Number of atheists on the rise in the USA?

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/26/polls-show-atheists/#

Numbers on the rise? Despite the article's headline, I doubt it. Numbers on the rise of atheists who are no longer afraid to say what they truly believe without crosses being burned on their lawns or their cars set afire? Well, that, at least, would be a credit to our country as a whole, especially to those Christians who in former times would have been the ones lighting the crosses and setting the cars afire, all in the name of God’s love, of course. I'd say the rising number of American atheists no longer fearing to state their true beliefs is as much a sign of American Christians becoming better Christians as much as anything else.

rather than a true increase in non-believers.

and a dangerous act of arson none-less. Any sane property owner would be concerned.

On edit ... I get it. I thought you were claiming the Klan wouldn't do something like that. I missed the joke initially (Atheist concerned about destruction of a cross).

:)

Really? What part of Christianity teaches people to respect atheists. As a liberal, are you not simply casting judgment on those who take a conservative, traditional message from Christianity? I would say that part of the increase is from American Christians being better citizens. Part of it is the realization that being a nonbeliever really is a viable option and that others feel the same way. And part of it is a reaction to the damage caused by religion. I have to think that 8 years with the Evangelicals in charge turned a lot of R. voters into D.s and turned a lot of Christians into secularists.

unless better = crazier and more right wing.

I wouldn't have called myself an atheist 15-20 years ago. I would have fudged things, holding on to some belief in some Star Wars-like "force" as my definition for "god."

Now, I categorically don't believe there's a god. I know many people like myself who have been on roughly the same trajectory.

So, yes, the number is on the rise.

what a truly liberating experience it has been.
but I still celebrate a festival with all sorts of magic in december.

It's just a question of what they don't believe in. Most Christians don't believe in Vishnu, most Scientologists don't believe in Zeus, etc. etc.

Those of us who self-identify as "Atheists" (for me, that's a loose term, with more than a little Tao thrown in for good measure) mostly have just broadened the scope of our disbelief to encompass not just some mythologies, but all of them.

Can there be only these extremes?

It's just that those of us who couldn't care less don't have a very vocal lobby ;-)

I'm an agnostic who knows that none of the organized religions have all the answers. But it suffices to say "I'm not religious".

There have been people like us all through human history, whether they dared admit to it or not.

Largely indifferent to religious matters?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism

But, then again, labels and the quibbling over minutae that usually comes with them gets annoying really fast. You are what you are, it's others who'll try to shoehorn you into a slot.

I think some pantheists are just non-evangelical atheists, though. :D

and even some Christians as well i think.

I pretty much believe that nature, or the universe, is what religious people call "God." And I think that nature is everything, and everything is nature. But I don't believe in anything supernatural at all. You are pretty much right, though. I agree with Dawkins (I think he's the one who said this) that pantheism is just "sexed up" atheism. So this is why I usually just say I am non-religious, humanist, or atheist. I can't realy explain what I think in word and I don't usully want to talk about it.

to Taoists, we and the universe are one and nature most openly displays the natural flow of the universe. Essentially, there is complete Unity between all matter and it is all "God"

How about not believing in werewolves? Is that an extreme as well?

I would say that this position would be extreme. You should choose a mythical creature that already has a giant body of supporting text to back it up. Oh yeah, there aren't any.


Simple fact is you cant say with any level of confidence that some kind of god does not exist. Just like you can also not say with any level of confidence that some kind of god does exist.

To some of us, you are both making assumptions.

Same for werewolves. No one can prove they don't exist.

"Well, i would say that if there where centuries of texts extolling werewolves to exist"

Is an old book more likely to be true than a new book? I don't think so.

not that im defending them of course. I'm just finding flaw with your metaphor.

if there is some sensation that many people experience, if that number reaches high enough, one could consider this an observational pattern that could induce examination.

This line of thinking is prevalent throughout science.

Can I have some examples?

"if there is some sensation that many people experience"

Many people all over the world believe in Santa Claus. Is not believing in Santa Claus an extreme position to hold?

I seriously doubt that many people actually believe in Santa Claus.

Second, any empirical information regarding the health benefits related to specific herbs could fall into this category. im sure i don't need to explain to you how that has functioned.

The simple fact is that you cannot prove there is no god.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9501E4D91739E333A2575BC1A9649D946997D6CF

I know not every single person who believes in Santa sends a letter through the post office.

"empirical information regarding the health benefits related to specific herbs"

Through experimentation. I don't see how this relates to beliefs in god(s).

Those letters are from kids and frankly, i cannot add them to this discussion in an equitable manner. Frankly, i find your inclusion of them in this metaphor tandental.

