'What scares the new atheists'

What scares the new atheists (Guardian)

Thanks, John, for the link. The author articulates far better than I ever managed the point I was trying to make last month about the cultural constructedness (and thus inherent biases) of the New Atheism:

It has often been observed that Christianity follows changing moral fashions, all the while believing that it stands apart from the world. The same might be said, with more justice, of the prevalent version of atheism. If an earlier generation of unbelievers shared the racial prejudices of their time and elevated them to the status of scientific truths, evangelical atheists do the same with the liberal values to which western societies subscribe today – while looking with contempt upon “backward” cultures that have not abandoned religion. The racial theories promoted by atheists in the past have been consigned to the memory hole – and today’s most influential atheists would no more endorse racist biology than they would be seen following the guidance of an astrologer. But they have not renounced the conviction that human values must be based in science; now it is liberal values which receive that accolade. There are disputes, sometimes bitter, over how to define and interpret those values, but their supremacy is hardly ever questioned. For 21st century atheist missionaries, being liberal and scientific in outlook are one and the same.

It’s a reassuringly simple equation. In fact there are no reliable connections – whether in logic or history – between atheism, science and liberal values. When organised as a movement and backed by the power of the state, atheist ideologies have been an integral part of despotic regimes that also claimed to be based in science, such as the former Soviet Union. Many rival moralities and political systems – most of them, to date, illiberal – have attempted to assert a basis in science. All have been fraudulent and ephemeral. Yet the attempt continues in atheist movements today, which claim that liberal values can be scientifically validated and are therefore humanly universal.

Fortunately, this type of atheism isn’t the only one that has ever existed. There have been many modern atheisms, some of them more cogent and more intellectually liberating than the type that makes so much noise today. Campaigning atheism is a missionary enterprise, aiming to convert humankind to a particular version of unbelief; but not all atheists have been interested in propagating a new gospel, and some have been friendly to traditional faiths.

Evangelical atheists today view liberal values as part of an emerging global civilisation; but not all atheists, even when they have been committed liberals, have shared this comforting conviction. Atheism comes in many irreducibly different forms, among which the variety being promoted at the present time looks strikingly banal and parochial.

>1 John5918: It has often been observed that Christianity follows changing moral fashions, all the while believing that it stands apart from the world. The same might be said, with more justice, of the prevalent version of atheism.

Of course there will be no evidence that it has "more justice"; in fact, there's quite a bit of evidence that the Christian mainstream hasn't got too far away from the atheist mainstream in largely Christian societies.

The vocal fervour of today’s missionary atheism conceals a panic that religion is not only refusing to decline – but in fact flourishing

Or it shows a desire to share the good news and free people from their chains to false gods. In the US, at least, it seems to have been successful; http://www.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx shows that Nones have doubled in the new millennium, even if they aren't necessarily identifying as atheists. The Netherlands did not get raised by stressing about the depth of the Atlantic.

>1 John5918: One doesn't have to be an atheist to be scared by the resurgence of medieval monotheism in places like Iraq and Syria and the US Bible Belt.

>3 prosfilaes: "Of course there will be no evidence that it has "more justice";"

Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris both justified the use of torture in the so-called "War on Terror." Meanwhile, the Catholic Church explicitly condemned all torture as immoral, without pause.

Tell me again why I'm supposed to think that the New Atheists are more civilized than the religious believers?

ETA: (Did you read the entire article, or just the snippet I posted in >2 nathanielcampbell:?)

>4 theoria: "medieval monotheism"

One doesn't have to be a medievalist to find your old-fashioned and pejorative use of the term "medieval" to be misguided and historically inaccurate. Or is the myth-mongering of discredited historiographies now considered trendy theory?

Another good snippet:

Above all, these unevangelical atheists accepted that religion is definitively human. Though not all human beings may attach great importance to them, every society contains practices that are recognisably religious. Why should religion be universal in this way? For atheist missionaries this is a decidedly awkward question. Invariably they claim to be followers of Darwin. Yet they never ask what evolutionary function this species-wide phenomenon serves. There is an irresolvable contradiction between viewing religion naturalistically – as a human adaptation to living in the world – and condemning it as a tissue of error and illusion. What if the upshot of scientific inquiry is that a need for illusion is built into in the human mind? If religions are natural for humans and give value to their lives, why spend your life trying to persuade others to give them up?

I believe that southernbooklady has frequently made this point.

ETA: And the final two paragraphs, that follow immediately the one just quoted:

The answer that will be given is that religion is implicated in many human evils. Of course this is true. Among other things, Christianity brought with it a type of sexual repression unknown in pagan times. Other religions have their own distinctive flaws. But the fault is not with religion, any more than science is to blame for the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or medicine and psychology for the refinement of techniques of torture. The fault is in the intractable human animal. Like religion at its worst, contemporary atheism feeds the fantasy that human life can be remade by a conversion experience – in this case, conversion to unbelief.

Evangelical atheists at the present time are missionaries for their own values. If an earlier generation promoted the racial prejudices of their time as scientific truths, ours aims to give the illusions of contemporary liberalism a similar basis in science. It’s possible to envision different varieties of atheism developing – atheisms more like those of Freud, which didn’t replace God with a flattering image of humanity. But atheisms of this kind are unlikely to be popular. More than anything else, our unbelievers seek relief from the panic that grips them when they realise their values are rejected by much of humankind. What today’s freethinkers want is freedom from doubt, and the prevailing version of atheism is well suited to give it to them.

>6 nathanielcampbell: I'd guess that only inside particular cloistered, theological circles -- representing a rather small subset of humanity -- does the word "medieval" carry a positive connotation, especially when contrasted with the word "modernity."

>8 theoria: Again, if what floats your theoretical boat is to ignore the vast research of the last half-century on the Middle Ages and the rich and diverse cultures it reveals, and instead to stick to the benighted mudslinging of confessional turfwars over "the Dark Ages," then there's not much I can do to stop you. Sure, it puts you in the boat with the folks who peddle the myths of Pope Joan, prima nocte, and the flat earthers -- but hey, it's so much easier to believe the myths about the Middle Ages than to dispel them, especially since the myths make us feel so much better about "modernity."

