The Pew Forum and CQ Roll Call recently released a study of the religious composition of the 112th Congress.
Surveying the data somewhat triumphantly on the “On Faith” page of washingtonpost.com is Jordan Sekulow. The conservative Christian activist finds it intriguing that not one of the 535 members of the House and Senate self-identifies as an atheist.
“The fact that no member of the 112th Congress will come out and claim atheism in 2011,” writes Sekulow, “illustrates the lack of real public influence atheists have in politics.”
Ending his piece with something of a taunt, Sekulow asks: “But what do atheists have to show for all their grassroots activism?” To which he answers: “Not one single representative in Congress.”
Interestingly, the study also demonstrated that Hindus, Anabaptists, Pietists, Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and members of “Other World Religions” (together accounting for about 6 percent of the population at large) each also lack a single representative in Congress. Sekulow, however, did not call attention to the ineffectiveness of the these groups’ grassroots activism.
In any case, we must ask why no representatives referred to themselves as atheists or even claimed to be “unaffiliated.” (Six members of congress, all Democrats, ended up in the “Don’t Know/Refused” category*). Here are some theories and considerations:
“There are not that many atheists in America to begin with. Ergo, few in Congress”: The question of the actual number of American atheists is among the most fiercely debated issues in current religious polling.
A recent Pew study indicating that the number of religiously “unaffiliated” Americans stood at 16.1 percent, led some atheists to the sanguine conclusion that they represented nearly one sixth of the American population, or about 50 million people! (I say: If there were 50 million atheists in the United States then a Spiderman-like Broadway adaptation of Bill Maher’s Religulous would surely be in the works.)
Of course, it was quickly noted that a person who claims to be “unaffiliated” is not necessarily an atheist. Absurdly inflated claims about size are par for the course among atheist and other nonbelieving groups. These should be assessed cautiously.
On the basis of studies I consulted in a previous work, (i.e., Thumpin’ It: The Use and Abuse of the Bible in Today’s Presidential Politics) my surmise is that atheists in the United States may comprise anywhere from one percent to 10 percent of the population.
More importantly, I think that there is tremendous confusion and inconsistency, among pollsters as well as atheists themselves, as to what the term “atheist” connotes. Until we straighten that out we will keep having these disagreements about the actual numbers.
Still, there are, at the very least, a few million self-professed atheists in the United States, why are there no atheist congresspersons or senators?
Maybe the data is slightly inaccurate: My hunch it that there are, in truth, atheists in Congress. Just a few years back it was widely reported that representative Pete Stark of California had come out as a nonbeliever.
In the Pew poll, however, Stark (or was it one of his staffers?) self-identifies as Unitarian. This raises an important problem related to my concerns about the term atheist just mentioned. Isn’t it possible that one could be a Unitarian and an atheist? A Catholic and an atheist? A Jew and an atheist (Hi there!!!)?
While neither the atheist activists, nor the polling organizations will be very pleased with this state of affairs, it is probably a reality for a fair number of American atheists.
For years, I have been arguing that atheist identity is complex. We need tools of measurement that can accommodate that complexity.
“An Atheist for the Eighth District” is not a winning campaign slogan:Understandably irking nonbelievers in this country is the finding that Americans are more reluctant to vote for an atheist candidate than any other the Gallup people could come up with.
If coming out as an atheist would be disastrous to a politician’s prospects, then perhaps that accounts for the suspiciously low percentage—as in 0.0 percent—of self-professing atheists in Congress.
Atheists have tree shakers, not jelly makers: Borrowing a turn of the phrase from confessed tree shaker Jesse Jackson, I wonder if American atheism as it stands today abounds in polemicists and intellectuals while lacking skilled political operatives and strategists.
Sekulow asked: “But what do atheists have to show for all their grassroots activism?” My point is that there is very little such activism.
The Atheist movement, now overrun by New Atheist worldview, is aces at selling books and putting up provocative billboards. It is far less adept at identifying funding sources, building campaign networks, training activists, and fielding candidates.
Either American atheists start thinking realistically about their numbers, toning down their rhetoric, and making shrewd political decisions or they will continue to make the Jordan Sekulows of the world very happy.
*The six members in the “Unspecified” category are:
Tammy Baldwin, Democrat, Wisconsin
Michael Bennett, Democrat, Colorado
Judy Chu, Democrat, California
Earl Blumenauer, Democrat, Oregon
John Olver, Democrat, Massachusetts
John Tierney, Democrat, Massachusetts
102 Responses to No Atheists in Congress. Why?
mainiac - January 18, 2011 at 9:30 am
Athiests belong on the street with sandwich boards riduculing the cultural primitivism of believers; they should not be in Congress handling money.
livefreeordie2 - January 18, 2011 at 11:05 am
You’re last two bolded points are right on target. The USA is overwhelmingly religious – even many of those who don’t attend regularly still think of religion as a “supposed to.” If you don’t have some kind of “faith,” there’s probably something wrong with you. As you said, it’s a guaranteed loser.
As for Atheists, they will no more think realistically and tone down their rhetoric than a Jehovah’s Witness will stop knocking on your door. Why? Because for the vocal Atheists, not believing in God is as important as believing in God is to those who are devoutly religious. It is their religion. In fact, they proselytize as much as any born-again Christian missionary. . .perhaps more. And while I think the chances are that their message is closer to the truth, their conversion rate will always be significantly less. Why? The message they are selling does not appeal to the need most people have for hope and something greater than themselves.
record - January 18, 2011 at 11:44 am
This is interesting, but I’m not sure what atheists and religious people could hope to get from a fundamentally secular government that would be so different. Wouldn’t separation of church and state nullify the potentially competing political agendas of both groups?
oldcommprof - January 18, 2011 at 4:17 pm
We shouldn’t be surprised that we have a dysfunctional Congress. Nothing good happens when you rely on magical thinking.
lynnefox - January 18, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Very interesting article!
In http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/jan/24/american-tale/ Senator Bennet describes his background as Christian and Jewish, so perhaps it was just easier to check the unaffiliated box. I think at this point he could be described as not practicing a particular religion, but I’m not sure he could be characterized as an atheist.
walkerst - January 18, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Actually, didn’t Bernie Sanders self-identify as an atheist some years ago?
mark_r_harris - January 18, 2011 at 4:35 pm
The United States is incredibly backward in demanding obeisance to organized religion from its political candidates. Here in Korea where I am working, about one-third of adults are non-believers, and are quite open about it; it is a complete non-issue, both personally and politically. I suspect that is also true in most of Europe. This is one of those topics — gun control and national health care are others — where the rest of the world tends to think the U.S. is a little “odd,” and I can’t say that I blame them.
cwinton - January 18, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Based on my anecdotal encounters with many people across my lifetime, I suspect there are a great many non-believers, very few of whom have any more interest in organized Atheism than they do in organized religion. If one was to judge Congress by its morals (or lack thereof), the claim of religious faith for a great many of them rings hollow. Politicians are always about offending the fewest possible voters. One need only consider how Christine O’Donnell’s past affiliation with Wicca affected her electoral prospects.
11893310 - January 18, 2011 at 4:48 pm
“Isn’t it possible that one could be a Unitarian and an atheist? A Catholic and an atheist? A Jew and an atheist?”