No, there is no vast swath of people who actually believe in Santa Clause. I realize that you are trying to compare God to any other mythical being, but your strecthing a little to far outside of logic on this one.


Regarding herbs, the scientific experimentation was founded on observations made by large numbers of people. The science merely put these observations to the test. I guess my point here is the the existence of God is a sensation that many people have reported to experience. The only problem of course is that this "observation" is untestable by science. Thus, the topic remains open. Christians often make an assumption when they state clear assurance that God exists. Many others make the same assumption when they claim God does not exist. My point is simple, untestable equals open.

over time people gave up on those gods. In time, they will realize that all gods,, as personified by major religions, are just as bogus as the Greek and Roman gods.

your just making a prediction based on pattern. Which is what Christians do when they claim that prayer heals.

did believe in WW.

(tangent, sorry!)

I think you and ZH both have point, but there are many trials in the historical records in Europe that are very earnest in their belief. With the knowledge and understanding of nature, biology, genetics, etc this was a perfectly reasonable conclusion.

Most of my info is in that analog form, what were those called, books! ;-) But here is one link I found real quick.. http://alam25.tripod.com/cases.htm

Also there is a phenomenon called IIRC "line of sight illness" which basically means that if a select number of people are experiencing real symptoms, people within the line of sight will also come down with headache, dizziness or what have you, when they are not infected or affected at all. Those people around the corner or out of sight of this will not report any issues.

So I'm not willing personally to put anymore credibility into an experience just because of the numbers involved or the earnestness of the testimony.

St Vitas' dance and all that.

(put that together quickly and with distractions, hope it makes sense...)

And i would comment that your points are valid and stand as possible solutions to the "God experience". My point is simply that this experience is untestable and therefore can neither be proven nor dis-proven. To stand on either of these points requires the preexistence of a conclusion.

So by this logic, unicorns may or may not exist but the possibility that they do is on par with the possibility that a god exists.

:shrug:

and again, I'm not defending them.

The simple fact is that "god" is nothing but a concept/construct of the human mind. There's no idea of god outside of the human mind. There's no objective proof for god in the true sense of the word proof. One may look around one's environment and imagine that god did this or was responsible for that, but as there's no proof, god remains a concept, not a real thing.

One can say that many things exist to a very high degree of confidence if not statistical certitude. The concept of god doesn't reside in such a sphere of confidence, and neither do werewolves, for that matter.

Starvation, for example, is a very real thing to humans - who have a concept of god - and animals alike - who have no concept of god...or of starvation, for that matter. One can make the assumption that if humans or animals don't eat, they will starve to death. One cannot make the assumption that gods have anything at all to do with it.

a very high degree of confidence != law

Many medieval werewolf trials ended in a verdict of insanity. Since it was believed the devil couldn't make any actual changes in god's creation, therefore anyone who believed they became a wolf must be insane.

Good decision, very odd logic.

The vast majority of atheists I've known don't express a belief in a negative. It's not that I choose to not believe. I am an atheist. I don't see any reason to take the positive step of believing in something for which I see no evidence. Therefore I don't believe in any gods.

It's a subtle distinction but it's inherent in the word atheist. A-theist meaning without the property of theism.

judging others and basing public policy on my beliefs. I am pretty pissed off, though, about the war on Vampireity.

Like the war on Halloween by those heretics relabeling it "Harvest celebration."

celebrated traditionally, as the Celts intended.

atheism is not an extreme, it is simply a sane and common sense stance in a world where no one, NO ONE, has ever found proof of all these ridiculous religious claims

you have three options, believe in no god, one god, or many gods

there is never "one" without "many," there is not one representative of a species, there would be several, so the believers in one god have the most stupid and extreme and ridiculous belief system

however, since there is $$$ to be made from hate, division, and war, it is the stupid belief that has gained acendancy -- this idea that there can be one and only one somehow commanding spirit too powerful to bother to let himself be seen by anyone except total crazies and scammers

that's the extreme

there is nothing extreme about insisting on proof before you "believe" in something -- if god existed, he had his chance to speak up WAY before now

i didn't see god rescue anybody off a roof during katrina, i didn't see god stop the hand of anyone who beat me up as a child, i will conclude there's a small chance that god is simply evil and uncaring but a much greater chance that he can't be arsed to exist at all

extreme? in no way extreme...

I don't know why anyone would assume that the only alternative to atheism is the very specific claims about god(s) made by Christianity.

to me, proves none of them are. It's all just tribal, xenophobic crap.

belief is now looked upon as running the gamut from rather silly to downright dangerous.

The USA is simply catching up to the decades-old trend of our friends across the pond.

:rofl:

Of course they did. And their bubble goes pop.

