Americans and Religion

[roguebanshee]

I recently stumbled upon this article.

Based on a telephone survey of more than 2,000 households and in-depth interviews with more than 140 people, researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, homosexuals and other groups as "sharing their vision of American society." Americans are also least willing to let their children marry atheists.

Is this a view any of the american posters here can recognize?

[Munkay]

I recently stumbled upon this article.

Is this a view any of the american posters here can recognize?

Is it really all the surprising?

Most people believe in some kind of spirituality. Most of the major organized religions believe in a higher spiritual/supernatural power, while a few others in a combining "force". People outside of organized religions often believe in some sort of supernatural/spiritual phenomena.

It's easy to fall into a debate about the reasons why humans believe in something supernatural, and perhaps it's something that will come about in this thread. But, the bigger issue is regardless of motivations behind it, a belief in spiritual/supernatural powers is very common. And anytime you have an odd duck out, people tend to dislike/disassociate with it.

Cheers,

Munk

[Quark]

Is this a view any of the american posters here can recognize?

I've grown up against it myself. Never in school did a (verbal) fight break out over Judaism versus Christianity. It quite often did over Atheist versus everyone else.

[gekko]

I recently stumbled upon this article.

Is this a view any of the american posters here can recognize?

Link.

A very interesting video clip on the same subject. It's unfortunate that people, whatever their beliefs, cannot allow others to just have their own beliefs.

gekko

[Thecla]

I recently stumbled upon this article.

Is this a view any of the american posters here can recognize?

Well, for sure, in US politics, any Muslim would have a better chance of getting elected President than a self-professed Athiest. It's a very religious society.

_______

"Muslims are in the graves, Islam is in the books."

[Yrrek]

I recently stumbled upon this article.

Is this a view any of the american posters here can recognize?

Well personally, I used to live in the Bible Belt, so I would get into arguments constantly in and out of school. People found it inconceivable that I didn't share their beliefs, or even believe in some sort of higher power at all. People would actually get angry sometimes, but that was rare. I find that people in Vermont are a lot more understanding and open about that sort of thing. Personally I think those results are a bit skewed, because once people got to know me and learn why I think they way I do and find out what I am like they either forget my beliefs or realize that it doesn't make me a bad person, just different.

[kandrathe]

I recently stumbled upon this article.

Is this a view any of the american posters here can recognize?

Here is the article the newspaper is referencing, for reference. Link

The salient point they make is that;

If we are correct, then the boundary between the religious and the nonreligious is not about religious affiliation per se. It is about the historic place of religion in American civic culture and the understanding that religion provides the “habits of the heart” that form the basis of the good society (Bellah et al. 1991, 1985; Tocqueville [1992] 2000). It is about an understanding that Americans share something more than rules and procedures, but rather that our understandings of right and wrong and good citizenship are also shared (Hartmann and Gerteis 2005). To be an atheist in such an environment is not to be one more religious minority among many in a strongly pluralist society. Rather, Americans construct the atheist as the symbolic representation of one who rejects the basis for moral solidarity and cultural membership in American society altogether.

I think this summary rings true from what I know of most Americans and their perceptions of American society and people responsibilities within it.

[LemmingofGlory]

I recently stumbled upon this article.

Based on a telephone survey of more than 2,000 households and in-depth interviews with more than 140 people, researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, homosexuals and other groups as "sharing their vision of American society." Americans are also least willing to let their children marry atheists.

Is this a view any of the american posters here can recognize?

Firstly, I find the phrasing in the quoted section interesting, as if atheists, Muslims, and homosexuals are not fellow Americans. ("Recent immigrants" most likely do not yet have citizenship, so they actually wouldn't be Americans.)

I live in Ala-effin'-bama. "Atheists are immoral" is a view that's publishable in the "Letters to the Editor" section of the capitol city newspaper. The reasoning varies. I've seen everything from (paraphrasing arguments) "The Ten Commandments alone are the sole reason man has not gone extinct. Atheists do not know the Ten Commandments, so they are prone to acting violent." and as sophisticated as "Morals do not exist outside (my) religion. Hence, an athiest cannot act morally."