I audited a course in a seminary a few years back and the instructor repeatedly assured us that many, if not most Americans were practical atheists, if not de jure atheists. So, yes, if you live like one, you are, for all practical purposes, an atheist. My guess is Congress is full of practical atheists, whose claim to denominational membership, mutatis mutandis, won’t help them in the Dies Irae.
dank48 - January 18, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Atheists in Congress are like gays in the military: they are there; they always have been there; they always will be there.
Atheism is not synonymous with brilliance. Atheists are not automatically endowed with the ability to persuade, attract, convince, etc., even if such ability were desired. Speaking only for myself, I think trying to convert someone else to one’s own way of thinking on religious matters is morally wrong. I don’t know any more about it than anyone else, which imo is exactly nothing. We believe this or that; we know nothing whatsoever about it. (I mean “know” is the sense of “true belief with a coherent, convincing account of the reasons for one’s belief.” I don’t mean “really really really believe.”)
And, to cite what I consider a serious misstep by two writers whose books and thought I otherwise greatly admire, I can’t think of a dimmer, dumber idea than Dennett’s and Dawkins’s suggestion that atheists refer to themselves as “Brights.” With the implicit antonym “Dims,” one supposes. Take a couple brilliant thinkers and let them brainstorm, and one possibility is that they know even less about PR than they like about it. One thing about IQ is that it describes the ceiling we’re capable of achieving; no matter how smart we are, we’re perfectly capable of doing things far dumber than we are at our best.
But strident atheists are as annoying as strident believers. We all seem to forget that, no matter what we believe, we’re in the minority; more people disagree with us than agree with us. We never outgrow our need for humility.
ruritania - January 18, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Someone once said that the only difference between religions is the degree of agnosticism in them- from “god works in mysterious ways” to “I know exactly what god wants because he told me!” This just points out that agnosticism isn’t a theological position at all, but a philosophical one- a way of looking at the problem. Most self-identified agnostics do not in fact have any positive religious belief- thereby making them atheists.People need to start defining atheism the way freethinkers do, and historically have: not as people who believe god does not exist, but as people who have no belief in god. There is a difference, and both grammatically and historically, an atheist is someone with an absence of religious belief.The romans, after all, thought of the christians as atheists since they didn’t believe in their gods. Growing up, I always found the smug condescension towards other mythologies- norse gods, greek gods, roman gods,etc.- in history classes somewhat amusing- look how foolish those people were, we’re so much smarter believing in the REAL god. I’ve never seen any difference. Atheists just believe in one less god than you do.
11144703 - January 18, 2011 at 5:25 pm
From mark_r_harris: “The United States is incredibly backward in demanding obeisance to organized religion from its political candidates [...] This is one of those topics — gun control and national health care are others — where the rest of the world tends to think the U.S. is a little “odd,” and I can’t say that I blame them.”
Gee, have you ever read about Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Mali, and a number of other countries? Oops…they’re not composed (mostly) of those incredibly backward Christians…Sorry.
skipper995 - January 18, 2011 at 5:58 pm
The belief in a god is not a popularity contest. There was a point in our history when public opinion sanctioned slavery. Public opinion then as now had nothing whatever to do with right or wrong. Believers cannot prove there is a supreme deity, they simply take it on ‘faith’. Others cannot follow the crowd of ‘faith’ and choose to feel otherwise.
The stigma of non-believer or atheist carries negative connotations and public officials are wise enough to avoid anything negative wherever possible. Conservative Christianity is feeling a renewed revival in this country and it will take time for this insanity to subside. These right wing extremists consider ANYONE not of their faith to be outcasts. To them belief in a god is not enough. It must be their god and their perception that is followed. Just look at how Muslims are vilified today. They believe in the same god but are still seen as second rate along with Jews and atheists.
rsmulcahy - January 18, 2011 at 6:10 pm
Mainiac,
You wrote:
“Athiests belong on the street with sandwich boards riduculing the cultural primitivism of believers; they should not be in Congress handling money.”
You are an idiot, I’ll stick with the athiests.
rsmulcahy - January 18, 2011 at 6:15 pm
This is not a difficult question to answer. Of course there are atheists in Congress. One of our Presidents, Thomas Jefferson, was an atheist for Christ’s sake. Why won’t anyone admit it? Because they are sheep just like the citizens they serve. Unwilling to be honest to themselves and the public because if they were, they wouldn’t be elected by the ignorant masses they represent. Once again, the people elected to Congress offer further proof that “intelligent design” is a myth.
22060080 - January 18, 2011 at 6:19 pm
Financial backers of religious political leaders understand that it is useful for the public to believe myths that lead them to vote against their own self interest: lower and middle income Americans voting for a conservative agenda that confuses moral and economic issues to benefit the wealthy. This was the “Southern strategy,” a remarkable political accomplishment that keeps large parts of America in cultural backwater.
adamreed - January 18, 2011 at 6:27 pm
There are two entire “religions” (Buddhists and Unitarians) and two-fifths of another (Humanistic and Reconstructionist branches of Judaism) that are, in America at least, totally Atheist-friendly. Since the US Constitution guarantees “the free exercise of religion,” but NOT “the free exercise of Atheism,” American authorities have been known to “discourage” Atheism by, for example, denying child custody to an openly Atheist parent in the event of divorce. Many Atheists forgo the discrimination, and self-describe as belonging to one of the above “religions,” or “decline to state,” rather than “Atheist.” Without a more specific question (e.g. “Do you believe in a supernatural God?”) one cannot know.
mainiac - January 18, 2011 at 9:11 pm
rsmulcahy……Jefferson really believed in screwing the help…..
stinkcat - January 19, 2011 at 4:50 am
Humanistic Judaism, ditch the God, keep the guilt.
jdbishop5 - January 19, 2011 at 5:42 am
>On the basis of studies I consulted in a previous work, (i.e., Thumpin’ It: The Use and Abuse of the Bible in Today’s Presidential Politics) my surmise is that atheists in the United States may comprise anywhere from one percent to 10 percent of the population.<
My prescription for your problem? Do more 'consulting'. There are about zero 'faithful' in the entire membership of the American Academy Of Science according to Francis Crick. I enjoy a wide circle of friends in a variety of occupations, and only a very small percentage attend churches, and/or profess a belief in any religion or sky daddy. As educational level increases, actual 'belief' (the adherence to a point of view unsupported, and unsupportable, by facts) approaches nil. In fields like American political office, one must attract the mob. Thus, to gain office in most US backwaters, one must denounce gay marriage, pronounce one's self convinced by some primitive superstition, and shoot a gun, if only in a fellow 'hunter's' face.
11159786 - January 19, 2011 at 7:53 am
Of course it is possible to be both a Jew and an atheist. Many of my Jewish friends join me in that category. As is well described by writers (Sartre, Judt,…), antisemitism is a powerful force in maintaining our numbers in some cases and decreasing them in others (inquisition, Nazi Germany…).
