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tom arcaro Male elon, nc United States: Like

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Mr. Deity

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Welcome, tom arcaro!

Latest Activity

Alice replied to tom arcaro's discussion 'Op-ed on Hitchens: a charming response' in the group Atheist News

LOL - same old story - turn to God for answers.... only then do you know truth! I'm interested though in pursuing this idea that atheists are superior - I've had mixed comments on here, some claiming…

Jan 1

Joseph P replied to tom arcaro's discussion 'Op-ed on Hitchens: a charming response' in the group Atheist News

Yeah, I hate that bullshit cop-out at the end. In the same breath, they're claiming the superior intelligence and wisdom to be able to know what God wants.

Dec 31, 2011

Sentient Biped replied to tom arcaro's discussion 'Op-ed on Hitchens: a charming response' in the group Atheist News

Your tribute was beautifully written. I'm waiting for Jan first to buy "Hitch-22" on audiobooks. Hitchens does the reading, so it's his words in his voice. My next book credit comes at the 1st of the month, so it will…

Dec 31, 2011

Loren Miller replied to tom arcaro's discussion 'Op-ed on Hitchens: a charming response' in the group Atheist News

My response to this left-handed "compliment" would be the following: I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don’t know anything like enough yet, that I haven’t understood enough, that I can’t know…

Dec 31, 2011

Op-ed on Hitchens: a charming response

Here is the op-ed on Hitchens: http://www.news-record.com/content/2011/12/30/article/headine_hitchens_a_model_for_atheists_todayAnd here is one response that made me smile: Several letters about atheism have been in the News & Record recently, each mostly just a barb-throwing event.However, one column by Elon University professor Tom Arcaro (“Hitchens a model for atheists…See More

tom arcaro added a discussion to the group Atheist News Dec 31, 2011

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Op-ed on "Hitch" published in Greensboro News and Record

This was published in the 26 December edition of the Greensboro News and Record:A tall tree has fallen By Dr. Tom ArcaroProfessor of SociologyElon University336.263.4578Arcaro@elon.edu “Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.” Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) The death of Christopher Hitchens was sad news…See More

Blog post by tom arcaro Dec 26, 2011

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Maruli Marulaki commented on tom arcaro's blog post 'New survey with an additional focus on the gender disparity in the atheist community'

It would be very interesting to include in a survey, what kind of and how much woo-woo belief people can adher to and still define themselves as atheists, and if there is a gender difference. Some weird discussion about taoism made me suggest a kind…

Oct 25, 2011

sehkmet commented on tom arcaro's blog post 'New survey with an additional focus on the gender disparity in the atheist community'

Where and who did you survey to reach your conclusions about women atheists?

Oct 24, 2011

Profile Information

My URL: http://facstaff.elon.edu/arcaro

About Me: I am currently doing research on "coming out in the Bible Belt" and invite you to contact me if you'd like to participate.

In the academic world, sabbaticals come around only once in seven years and each faculty person knows to invest that precious time away from the classroom effectively. In my case, when the time came to write my sabbatical proposal I had recently finished reading all of the books from the “Four Horseman of the Apocalypse”, namely Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett. I have been reading Dennett and Dawkins for years as I followed closely their work in evolutionary psychology (I have written several essays that touch on this topic; go the http://facstaff.elon,edu/arcaro), and when Dawkin’s The God Delusion came out I devoured it quickly, finding myself in agreement with much of what he said. During the semester I read his book I had an Intro to Sociology student who needed a research project, and she and I surveyed over 100 undergraduates using Dawkin’s scale of belief (he introduces in the first chapter). Those data indicated what I already knew from living North Carolina for the last 23 years: I was living in the Bible Belt. That short experience with researching people’s religious beliefs whet my appetite for more in depth data, and I began some preliminary reading of what other sociologists had written about being an atheist, particularly in the so-called Bible Belt where I lived. I found some reasonably interesting work, but none that sated my interest in the social consequences of coming out public as an atheist. As a bit more background, I have been working for a number of years on the issue of HIV and AIDS and have studied in some detail the problem of the social stigma attached to being HIV+. A good friend of mine, Anita Isaacs from Oshakati, Namibia, became HIV+ in the late 90’s and then came out public in November of 2002. This brave act changed her life and has defined her ever since. In no way do I want to say that being HIV+ is the same as being an atheist, but what I do argue is that the phenomena of stigmatization, described so well by the sociologist Irving Goffman in his classic book Stigma, is the same in both cases: both are devalued social statuses.
Immediately after the topic of my sabbatical research was published on our university web site I began getting calls and emails from colleagues who supported my work and wished me well. Many of them shared their own stories of being in the closet about their atheism and, in fact, the survey that I am asking you to take was written with the critical feedback of many colleagues both on campus and elsewhere. Two colleagues who also happen to be lesbians talked to me about the differences and similarities of dealing with the social responses to their sexuality and their atheism.
Why am I doing this research? As a tenured full professor I have no pressing need to add to my curriculum vita. My motivation for this research is to reach out to other atheists and provide them with an additional sounding board for their experiences. I want to describe the population of self-proclaimed atheists and ferret out some of the correlations between their gender, age, and other demographic variables with their responses to the array of questions that are posed in the survey. After the data is collected, I will openly share to summarized results both in the popular press (and, of course, appropriate web sites) and in sociological journals. I pledge to do my best to describe, analyze, summarize and present the data carefully and, importantly, to absolutely maintain the confidentiality of each participant.
Ultimately I hope that this survey and the publication of the results will, in some a small way, encourage more of us to more openly be who we are, atheists.
Finally, I want to publically thank Richard Haynes (“Brother Richard”) for working closely with me on the final versions of the survey and, more importantly, for all of his patience as we developed this project over the last five months. That he shares my vision and is willing to use his resources to maximize the exposure of this survey is a great gift to me and to the atheist community.