That said... Religion is huge in my area. Belonging to a church is an important association, and for some people it's their primary way of socializing. Consequently, it comes up in conversation and I get to learn the views of my friends and coworkers. On an individual basis, I've not heard anything as poorly reasoned as the aforementioned letters to the editor. Most often, any confusion I get from religious people when they find out I don't see a reason to assume a deity exists is along the lines of "But how do you know your purpose in life?" But then, my sphere of social interaction isn't a random sample, either: it's mostly people who possess or are pursuing a university education.

This leads me to think... It can be difficult to see things on the other side of the fence, but not all fences can be seen through with equal clarity from either side. For example, I think I have an easier time seeing what religious people get out of religion than they do understanding my frame of reference. It's important to note the assumptions that lead to questions like "But how do you know your purpose in life?" are not made by everyone. But when you've never had your assumptions challenged, you don't notice what's specific to your frame of reference. That's why some folks have a harder time seeing the other side. Religious issues are especially clouded by this because, as practiced, many forms of religion put blinders on their believers. So when it comes to atheists and agnostics, many religious folk just don't get it.

-Lem

[roguebanshee]

Here is the article the newspaper is referencing, for reference. Link

Thank you for the link, the only ones I could find wanted money.

I must admit that I'm a bit surprised at the level of intolerance towards atheists, but I guess that fear of the unknown is part of it.

How many here would label themselves religious? Any religion and any level of adherence.

[kandrathe]

... So when it comes to atheists and agnostics, many religious folk just don't get it.

-Lem

... and vice-versa. Your post assumes yours is the enlightened view. The problem has more to do with close mindedness, rather than to the particular stance someone is clinging.

[eppie]

... and vice-versa. Your post assumes yours is the enlightened view. The problem has more to do with close mindedness, rather than to the particular stance someone is clinging.

I think Lemming made a good point. The part about that religious people have more difficulty understanding an atheist than the other way around.

I, as an atheist, do not believe there is no God, I just have no reason whatsoever to think there might be a God. Being an atheist is not something that will help you socioeconomically, and also further there are no advantages I get from being an atheist.

Religious people, in countries or areas that are very religious do have many reasons to be religious and not question the existance of a God, apart from just the faith.
In Italy still most people look very strange at you when you say you don't believe in God. There are many religious organizations which use a lot of 'positive discrimination' towards fellow catholics. Many people don't generally go to church but consider themselves catholic....mainly because society asks that. Many believe in God mainly because they are scared of what happens to them after the pass away.

Not to be too closeminded, there either is or is not a God, but for sure closemindedness is something more common among religious people than among atheist I find.

[Maitre]

Here is the article the newspaper is referencing, for reference. Link

The salient point they make is that;I think this summary rings true from what I know of most Americans and their perceptions of American society and people responsibilities within it.

Just flipped through the article a bit and lighted on this particular bit of text:

The research includes a nationally representative random-digit dial (RDD) telephone survey (N = 2081) conducted during the summer of 2003. In addition, in-depth interviews and fieldwork were conducted in four U.S. cities (Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Atlanta, and Boston) by a team of graduate students in the summer of 2004.

-'Edgell P, Gerteis J, Hartmann D. Atheists As “Other”: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society. American Sociological Review. 2006;71(4):211-34.

So this is where the "In-depth" sample comes from. Not sure that I feel represented by folks in any of those cities, though I've never been to LA or the twin cities, so I'm not quite as sure about those two. Secondly, though the research that I do is quite a bit different from the methods used here, a few general pricipals still apply: if you frame a question in a deliberate fashion, you can get any answer you want. Lets review the options for "Agree with vision of America?" ---> (from Table 2a, pg 219)
a) Almost completely agree
b) Mostly agree
c) Somewhat agree
d) Not at all agree

Though the phrasing of the questions (stated on pg 217) was not as biasing as I had hoped after reviewing table 1 (Oh I was warming up to slam them if that was a forced choice list or rank order item), there still seems to be a pretty wide gulf between c and d, don't ya think?

Also from that table 2a, which if I wrote it would have included the N's for each of the groups, you can see that the 75% of the subgroups "Non-church attenders" and "Non-religious" (which seems to subsume non-church attenders according to the foot notes (still no N's) rated atheists as having some level of agreement with their vision of America, so what are we really talking about here? Looking at the data for church-goers indicates that they don't like the atheists, but even the non-conservative protestants are mostly tolerant (61% would not disapprove of marriage of a child to an atheist, only 32% feel that atheists disagree with vision for america).