K&R

In fact, I tried very hard to believe. I just couldn't do it.

I went to Methodist church as a very young child, to Baptist Bible camp with my best friend at about 6, and Catholic church from 7 or 8, up until I refused in my late teens. I've gone a few times as an adult in deference to some relative's plea on special occasions.

None of it ever made any sense to me. And the nuns really blew it when they got mad at me for asking questions in CCD. That's also when I began skipping CCD.

Whenever I spoke of not believing in god, my mother would ask, "Aren't you afraid of being struck by lightening when you say that?" Not that I don't believe in lightning, but no.

I have kept quiet about my viewpoint at work because they already gave me enough guff about my crazy "Liberal" beliefs. Anyway, why is it any of their fucking business?

:spray:

:applause:

A better summary of Christianity I have never read.

Her mom has a heart of gold, and always accepted that I would never convert to Catholicism, and that her
daughter (my wife) was never coming back. But she took (without my knowledge) our daughters to mass once
or twice without my knowledge or permission. My wife said, "what's the harm?"

I said the harm is that while we are trying to raise our daughters to deal with the real world, your mom
is taking them to a place that tells them to believe that 2000 years ago, some thirty-something, whose
mom was a virgin, was the son of God, and after he was killed by the Romans and his body tossed in a
cave, sealed with a boulder weighing several tons. Then, a few days later, he got up and tossed the boulder
aside like Superman, had a nice big farewell dinner with his closet pals and ascended up to heaven as in "beam
me up, Scotty." THAT was the harm. My wife conceded the point.

My mom-in-law is still a wonderful old lady, and still has a heart of gold. However, she hasn't taken our
children to mass since.

It's always amusing (and slightly depressing) to me that many "mainstream" Christians think that believing in things like, oh, say, Golden Mormon Tablets and such, is ridiculous, but believing the story you recounted makes perfect sense. Oh, and this Superman guy is going to come back any day to save us all. Yes indeed. Aaaaaany day now.

I never said anything about my lack belief in sky daddy when I was younger because I didn't want to be hassled.

It seems now that some atheists are more vocal about it, such as certain authors and whatnot, so I don't really feel outnumbered anymore.

My hunch is that it's more perception than reality, but I do hope I'm wrong.

I imagine the 'free speech zone' carp and Xtian zealotry had a silencing effect on many. I also think many Americans count themselves as spiritual, not religious, after the crazy Xtian hostile takeover of government.

I know when I became an atheist that it took five years before I met another atheist. I don't think it would take that long now. But I have no idea whether that is because of an increase in numbers or an increased comfort level with admitting it.

Maybe a connection?

"Despite its status as the most widespread and influential religion in the US, Christianity is undergoing a continuous relative decline in demographics. While the absolute number of Christians rose from 1990 to 2008 as the overall population increased, the actual percentage of Christians dropped from 86.2% to 76.0%."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States

"Non-believers" are the 2nd largest "religious group" in the US.

1. The sun will come up tomorrow, and
2. There is no God.

The rest, I just don't know for sure. And I'm ok with that.

GWB was a doofus?

You are just out there floating in a reality where freepers could be right about everything?

Wow, that's weird.

And they are tired of having it shoved down their throats.

This is isn't exactly new information.

However there is very little chance of being "found out" on a confidential survey or poll. So the "fear factor" is minimized, at least in studies where the researchers are sensitive to issues of non-response. Typically when people are uncomfortable with the survey question they skip it.

Sociologists of religion take great care in measuring this type of thing. This has been the trend since at least 1993. The more interesting trend is the decline of the Protestant majority, which helps explain the "they surround us, so i am deeply resentful" mentality coming from the right. Their fears are coming true.

TABLE 2
RELIGIOUS TRENDS BY YEAR
Year Protestant Catholic Jewish None Other
I. GSS
A. Current Religion
1972 62.5 27.4 3.0 5.1 1.9 (1605)
1973 61.8 26.4 2.7 6.6 2.4 (1500)
1974 63.3 26.1 3.0 7.0 0.6 (1483)
1975 64.7 25.3 1.5 7.3 1.1 (1488)
1976 62.6 27.4 1.7 7.4 0.9 (1497)
1977 64.9 26.0 2.1 5.9 1.1 (1523)
1978 63.1 26.3 1.9 7.6 1.1 (1529)
1980 63.9 25.3 1.9 6.8 2.0 (1464)
1982 63.9 25.7 2.1 7.1 1.2 (1498)
1983 60.3 28.2 2.5 7.5 1.5 (1594)
1984 62.5 27.4 1.8 6.8 1.5 (1461)
1985 62.8 26.4 2.1 7.2 1.4 (1528)
1986 61.2 27.4 2.5 6.9 2.0 (1467)
1987 64.9 24.7 1.3 7.1 2.0 (1461)
1988 60.4 27.1 2.0 7.7 2.8 (1480)
1989 62.3 26.2 1.5 7.8 2.1 (1533)
1990 62.6 24.5 1.9 7.7 3.3 (1368)
1991 63.3 26.8 1.9 6.3 1.7 (1516)
1993 63.1 23.0 2.1 9.0 2.8 (1596)
1994 58.4 26.9 1.9 9.0 3.8 (2982)
1996 56.5 24.2 2.1 11.9 5.3 (2900)
1998 53.6 26.3 1.8 13.7 4.6 (2792)
2000 52.7 25.4 2.2 14.1 5.5 (2813)
2002 52.4 25.5 1.5 13.8 6.9 (2749)

