 19th-century thing: it takes education to develop a worldview based on science. It would be even more outrageous to say that the reasons for choosing atheism over religion might actually be valid, as the so-called new atheists have dared to claim. It seems that it has become something of a class-thing (not necessarily socio-economic, but of belonging to the politically-correct elite) to bash Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens.

Let's look at some facts and arguments, then. According to the Pew survey, 85% of humanity is religious in some way, and that's probably a low estimate, since nobody knows the true figures about China. This doesn