So this study says to me that people like people who are like them. The churched don't like the non-churched, but the non-churched have no hang-ups about the non-churched. This seems like a verification of the classic bias that every intro psych or research methods course covers in the first two weeks: survey respondents tend to rate in-group individuals as better/higher than others as a reflection of their rating of themselves ("they're like me, and I'm good at this so they must be good at this")

The crushing result that Americans don't like atheists comes based on the extrapolation from the sample to the national population, but this relies on the representativeness of the sample. If this is based on ~140 folks who responded to the detailed survey, then we're talking about 140/~280,000,000 or a 0.00005% sample. I think the possibility that subgroup-representation may differ between the sample and the overall population in a sample this small.

Again, my research occupation is quite a bit more quantitative than this sort of thing, so there may be standards in qualitative research that have been met by this study that I'm missing, but personally, I wouldn't put too much stock in this particular result. I doesn't strike me as something new and different.

/2cents

[kandrathe]

Thank you for the link, the only ones I could find wanted money.

I must admit that I'm a bit surprised at the level of intolerance towards atheists, but I guess that fear of the unknown is part of it.

How many here would label themselves religious? Any religion and any level of adherence.

I don't think it's "fear of the unknown". More likely it is the preconception and prejudice that a person has of atheists. Same as adopting any "label", like say "anarchist". People then have a preconception of a persons belief system. To most people, being an atheist means "you don't follow a moral code", or even a rejection of moral and compassionate principles religions are based upon. The most press atheists get is in their constant litigious pressure on local governments to remove anything deemed "religious" from the public forum. While religious groups are known for organizing relief efforts, housing, clothing, and feeding people.

[Quark]

The most press atheists get is in their constant litigious pressure on local governments to remove anything deemed "religious" from the public forum. While religious groups are known for organizing relief efforts, housing, clothing, and feeding people.

A flaw that can never be fixed. When an athiest does a deed like this, he is not doing it espousing his athiest virtues and how he felt driven by them to help.

[Nystul]

I recently stumbled upon this article.

Is this a view any of the american posters here can recognize?

It seems like pretty anecdotal, shoddy research, but at the same time the results are hardly surprising. We are almost all descended from immigrants, as far as that goes. Christians and Muslims, for all of their differences, still have a lot in common. Atheism is the most extreme possible philosophical difference one could have from a Christian. Even a Satanist at least believes that Satan exists. If you are going to get married and raise a family, any of these differences will present difficulties, although they are not insurmountable.

At the same time, what are the practical implications of this? When you walk past someone in street, you know if they are black, white, hispanic, Asian, etc. If they are a fundamentalist Muslim, you will probably also know by the clothing their faith requires them to wear. If a person has a heavy accent or primarily does not speak English, you know. This allows distrust to turn into prejudice. The average American may trust an Iraqi immigrant more than they trust an atheist in theory, but which do you suppose will actually face more discrimination in practice?

[Zippyy]

Even a Satanist at least believes that Satan exists.

*snip snip snip*

The average American may trust an Iraqi immigrant more than they trust an atheist in theory, but which do you suppose will actually face more discrimination in practice?

It would have been pretty interesting if they had thrown satanism into the mix. I'm very curious how it would be received compared to atheism. From my experience in the Bible belt, there isn't much distinction between atheism and "satanism". Both are seen as distant out-groups characterized by immorality.

Funnily though, Satanism generally has very little to do with "Satan". If anything, Satan is nothing but a somewhat esoteric mascott for Satanism. There are, of course, people who believe in and/or worship satan. However, the Church of Satan (for example) does not believe in an entity called Satan.

I hung out with some weird people in high school.

[Maitre]

It would have been pretty interesting if they had thrown satanism into the mix. I'm very curious how it would be received compared to atheism. From my experience in the Bible belt, there isn't much distinction between atheism and "satanism". Both are seen as distant out-groups characterized by immorality.

Funnily though, Satanism generally has very little to do with "Satan". If anything, Satan is nothing but a somewhat esoteric mascott for Satanism. There are, of course, people who believe in and/or worship satan. However, the Church of Satan (for example) does not believe in an entity called Satan.

