Atheists asked to participate in psychological survey

What makes atheists, agnostics, humanists and skeptics tick? There's a study being conducted at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, that's asking that question. Psychologist Allan Cheyne and researcher Fred Britton have devised a short survey that they'd like atheists, agnostics, etc., to take.

 

More here.

 

 

 

Tags: atheism, psychology

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Permalink Reply by Olga Spelts (Human Bean) on July 2, 2010 at 7:23pm
Easy! What makes atheists tick: stupid religious theocratic zealots!
Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on July 3, 2010 at 7:30pm
That makes us boil, not tick.
Permalink Reply by Diana on July 3, 2010 at 5:16pm
I, too, hope this isn't a trick. I took the survey, in keeping with my new "out-ism" upon my recent retirement. The questions were thought-provoking, and so I thought about them before answering. It took more than a few minutes. I do intend to follow up to find out the results.

I really liked that the questions were worded so that I felt I could answer honestly. Many polls just don't have any answer that works for me.
Permalink Reply by Abnormal on July 3, 2010 at 5:33pm
Some of the questions were a little weird to me. I answered the best I could though.
Permalink Reply by Ariel S. on July 3, 2010 at 8:40pm
I also agree that some of the questions weren't worded quite right. The main one that sticks out in my mind would be:

"Would you support a war to defend your beliefs?"

It sounded really ambiguous to me--I answered at the very low end of the spectrum nonetheless (I'm not one for war at all, I believe there are far better ways to go about settling things) but even so, it raises the question of what exactly do they mean by a "war defending my beliefs"? Do they mean going all out and attacking anyone who would question the way I believe? (which would just be...well, idiotic and incredibly hypocritical) Or are we talking about fighting over our right and ANYONE'S right to believe as they wish, regardless of their religion/beliefs?

I mean, I probably would have been on the low end of the spectrum (disagreement) for the reasons I mentioned above, but the question just didn't seem very well-worded either way. :/
Permalink Reply by Diana on July 3, 2010 at 8:51pm
I took that question to mean exactly what it said - fighting a war over beliefs is really a very different thing from a war fought for the right to have beliefs.
Permalink Reply by Ariel S. on July 3, 2010 at 9:05pm
Yeah, that's kind of what I ended up taking it to mean simply because it seemed like that was their most likely intent behind the question.

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