But for somebody so well steeped in theory, you'd think that you'd know that the impact of the New Materialism, ecocriticism, and other recently in-vogue approaches has been to explore just how much the Middle Ages was not the eeeviiiil monotheistic monolith you make it out to be.

It's really quite remarkable that someone as well-educated as you could still believe such widely-discredited myths about a thousand years of western history. Pepple who actually pay attention to history and culture long ago discovered that it was merely modern hubris to dismiss the "medieval" as dark, unenlightened, and backwards.

Just look at honest-to-goodness intellectual history to see how far off the mark your stereotypes are (however good they make you feel, since we moderns are clearly so much better than those icky medieval idiots). Try, for example, the work of Stephen Jaeger -- he's got some of his best work up on academia:
https://www.academia.edu/5997504/_Verecundus_et_delicatus_Tender_Passions_and_Re...
https://www.academia.edu/7949059/_What_is_Medieval_Humanism_Anyway_
And his great article on the cult of violence as a product of modernity, not the Middle Ages: https://www.academia.edu/7123460/Burckhardts_Renaissance_and_the_Cult_of_Violenc...

>9 nathanielcampbell: One receives a rather skewed view of life in medieval times by focusing on its "high culture," which was restricted (because of the use of Latin and by tradition) to a tiny segment of the European population. One can't really understand history on the basis of scholastic texts. Hence, the Annales School.

From a long term and broad perspective, medieval life was lived very close to what Hobbes called the "state of nature." It featured societies on the brink of calamity; peasants scratching out meagre yields with crude implements, pressed by both the Bishop and the Lord to tithe, all the while pinned to their low estate as a matter of birth and by God. The violence that was a constant occurrence (especially on the road) was not contained by medieval state structures weakened by the centrifugal forces of primogeniture. At the higher end of medieval society, the crusading spirit swept across the continent; the Jew and the heretic were caught up in its lethal machinery. After the Reformation, religiously motivated war and atrocity was the norm, culminating in the Peace of Westphalia.

It is a remarkable event in Western European history that feudal structures were finally broken, first by fully submitting the Church to the rule of law and, second, by desacralizing the social structure (economic individualism played a leading role in this area).

>10 theoria: "From a long term and broad perspective, medieval life was lived very close to what Hobbes called the "state of nature." It featured societies on the brink of calamity; peasants scratching out meagre yields with crude implements, pressed by both the Bishop and the Lord to tithe, all the while pinned to their low estate as a matter of birth and by God."

From a long term and broad perspective, this was true up until the Industrial Revolution. So stop demonizing the Middle Ages for the brutality of life suffered by the 90% before the 19th and 20th centuries.

>2 nathanielcampbell: In fact there are no reliable connections – whether in logic or history – between atheism, science and liberal values.

I sometimes get the feeling when talking with some of my friends that they see a connection between the "scientific" observation that humans are "social animals" and the liberal values that might seem to underpin the healthiest (i.e., most pacific, productive) societies. E. O. Wilson, for example, in The Social Conquest of the Earth makes a case for humans as demonstrating eusociality, the highest level of organization in the animal kingdom, since we satisfy his three-fold definition of this condition: division of labor, overlapping adult generations, and cooperative care of the young. In such a scheme, theism is an inessential ingredient. Of course, I guess scientific endeavor and liberal values might also appear to be inessential to an effective and efficient society. Wilson likes ants.

>12 jburlinson: "since we satisfy his three-fold definition of this condition: division of labor, overlapping adult generations, and cooperative care of the young."

Those are three conditions that obtain in even the most oppressive and illiberal of human societies.

>2 nathanielcampbell: The author articulates far better than I ever managed the point I was trying to make last month about the cultural constructedness (and thus inherent biases) of the New Atheism:

Which I tuned out completely, since it seemed to be a strawman argument. I don't know to what extent you were in fact engaging Theoria, but from this perspective, duh. Why don't you tell us water is wet?

>3 prosfilaes: Tell me again why I'm supposed to think that the New Atheists are more civilized than the religious believers?

Tell me again how you got that claim from there's quite a bit of evidence that the Christian mainstream hasn't got too far away from the atheist mainstream in largely Christian societies.?

ETA: (Did you read the entire article, or just the snippet I posted in >2 nathanielcampbell: nathanielcampbell:?)

I did not read the entire article, but >2 nathanielcampbell: was posted after I started writing, and I didn't edit my post significantly after seeing that it was posted.

The article was rather tedious; it belabored what was well-known to me and didn't bother to back up what claims I disagreed with. He starts and ends with "our unbelievers seek relief from the panic that grips them when they realise their values are rejected by much of humankind", and yet I find not a single supporting fact in the entire article.

>3 prosfilaes:

The vocal fervour of today’s missionary atheism conceals a panic that religion is not only refusing to decline – but in fact flourishing

Or it shows a desire to share the good news and free people from their chains to false gods.

I am going to have to agree with prosfilaes here. Being "missionary" is just what someone who actually wants to improve the lot of their fellows does, particularly if they think they have a truth to share.

The tactics of the New Atheists are just what some types of people, who care about the truth and others, do when they think they have an important truth to share. It does not speak to some inner psychological lack.

>1 John5918:

Okay, John, I read that article twice and I feel a little thick-- even after the second read I still had trouble understanding Gray's position. He has a very muddled way of making an argument. I think he's saying that modern atheists (what he calls "evangelical" atheists and others call "militant" or "New Atheists") are basing their stance on a toxic combination of anti-religious feeling and science-based morality, neither of which is a rational position, and that it doesn't really matter what someone believes as long as they aren't hurting anybody.

Of course the anti-religious position of people like Dawkins or Harris --or me, for that matter! :-) -- is indeed a rational response to the outrages committed in the name of religious fundamentalism, so Gray is being a little inaccurate, but then so is Dawkins, et al. when they use the word "religion" when they really mean "Christianity and Islam." What Dawkins calls the "old bearded man in the sky" religions. No one is waving banners against the Buddhists (who I would argue are NOT "religious atheists"--really what an odd thing to say). All the furor is entirely a response to the egregious actions of some people of certain faiths that hold absolutist ideas and carry them out with conviction.