As for other groups, I am not so sure. For example, many of my Catholic-born and -educated friends who are atheists would not identify themselves as Catholics.
fizmath - January 19, 2011 at 8:26 am
Why is the CHE running so many atheist topics recently? Ruse, Barash and Berlinerblau are running a three man tag team on this issue.(BTW, it’s Ruse’s turn next week) Is there nothing else worthwhile to talk about?
bpilgrim - January 19, 2011 at 9:02 am
rsmulcahy,
I don’t think Jefferson was an atheist, he was a Deist, right? He believed in a creator God, just not in a God who intervenes in human affairs. He had a Bible that he removed all the miracles from…he believed in the moral teachings of the Bible and of Jesus. Not an atheist, more like a Unitarian. He believed in the parts of the Bible that line up with reason. He was an Enlightenment Christian.
wbgleason - January 19, 2011 at 9:37 am
Pilgrim has it about right. The only quibble I would have is that Unitarians do not believe that Jesus Christ was God and so that, technically, they are not Christians nor was TJ.
To many people, especially scientists, the whole atheism/religion argument is irrelevant. Since the existence of God is not provable, why get all excited and argue over it? Many people are agnostic, but some still go to church. For some, unitarianism is a good choice.
I’ll also point out that some atheists are religiously intolerant and obnoxious. I think religion should be treated as a private matter and that we should adhere strongly to the principles of tolerance and separation of church and state. They have served us pretty well.
Calling people stupid because they believe in God is out of line. This is particularly despicable when it happens in a classroom.
snapcase - January 19, 2011 at 9:48 am
There are many atheists in Congress, but it is political suicide to state so publicly. In fact, people tend to see George W. Bush’s cabinet as one of the most religious in American History. Yet, the intellectual grandfather of the neoconservative movement, Leo Strauss, was an atheist who placed an emphasis on the Platonic notion of the “philosopher king” who used religion as a tool to manipulate the masses. And that’s exactly what Bush’s inner circle (many of whom are atheists) did. Jordan Sekulow is living in a fantasy world, which is not surprising considering his beliefs. People in congress may be corrupt, but they aren’t stupid.
trendisnotdestiny - January 19, 2011 at 9:57 am
God or no God,
Mostly here we are talking about marketing….
Some are upset at that the no God’s are taking up too much space (see fizmath)
Some respond to the developmental process of believing (1159786 suggests that one can be born into God and talked out of it; suppose he/she sees the reverse is possible)…
Some suggest that atheism is more prevalent than reported (especially among science academy members – jdbishop5)
Adamreed points out that there are some God people more accepting of the no God people than we like to consider like the Buddhists, Unitarians and humanitarian Jews (highlighting those areas of discrimination that occur by God people onto No God people)
22060080 points out that unifying God people under one umbrella has significant social, economic and political benefits labeled quite rightly as the Southern Strategy…. The branding of the southern culture under LBJ, eh?
rsmulcahy seems quite certain that there are ‘No Gods’ in Congress and maintaining that most people are ignorant who deviate from the obviousness of the No God logic…. (I wonder if there is not a better a way to communicate to ‘the God crowd’ than by calling them stupid or their fundamental beliefs ignorant. I realize intelligent design is an easy target, but the hubris and sanctimony is a tad thick).
Skipper995 has an interesting take. He/she suggests that the God or No God tally is not a race to see who believes/who doesn’t believe the most. Skipper points out an even more interesting issue, that there is not a lot of agreement between the many sects of Gods. His/her point seems to be the rigidity of faith and how membership in the No God community can be hypocritically stigmatizing….
11144703 picks the low hanging fruit that markharris offers up, but this is hardly a teachable moment. Mark maintains that the US has some room for growth when it comes to religion, healthcare and gun control. Triple one forty four 703 seems goes to a sarcastic response using tones of American Exceptionalism….
Some believe that there are more fine distinctions to be made among the No Gods (like ruritania); pointing out these distinctions between agnostics and atheists (calling for better defined terms and a more egalitarian attitude of belief where believers ‘smugness’ has proven to be wrong over time).
Dank48, (as usual) gets to the heart of the issue: that God and No God are marketing strategies designed to reach certain populations (intelligent designers are ignorant myth, as if only one belief we humans possess changes every other synaptic function/idea or that atheists are better educated, more thoughtful and have more answers than God believers). Love how he/she ends by getting right at it (humility)….
Cwinton makes the salient point that it is easy to confuse the God and No Camps on any given day since there are so many who want to market their “Godness” for political or social gain leading her to believe that there may be more No Gods than first thought…
Oldcommprof, states simply that why rely on information without any proof (referring to both politicians and believers)- pointing out the potential hazards of absorbing propaganda (magical thinking) disguised as God rhetoric….
Record smartly suggests that the interests of God and No God factions are aligned within a system of separation of church and state (where competing interests are protected). One wonders how much energy would be put into their Godness or No Godness if there cannot be a winner?
For me, the only comment that I have is that I am less concerned (like Dank48) about convincing others of my beliefs which I have tried to keep to myself. Also, I am frustrated by some of the comments (as Skipper points out) that this is not a market to be won, a race to tally score or a conversion process to see who is right. The overall point of God, No God or some other explanation is that we do not know (and this state of not knowing about the presence of a God involves Dank’s humility).
I am reminded by the idea that its not hard to say I don’t know. Its not hard to say I do not have the answers. It is not hard to avoid questioning people’s intelligence. What is hard is to avoid all the marketing of God and No God.
jdbishop5 - January 19, 2011 at 11:21 am
@wbgleason – If only we could treat religion ‘…as a private matter and…adhere strongly to the principles of tolerance and separation of church and state…’ but we can’t. Religion in the United States is a very public matter that is forced down the throats of young children before they have an option to chose, thus engraining a view of the universe that is distorted by assumptions not in evidence and which may take many years, if ever, to overcome. (Making religious instruction of children a form of child abuse that should earn a substantial jail sentence in my opinion.) it is used by employers and the mob to determine the qualifications of candidates for jobs, public offices, and general community acceptability. In the United States, supposedly enjoying freedom of religion, no person who honestly states a doubt about the existence of a sky daddy may be elected into any serious public responsibility. You suggest that ‘…some atheists are religiously intolerant and obnoxious…’ Yes. We shake our raised, gloved, fist in your general direction.
stinkcat - January 19, 2011 at 11:27 am
“As educational level increases, actual ‘belief’ (the adherence to a point of view unsupported, and unsupportable, by facts) approaches nil.”
Actually, you are wrong, at least if you are concerned about evidence. According to the general social survey, 44% of people with 20 years of education claimed to: “know that God exists”, which is the strongest statement about God. Only about 3.5% claimed to be atheists with a similar percentage saying their is no evidence one way or another.
wbgleason - January 19, 2011 at 11:50 am
Exaggeration or polemic, bishop?
“it is used by employers and the mob to determine the qualifications of candidates for jobs, public offices, and general community acceptability.”
Sorry, but it has been a long time since I’ve seen that of which you complain. If you don’t believe there is a god, fine. As I mentioned, I think the question is irrelevant. But to call people stupid or “the mob” because they believe in god is just as intolerant as what you are complaining about.
Religious education is child abuse? You shake your gloved fist at me? Yes, indeed, you confirm my hypothesis that some atheists are religiously intolerant and obnoxious…
I used the word some initially and now, because, hopefully, it is a small number.
jdbishop5 - January 19, 2011 at 11:59 am
@stinkcat – If so (reference?), thus should end our faith in what ’20 years’ of American education can do. Where do those surveyed endure their childhood? Under the influence of typically misled American adults perhaps?