I hung out with some weird people in high school.

Reminds me of the "Proximity to God report." Though I can't get to the host to post the link at the moment. Skit is by these guys, but is hosted on ampcast which is not responding at the moment. Will try later. Punchline is "... and finaly, the scientologists are holding just slightly further from God than the satanists."

/OT

I imagine you'd end up with very similar results for "satanists" if you replaced atheists with them, but if you included both, I'm guessing slightly more distatse for them, but the benchmark would shift depending on order of the questions. Rating by adjustment is also a common response pattern: if you ask atheists first people would take their response to that item and then adjust to satanists, vs. if you ask satanist first, they would adjust to get atheist, but I'm betting that the first one asked would come out about the same as atheists are rated in the current research. They simply represent the most dissimilar group from the respondent on the survey, so they get rated the worst.

edit: to improve clarity, and gave away the joke because ampcast seems to have died.

[Ashock]

Not to be too closeminded, there either is or is not a God, but for sure closemindedness is something more common among religious people than among atheist I find.

OTOH, I've found atheists to be generally arrogant as hell when it comes to their "enlightened" belief that they are smarter than religious people solely on the basis that they are not believing in something that can't be proven and requires an act of faith. As far as "closemindedness", do atheists believe that there is at least a small possibility that there is a god? They do NOT. That is also closemindedness. Those who do think that it is at least a remote possibility are not true atheists.


-A

[eppie]

OTOH, I've found atheists to be generally arrogant as hell when it comes to their "enlightened" belief that they are smarter than religious people solely on the basis that they are not believing in something that can't be proven and requires an act of faith. As far as "closemindedness", do atheists believe that there is at least a small possibility that there is a god? They do NOT. That is also closemindedness. Those who do think that it is at least a remote possibility are not true atheists.
-A

I wasn't aware of these strict defenitions.

Anyway, if somebody gives me the scientific prove that God exists I will believe that. Maybe I am not a true atheist than.
A prove that God does not exist (not possible because of the fuzzy defenition of God) would not convince religious people, because they are much less sensitive for scientific evidence,...it isn't called faith for nothing.

By the way, I think that your finding of atheists being 'arrogant as hell' points more at non-believers (people that can't be bothered to think about the subject) than at atheists.

[Merlinios]

Atheism in general seems to be rejected along the lines already brought up. Discussing atheism among the less "enlightened" crowd (by which I simply mean the less-educated, no religious background known by myself) general brings an end-point along the lines of atheists being either immoral (Not *A*moral) or being Satanists directly. Seems more like a communication error than anything; a semantic point. I wouldn't take that without a grain of salt, though, since I believe most of those were classroom boredom conversations, and thus included only children. Not that children are "stupid" or anything, but they should be recognized as a different sample than adults. In fact, I'd think most adults would consider it a fairly touchy subject in mixed religious company and would avoid the subject altogether without something like a survey forcing it on them.

OTOH, I've found atheists to be generally arrogant as hell when it comes to their "enlightened" belief that they are smarter than religious people solely on the basis that they are not believing in something that can't be proven and requires an act of faith.
-A

I'm not sure this is entirely correct. I think it has more to do with a personality overlap in the two categories than a direct linkage between "There is no God, therefore I'm smarter." I think these arrogant pricks (myself included) were arrogant pricks before they ever got into the whole atheism market. People are not born with any kind of religion, nor are they atheist or agnostic. Something that...involved...has to be taught. And I think the arrogance is seeded either genetically or via imitation before the religious beliefs take a firm hold.

But yes, as a general rule, atheists are fairly arrogant. Something to do with that whole "You're sheep." mentality.

I'd like to share my religious background, as I think it a little stranger than most in terms of this discussion. Neither of my parents ever tried to force anything on us, religion-wise. We grew up in the south, about an hour from New Orleans, so there were definitely religious goings-on. But they enrolled my younger sister and I in a Lutheran(?)-run pre-school, not because it was Lutheran, but because it was a good school. So we were steeped in religion (prayer before meals, etc.) by outsiders without really ever being taught fundamentals and anecdotes. I forgot the point I was going to make, but somehow this ended up with me as a fairly hardcore atheist and my sister going to church every Sunday sans the rest of the family. I really appreciate that my parents let us make that choice, though.

--me