If you are going to oppose that kind of absolutism, it makes sense to do so...uh, absolutely. Rather than argue about the niceties of what god really wants (which no one can ever really know, but does not prevent all sorts of people from thinking they know), take the position that "god" doesn't exist at all. Then the entire justification for all those terrible acts is disappeared. Which I suppose is one answer to Gray's question "Why make a fuss over an idea that has no sense for you?"

Personally, I'm glad that as a species we are inclined to "make a fuss" over ideas. If we weren't, we'd still be living in caves.

Of more interest to me was the claim that such atheists are pushing an alternative "science-based" morality-- a concept he seems to equate with secularism. I have some questions about that...I don't think he's made the case that secularism and atheism are interchangeable concepts, for one thing, although he uses the terms interchangeably throughout the column.

I'd also need to understand better the ideas like the cited "science of good and evil" of Sam Harris, since to the best of my understanding science is not in the business of making universal value judgments, and also not in the business of quantifying the unquantifiable. Both these things seem to me to preclude any attempt at a "science of good and evil." It makes me wonder if the phrase refers to a metric for rating the goodness and badness of things (which seems like an absurd task) or simply a method for determining the moral desirability of any action (which seems more promising -- that would be something like the call for understanding that underlies a lot of contemporary moral thinking, but is hardly "atheististic")

Instead of going into any explanatory depth, though, Gay makes some unsupported statements of his own (the most common criticism of his article that I notice in the various published responses):

But pretty well all secular thinkers now take for granted that modern societies must in the end converge on some version of liberalism.

It’s impossible to read much contemporary polemic against religion without the impression that for the “new atheists” the world would be a better place if Jewish and Christian monotheism had never existed.

The conviction that tyranny and persecution are aberrations in human affairs is at the heart of the liberal philosophy that prevails today.

...etc.

Most people -- even the irrepressible Mr Dawkins -- acknowledge the "family tree" of moral philosophy that twists its way through a millennium's-worth of incarnations of both church and state, before finally leafing out as the cultural values we currently uphold as ideal. As far as I can tell, no one is looking for science-based justifications for any of them, so Gay's claim that "Universal human values can be understood as something like moral facts, marking out goods and evils that are generically human. Using these universal values, it may be possible to define a minimum standard of civilised life that every society should meet" seems a little simplistic, if not perverse.

And in fact I think this statement is wholly unfounded:

The fault is in the intractable human animal. Like religion at its worst, contemporary atheism feeds the fantasy that human life can be remade by a conversion experience – in this case, conversion to unbelief.

That the human animal is "intractable" is clear. That's just another way of saying that humans are human. That the "evangelical atheists" think that such a thing is "curable" is something I don't think any one of them would claim. For one thing, that would not be scientific.

Nor do I think such people "want freedom from doubt" -- something that despite what Gray claims, atheism in any incarnation is distinctly unsuited to give.

But the real problem I have with Gray's essay is encapsulated in this statement:

There is an irresolvable contradiction between viewing religion naturalistically – as a human adaptation to living in the world – and condemning it as a tissue of error and illusion. What if the upshot of scientific inquiry is that a need for illusion is built into in the human mind? If religions are natural for humans and give value to their lives, why spend your life trying to persuade others to give them up?

This is the second time in the column Gray asks this question, so perhaps it is at the heart of his whole purpose: "Why worry about something that makes people happy if it isn't hurting anyone?"

I wouldn't think that would be a very comforting defense from the religious person's point of view, but it also seems to me to misunderstand how evolution works -- that it is not a "progressive" process that always selects for the best traits, but simply an undirected process where sometimes one trait is selected, and sometimes another. "Religiosity" -- if it is such a trait -- is no more fundamentally necessary to the human species than is aggression, or social cohesion. Or hair, for that matter. As to when things evolve enough that we can no longer be considered human beings, well, arguments about the dividing line of speciation can keep scientists happily arguing for years.

In the end, then, the question of why persuade others to think as you do answers itself: Because you think your position is true, and you think it is better to deal with truth than with fiction. And Gray's suggestion, that the difference between truth and fiction doesn't matter, is, well, not at all persuasive.

>16 southernbooklady: And Gray's suggestion, that the difference between truth and fiction doesn't matter, is, well, not at all persuasive.

It's only unpersuasive if one believes that there's a "truth" that is accessible to us that contains no element of "fiction".

>16 southernbooklady: "being a little inaccurate, but then so is Dawkins, et al. when they use the word "religion" when they really mean "Christianity and Islam.""

Or rather, when they use the word "religion" when they really mean their own misconstrued caricature of Christianity and Islam that intentionally and maliciously ignores the diversity of those traditions (and their stronger philosophical strains) in favor of holding up the most fundamentalist versions (often a minority, when considered across the whole history of the tradition) as representative of the whole.

I'm also surprised to hear you take issue with Gray's statement, "What if the upshot of scientific inquiry is that a need for illusion is built into in the human mind?" My impression (which may be mistaken, so please correct me if it is) is that you agree with the idea that irrationality is an inherent trait in the human species and not necessarily one to condemn; and that a secularism or atheism (or whatever term you want to use) that privileges the rational over the irrational must do so on grounds other than the naturally scientific, i.e. must do so philosophically.

>1 John5918: 'What scares the new atheists'

The use of the word "scares" is interesting. It puts me in mind of Peter Wessel Zapffe's essay "The Last Messiah", which considers human consciousness to be overdeveloped to the point that, at this point in time, humanity is experiencing existential terror to the point of panic, "the tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability". Zapffe contends that in an attempt to overcome this lethal condition, humanity "performs, to extend a settled phrase, a more or less self-conscious repression of its damaging surplus of consciousness" and that this repression is necessarily "a requirement of social adaptability and of everything commonly referred to as healthy and normal living."

Not to get too deep into it, Zappfe identifies 4 strategies that people use to accomplish this relief from terror: (1) isolation, (2) anchoring, (3) distraction and/or (4) sublimation. Zappfe prefers sublimation -- the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones; and he considers the very essay he is writing as an example.