As you will note I’m sure CUNY came to a different conclusion than you have.
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris/key_findings.htm
4. Religious Switching Among Selected Religious Groups
More than thirty-three million American adults, about 16% of the total U.S. adult population report that they have changed their religious preference or identification. Perhaps, this phenomenon of “religion switching” is a reflection of a deeper cultural phenomenon in contemporary America. In the early 1990s, the sociologist Wade Clark Roof described the increasingly middle-aged baby boomers as a “generation of seekers.” [note 9] However, the 1990s were also a period of great immigration and great economic boom. Therefore, the religious life of the nation has been influenced by social forces that are wider and more varied than simply the aging of the ‘boomers.’
As will be seen in the Exhibit below, switching has involved not only the shift of people’s spiritual loyalties from one religion to another — which could reflect some kind of spiritual seeking — but also, and perhaps more importantly, a dropping out of religion altogether. To be sure, there is no indication in the current data whether the “religious switching” actually occurred in the 1990s or earlier. Surely, for our older respondents the switching very likely had occurred earlier.
cslaaschair - January 19, 2011 at 12:02 pm
Well, the answer is simple actually (from a political scientist) – you can’t get votes in this country if you are an atheist. Period. We are an overwhelmingly Christian country; we have more people who attend church regularly than any other of the more advanced OECD nations; we have more people who pray regularly, etc. We have one-third or MORE of the adult public who will say in a survey that they have been born-again. The votes for atheists just aren’t there.
11250382 - January 19, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Amen.
jdbishop5 - January 19, 2011 at 12:19 pm
@cslaaschair – You make my point. The United States is NOT a country in which there is religious freedom.
sheaters - January 19, 2011 at 12:32 pm
Personally, I’m glad no atheists are officially affiliated with Congress. I’ll be glad to let religion (Christianity) claim this bunch of absolute do-nothings. Look, we all know there are atheists in Congress. It’s just that it’s political suicide to admit it. Mr. Sekulow is fooling himself.
sheaters - January 19, 2011 at 12:34 pm
@ cslaachair – I’d make one change to your statement: “…you can’t get votes in this country if you admit to being an atheist.”
willamette - January 19, 2011 at 1:18 pm
rsmulcahy: “…Thomas Jefferson…was an athiest for Christ’s sake.”
Am I the only one who thought that statement was hilariously ironic?
stinkcat - January 19, 2011 at 3:42 pm
“If so (reference?), thus should end our faith in what ’20 years’ of American education can do.”
I don’t have a citation, but if you go to: sda.berkeley.edu/archive.htm and run a cross tab between god and educ, you will see that there are plenty more believers than atheists among the better educated. Perhaps the reason legislators have hopped on the assessment bandwagon is because they too have lost faith in American education.
jdbishop5 - January 19, 2011 at 5:38 pm
@stinkcat – whatever the numbers reveal about the relationship between believers and non believers, as with the theory of evolution where only 28% of Americans accept it as fact, it being fact or not is not subject to its popularity or a plebiscite. As there is no basis in fact for asserting the existence of the particular god that Christians want to make a fuss about these days, the selection now in their spotlights around the world, or any of the multitude of discarded gods from our species’ past, the presence of a mob, essentially dancing with bones in its noses does not settle the question.
stinkcat - January 19, 2011 at 5:50 pm
The point you made, which was false, was that belief in God approached zero as an individual’s level of education increased. You make a false claim, and then when the evidence is presented, you claim that it doesn’t matter whether or not you are concerned about the truth.
jdbishop5 - January 19, 2011 at 6:21 pm
You haven’t presented any evidence at all. You have stated your unsupported opinion. I referred you to a CUNY web page that substantiates a quite different conclusion. The ‘truth’ is not available to us, but I think the progressive decline in religious faith among populations as educational sophistication increases is well researched.
Here’s another reference with additional source material.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
Demographics
Main article: Demographics of atheism
Percentage of people in various European countries who said: “I don’t believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force.” (2005)[110]
It is difficult to quantify the number of atheists in the world. Respondents to religious-belief polls may define “atheism” differently or draw different distinctions between atheism, non-religious beliefs, and non-theistic religious and spiritual beliefs.[111] A Hindu atheist would declare oneself as a Hindu, although also being an atheist at the same time.[112] A 2005 survey published in Encyclopædia Britannica found that the non-religious made up about 11.9% of the world’s population, and atheists about 2.3%. This figure did not include those who follow atheistic religions, such as some Buddhists.[9]
A November–December 2006 poll published in the Financial Times gives rates for the United States and five European countries. The lowest rates of atheism were in the United states at only 4%, while the rates of atheism in the European countries surveyed were considerably higher: Italy (7%), Spain (11%), Great Britain (17%), Germany (20%), and France (32%).[113] The European figures are similar to those of official an European Union survey which reported that 18% of the EU population do not believe in a god.[114]
Proportion of atheists and agnostics around the world.
The EU survey also found higher rates of education amongst EU citizens with lower levels of religiosity.[114]. Other sources have also reported positive correlations between levels of education and “secularism and atheism”.[115] A letter published in Nature in 1998 reported a survey suggesting that belief in a personal god or afterlife was at an all-time low among the members of the U.S. National Academy of Science, only 7.0% of whom believed in a personal god as compared with more than 85% of the general U.S. population.[116] In the same year, Frank Sulloway of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michael Shermer of California State University conducted a study which found in their polling sample of “credentialed” U.S. adults (12% had Ph.Ds and 62% were college graduates) 64% believed in God, and there was a correlation indicating that religious conviction diminished with education level.[117] An inverse correlation between religiosity and intelligence has been found by 39 studies carried out between 1927 and 2002, according to an article in Mensa Magazine.[118] These findings broadly agree with a 1958 statistical meta-analysis by Professor Michael Argyle of the University of Oxford. He analyzed seven research studies that had investigated correlation between attitude to religion and measured intelligence among school and college students from the U.S. Although a clear negative correlation was found, the analysis did not identify causality but noted that factors such as authoritarian family background and social class may also have played a part.[119]
mpochan - January 19, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Oh my God ! ( ooops revealed my beliefs )
All this discussion about the pros and cons of atheism to answer a statistical and Constitutional question ” why are there no atheists in Congress ?”
Here is a secular answer: because our system of elections elects those with the majority or plurality of votes. Athiests do not have enough votes from other atheists and those who would support them.
We do not and should not elect representatives to satisfy an arbitrary quota for all of Congress based on the type of person.
God loves atheiststs too.
jdbishop5 - January 19, 2011 at 6:30 pm
@mpochan – Ah, but what about this nugget?
The No Religious Test Clause of the United States Constitution is found in Article VI, paragraph 3, and states that:
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
Thus, when people REQUIRE faith in a sky daddy, or expression of faith at least, they are unAmerican, right?
wbgleason - January 19, 2011 at 8:37 pm
Perhaps politicians who ridicule the beliefs of others – “sky daddy” – just aren’t very successful at getting elected because they are perceived of as intolerant people.
