Atheism still at 4% of population

[bananas]

Baylor University just released the results of a new survey on religion in America:

Baylor Survey Finds New Perspectives On U.S. Religious Landscape
Sept. 18, 2008

<snip>

During the past 63 years, several polls show the percentage of atheists has not changed at all, holding steady at only 4 percent of Americans who say they do not believe in God. Not only is atheism not growing in the United States, the majority of Europeans are not atheists (Ch. 14, "Atheism: The Godless Revolution That Never Happened"). Russia now claims 96 percent of its population believes in God, while a recent poll of China showed that atheists are outnumbered by those who believe in God(s).

In both the 2005 and 2007 Baylor Religion Surveys, researchers found than 11 percent of the national sample reported they had "no religion." Although nearly a third of the "no religion" group are atheists who reject "anything beyond the physical world," the Baylor Religion Survey found that two-thirds of the "no religion" group expressed some belief in God and many of those are not "irreligious" but are merely "unchurched" (Ch. 17, "The Irreligious: Simply Unchurched-Not Atheists"). Delving into the actual religiousness of those who report having no religion, the Baylor Survey found that a majority of Americans who claim to be irreligious pray (and 32 percent pray often), around a third of them profess belief in Satan, hell and demons, and around half believe in angels and ghosts.

<snip>

http://www.baylor.edu/pr/news.php?action=story&story=52815

Half of Americans believe in angels
Friday, September 19, 2008

<snip>

Baylor researchers also criticized a much-ballyhooed “new atheism” as a barely discernable trend, saying the number of Americans who are atheists has stayed at 4 percent since 1944.

Why? Atheism is a “godless revolution that never happened,” the survey said, adding that irreligion often is not effectively transmitted to children who, when they reach adulthood, often join conservative religious denominations.

Moreover, atheism is hardly taking over the world. Europe does have more atheists than the U.S., the survey said, but no country has more than 7 percent except France, which is at 14 percent of the populace. Farther to the east, Japan is at 12 percent and China is at 14 percent.

Mr. Stark dismissed the popularity of several recent books on atheism, saying they are mostly the products of “angry” people who are largely ignored by theists.

“The religious people don't care about the irreligious people,” Mr. Stark said, “but the irreligious are prickly. I think they're just angry.”

<snip>

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/19/half-of-americans-believe-in-angels/

This is consistent with Pew Research results released in February:

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey Reveals a Fluid and Diverse Pattern of Faith
February 25, 2008

<snip>

Like the other major groups, people who are unaffiliated with any particular religion (16.1%) also exhibit remarkable internal diversity. Although one-quarter of this group consists of those who describe themselves as either atheist or agnostic (1.6% and 2.4% of the adult population overall, respectively), the majority of the unaffiliated population (12.1% of the adult population overall) is made up of people who simply describe their religion as "nothing in particular." This group, in turn, is fairly evenly divided between the "secular unaffiliated," that is, those who say that religion is not important in their lives (6.3% of the adult population), and the "religious unaffiliated," that is, those who say that religion is either somewhat important or very important in their lives (5.8% of the overall adult population).

<snip>

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/743/united-states-religion

[vi5]

1. Yeah, but how many non-religious people are there...

Honestly, I'm an atheist. Proudly and vehemently so. However I can see where there's a big leap between people who feel and live like I do, and the larger chunk of the population who aren't actually and actively religious. That's a pretty big leap.

On the other hand, most of the people I know maybe aren't atheists, but they sure as hell don't go to church, don't raise their kids with religion, etc. I'd be curious what that number is. People who wouldn't say they don't believe in god, would never say they were atheists, but who don't have any religion in their lives except maybe Easter and Christmas.

[dmallind]

4. A good point

We also should include the vast majority of self-described agnostics. Since the term relates to an epistemological question rather than an ontological one, there is no room in anything but sloppy neologistic usage for that term to find a place on a continuum of religious belief.

Theism and atheism form a binary condition. If your answer to "do you have a positive belief in the existence of personal gods?" is "yes" you are a theist. If it is "no" you are an atheist. You lack theism. That's what the word means. Further distinctions between weak and strong atheism are irrelevant - and it is this asinine conflation of agnostic and weak atheist that is much to do with this undercounting.

I am an agnostic atheist. Those terms apply to two only slightly related opinions. I reject the truth value of gnosis or mystical revealed certainty, and I lack belief in personal gods.

The trouble is the religious extremists have systematically turned "atheist" into an insult which contains not just the idea of lacking god belief but the completely bogus ideas of amorality, unrestrained hedonism, anger at God (perhaps they also think we are angry at Zeus too since we don't believe he exists either - but since they don't believe in Zeus themselves, somehow that's different), and anti-Americanism. Because of this it naturally reduces the number of people who are willing to use the correct terminology and describe themselves as atheists if they have no belief that any gods exist, and has driven them into the false refuge of "agnosticism" as well as more correct but less efficient and embatteled synonyms such as "not a believer" or "not religious at all". Again those terms may be accurate, but atheist is the basic term they are defining.