In this scheme, evangelical anything (whether religious or atheistic) would be considered "anchoring" -- the "fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness". An attempt to break down these walls by demonstrating that the anchoring mechanism (be it God, morality, America, progress, atheism, you name it) is false, or even flawed, would lead to profound despair, kind of like waking up a sleepwalker.

>18 nathanielcampbell: I'm also surprised to hear you take issue with Gray's statement, "What if the upshot of scientific inquiry is that a need for illusion is built into in the human mind?" My impression (which may be mistaken, so please correct me if it is) is that you agree with the idea that irrationality is an inherent trait in the human species and not necessarily one to condemn; and that a secularism or atheism (or whatever term you want to use) that privileges the rational over the irrational must do so on grounds other than the naturally scientific, i.e. must do so philosophically.

Well the issue I take is not with the premise .... that this need for illusion is a natural part of the human animal... but that the premise warrants the conclusion that one doesn't need to worry about our propensity for fantasy. That we are not justified in actively rejecting irrationality if we feel it is doing us harm. Aggression is also a natural trait of the human animal, but this has not deterred us from a concerted effort to find ways to mitigate that trait. The point of all these biology-is-destiny debates is two-fold: You have no authority over anyone but yourself. But also, no one else has any authority over you. How you act in the world comes from your own self-awareness and sense of conviction. That means that if you gravitate towards a fundamentalist mindset, then you are perfectly justified --but only to yourself -- in flying a plane into a building. I, however, am perfectly justified in opposing you.

I do take issue with Gay's position that atheists are trying to act or justify themselves according to some cobbled-together version of a universal secular moral philosophy--which is why I'll have to read Sam Harris to better understand what he's talking about. I don't know why the writer speaks of the relativism of our existence as "dreaded" when as far as I can tell, this is something that we all know to be true. We are all limited in to our own perspective, we exist in a "relative state" by default.

>19 jburlinson: An attempt to break down these walls by demonstrating that the anchoring mechanism (be it God, morality, America, progress, atheism, you name it) is false, or even flawed, would lead to profound despair, kind of like waking up a sleepwalker.

Zapffe makes it sound like self-awareness is a kind of mental disorder.

>20 southernbooklady: Well put, and thanks for the explanation.

>20 southernbooklady:

That means that if you gravitate towards a fundamentalist mindset, then you are perfectly justified --but only to yourself -- in flying a plane into a building. I, however, am perfectly justified in opposing you.

And how is the opposition going? How are the fundamentalists reacting to your version of the truth? Does it concern you at all that they reject it? Does it concern you at all that your opposition, and the opposition of the new atheists isn't working; that religion is on the increase worldwide?

You may believe that you are "perfectly justified" in opposing them -- but only to yourself. The fundamentalists don't think your opposition is justified -- far from it. Does that not concern you?

Yet they never ask what evolutionary function this species-wide phenomenon serves.

Cough, cough. Bullshit.

Read some Daniel Dennett.

>24 Jesse_wiedinmyer: Or some Michael Ruse.

>21 southernbooklady: Zapffe makes it sound like self-awareness is a kind of mental disorder.

It can't really be considered a disorder if everybody has it.

Oh those uppity new atheist... How dare they express what would have brought ruin on their lives in the past. Why can't they be quiet and accept that christians and other religions run things and are far superior to their way of seeing things.

…

I find this vitriol towards atheists today interesting... At the heart of it there is an assumption that these people aren't blazing a trail for freedom. By normalizing the idea that it is okay for atheist to speak freely (even if they are attacking religion) they are making it so normal atheist will in the future be able to be open about who and what they are. I for one still live in a part of the US where I often have to pretend to believe in Christianity. If I didn't, I could lose my job and be ostracized by most people around me. In the midst of my divorce I had to be very careful about what I said.... Even though I had been the primary caregiver to my daughters, I could have lost most of my custody.

Articles like the one above make me ill. They assume we are past the time when the religious still impose their beliefs on the rest of us.

Sorry, I'm not trying to bump this, but new thoughts keep coming into my head.

Please don't construe my statements as hostile towards any given religious person. I'm of the thinking that if it brings you happiness and helps you and doesn't harm another person, then good for you. My problem is with the infliction on religion on others which has been the status quo for centuries. Because of where I live I have many religious friends and family. I was brought up religious. I didn't really even know an atheist who was out in the open until recently. i don't for a minute think that religion is the cause of all evil or that eradicating it will make the world a wholesome wonderful place.

I just find it interesting that because a few people have begun to feel safe enough to express views in opposition to religion they are seen as "new atheists"... as though it were a horrible thing that people feel safe to actually express their ideas.

>29 inkdrinker:

I certain regret that you feel under such social pressure, and worry about your job and custody. That's dreadful. Christians such as myself should do what we can to tell other Christians to cut it out.

I'd hope that, having experienced this, you'd also have some sympathy for the fact that, in other parts of the country and social situations, there is similar pressure in the other direction. The near compulsory conservative belief of the working class in, say, West Virginia, is regarded with disgust or at least deep suspicion in higher-status social circles in the Northeast.

You write that religious people "impose their beliefs on the rest of us," and there is indeed much truth to that, especially, perhaps, where you are. But it's a mixed situation. It's hard to get elected in this country if one is not ostensibly a religious believer. At the same time, other levers of power--journalism, academia, entertainment, especially--are wildly out of step with the national religious demographics. Again--seeking common ground--could we agree that both present some problems? A "nones and somes" coalition? ;)

Edit for #30: Good to hear. As much as I disagree with certain new-atheist ideas, if they have helped people to "come out" with their sincere beliefs against hostile social pressure, I'm all for that.

>29 inkdrinker: I for one still live in a part of the US where I often have to pretend to believe in Christianity. If I didn't, I could lose my job and be ostracized by most people around me.

