Are Atheists Mentally Ill

If your point is that the graph only indicates that it is within Christianity that increasing religiosity correlates with lower income and education then I don't see why you felt that was a point worth making. Marc is a conservative Christian, most of the people we discuss with are conservative Christians, and so naturally the discussion is focused on Christianity. Though I suspect the same probably holds true for Islam and Judaism, neither was the religion I had in mind.There was only a single data point for Muslims on that graph, and only two data points for Judaism, not enough to draw any conclusions. But there were at least 10 data points for Christianity, more than enough to draw firm conclusions. Clearly the more conservative the Christian religion, the less the income and education.That religions putting a much greater emphasis on strictly following their faith should end up placing less emphasis on material things like income and education makes perfect sense to most people, and the evidence backs this up. Your objections make no sense and have no evidence.--Percy

I guess there's not going to be any further questioning of the correlation of lower income and education with increasing religiosity. Boy, nothing like a little hard evidence to squelch discussion. I guess this is what Dawn Bertot would call fascism! So are atheists behaving insanely by ignoring all the benefits of religion? No, of course not, because the kinds of lives that result from lack of exposure to all the religious malarkey are far better in terms of health and longevity. The differences in income and education only emerge statistically when comparing the major religions, but one only has to examine an extreme sect such as the FLDS (polygamous Mormon group) to see firsthand the obvious negative effects of high religiosity. FLDS members suffer from living remotely with low incomes and insufficient access to adequate healthcare combined with the ignorance that encourages behaviors like inbreeding that causes mental and physical disabilities in children.The average lives of human beings have steadily improved over time as we better understand reality. It makes perfect sense that the more of reality one ignores the worse one will fare.--Percy

I made a halfhearted and unsuccessful effort to find supporting data for the Catholic data point for education, with only around 27% graduating college. A high percentage of Catholic high school graduates go on to college (84.7% according to one source), but of course not all Catholic students attend Catholic high schools, so that's not very helpful. That's as much as I could find out in the couple minutes I allowed myself. My question was just a paraphrase of the thread's title. As some of the posted links have commented, culture is also a significant factor in income and education. The low numbers for US Catholics are probably influenced by its Irish immigrant roots, just as the higher numbers for Unitarians and Episcopalians are by their associations with the higher socio-economic classes in the 18th and 19th centuries.But that being said, Catholicism does have a number of beliefs not rooted in reality, some shared with other conservative religions, some unique. The Eucharist seems harmless, but family size has a strong inverse influence on income and education.--Percy