Why Are Geeks Often Atheist?

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. - Voltaire

‘Geek’ brings to mind a long list of traits: Glasses, obsession with science, high IQ. Recently, however, a new trait has come to light to add to the long, esteemed list: Atheism. Despite being widely known, there is very little explanation for this.

Although this trend is obvious to most people who have visited Digg or other similar sites, perhaps we should have a look at some of the statistics. On a Digg religion poll, out of a base of over four thousand votes taken, 45.56 percent are reported to be atheists. This makes them the single largest religious group on Digg, followed by Christianity, at 29.08 percent. Likewise, on Shuzak, a statistical examination of the 271 users who actually declared their religion showed the percentage of Atheists to be close to 70%. Both polls are at least fairly accurate given that they are most used by those who have strong opinions about their religion. Now that we have shown that it is, in fact, a trend, all that remains is to ask 'Why?'.

To attempt to formulate a theory on this topic, it becomes vital to define geek in the first place, not an easy task. So, we now ask the question, 'What is a Geek?'. There can be many kinds, Art Geeks, Music Geeks, Computer Geeks, Math Geeks, you name it. Geeks are the people you want to talk to when you need to know something but perhaps don't always want to invite to your parties. They are the people that collect information almost compulsively and nurture deep understandings of very obscure branches of knowledge. Geeks are people that live by their wits and believe in meritocracies and recognition not privilege or nepotism. They value our knowledge and appreciate those who can appreciate that and more importantly, add to it. They find great joy in learning a new thing, to extending our knowledge and sharing knowledge with another that can appreciate it. We are diverse, we are everywhere, we are different.

This leads at a cursory glance to the simple explanation of 'geeks tend to be different, so they look beyond the mainstream religious explanations'. However, several other explanations have been proposed as well, one of them being that given the social aspects of religion, a person who does not particularly care about socialization, or interpersonal interactions might find some of the allure gone.

Another explanation that has been proposed is that geeks tend to be interested in how the universe works. Upon looking into it, many find the complexity of the universe to be astounding. From the delicate and intricate dance of subatomic particles to the raging of stars thousands of times larger than our earth, the complexity and beauty of the universe awe many of those geeks who have looked deeply into physics. It might make sense to think that many such geeks simply find something as simple as a creator an overly simplistic explanation for something so elegant.

Yet another idea is that scientists (and geeks) tend to think in terms of logic. Because they are intelligent, they believe that their approach to problems is right. Religion has no place in science. Most of what we know is gathered from reading, watching and hearing various mediums. Since we choose what to read, watch, or hear, all three of these faculties are fundamentally biased. Since geeks have a strong bias towards logic, the end result is a disbelief in a higher power, which relies on faith.

A second aspect of intelligence is that a person who has grown up with the notion that he or she is more intelligent than those around (possibly a correct view) wants to get the most satisfaction from that intelligence. The quickest and most reliable way to be rewarded for intelligence is to prove someone else wrong (critical thinking). Such a strategy gives you an immediate result and also establishes a sense of superior intelligence. Being constructive is much less rewarding. So it is obvious that being critical and taking down other arguments is a much more appealing use of This leads many intelligent people to spend time attempting to disprove many established ideas that do not make sense to them.

The absence of proof does not mean no proof at all, but it does give reason to doubt. Geeks condition themselves to think logically, just as the religious have been conditioned to replace logic with trust in what they are told. What can be extracted from this is that geeks are not atheists simply because they may know "more" but also because they choose to think differently (whether or not they think superiorly is a question for another debate).