Where I live, being an atheist isn't nearly as problematic as being anti-NRA. :-)

But the "social pressure" of Christianity in the United States is also codified as legal, legislative pressure. Which is why not being able to be elected unless you are churched is perhaps a little more serious than facing a culture of deep skepticism at a University would be. Much of our legal system is founded in a set of what might be called "Christian values." The problem is that those values are being interpreted in ever more narrow ways by conservative Christians and this is impacting the laws of the land. We seem to respect the innate dignity of every human being less and less, and react with enthusiastically righteous anger over a growing list of apparent "sins." That's where I feel the pressure in the most alarming fashion -- not the ostracizing over my lack of faith that has never appeared even though everyone knows I don't go to church, but in the relentless imposition of a rigid moral system that is Biblical in its justifications and often dangerous and cruel in its applications.

But I don't think the answer is to try to disprove God to the faithful. Faith is an emotional drive as well as a rational one and you aren't going to make a dent in it by rattling on about Bertrand Russell's teapot.

Instead, I think the way forward it to appeal to anything in that faith that aligns more closely to what we now understand about human nature, or indeed nature in general. Christians say they are big on compassion. I wish they'd show a little more of it in their conservative political rhetoric.

32:
"But I don't think the answer is to try to disprove God to the faithful. Faith is an emotional drive as well as a rational one and you aren't going to make a dent in it by rattling on about Bertrand Russell's teapot."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ_BtZ-5O60

But can I try to bring them into the love of the great god Jibbers? ;-)

>33 inkdrinker: Well that was hilarious. I think the ASL interpreter should get an Oscar or something.

Where I live, being an atheist isn't nearly as problematic as being anti-NRA. :-)

I hear you. That's another one of these crazy national divides.

But the "social pressure" of Christianity in the United States is also codified as legal, legislative pressure. … The problem is that those values are being interpreted in ever more narrow ways by conservative Christians and this is impacting the laws of the land.

Can you give some examples? The US is fairly unique in having extraordinary protections here, and to the extent that religion had a special place in law, it's been pretty extensively torn down.

You may mean something like restrictions on abortions. But I would not consider as "religious" policy choices which are often associated with belief, but which are logically separate. And if we're looking at those, I'd argue the story is almost continuous decline for religious policies—with same-sex marriage being only the starkest example.

enthusiastically righteous anger over a growing list of apparent "sins."

Can you give some examples. I look at the legislative landscape and see a long string of religious defeats, at the ballot or at the court.

but in the relentless imposition of a rigid moral system that is Biblical in its justifications and often dangerous and cruel in its applications

It was only a few years ago that homosexually was illegal in many states, and local prosecutors regularly went after pornography for "offending local standards." That worlds is gone, along with prayer in school, restrictions on same-sex marriage and much else. What are you referencing?

you aren't going to make a dent in it by rattling on about Bertrand Russell's teapot.

Wisdom there!

Christians say they are big on compassion. I wish they'd show a little more of it in their conservative political rhetoric.

Amen.

Actually, where I live being anti-NRA, atheist/agnostic, or more liberal than a Bush is dangerous...

Strike three you're out for me... :-(

>35 timspalding: Can you give some examples? The US is fairly unique in having extraordinary protections here, and to the extent that religion had a special place in law, it's been pretty extensively torn down. You may mean something like restrictions on abortions. But I would not consider as "religious" policy choices which are often associated with belief, but which are logically separate.

and

It was only a few years ago that homosexually was illegal in many states, and local prosecutors regularly went after pornography for "offending local standards." That worlds is gone, along with prayer in school, restrictions on same-sex marriage and much else. What are you referencing?

"religious policy" and "belief" may be logically separate, but the latter drives the former, so I think it would be disingenuous to regard many of the public policy debates over women's health care as not motivated by religious justifications: The Hobby Lobby decision would be one example. The concerted efforts against Planned Parenthood would be another. The systematic restriction and/or closing of women's health clinics. The proliferation of fetal assault laws. The backlash against the Supreme Court's decision legitimizing same-sex marriage was and is couched entirely in terms of religious freedom.

Was Obergefell v. Hodge a "religious defeat"? It was a decision that legitimized secular same-sex unions. It was only a "defeat" for religion in the sense that some religious principles regarding marriage were recognized as not applicable to secular marriages. It was religious conservatives who picked that battle, who wanted their concept of marriage to be imposed on the country at large. But you are right that the case signaled a change in the attitude of...not just the American public, but an even wider scope. Ireland legalized same sex marriage by public referendum, for heaven's sake. But once again, was this a "defeat" for religion? Only if that religion is requires that everyone follow its rules, believer or no.

>32 southernbooklady: Instead, I think the way forward it to appeal to anything in that faith that aligns more closely to what we now understand about human nature, or indeed nature in general.

Thanks, Nicki. It is something I have repeatedly argued for. Work together. There are plenty of Christians out there who are more open about their faith and who are not part of the culture wars. Our shared humanity is what should bind us together; whether or not we interpret that reality with or without the divine, it is the same reality. The more "progressive", "liberal", "tolerant" Christians probably agree with atheists of that ilk on far more than they disagree when it comes to public policy. And where we disagree about something, as we will, it should be a disagreement, not the sort of power dynamics you and inkdrinker describe - by either side.

I admit that the USA seems to be a bit more of a challenge than the rest of the developed world. I grew up with atheist family members, friends, colleagues and co-workers, and it never seemed to be much of a problem for any of us, and that was in a country where officially there is an established church. I think the same would be true in most of Europe.

>37 southernbooklady: It was only a "defeat" for religion in the sense that some religious principles regarding marriage were recognized as not applicable to secular marriages. It was religious conservatives who picked that battle, who wanted their concept of marriage to be imposed on the country at large

Agreed.

I'm afraid I've muddied the waters. Let me separate the water from the mud.

There are two ways in which the religious may be said to impose themselves.

First, we have direct religious impositions. I'm hard pressed to name any here, since the end of school sponsored prayer. Some have argued that the Constitution should prohibit "In God We Trust" and "So Help Me God." The Supreme Court has disagreed, but I'd be at least inclined to respect the view of those opposing them. Still very small potatoes.

