Studying Atheism

If you are looking for confirmation bias, you will have to go elsewhere. -sacha

Where do atheists come from?


...an analysis of the 2008 British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey by David Voas of the University of Manchester reveals that the historical correlation between being educated and being "non-religious" has not only weakened but reversed. Looking at white British people, for example, the findings show that only around 25 percent of men aged between 25 and 34 claiming "no religion" have degrees, compared with around 40 per cent of those describing themselves as religious. For women in the same age group, the difference is less
marked but the trend is the same. The picture is more complicated
across different ethnic groups, although the overall trend remains the
same.  It appears that Enlightenment assumptions about the decline of religion as
the population becomes more educated will no longer do ...

If religion comes naturally to us, why are so many people resistant to it?

What we need now is a scientific study not of the theistic, but the atheistic mind. We need to discover why some people do not "get" the supernatural agency many cognitive scientists argue comes automatically to our brains. Is this capacity non-existent in the non-religious, or
is it rerouted, undermined or overwritten - and under what conditions?

read the entire article here


Time to accept that atheism, not god, is odd

Opinion
03 March 2010

IF YOU'RE one of those committed atheists in the Richard Dawkins mould who dreams of ridding the world of religious mumbo-jumbo, prepare yourself for a disappointment: there is no good
evidence that education leads to secularisation.
In fact, the more we learn about the "god instinct" and the refusal of
religion to fade away under the onslaught of progress, the more the
non-religious mindset looks like the odd man out. That is why
anthropologists, psychologists and social scientists are now putting
irreligion under the microscope in the same way they once did with
religious belief
The aim is not to discredit atheism but to understand how so many people
can override a way of thinking that seems to come so naturally. For
that reason, atheists should welcome the new scrutiny.

Atheism still has a great deal to commend it, not least that it doesn't need supernatural beings to make sense of the world. Let's hope the study of atheism leads to new insights into how to challenge such irrationality.




Views: 4

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Brendan Prettie on March 3, 2010 at 3:39pm
I agree that a study would be great, the more you know the better.

As for the lack of education, how many religious people get educations by religious colleges and universities? I personally can't count these as the same sort of education as you get in non-theist environments. When things like bible study replace biology, we aren't really taking strides forward.
Permalink Reply by sacha on March 3, 2010 at 3:46pm
That isn't the type of "education" they are referring to. They were researching the correlation, or lack of, at Oxford University.

but nice try.
Permalink Reply by Brendan Prettie on March 3, 2010 at 3:48pm
Fair enough, how about the fact that atheism is growing faster in the non-educated pool, meaning the number of educated atheists aren't going down, just getting diluted? It stands to reason there are more uneducated people than educated. Like my last post this really is a guess, I'm still reading the article.

...Oh hey, second last paragraph says the same thing, neat stuff.
Permalink Reply by Joe Tomberlin on March 3, 2010 at 6:32pm
"number of educated atheists aren't going down, just getting diluted"

I think you are on to a significant factor there, the question is why then is there a rise in the percentage of the less-educated rejecting theism and religion. The answer, I suspect, is directly related to the meteoric rise in information availability to the masses through the internet. Information is power, and the internet is a firehose of information.

This is one of the reasons to be very concerned with the issue of net-neutrality. As the old line established organizations, from religions to corporations realize that their power is being eroded by broader access to information by the masses, they will start mounting attacks to try to limit this access.
Permalink Reply by Claire M Binkley on March 3, 2010 at 4:37pm
Oxford University is a religious institution, with Jesus College.
Permalink Reply by sacha on March 3, 2010 at 7:27pm
I wouldn't consider Oxford to be a "religious institution".

England is not a secular state. It is governed by the Church Of England, and the Queen, of course.

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

Richard Dawkins is a professor at Oxford.
Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on March 3, 2010 at 7:52pm
Further, a third of Monty Python met at Oxford (another third at the notorious hotbed of theists and jesus freaks Cambridge).