TABLE 3
RELIGIOUS TRENDS BY BIRTH COHORTS
Cohorts Protestant Catholic Jewish None Other
A. Current Religion
Pre-1910 73.4 20.4 2.3 3.2 0.7 (2148)
1910–1919 69.6 22.8 3.0 3.7 0.9 (3503)
1920–1929 67.1 25.4 2.6 3.7 1.1 (5225)
1930–1939 65.7 25.5 2.0 5.1 1.7 (5536)
1940–1949 59.9 26.9 2.2 8.5 2.6 (7775)
1950–1959 56.4 26.9 1.8 11.3 3.6 (9291)
1960–1969 53.1 27.0 1.2 13.0 4.8 (6165)
1970–1979 44.9 28.0 1.3 19.1 6.6 (2757)
1980+ 41.0 23.3 1.7 27.0 7.0 (319)
B. Religion Raised In/Religion of Origin
Pre-1910 75.0 20.1 2.7 1.7 0.5 (1897)
1910–1919 70.2 23.2 3.0 2.5 1.1 (3243)
1920–1929 68.6 25.0 2.7 2.4 1.3 (4879)
1930–1939 66.5 26.4 2.1 3.6 1.3 (5305)
1940–1949 63.1 29.6 2.3 3.3 1.7 (7426)
1950–1959 59.3 32.8 1.9 4.0 1.9 (9111)
1960–1969 55.3 33.6 1.3 6.4 3.5 (6156)
1970–1979 50.5 33.3 1.5 9.9 4.9 (2755)
1980+ 49.4 27.0 1.7 13.2 8.7 (319)
Source: 1972–2002 GSS.


citation: The Vanishing Protestant Majority, Smith, Tom W.; Kim, Seokho
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 211-223, June 2005

here in the south, there are still plenty of "fish" around, the mark of the small-minded business owner who won't pay anyone benefits and who lives to cheat his customers because jesus apparently said it was OK to rook the heathen

you're out of the closet about your atheism at your own risk in a large swath of louisiana

no cross burnings, but when people deny you jobs and keep you from getting food oon the table...it's actually more severe than a colorful cross burning that would get you sympathy even from the local fish wrappers

i would assume that most sensible adults (who are not yet senile/fearing imminent death) are atheists but in a lot of areas the social consequences and arguments of admitting same are just soooo not worth it

Now, more and more of us are unwilling to do so.

They have taken over the churches and people recognize the hypocrisy. Then they start to question everything about the church including the existence of god. That is exactly what happened to me and I imagine many others have had and are having similar experiences.

...doesn't meant the person is an atheist.

I might answer "Jewish" to that question, but I'm also an atheist.

And someone who believes in God but doesn't identify with a group might say "no religion."

and not because of me or anything I have said to her. Yes, it's on the rise...

Sure, many now are coming out of the closet, but even more are entering the closet fresh from religiosity. And a huge portion of "atheists" are actually agnostics, and if you were to include atheists and agnostics as one group, the number would be pretty high I'm guessing.

It's not because Christians have become more tolerant suddenly, though that has generally been true over time. In some ways, the Christian right is more extreme and larger than ever, but it has caused a large amount of mainstream Christians to drift towards the left as well.

they always say "but you're so NICE." like i eat
babies because i don't believe in god.

I almost feel sorry for them - fearing everything that's not them. almost.

recognized religion as crock but went along to get along.

Now more are tired of pretending that the emperor is wearing clothes.

A little perspective ... The history of the universe condensed into one Earth year. Jesus doesn't appear until a couple of seconds before midnight. The focus on the last 2,000 years and a so-called magical man is absolutely laughable. Also, to think that little planet Earth, in one solar system among billions in one run-of-the-mill galaxy among billions, is the focus of an omnipotent hovering sky god, is also laughable.