“From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist…. I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being.” Albert Einstein
jdbishop5 - January 20, 2011 at 2:34 am
@wbgleason – As it is apparently accepted as fact on this forum that the US is a place where a non believer cannot be honest about their point of view and expect to obtain high office in the land, I guess we agree that Albert Einstein could not be elected to the Senate, House Of Representatives, or appointed to the Supreme Court. THAT is the reason why your claim that atheists are the offenders rings so hollow. There is no obligation for others to respect whatever silly ideas you may have. All of us have sworn, via the ‘Pledge of Allegiance,’ to respect your right to have them. I am intolerant of some beliefs to an extreme, I must admit. As an example, I would never vote for a Mormon candidate for the office of President. I don’t want anyone with access to the launch codes who thinks he or she is more safe than others due to the wearing of special underwear.
stinkcat - January 20, 2011 at 5:23 am
“I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being.”
I think if an atheist had a humble attitude about his or her state of belief then I think they would have a reasonable chance of being elected. I agree that if a politician went around mocking “sky-daddy” it would not be a smart political move. While people like bishop have no obligation to respect anyone’s beliefs, voters have no obligation to vote for someone who ridicules their beliefs either.
jdbishop5 - January 20, 2011 at 5:37 am
You are absolutely right. I, and all others, have no obligation to ‘respect other people’s beliefs.’ We have an obligation to respect, and protect, their right to have divergent beliefs. This difference is what religious fanatics don’t understand. It is believers in a sky daddy that are prejudiced against those who do not share their fantasies. Atheists have not burned witches, tortured non catholics, or stoned infidels. People who believe in a talking snake, a god that bestows eons of birth agony on the descendants of a woman that ate an apple, argue the world is 6,000 years old, and teach their children that, if they are very good, male, and follow the prophet Joseph Smith to the letter, they will get their own planet after death DESERVE to have their beliefs disrespected.
stinkcat - January 20, 2011 at 6:14 am
I think you should run for office, you would be more amusing than Christine O’Donnell.
livefreeordie2 - January 20, 2011 at 7:22 am
jdbishop5 – wbgleason explained it clearly, I think. If you are going to ridicule the heartfelt beliefs of others, you can’t expect to get very far. And as for running for elective office, I suppose you could say that it has to do with some sort of prejudice against atheists, but in choosing a candidate for whom to vote, “discrimination” based on belief is the name of the game. I’m “prejudiced” against liberals/progressives because of what they believe, just as many here are prejudiced against conservatives for the same reason.
And when choosing among people who have political beliefs we agree with, we rely on other factors to make a choice. Like it or not, the majority of the people in this country profess a belief in God. If you run for office and proclaim your belief that they are wrong about one of the most important aspects of their lives, you won’t get elected. To tell you the truth, jdbishop5, your rhetoric reminds me very much of what I see from fundamentalists when I’ve questioned their beliefs. Your belief in “no god” seems to be as important to you as a fundamentalists’ belief that there is a god. A true believer is a true believer. . .
wbgleason - January 20, 2011 at 8:14 am
Hell has frozen over…
livefreeordie2 - January 20, 2011 at 8:20 am
wbgleason – Not at all. . . unless you wish to characterize your attempt to link Michelle Bachmann to the Tucson murders as a “heartfelt belief.” I think it’s perfectly fair to ridicule someone’s transparent attempt at character assassination. And while seeing that on the evening of the event outraged me – and obviously I think it was wrong on so many levels – that doesn’t mean I won’t acknowledge it and agree when you are right.
jdbishop5 - January 20, 2011 at 8:31 am
@livefreeordie2 – How you can claim that I, or any other person who takes a rational, empirical view of the universe and challenges superstition, is the agressor in a society infected with a disease that renders 67% of the adult population unable to accept Darwinian Evolutionary Theory and multitudes to seriously claim that the earth is only 6,000 years old (teaching young people to accept that nonsense) all the while conducting its primitive ceremonies in properties exempt from paying taxes, and barring non believers from serving in high government office unless they lie about their innermost thoughts is beyond me. Religious organizations, and their fanatical followers, dominate this country and fill the airwaves with empty jabber about the United States being a ‘Christian Nation,’ in the true tradition of the Taliban everywhere. We just don’t recognize the American Taliban because our strain doesn’t wear robes and a beard.
livefreeordie2 - January 20, 2011 at 9:11 am
jdbishop5 – Re-read your last comment. That’s how. Your words are not rational, they are fanatical. I find them insulting and I don’t really believe in all of that religion stuff (though at some level, I suppose I wish I could). While religion has been responsible for a lot of horrible and outrageous things, it has also been responsible for a lot of good. Your exaggerated ranting make you very similar to the most dedicated of those you rail against. And you become more vehement when you think you’ve been challenged. As I said. . . a true believer.
dank48 - January 20, 2011 at 9:21 am
I’ve always liked H. L. Mencken’s remark about religious tolerance. He said (allowing for perhaps faulty paraphrase here) that we need to respect the other fellow’s religion, in the same sense that we need to respect his belief that his wife is beautiful and his kids are smart.
That is, if I understand it correctly, we don’t really have to respect anyone else’s religious beliefs; frankly, in many cases I find it impossible to respect what other people believe, or what they believe they believe. However, unless we want to be on the receiving end of bigotry, we do in fact have to respect other people’s right to believe what they believe, if we want them to respect our right to believe what we believe.
It’s a bit like Kathy Griffin’s line about having good manners, meaning we talk about people behind their back. I think for instance this means not using terms like “sky daddy” unless we want to open the door to equally offensive dismissal of our own beliefs.
What puzzles me is people who claim to believe this or that without really grasping what this or that in fact is. I know a few fundamentalists who say they believe the Bible is absolutely infallible, one hundred percent true, all the way through, every blessed word. When contradictions (e.g. one creation account in Gen. 1 and another in Gen. 2) are pointed out, they brush the conflict aside. That is, they cheerfully admit to believing what seems contradictory, which amounts to rejection of logic. I don’t see how one can do that and still claim to be a rational human being, but nobody appointed me to monitor anyone’s mental health, which is fortunate. I find it more frustrating when they simply deny obvious truths about their “infallible” scriptures, such as the murder, incest, rape, divinely sanctioned genocide, and so on.
Equally puzzling, to me at least, are people who say they believe things that they don’t even understand. I apologize if I seem to be picking on anyone, but my experience has been that if you ask Catholic lay people who say they’re observant if they believe in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, they’ll say yes. Ask them to explain it to you, and it’s rare to find anyone who gets it right. I don’t understand it, but clearly, I don’t have to.
I’m glad I’ve never wanted to run for office.
Btw, Trendisnotdestiny, thanks for the kind references, and it’s he.
record - January 20, 2011 at 10:16 am
trendisnotdestiny has the right three words: “I don’t know.” Heck, even Hebrews 11:1 makes faith “substantive”, and “evidentiary”. This has been a nice thread. Thanks to all.
deliajones - January 20, 2011 at 10:22 am
I like to think that some aetheists’ silence is motivated by the thinking behind this poem by Czeslaw Milosz.
IF THERE IS NO GOD
If there is no God,
Not everything is permitted to man.