As regards Hobby Lobby, we've argued before. With the Court itself, I see this as a legitimate protection of religion, following the Congressionally-enacted "Religious Freedom Restoration Act." In point of fact, the Obama administration has succeeded in shifting the onus to the insurance companies, providing contraceptive coverage to anyone affected. This proved the very point at issue--that the administration's licit and well-grounded policy goals could be achieved without forcing Hobby Lobby to violate its conscience!

However nice it sounds in certain quarters, Hobby Lobby didn't succeed in stopping contraception coverage. They didn't force their religion on anyone. They only succeeded in not being the direct agents. This isn't celebrated or indeed generally known, because advocates don't want to win—they want the other guy to lose. Indeed, one suspects some were less interested in a contraceptive right—something the administration granted to all Hobby Lobby employees the day after the case was decided; they want to make sure others are denied their rights. QED as far as I'm concerned.

Second we have policies with, or alleged to have, some sort of religious connection. Here, I see almost nothing but defeats for religious conservatives. (I'm not speaking of myself here, as SBL, at least, knows.) Roe v. Wade happened. Sodomy laws were declared unconstitutional. Legal same-sex marriage is now compulsory on states. Pornography law is a dead letter.

I can see the argument on the topic of restrictions on abortion, but I'm not sure a view from higher-up wouldn't erase the commonly held impression, replacing the overall picture of right-wing triumph with the familiar story of increasing polarization. Abortion is more available and politically untouchable than ever in certain (blue) states, and less available and more at risk in certain (red) states. The net loss of access is surely quite real, because the red states are more rural, and coverage was low. So, fair enough, but, I think, dependent on the larger issue of rampant polarization.

In either case, however, while opposition to abortion is focused in religious communities, abortion rights are actively promoted by a number of mainline Protestant denominations, and the religiously unaffiliated include millions who disapprove of abortion, in some or all cases. Notably, even as the "nones" have grown, abortion-sentiments in the US have stayed constant. Like it or not, the American public are deeply divided on the issue; it's not religious people against non-religious people.

It was religious conservatives who picked that battle, who wanted their concept of marriage to be imposed on the country at large

As you know, I favored the outcome. But it's simply not historically accurate to say that same-sex marriage was a battle picked by religious conservatives. Indeed, without meaning offense, I'd classify that as a pants-on-fire statement. Same sex marriage was illegal in every state, being opened up state-by-state by determined action by proponents of same-sex marriage. As for the final case, Obergefell was brought by proponents of same-sex marriage.

>39 timspalding: Would it be oversimplifying to say that in the USA it is more about right wing politics than it is about religion? Right wing politicians and right wing religious people seem to have formed an unholy alliance. Most of the religious US citizens that I know and that I work with, both overseas and when I visit the USA, would distance themselves from, and indeed are appalled by, this right wing dynamic and the culture war that goes with it. However the USA is generally perceived as a very right wing country, and I accept that my liberal-minded Democrat-voting friends and colleagues may be a minority amongst US Christians.

>40 John5918:

I think abortion stands apart somewhat. But, yeah, polarization and the culture war are everything. The alliance you mention been a disaster for public comity, and indeed it's been a disaster for religion since, I think, the ever-deeper alliance between religion and one party has been the major factor in the rise of the nones.

As for politics dominating over religion, you need only look to how political ways of thinking have infected the US Catholic church.

>39 timspalding: As regards Hobby Lobby, we've argued before. With the Court itself, I see this as a legitimate protection of religion,

With certain members of the Court, I see it as religiously discriminatory, protecting the views of the powerful Baptists and Catholics, and yet explicitly calling out the beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Scientists as not being worthy of legal protection. If you believe that birth control pills are bad, the government will take up the slack, but believing that blood transfusions are bad is just too silly for us to take seriously.

They only succeeded in not being the direct agents.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. The litigation against the government response started immediately. That was not their goal; that was only the first step to their goal.

If you believe that birth control pills are bad, the government will take up the slack, but believing that blood transfusions are bad is just too silly for us to take seriously.

The argument was made that, according to the act they were actually evaluating, the governmental burden of providing some pills was larger than the burden of completely overturning all parts of medicine that involved blood—that is, basically everything. The act set up a test. One passes, the other doesn't. The Act doesn't create and nobody has argued for an unrestricted right here, irrespective of the burden. So your mechanical "if one religious argument, then all religious arguments" argument is just wrong from the starting blocks.

Can you explain your second part, grasshopper?

>43 timspalding: And with esteemed members of the Supreme Court, I don't buy it.

It's not true that "They only succeeded in not being the direct agents", as if the Court only found partially for them. The Court in the case at hand found for them completely. Other cases have been brought arguing that having the plaintiffs file for an exception makes the plaintiffs direct agents in the exception. It is not that people are being combative merely to be combative; this case made it that much harder for ObamaCare to cover any medicines the Religious Right disapprove of without simply being socialized medicine.

>39 timspalding: However nice it sounds in certain quarters, Hobby Lobby didn't succeed in stopping contraception coverage. They didn't force their religion on anyone.

No, they used their religion to justify denying women their civil rights. And the court upheld that, and told women to find their contraception elsewhere or get another job or (and this continues to amaze me given the usual attitude of conservatives towards government programs -- let the state provide contraception). But you're right we see this in completely different ways. You think the corporate entity, Hobby Lobby, has a conscience that deserves protection. I don't think a corporation has a conscience any more than it has a soul, and that its policies do not trump an individual's rights. But regardless, you asked for examples of religion making itself felt in public policy, and this is one.

But it's simply not historically accurate to say that same-sex marriage was a battle picked by religious conservatives. Indeed, without meaning offense, I'd classify that as a pants-on-fire statement.

Not at all. The point is that as homosexuality became normalized in our culture, the law followed suit, and normalized same-sex marriage. It's the same kind of cultural shift that occurred when we awoke to the fact that yes, women and black people should be able to vote. But the resistance to the idea of same-sex marriage was and remains argued on religious grounds. In fact, those are the only grounds such arguments have. Conservatives were unable to make any kind of a case that legalizing same-sex marriage was contrary to the public good. They had to fall back on the "it will interfere with my freedom of religion" argument (Kim Davis being the current poster child of how well that argument is being received at the moment).

