| | Derek - what *can* you be thinking?! Lack of a belief in God *is* a sign of intelligence. Belief in God is invariably a result of either stupidity or carelessness. The latter, of course, is infinitely more forgivable than the former.
It depends on what your definition of god is, and what your definition of intelligence is, too. Polls of the Triple Nine Society (membership requirement is scoring in top 0.1% on timed, monitored IQ tests -- I guess that would be "intelligent") show god believers have a slight edge. Among those who claim to be god believers, however, they will differ as to their characterization of "god" from a definition of a universal creative or ordering process to a Charlton Heston lookalike sitting on a throne on a cloud with a back drop of palm fronds.
I don't think belief in god is related to intelligence. There are also some really stupid people who don't believe in god; as in the godless commies Derek mentioned.
I think that highly intelligent people believe in god because, being intelligent, they can't accept the notion that everything is a non-divine coincidence. They need to believe in god to keep a grip on their sanity. Or, being intelligent, they don't believe in god because, they are reluctant to commit to anything their senses can't confirm. (Personally, I don't think the two paths are incompatible.)
Stupid people believe in god because they are intellectually child-like and can not exist without a parental figure. Or they believe in god because their stupidity has rendered them cynical.
Atheists are interesting in that they can not define themselves outside the context of a god they claim does not exist.
I think god is a universal creative process and, having free will, we have the option to participate, or to opt out. Participation is Good. Opting out is Evil. If, as the Christian bible (which I interpret poetically) says, god created us "his" image, we are destined to be creators ourselves. I find my outlook to be consistent with objectivism in that the fact that I was created is an undeniable, provable fact. Therefore, "the process of creation" exists. If "the process of creation" exists, then if we can agree to call that process "god," we humans have a common vector -- that of creation and creativity.
I believe that Jesus understood it that way, but spoke in poetic analogy, particularly using "father" and "creator" to mean the same thing, to try to get his message across. In doing so, he over-personified the notion. We are all sons of god in that we were created and we are all gods in that we have the capacity to be creators. Unfortunately, I think Jesus' disciples were, in fact, not too bright and never really got it. They were intellectually child-like as I mentioned above, and when he died, they "over deified" him in a search for that parental figure rather than stepping into his shoes...er...uh...sandals.
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