He is still his brother’s keeper
And he is not permitted to sadden his brother
By saying there is no God.
dank48 - January 20, 2011 at 10:26 am
James Thurber wrote:
Oh, why should the shattermyth have to be
A crumblehope and a dampenglee?
jdbishop5 - January 20, 2011 at 10:33 am
@livefreeordie2 – Oh I get it, my language is ‘fanatical’ because you find it offensive. I don’t give a shit who I ‘offend.’ In many cases, people who complain of being offended are simply stating that they are uncomfortable having the stupidity of their world view being exposed. Many claiming to have been offended also assert the right to control other’s speech and/or writing. Perhaps not yourself, but many religious fanatics have controlled, would quickly control again given the power, or are now actually controlling other people’s speech and writing to avoid being offended. It offends me to have the President, for whom I have considerable respect (particularly when compared with the criminal prick Obama replaced) be forced by cultural norms to mutter ‘God Bless The United States Of America’ whether he means it or not. I’m offended by having serious people who have taken on the responsibility of running a public school district have to sit politely and listen to some illiterate jabber on about the ‘right’ that superstitious people have to force biologists to teach creationist mumbo-jumbo in a science classroom. Many biology classes, particularly in the southern United States, barely mention evolution in spite of the judgements of federal courts in order to not ‘offend’ legions of the unwashed. In my opinion, the bulk of the population of the United States NEEDS to be offended by a clear eyed look at the vacuity of the country’s school system, the cruelty of its international politics, and the emptiness of their own thoughts. That is one major task of education; to offend.
wbgleason - January 20, 2011 at 10:49 am
I don’t give a shit who I ‘offend.’
Fine, that’s your right.
Just don’t whine that no one will elect you to public office.
livefreeordie2 - January 20, 2011 at 10:52 am
jdbishop5 – No, your language is fanatical because it is fanatical. As I said, when challenged, the intensity of your emotion increases. I already told you that I don’t believe in the religion thing – something on which we agree – but since I questioned the rest of what you had to say, you said about me, “Perhaps not yourself, but many religious fanatics have controlled. . .” By in this way suggesting that someone who questions you must be religious, your fanaticism shows through.
Whether there is a god or not, saying, “God bless America” is not a bad thing. It’s a wish that America does well – how do you object to that unless, quite irrationally, you get angry at the mere use of the word god? It’s silly. . . as others have pointed out – you can respect the beliefs of others without agreeing with them. And that’s pretty much a prerequisite for having your own beliefs respected. Oh. . . and even a devout Christian probably wouldn’t get elected talking publicly about Atheists in the way you talk about the those who are religious.
jdbishop5 - January 20, 2011 at 12:01 pm
@livefreeordie2 – There is nothing grammatically or logically that compels one to conclude from my “Perhaps not yourself, but many religious fanatics have controlled. . .” that I accuse you of being religious. You’re the one putting that interpretation on the phrase.
You don’t want to connect with the idea that I object to the President being compelled to say ‘God bless the USA’ REGARDLESS of what he believes is true. One of the most objectionable aspects of religious people, and their defenders religious or not, is their failure to recognize that, while they object to having their fantasies disrespected and protect them from criticism, they create, through their numbers, a society within which those who do not share their superstitions are offended by the extent to which religion permeates and dictates the nature of the culture. A few years spent abroad in a non religious society will inform anyone of the extent to which the US is soaking in ‘offensive’ religious claptrap.
You say ‘Whether there is a god or not, saying, “God bless America” is not a bad thing.’ That is a clear example of what I am arguing against. It IS a bad thing because it assumes the existence of a god, and the fact that the President is saying it means the Government of the United States assumes the existence of a god, something the United States government is not Constitutionally permitted to do. That is offensive in many ways, and it is wrong, unless you don’t give a shit who YOU offend.
record - January 20, 2011 at 12:04 pm
jdbishop5′s posts seem to link an interest in theology/religion with a lack of education. This notion might need a little work. The litany of scholar-theologians is too long to go into here, but as a start, one might contemplate the range of Isaac Newton’s preoccupations, as well as self-described atheists Watson and Krick on the “miracle”, (their word) of DNA. There’s not much shelter to be found in doctrinare attitudes when taking the measure of complex cultures.
wbgleason - January 20, 2011 at 12:09 pm
sorry… Watson and Crick. {They are like god to me…}
trendisnotdestiny - January 20, 2011 at 12:15 pm
jdbishop5: I don’t give a shit who I ‘offend.’
wbgleason: Fine, that’s your right.
Even if you are correct substantively, where is the humanity in that?
Delia Jones just offered one of the best ideas I have read in years about this (Milosz’s Poem). “Not everything is permitted to man.” Thurber ain’t bad either. This thread is about acceptance not rejection.
Btw, there isn’t much I disagree with from a substance standpoint, but all of us lose when you say: ‘I don’t give a shit who I offend’ because regardless of God or No God (we all are fallible, human and do not really know). This is the one commonality we all hold.
Peace
record - January 20, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Crick with a “C” not “K”. Thanx.
jdbishop5 - January 20, 2011 at 12:55 pm
@record – ‘jdbishop5′s posts seem to link an interest in theology/religion with a lack of education.’
Nope. I have said repeatedly that there is an inverse relationship between education and a belief in the supernatural. The study of theology/religion seems to me to be a waste of time and useless, but it is educational. Just keeping all the bullshit properly filed takes intelligence and education.
@trendisnotdestiny – It is necessary, even obligatory, for educators to offend people. That is a large part of our responsibility. To move people out of their presuppositions, errors, and superstitions, educators must confront them. That is inherently offensive. One mark of a good school is the forlorn little mob of parents in the parking lot with pitchforks and torches, and legislators arguing to close it down.
Reed College offends most of the Portland citizenry on a regular basis. So much for the majority population of Portland.
trendisnotdestiny - January 20, 2011 at 1:23 pm
jdbishop5,
“It is necessary, even obligatory, for educators to offend people. That is a large part of our responsibility. ”
I wonder if this is not an extensive exaggeration, especially considering a religious discussion. As educators, we have more tools in our arsenals than what you narrowly represent. If we believe that our students are bright, capable and worthy of our best efforts, then I fail to see how a shocking strategy as “a large part of our responsibility.”
If you ask, are there times where shocking or potentially offensive comments are necessary; I would agree. They can lead to conversations that are boiling under the surface. However, these decisions to offend are often relational assessments that operate at a human level. There are so many ways to convey information (visual, auditory, perceptive and experiential) that makes the confronting of emotional topics with offending tones less and less effective with increased use.
In many cases, the offending approach limits the effectiveness of the received message. The audience recalibrates or tunes out. While I am not unsympathetic to your comments, your tenor and vigilance require a bit more maturity, tolerance and humility.
Then again you may already know this and (you could be like a lot of us here, pissed off at the variety of events unfolding in our declining empire).
dank48 - January 20, 2011 at 1:45 pm
It’s easy to forget that, while we have the right to behave as we please in many ways, so does everyone else. I mentioned above that I think proselytizing is a bad thing because I don’t think anyone really knows anything about God, including that rather important matter of existence. (We believe this or that; we know not a thing.) It’s true that that’s one reason I object to trying to convert others.
There’s another, no doubt less creditable reason. Frankly, I just don’t give a FRA what other people believe about God. In the interests of getting along with people, however, I’ve found that the former is a more palatable explanation than the latter, for some reason.