School/College/University: elon university

Profession: professor of sociology

Age Group: 51-60

City and State (For Member Searching): elon, nc

Country (For Member Searching): USA

Response to USA today article April 27, 2009

Folks,

Here is my response to this USA today article http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/04/post-christian-not-even-close.html

From my research (both quantitative and qualitative) and my personal experience I am certain that there is a fairly high percentage (10%? more?) of people who claim to believe in God and/or a church and are in actuality non-believers The vast majority of these are "religious by marriage", that is, their spouse is a believer and, rather than upset marriage and family, they choose to stay deeply closeted.

I agree, of course, that the religious "nones" are not all atheists, but at the same time assuming that those who are socially pressured into saying they believe really do is also suspect.

There are more non-believers in the US than the Trinity or Baylor studies indicate.

One reason many non-believers are in the closet is because of the stigmatization of atheism, and this is the topic of my current research. An online survey I conducted yielded 8200 responses, and over half those chose to include a story about their experiences as atheists

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Tom arcaro's Blog

Op-ed on "Hitch" published in Greensboro News and Record

Posted on December 26, 2011 at 5:00pm 0 Comments 0 Likes

This was published in the 26 December edition of the Greensboro News and Record:

A tall tree has fallen

By Dr. Tom Arcaro

Professor of Sociology

Elon University

336.263.4578

Arcaro@elon.edu

“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.” …

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New survey with an additional focus on the gender disparity in the atheist community

Posted on August 31, 2011 at 9:22am 3 Comments 0 Likes

Prelude to a Major Survey

by Dr. Tom Arcaro & Emily Wappes

It is clear to many members of the atheist internet blogosphere that there is a noticeable gender disparity among participants in atheist activities (fora, blogs, comments, readership) online. Two quick examples will illustrate. As of 6 May 2011 only 27% of Atheist Nexus (A|N) membership is…

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Long time inactive, but coming back

Posted on April 27, 2011 at 9:25pm 5 Comments 2 Likes

Hey folks. Nothing major from this end, but I am working with a student on more writing and research on atheism and atheists -and the public perceptions of same, and I will start posting again some of our musings.

Updates? My course on the sociology of atheism did not get enough students enrolled last summer, so I had to shelve it. I was the moderator on a panel on the media treatment of atheism held on our campus earlier this month, and the headline panelist was none…

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I gave the blessing before the meal

Posted on April 14, 2010 at 8:00pm 0 Comments 0 Likes

At my school we have a nice event once each semester for students who are (or have recently) turned 21. I was asked to give the blessing by our campus director of the center for religious and spiritual life. He knows I am an atheist, and wanted that element of diversity in this event. I was a bit nervous when the time came close, and almost wimped out. I am glad I didn't, and was congratulated by a couple colleagues afterwards. Here is the text of my "blessing:"…

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Op-Ed piece published in Greensboro News and Record on Sunday, March 28

Posted on March 28, 2010 at 10:49am 1 Comment 0 Likes

Atheists' rights in eyes of Christians?…

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Comment Wall (31 comments)

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At 9:28pm on May 15, 2011, Younas Chowdhry said…: Dear friends,

You can follow me and my activities on twitter...

https://twitter.com/#!/YounasChowdhry

At 8:02pm on March 12, 2010, Heather said…: Thanks for the welcome :-) been here for a while, but I kind of just forgot about it and never visited.. poor AN...made a twitter page and a FB group for the greensboro atheists and I knew I had to stay more up to date with the community through sites other than reddit :P I try to stay active, but I'm just always so busy!

At 6:11pm on February 22, 2010, Brian Dalton said…: Hey Tom! Thanks for joining the Mr. Deity group and thanks for the kind words. You're right, Amy is completely out of my league. But I make up for it by being funny, fun, and a really good guy. I'd love to hear more about your work. It sounds fascinating! I'm going to check out some of your posts here. B

At 10:24am on January 20, 2010, Anwar Diamante said…: Hey tom,
Happy New Year!! How is the research going? I posted a blog that may interest you.

At 3:11pm on November 5, 2009, Edward Teach said…: Tom come join:

http://www.atheistnexus.org/group/ironhorseatheists

At 5:46pm on October 29, 2009, Anwar Diamante said…: That's awesome, Im so envious in a positive way...lol Of those phd holders. I am trying endlessly to get into a doctoral program. Its just really hard to do so. I am also looking into various fields i.e. Phd in Education with a focus in Higher ed pedagogy. Im also hearing that contrary to popular belief that distance/online is not a bad thing...So, not only is the process difficult but a bit intimidating...

At 6:50pm on October 23, 2009, Anwar Diamante said…: Oh wow, your students are so fortunate to have a progress professor!!! I wish I were just now doing my undergrad so I could take your class...Sociology is such a facinating subject. I gave my class a reading on W.E.B Dubois' "The Damnation of Women" article. So, I love what you guys do!!!

At 12:46pm on October 19, 2009, Dallas Gaytheist said…: Thank you for joining HUMANE ATHEISTS.

At 9:26am on October 6, 2009, Ralph Dumain said…: Put out an announcement in the Black Freethought group. I have no particular connections in your designated area.

At 8:23pm on September 27, 2009, Anne Halligan said…: Tom I read the doc and loved it. I can see loads of potential in it and will email you some specifics soon.