Claire, could you point us to one of the reputable Universities you deem acceptable that doesn't have a School of Divinity or Theology ?
Permalink Reply by sacha on March 3, 2010 at 7:50pm
from the article:

"...the bright young things at the University of Oxford are among the most godless groups ever studied in the UK. Of 728 students surveyed in 2007, 48.9 per cent claimed not to believe in any god, with 49.6 per cent claiming no religious affiliation. And while a very small number of Britons typically label themselves as "atheist" or "agnostic" (most surveys put it at about 5 per cent), an astonishing 57.3 per cent of the Oxford sample did...."
Permalink Reply by sacha on March 3, 2010 at 8:36pm
It’s a quite complex mess of psycho-social and pseudo-logical mistruths and lies, and even smart kids with active hormones and no parent capable of or willing to educate them in how to recognise and repel such bullshit can fall victim. What does it say about Protestant Christian doctrine that one has to ‘die to one's-self’ to attain salvation. It's the voluntary co-erced suicide of one's full intellect and conscious-identity pure and simple.

Excellent dissection, Bruce.
Permalink Reply by sacha on March 3, 2010 at 8:39pm
Also from the article, and this comes up in discussions again and again:

"One of the first tasks is to develop a common academic vocabulary. In this article, for instance, we have danced between "atheistic", "non-theistic", "non-religious", "unbelieving" and "godless" as if they were synonyms. They're not."
Permalink Reply by sacha on March 3, 2010 at 8:54pm
* I just added a second part to the discussion above.
Permalink Reply by John Jubinsky on March 4, 2010 at 6:43am
I think the issue is somewhat confused. I think people tend naturally to be friendly rather than religious and they have been indoctrinated to believe that being religious is conducive to being friendly while being atheist is conducive to being unfriendly. I think atheism needs to overcome the stigma of unfriendliness before it will become the norm.

RSS

Members

Blog Posts

Featured review on Effective Secrets Of hair.

Posted by Dan Meadows on May 21, 2013 at 8:50am 0 Comments

Most useful tips about how exactly to maintain hair extensions

If you want to search more elegant and trendy with out to commit lots of cash in your appearance, then you have no alternative but to utilize hair extensions. That does not matter whether you're merely a commoner or a celebrity; you're liberated to use the extension to ensure that you may enhance your looks. The hair enhancements won't only give that pure look to you but it will also take advantage of utilizing… Continue

Death of a family member

Posted by Larry Taylor on May 20, 2013 at 8:15pm 5 Comments

OK. I am venting. My mother died two weeks ago. She was a “god fearing christian.” Before her death she refused all medical treatment. She wanted to be left alone. She even refused to speak with my brother who is a methodist minister. He is a pip, let me tell you! I suspect she did not believe, but a woman born in her time could not and did not state her actual beliefs. This is the opening salvo to all christians; FUCK YOU! I had so many people come and tell…

Continue

Unbelievable!!!!!!!!

Posted by Christy Stewart on May 20, 2013 at 2:17pm 6 Comments

This probably should not have shocked me as much as it did (especially since I am in Texas). I actually thought my coworkers were playing a joke on me because they know I am an atheist. Sadly, this was no joke. This actually happened.

I work in a psychiatric hospital. The doctors who admit patients are general MDs. (Psychiatrists see patients after admission) Yesterday evening we received several calls from irate parents. A new doctor who was doing admissions yesterday actually…

Continue

anti-atheist rant from an Orthodox Mormon part 2

Posted by Debra Stevenson on May 20, 2013 at 1:09pm 3 Comments

What do you think of this,

 

Nathan Young,

 

No Jason Torpy it is you that should be banned for promoting atheism, a belief that has no foundation in reality and zero proof behind it.  The letter was a mockery of your atheist beliefs.  I request to the board here that they remove Jason for his unverifiable beliefs in atheism for which he has no proof other than his arrogance.  The letter was a mockery of atheism.  Atheism is stupid and it should be mocked and it…

Continue

Events

© 2013   Atheist Nexus. All rights reserved. Admin: Richard Haynes.

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service