I assume most people are about as interested in my religious beliefs as I am in theirs: not a whole lot. I suspect that personal theology is a lot like dreams and operations. Contrary to our seemingly innate belief about these things, other people really aren’t dying to know what we think. So I do my best to shut up on the matter (not that this discussion is likely to make anyone buy that assertion) unless remaining silent verges from tact and good manners to moral cowardice.
When the bullying starts, however, one has to speak. I attend some meetings a few times a week (you’d recognize the name in a minute) and once in a while have to listen to other fools hold forth on their beliefs. Big deal. But when some overly confident bigot claims that, without his or, less often, her belief in God, one might as well give up, then I have to point out (kindly but firmly) that I have remained, ah, not-screwed-up-that-particular-way for over twelve years, without relying on supernatural assistance.
And btw, miracles do not require divine intervention. They happen pretty frequently without it.
jdbishop5 - January 20, 2011 at 2:24 pm
@trendisnotdestiny – ‘While I am not unsympathetic to your comments, your tenor and vigilance require a bit more maturity, tolerance and humility.’
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll pop it in my pipe, light it, and see if it gets me high. You seem to have concluded that I limit the educator to offending students, other educators, and the general public as their sole tool. Nothing could be farther from the case. In my armamentarium there is also bullying, direct insult, beatings, condemnation, fear, cold, starvation, and electric shocks. Whatever it takes when calm consideration of the facts proves insufficien to move university presidents, deans, parents, voters, and most importantly, my students out of their intellectual moribundity. They are used to whatever dosage produces the needed result. Once the minds are ticking over, it is time to get out of their way, and it defeats the purpose if one does not.
I don’t give a damn about changing people’s religious ideas so long as they refrain from codifying them or inflicting them on children. Remembering history, the pain inflicted by organized religion far out ways any good it has done. Further, any good organized religion has done could have been accomplished at least as well without the overburden of ‘faith’ the practitioners of religion carry with them like bacilli.
dank48 - January 20, 2011 at 3:53 pm
I don’t know whether the good religion has done outweighs the evil, or vice versa, and I don’t think anyone else does either. But, while I certainly don’t approve of parents’ filling their kids’ heads with superstition, the question arises: what’s the alternative? Am I going to take charge of their education? Hardly.
It should be the case that atheism insulates one from the danger of mistaking oneself for God, but somehow this fails to work. I don’t know why. It’s easy enough to make flat statements as if delivering stone tablets from the mountaintop, but they tend to be unconvincing. For example, I think religion is the most common form of mental illness, but I wouldn’t say so to anyone I wanted to stay on civil terms with. In return, I expect my religious interlocutor to refrain from telling me I’m going to burn in hell forever, with or without the usual self-satisfied smirk.
trendisnotdestiny - January 20, 2011 at 4:05 pm
@ jdbishop5
QUOTE
“You seem to have concluded that I limit the educator to offending students, other educators, and the general public as their sole tool.”
Not exactly… just my nit-picky claim of an exaggerated role provocation (“a large part of our responsibility” comment from above). This hardly merits further discussion as we all here want you to be as ‘high’ as possible:)
Nothing could be farther from the case. In my armamentarium there is also bullying, direct insult, beatings, condemnation, fear, cold, starvation, and electric shocks.
No doubt, I would enjoy a class with you as teacher just for equating religion with bacilli. Please do not take my earlier criticism to mean that we do not need people like yourself to shake up the synapses because we do. There are few substitutes for passion (except a patient, timely and wily undercurrent of subversive resistance). What do you teach?
kaune - January 20, 2011 at 5:20 pm
It is unfortunate that so many atheists allow themselves to be defined relative to theists. By doing so, an atheist is automatically defined as one who does not believe in god(s). For a lot of atheists, belief or lack thereof is irrelevant because the concept of god is irrelevant. That is, after all, literally what it means to be an atheist — to live without any god. Asking me if I believe in god is as relevant as asking me if I believe in that teapot on the other side of the solar system. The concept holds no relevance in my life.
ejb_123 - January 20, 2011 at 6:18 pm
I assume that there are a number of atheists in Congress; if so, they are secret atheists. Unfortunately, religion and politics in the U.S. are married so firmly that it would most certainly be a career-ending move for a politician to “come out” as an atheist. (Just consider how risky it is for a Catholic politician to support abortion and gay rights.)
amnirov - January 20, 2011 at 7:34 pm
I assume most if not all members of congress are atheists. No intelligent person believes in a god or goddess.
record - January 21, 2011 at 10:49 am
jdbishop5 writes: “…The study of theology/religion seems to me to be a waste of time…” Alarmingly, this is precisely the attitude of even some college administrations toward a variety of traditional liberal arts disciplines. However, to be convincingly critical, one would do well to have a working knowledge of the discipline one hopes to argue against. No plausible counter argument is possible without this background. For example, Michael Ruse, a frequent contributor to this site, a man of science, and self-described sceptic, knows his Augustine and Irenaeus. He is well armed for argument by his liberal arts training, and I doubt he would consider time spent studying theology wasteful, because it is essential to his area of scientific inquiry.
record - January 21, 2011 at 11:28 am
dank48 writes: “…miracles do not require divine intervention…” Watson and Crick would probably agree with you. However, their propsed explanation for the presence of DNA on this planet by means of panspermia,(seeding by extraterrestrials),will strain the credulity many, at least as much as assigning authorship to a creator god. To be fair, I don’t think they both espoused panspermia, but one of them did, and I don’t recall whom. Ironically, a similar idea of nefarious angelic seeding,(see nephilim)is found in Genesis 6:1-4, as well as Matthew 13:24-30, though I doubt the panspermia advocate realized this.
dank48 - January 21, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Record, I meant miracles like a dozen or so sober drunks sitting in a church basement, trying to be honest with each other. Some people (who have never been in such a room) would simply deny that that constitutes a miracle. Some people (many of those in such a room) would simply say it does too require divine intervention. I (S.D. 26 December ’98) would say that the former have an excessively high standard for “miracle” and that the former underestimate the power of human interaction, rigorous honesty, and mutual support.
Just what the world needed: one more semantic argument.
record - January 21, 2011 at 12:14 pm
dank, I recently asked a friend who is an atheist AA member, how he reconciled atheism with the ” belief in a higher power” component of his discipline, and he explained that the hp was the group itself. At the time that was a new idea for me, and it continues to resonate. Whatever works.
dank48 - January 21, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Record,
Exactly. Excellent. Exactly.
It tends to rankle religious hardliners, but that’s all right. Some people need something to be unhappy about. It’s strange how easily not a few folks drift from “X has been helpful to me” to “X has been necessary to me” to “X is necessary to everybody” to “Without X, you might as well give up.”
I try to stay out of other people’s faces, but that last could easily discourage an impressionable newcomer. The odds are bad enough as it is, so on occasion I do point out that being an atheist is no excuse for being a drunk.
record - January 21, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Dank, hang tough. I wish you well.
dank48 - January 21, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Thanks, Record. One day at a time.
goxewu - January 21, 2011 at 3:30 pm
“Michael Ruse knows his Irenaeus.” Well, not Ire-naeus… (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
What I really dropped in to comment about is this irritation with “strident” atheists and the fallback equivalence postion of strident aetheists and believers being equally unpleasant. One against one perhaps (although the atheists are generally a lot funnier), but in total in this society there’s no comparison at all. Just count the number of books by strident believers on the best-seller lists or the shelves at Barnes & Noble, the number of television hours devoted to strident belief as opposed to strident atheism (where is the Joel Osteen or Jack van Impe of atheism?), or mandatory obeisances to belief at public events, etc., etc. It is, to use the words of David Hume in another context, a molehill to Tenerife.