[kwassa]

5. Check out these maps here.

There is a large percentage that don't go to church on a regular basis, even if they are affiliated with a religion.

Pew says:
"The survey finds that the number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion."

look at the "unaffiliated" map in this section.

http://religions.pewforum.org/maps

[bananas]

7. Pew: 6.3% "say that religion is not important in their lives"

You asked, "On the other hand, most of the people I know maybe aren't atheists, but they sure as hell don't go to church, don't raise their kids with religion, etc. I'd be curious what that number is."
Pew calls them '"secular unaffiliated," that is, those who say that religion is not important in their lives (6.3% of the adult population)'.
So the answer to your question according to Pew is 6.3%.

Total of atheist + agnostic + "secular unaffiliated":
1.6% atheist
2.4% agnostic
6.3% "secular unaffiliated" ("those who say that religion is not important in their lives")
----
10.3% total non-religious

[Dorian Gray]

9. I know many

people who aren't religious, spend little time thinking about religious, but may identify, culturally, as Catholic, Jewish or some other religion. But, for all intents and purposes they are irreligious. It's not the same as being atheist, though, as they identify with a particular religion, even if they don't believe in the tenets.

[dmallind]

2. Well if you can change definitions willy nilly sure

But atheism has bugger all to do with thinking there is "nothing beyond the physical world". All it is is the lack of belief in personal gods. Many Buddhists are atheists. A lot of atheists buy into all manner of woo-woo. I would fall into that 4% but many atheists who are every bit as atheist as I am would not.

Whenever you get "researchers" saying a group of ten million people or more even by his redefinition are "just angry" you can be pretty sure that's some lack of objectivity going on.

I have no need to claim atheists are more than 4% of the poulation. I don't subscribe to the opinion because it is popular or unpopular, but by redefining the term and then launching into a dismissive diatribe, Mr. Stark has shown that he somehow is personally offended by this "4%" that "religious people don't care about".

That last lie is particularly egregious. One of the central tenets of Xianity is the (rather annoying but understandable from the point of view of a religion that seeks to maximize adherents) commandment to evangelize. Whom do you evangelize? The people who believe already or those who don't?

[cosmik debris]

6. Thanks for catching that mis-direction play

It may have fooled kwassa, but it doesn't fool anyone else.

[trotsky]

8. You'd think believers wouldn't be so insecure.

I mean, we're just a tiny 4% minority - why are atheists so scary?

[New Dawn]

41. Bingo!

A materialist* is one who believes that there is nothing supernatural in the universe. Unlike an atheist, who simply does not believe in a deity or deities. Obviously, there are more atheists than there are materialists, because some atheists still believe in some supernatural phenomenon (e.g. the occult, ghosts, afterlives, etc).

* I am referring to the philosophical term, which should not to be confused with the dictionary definition that means "greedy".

[peace13]

3. They forgot to poll me!

Yes the angry atheists, that's right. Thank god that they are free thinkers and loosely organized!

[Bill McBlueState]

10. Stark's comments are helpful

They make it clear that the authors of the Baylor study had a particular agenda that wasn't revealed in most reporting.

[TZ]

11. Its Baylor, One of the most religious colleges in America

Any study they release on the amount of religion in America is automatically suspect in my book. I'd feel the same way if someplace like Catholic University did it.
Remember Baylor was in the running for the GWB library. Not exactly what I consider an unbiased source.

[Occam Bandage]

12. This is in line with most polls on atheism in America.

Strong rationality is not very common.

[Taverner]

13. Baylor is a Baptist University

Take their findings with a grain of salt

[spoony]

14. Hmm, looks like the new rating system

is providing some with a tool to punish threads that carry news they don't like. How truthy of them. btw it was "skip it" before I voted to offset the boo birds.

[moggie]

15. It currently has only 6 votes

One of them yours, and of the other 5, you don't know how many were negative. I know how much you like to play the persecution card, but this is lame even by your standards.

[spoony]

16. I don't know who you are.

But I do know a straw man when I see one, such as you claiming I said this has anything to do with "persecution." I merely find it interesting that there are atheists here that vote down stories they don't like. Truth be damned. Indeed I only came into this forum to see it in action, and found it. I'll now leave you to your regularly scheduled echo chamber.

[moggie]

18. You "only came into this forum" to find and complain about nasty atheists

And you found a thread rated one notch below average, as a result of less than a handful of votes by anonymous readers who may or may not be atheists - and your work here is done. Impressive!

[varkam]

22. Spoony's good at that.

Practice makes perfect!

[Evoman]

32. Lol....that's the kicker...for all we know, people could be rating these things

so they will look persecuted.

Or maybe it's because some people find the thread disruptive.

Or maybe it's because we atheists really are assholes who hate all christians and will automatically rate their threads lower.

