People with a greater tendency for critical thought are more likely to question what they've been taught to believe - so intelligent people are less likely to be religious than unintelligent people.

[independent.co.uk]

I know some very smart people who are not atheists...which has always puzzled me. I chalk it up to natural exposure to a religious childhood.

I think I'm probably smarter than over half the population, but my special skill is seeing through bullshit.

I believe anyone who questions things and follows their curiosity is more intelligent than the rest of the flock.

Well considering it takes intelligence to realize the difference between fantasy and reality, yes atheists are generally more intelligent.

Well, of course they are. And agnostics are more intelligent than atheists, of course. ????

I would like to think so, but I'm not a scientist to verify that.

People are stubborn in their beliefs.
After the Avengers had thwarted Loki. a few of them had a chat.
Captain American says, "I have met 2 gods, and I am still a Christian"
Iron Man says, "I have met 2 gods , and I am still an atheist"
The Hulk says, "I have met 2 gods, and I beat the crap out of both of them!"

I would agree with that in part because atheist do their homework. They are willing to bend the normal, traditional way we see the world around us. They reach a conclusion and attempt to explain this to someone who has NOT read a science book since they left school.

. Most believers and religious people were indoctrinated and brainwashed into a belief system and did not come to this conclusion on their own. If they were raised from birth as atheists they would still be atheist .Issac Newton ,Copernicus,William Kelvin,Michael Faraday ,Descartes and many more scientists and mathematicians were religious and believed in a god.

yes, we actually choose to use our grey matter. we are neither sheep or sheepdogs but wolves.

Evidence supports yes. In general.

It seems to me that highly intelligent people are more likely to be atheists or agnostics than people of average intelligence. I guess I base that on people I've known personally, as well as from observations and impressions of many different people over the course of my life. On the othere hand, I don't consider most of the Christians I've known to be stupid. But it seems that on the average, atheists and non-theists are more likely to be smarter., and more likely to be free-thinkers.

Statistically speaking the higher I.Q a person has the less likely they are to believe in "GOD". Now people with "genius" level I.Q are more likely to be agnostics.

It certainly seems that way sometimes, but sweeping generalizations are something I like to steer clear of.
I'd like to know what the control was in that study and how many different groups they tested against each other.
Come up with some hard numbers and graph it out to see what it looks like

I know I am brilliant. You can ask me.

I thought I was wrong about something once but it turned out later I was mistaken. So there.

Good question, I read somewhere Atheists tend to have a higher level of education than the average Christian and yet there are many of us, myself included that only went as far as high school. I am smart enough to know educational level doesn't necessarily equate intelligence level though overall it is a good indicator.

A very strange and biased question. Implying that religious people are less intelligent than those of us who are Atheist.

I think we are smarter, most xtians don't even know what they think they believe in. One guy I talked to thought original sin was murder.

I remember thinking things even most adults don't think about..before I could even talk well.

My mom would tell me something religious..like to never put anything on the Bible, as that's wrong, and I'd see the hesitation in her eyes, and think to myself that she was just saying that because she'd been taught it, but wasn't sure, herself.

I read the Bible for myself since I was five, even taking it under the covers, with my flashlight, at night. I remembered the Jesus character from my past life memories, and my sister also remembered a past life. I was excited to find him in the Bible, since I missed him.

I have no idea if my memories were real, but I could clearly "see" Jesus in my mind, and later on, when I saw paintings done by autistic kids who claimed to have had visions of Jesus, I recognized him, although the other so-called pictures of Jesus were "wrong."

Once I quit believing in the church, I also ditched belief in everything else, but have no explanation for my clear past life memories, or multiple lives. I even looked up the details of some of the more recent ones, and the details I remembered about the incidents were accurate.

So now I'm someone who has suspended some disbelief but still rejects Christianity in general.

Here is a good article from the Pew Research Center.
The answer is nuanced and not necessarily what you expect.

[pewforum.org]

or, are religious people less intelligent because they believe in fairy stories?

I think there are lots of intelligent people who are in religion. Also think a lot of them are lazy. Just accept what they tell you at the door of the church, all will be good. As a atheist, just question everything, and look for truth, and that takes a lot more work. And look at a variety of sources.

I have yet to meet more than 2 or 3 smart atheists per year after 5 years/15k hrs of debating atheists on Fb, Twitter & Reddit. I'd like to write up my findings regarding the consistent trends of atheists being just as irrational/defensive/willfully ignorant as the theists they oppose.