Believers (strident or not) who find that “strident” atheists get up their noses have almost nothing to complain about compared to atheists (strident or not) who have “strident” believers in their faces practically 24/7/365.
And the reason that atheism turns up more as a topic in the Chronicle and on “Brainstorm” than it does in other media is that academe is a place where literate people use their minds philosophically, with some rigorous doubting, more than in most other walks of life. Perforce, a lot more agnosticism and measurably more atheism.
stinkcat - January 21, 2011 at 4:19 pm
What never ceases to amaze me is how utterly stupid both strident believers and strident atheists are. They both love to give people their opinion, but neither group pays much attention to whether or not people are actually interested in their opinions.
dank48 - January 21, 2011 at 4:31 pm
I believe that other people become “strident” at about the point when their beliefs, arguments, reasoning, etc. begin to cast doubt in our minds as to the truth of our own beliefs. Those who are secure in their beliefs aren’t defensive about them, and they think of those who disagree with them as mistaken. It’s only when we find the waves of disagreement eroding the sandy foundations of our beliefs that we find ourselves wanting to order the tide to stop.
For my money, the whole matter was best summed up by my first boss in the book biz, who said, when it became clear there were certain matters we’d never agree upon, “I’ll tolerate your notions and opinions if you’ll respect my convictions and beliefs.” I’d hate to say how long it took me to realize Gladys was being funny.
Goxewu, imo, makes a very valid point: people who think about their beliefs are more likely to be willing to change than people who don’t. I’m sure we all know people who have kept on wearing the faith of their fathers and mothers, long after they’ve outgrown it, like insisting on wearing one’s childhood pajamas. No wonder they bind. No wonder these people tend to be in a bad mood.
Having said which, yes, there’s a lot more stridency on the religious side. They are, imo, trying to shore up a house built on sand.
The silver lining is that a hundred years from now this will provide considerable amusement for our descendants.
record - January 21, 2011 at 4:42 pm
goxewu, atheists are absolutely funnier. A musician buddy of mine recently performed a song he’d written called After the Rapture. The song enumerates everything he intends to do with the object of his affection, once the righteous are hoovered from the planet just prior to antichrist’s arrival. His song is sinister, and slightly depraved but funny, mainly because it mocks a nineteenth century heresy that is mistaken for orthodxy by Biblically illiterate Christians. For a while, bookstore shelves groaned under the weight of the very strident Left Behind series, a cluster of novels you may recall, based on this nineteenth century misreading of Thessalonians II. I’ve taken on a few rapturists in my time, foolishly attempting to disabuse them of a quaint heresy, and they have become momentarily unhinged at the thought of being deprived of the security they’ve found in a misreading. I now confine my infrequent theologizing to the safe, and rational company of atheists.
dank48 - January 21, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Speaking of humor, how about the text-miners who think the Bible is all about homosexuality? Add up all the verses mentioning the subject, by the most generous possible standard, in a thousand-page Bible, and you get about half a page. Odd that God devoted only 0.05% of the Big Book to such an important topic.
Odd that some religious people, who cheerfully eat pork chops, cheeseburgers, and seafood and who wear clothes made of blended fibers and who work on Sunday, take God’s name in vain, indulge in graven images, ignore their parents insofar as possible, covet that which is their neighbor’s, and lie through their teeth when convenient, still think God gives a damn who we sleep with and what we do.
Oh, well.
record - January 21, 2011 at 5:58 pm
dank, The homophobes get all wipped up by Romans I, and conveniently overlook the scathing indictment of their own prejudice, an indictment that resposible readers can’t miss in Romans II. There’s a reason those two short books face eachother. One represents an ideal, while the other represents reality. The reader is intended to split the difference, a lttle like Hegelian dialectics: thesis, antithisis, synthesis. You mention the dietary laws, and in our culture they are not well understood. Biblically, breaking them is considered hazardous to the body, not the soul. I dodge scavengers on the menu because eating them is analogous to chowing down on a vacuum cleaner bag, but sometimes one simply has to do as the gentiles do. Our species is surely a disappointment to us, and whomever else may be watching.
record - January 21, 2011 at 6:05 pm
“whipped”, “antithesis”, I’ve probably butchered something else. It’s a good thing crappy spelling’s not a sin.
stinkcat - January 21, 2011 at 6:26 pm
It could be that God only needed a small portion of the bible to get his point across. How many times does something need to be repeated in the bible for it to be a sin. Now this argument will never convince the atheist or agnostic because the idea of a revealed morality makes no sense in that worldview. But to someone who believes that the bible is divine revelation they will never believe that something is ok because it wasn’t repeated enough in the bible.
record - January 23, 2011 at 7:17 pm
stink-Of course you’re right on both counts: (1) “this argument will never convince…” (2) ” because it isn’t repeated enough…” Perhaps naively, I sometimes want to think that believers and nonbelievers might, (simply as an academic exercise), step out of their respective ideological/secterian boxes, for the purpose of understsnding what ancient Hebrew scholar priests had in mind when they redacted the first five books of Moses, known as the law. There was real utility in their work, having little to do with piety, or religious fastidiousness. These writings will remain volitile, but so much of the anger and piety our contemporaries level at the work of ancient Biblical thinkers is the result of mere passing aquaintance with the texts at issue.
goxewu - January 24, 2011 at 2:35 pm
If we’re talking about atheists and agnostics here, the “anger” (I don’t know about piety) our contemporaries “level at the work of ancient Biblical thinkers” has less to do with the “real utility” of their work than it does with their assertion, essentially, that God told them to do it. While that assertion wasn’t uncommon in its day, it is now. (Think of what you think about a contemporary who claims he or she is acting on direct commands from God.) To put it in mundane contemporary terms, I wouldn’t think there was anything strange about someone who told me I should buy a Prius for my next car. I would, however, think a person who told me to buy a Prius because God told him that was the way to go was more than passing strange indeed.
And given the number of people on this Earth who aren’t Jews or Christians, perhaps God should have taken up a larger portion of the Bible to get his point across.
mrsdillie - January 24, 2011 at 4:29 pm
Politicians routinely lie about everything and anything to get elected, so why wouldn’t they lie about their faith or lack thereof?
dank48 - January 24, 2011 at 4:30 pm
And, regardless of how much or how little space is used in re homosexuality, the strict dietary laws and the other attendant prohibitions (wearing blended fibers, moving field markers, incest) have not be repealed. Some people simply try to have it both ways: they want to excuse their not observing the other commandments on the ground that the New Testament rendered all those inconvenient strictures obsolete; on the other hand, they sure love to cite Leviticus, etc. about homosexuality.
This is, among other things, intellectually dishonest and morally indefensible. And that sort of hypocrisy is one reason, imo, that some atheists become “strident.” The way Jesus of Nazareth became “intolerant” when he drove the money-changers out of the temple.