So I suppose that "string of defeats" you see for religion looks from my perspective as the ongoing struggle to preserve the principle of the separation of Church and State. The church hasn't suffered any defeats in this sense -- it hasn't been outlawed, you can't be arrested for practicing your religion, or wearing whatever symbols of it you like. You can even exempt yourself, on a personal level, from things that would violate your religious beliefs.

Instead, what I see in the whole back-and-forth over issues like women's health care and LGBTQ rights is the....re-calibration, if you will, of what we consider human rights. And in a society founded on the principle of the separation of church and state, freedom of religion is only one of those rights, none of which hold primacy over any other, and all of which must be constantly negotiated in order to allow for the most public good at the expense of the least individual harm. So I'm in favor of people not being fired for needing to pray towards Mecca five times a day, and also in favor of people not being allowed to fire anyone who won't start their workday with the company-wide prayer. And I am probably more hard-line than most in wanting religion out of government in any official capacity, but since that is not feasible (I'm not about to say fire all the army chaplins), then I think it needs to be diligent in not sacrificing the rights of individual citizens in the name of protecting a church.

>40 John5918: Would it be oversimplifying to say that in the USA it is more about right wing politics than it is about religion?

In the United States the two are almost impossible to disentangle. As Tim mentioned above, in most of the country it is almost impossible to get elected to public office if you don't go to church. That has a lot of consequences when it comes to creating public policy.

>40 John5918:

John,

I sympathize with your struggle to understand the dynamics of politics in the US. It can seem alien to someone from the UK, Europe or elsewhere. The first thing to understand is the labels like "right-wing," "left-wing," "conservative" and "liberal" mean different things here than they do in other parts of the English speaking world, and often mean different things in different parts of America. You say that the US is perceived as a "very right wing country". I think that perception is not entirely true. There are two things that make the US the exception compared to most European countries, one is its degree of preference for freedom from government control and the other is its degree of religiosity. Neither of those are typically "right-wing" in a European sense. The other thing to note is that the US is not a homogenous political entity; there is not a simple red-blue divide, as is often portrayed (see even the "red" and "blue" are switched in meaning to Europe). In fact, politics in Texas is as confusing to someone from Massachusetts as someone from Europe.

I recommend a great book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard to help you understand why the US is the way it is.

From where I sit in the midwest, the US is pretty over the top right-wing/conservative.

>47 inkdrinker:

I recommend the American Nations book to you too. The perspective on what is "right-wing" and "conservative" tends to depend a lot on where you sit.

Sadly I also sit in the reddest county in a state which is (again) pretty over the top red.

The most telling thing about that American Nations book was the argument it made for American society being basically tribal in nature, rather that polarized along political lines. Thus, it is more significant that a person comes from what he calls "Yankeeland" than that person does or does not go to church or is or is not registered as a Democrat or Republican. He makes a good case in a big picture sort of way, but like all big picture view points, it gets pretty fuzzy at the level of the individual.

No, they used their religion to justify denying women their civil rights.

There is no civil right to free contraception. The Obama administration chose to create a policy of providing free contraception. At first it did so by forcing employers to buy them. The Supreme Court ruled that this was in violation of the RFRA, because the government had means of implemeing the policy that were substantially the same in terms of effect, but didn't involve any violation of the RFRA. The day after the court did this, the administration proved their point by changing the onus from the employer to the insurance company, providing contraception coverage to everyone involved.

let the state provide contraception

Yes, that was the great irony. The right didn't want to talk about how the problem was actually solved--with government action. And they didn't want to talk about the fact that their argument rested on this very possibiltiy. Meanwhile, the left didn't want to talk about the absolute success of Obama's effort, or the fact that the court agreed with the compelling case for the administration's policy, only deciding as it did because there WAS a viable and equivalent alternative to achieve the same goal.

So everyone pretended the court's decision was to deny women coverage, making their bases energized with righteous anger. The true outcome of the case: Victory all around!

You think the corporate entity, Hobby Lobby, has a conscience that deserves protection

I think a negative decision on those grounds would have undermined other rights, such as the free-speech clauses of the very same First Amendment. While I recognize the problems with corporate control—the SC emphasized the closely-held nature of the corporation, I'm amazed that the cry of "corporations have no rights!" isn't recognized as a potential threat to corporate-owned publishers, newspapers and so forth.

But the resistance to the idea of same-sex marriage was and remains argued on religious grounds.

In fairness, that's not quite true. As with many of these issues, religious people moved slower. But same-sex marriage was more closely correlated with age than religious observance. And the public campaigns were generally officially secular--they certainly were in Maine.

Conservatives were unable to make any kind of a case that legalizing same-sex marriage was contrary to the public good.

Agreed. Which is why I campaigned for them. But I simply can't see the argument that this was a fight picked by religious people.

As Tim mentioned above, in most of the country it is almost impossible to get elected to public office if you don't go to church.

It can also be exaggerated. One party is captive to religious interests, largely because it's most committed members are. The other is not. Extremely secular politicians who never talk about god and haven't darkened the door of a church in 30 years are elected all the time, with no fuss.

50:

Exactly... I was born in the state I live in and have lived here essentially my entire life, and yet I am politically, religiously, and ideologically nothing like the people around me. And truth be told this has been the case since I was old enough to have real views of the world.

I've know all this my entire adult life, but it became painfully apparent when I got divorced and tried to date again. I used an online dating site. After I filled out some questions this site sent me a map of matches. The entire midwest was shown as being very poor for me. Europe/the British isles were a haven of great matches for me. Almost every woman who has shown ANY interest in me on the site has been a transplant to my state or living very far away.

>51 timspalding:

Good thing for online dating, though. Would be hard to find such people without it. You'd have to hang out at the most secular institution you could find—Whole Foods on Sunday 9:00-10:30?—and roll the dice.

Online dating was the greatest thing ever. I have no idea how people past their early twenties ever dated without it. I met a transplant from the east coast (what a surprise) and it seems to be going for the long term. Yay for me.

>54 inkdrinker:

Congrats :)

>51 timspalding: There is no civil right to free contraception.