Who the fucks knows, and who the fuck cares.

This whole thing....rating the thread down, using it as a tool to feel persecuted, is fucking pathetics and everyone involved should be fucking ashamed.'

Not only that, we have completely disrupted bananas thread with this bullshit...I'm guilty of it to, with this post, so I will now not say another fucking word about it.

[moggie]

34. Perhaps atheists are rating up R/T threads

After all, threads with marked "recommended" or "must read" are more likely to draw posters, leading to a lively discussion, which is what we want, right?

But, then again, even the lively Dawkins thread has only garnered 7 votes, while the "I don't feel safe" one has struggled to 10. It looks like people in R/T just aren't voting much, even after all that training from Boojatta. At the time Spoony came looking for things to complain about, this thread had at most 4 votes (he and I voted, taking it to 6) and was at "skip it". If I correctly understood Skinner's description of the system, this could have resulted from as few as 2 people giving below-average ratings. Truly, a mountain out of a molehill.

[trotsky]

17. Consider, for a moment,

that it may not be to "punish threads that carry news they don't like" but perhaps warn others that the thread was started in order to disrupt or antagonize.

[bananas]

19. It was not posted to disrupt or antagonize.

Anyone who believes that is delusional.

[trotsky]

25. Riiiiiight. n/t

[Occam Bandage]

26. Why would a freethinker find statistics threatening/disruptive?

[trotsky]

27. You forgot your "innocently batting eyelashes" smiley. n/t

[Occam Bandage]

28. I'm serious.

[trotsky]

29. Your answer, then, is that I don't find these statistics threatening.

Despite them coming from a biased source. I would be comfortable with my non-belief whether 5.9 billion or zero people agreed with me. But argumentum ad populum is a universally common fallacy committed by theists, so it's worthy to discuss this thread noting the problems.

[Occam Bandage]

30. I understand and agree that it's a favored bludgeon of the religious.

Still, isn't there some value to knowing the demographics, detached from any sort of argumentum whatsoever? I find the fact that even in this era of literally unlimited access to information, the rate of religiosity remains stable in American society to be very interesting, especially when compared to the trajectories of Christianity and Islam in Europe.

We can argue about the wording of the question, but even that argument is illuminating; the claim that we might find atheists hidden in some other responses tells us quite a bit about the reluctance of atheists to self-identify, and the distinction between the non-religious and positive atheists leads one to ask further questions about the nature of spirituality, organized religion, and perhaps the difficulty of complete rejection of superstition.

[bananas]

35. It's extremely valuable to know and understand the demographics

This is supposed to be a forum to get Democrats elected, an important part of that is understanding the demographics.

I started this thread as a follow-up to a thread someone started during the Democratic Convention,
where they misunderstood the demographics of a 2001 survey:
Why are the Dems ignoring the fastest growing "religious" demographic in the USA today?

Ironically, in that thread you'll see atheists make "argumentum ad populum" arguments, such as:
"If that 15% figure is accurate, there are more non-theist voters than: <snip>"
"Soon Christianity, Judaism and Islam will go the way of the dinosaur."

[bananas]

20. Yes, it certainly looks that way.

It's back to "skip it" with 7 votes.

[varkam]

21. Couldn't be that some people thought it was a mediocre thread, could it?

Nah. Must be evil, disingenuous atheists busy trying to "punish" those that they don't agree with.

[bananas]

23. He said "news they don't like", not "those that they don't agree with"

Why are you twisting his words?

[varkam]

24. Immaterial to my point, which you missed.

Ironically, your post serves to reinforce the point that I was trying to make in that you attribute nefarious motivations to my actions when it is entirely possible that no such motivations existed.

[bananas]

36. I didn't attribute nefarious motivations to your actions. nt

[varkam]

37. "Why are you twisting his words?"

That would seem that you took it as an intentional act ("twisting") with some motivation laying behind it when, in reality, it was purely al.

[Evoman]

33. Good work hijacking bananas thread and turning it into a flame war.

You should be ashamed of yourself. Now I'm going to have to rate it down because of your bullshit. No, not really.

Pathetic.

[cosmik debris]

31. Hmmm. I started a thread about this study

And used different statistics.

And I got an entirely different response.

link

[ZombieHorde]

38. "Japan is at 12 percent and China is at 14 percent"

I wonder what definition of "atheist" they are using.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2122.html

The above link is to the CIA World Factbook, Field Listing - Religions.

[trixie]

39. I don't believe the %

Everyone I know (or at least 90%) are athiests. Some might go to church but they go for community, charity work etc.

Maybe athiests don't even care enough to be surveyed. :shrug:

[New Dawn]

40. ROFL, 96% of Russians do not believe in God

That 96% claim is the most absurd thing I've read about Russia in a long time. Who gave Baylor that figure? They do not say, they just say, "Russia says". I find it hard to believe that the leader of the Russian Orthodox church would say that big of a lie. Half the country is atheist/agnostic.