Look, it's not "free." It is (or would be) part of a paid package of medical benefits provided as compensation. Different women need contraception for different medical, economic, and personal reasons. Within such a package, it may be interesting to note, contraception may be effectively close to "free," in that it serves to prevent other, more costly medical situations, so that the net effect would be at little or no additional cost to the purchaser.

"Free contraception" is a dog-whistle that means "sluttiness."

>51 timspalding: While I recognize the problems with corporate control—the SC emphasized the closely-held nature of the corporation, I'm amazed that the cry of "corporations have no rights!" isn't recognized as a potential threat to corporate-owned publishers, newspapers and so forth.

Corporations are artificially-created persons with explicit purposes defined by their articles, and--time was--responsibilities to the state dispensing the corporate charter. "Closely held" or not, Hobby Lobby is a commercial retailer that sells cheaply imported gewgaws in big box stores. Should they be able to entirely restrict hiring to professed Christians? If not, why is this other distinction permissible?

>56 paradoxosalpha: so that the net effect would be at little or no additional cost to the purchaser.

Not to mention the tax payer. What it really comes down to is that a standard of health care for women was set, which the the Hobby Lobby decision determined could be dismissed on religious grounds. Somebody else's ideas are more important than my physical body.

Of course, in a perfect world we wouldn't put the responsibility for providing health care in the hands of insurance companies and employers. But that's what we've got, so messing with minimum standards of care is a serious business.

ETA:

>51 timspalding: But same-sex marriage was more closely correlated with age than religious observance.

Since religious observance tends to be generational -- the older we get, apparently the more inclined we are to go to church -- this doesn't say much.

"Free contraception" is a dog-whistle that means "sluttiness."

I'm completely in favor of "free contraception." The fact remains that it's not a "civil right", but a policy choice. If it were a civil right, we wouldn't be talking about this as something pertaining to employed people, but to people generally. If, however, you'd like to make it apply to all Americans, regardless of employment status, I'd be in favor of that.

As for your dog-whistle accusation, it has no contact whatsoever to anything I've said and is personally insulting to me.

Should they be able to entirely restrict hiring to professed Christians? If not, why is this other distinction permissible?

Maybe you should read the RFRA and discover the answer to your question.

While "if they can do this, they can do ANYTHING!" sounds good in a space of complete ignorance, it has no meaning when up against the actual law and its principles. The RFRA does not give businesses, or anyone else, a blank check to do anything the want if religious liberty can be invoked. I requires courts follow a "strict scrutiny" standard of evaluating laws that touch on religious freedom, including that a given mechanism is the "least restrictive" one available. There is, obviously, no reasonable way to ensure equality of hiring without forcing stores to actually hire equally. The requirement is in fact the least restrictive way to do it.

You will note that I'm not saying "but if Hobby Lobby had lost what would prevent the government from barbecuing all the priests?!" This is because I'm staying within the confines of the question actually at stake, in the context of the actual legal system we have, and not using a gut reaction to run away into fantasyland.

Not to mention the tax payer. What it really comes down to is that a standard of health care for women was set, which the the Hobby Lobby decision determined could be dismissed on religious grounds. Somebody else's ideas are more important than my physical body.

That standard is in place right now. It determined that the means the government used to create the standard were not in accord with the RFRA. The government changed its means the next day, and there is no chance that the new means could be toppled by an appeal to the RFRA.

Since religious observance tends to be generational -- the older we get, apparently the more inclined we are to go to church -- this doesn't say much.

I mean, we could look at the polling, which breaks things down extensively, but why bother? This is clearly a gut-reaction conversation, not an informed one.

>58 timspalding: I mean, we could look at the polling, which breaks things down extensively, but why bother? This is clearly a gut-reaction conversation, not an informed one.

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/#generatio...

>58 timspalding: As for your dog-whistle accusation

I observed that you were blowing on a dog whistle. You certainly didn't manufacture it, and evidently you can't even hear it. No need to take that as an insult. In our propaganda-saturated environment, it's something that happens to all of us once in a while.

‘We need to talk about Jesus’: cue cringing embarrassment (Guardian)

A Church of England report shows non-Christians don’t like evangelism. In fact, such proselytising actually puts them off religion...

Presumably this will come as no surprise to anyone except evangelical Christians and, apparently, the Church of England.

61 JTF:

I didn't like evangelism when I was a practicing Christian. ;-)

Here's the bad news:

"Children from religious families are less kind and more punitive than those from non-religious households, according to a new study.

Academics from seven universities across the world studied Christian, Muslim and non-religious children to test the relationship between religion and morality.

They found that religious belief is a negative influence on children’s altruism.

“Overall, our findings ... contradict the commonsense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind towards others,” said the authors of The Negative Association Between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism Across the World, published this week in Current Biology."
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(15)01167-7.pdf

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/06/religious-children-less-altruistic-...

>63 theoria: At the beginning of the year there was something similar in a study about "secular" households and their values:

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0115-zuckerman-secular-parenting-2015...

There are no ''new atheists". There are only more atheists and so more people speaking out. There are no Atheist Missionaries..that is only propaganda. There is a website http://www.atheistmissionary.com/ and on this site the owner/maker of the site states clearly ''The name "Atheist Missionary" is a sarcastic jab at religious fundamentalists. Atheists don't proselytize and are unified only by their freethinking nonbelief in the existence of a supernatural deity.." It is not an organization.

Atheists don't proselytize. We don't ''follow'' Darwin, we don't belong to groups with different new or old atheistic views...like traditional religious denominations. We ...as far as I know are not that organized. Nor do we care. Atheists have one thing in common..we do not believe in the existence of a god being. I certainly don't ''look to science'' for a foundation on which to base my values. I don't know of any atheist who would or does.

I don't see that anything scares today's atheist anymore or in any different way than it ever did. The only thing that is scary about being an atheist is living in the middle of the bible belt where speaking out about being an atheist can be dangerous. As a couple of people above have also mentioned. But even though I live in such a place I can also see that atheism is growing and will continue to grow as ''old'' ideas die out. As people become more educated and aware of what is going on in the world. As younger people see that many of the prejudices and narrow minded views are also mostly based in religion.

I really wish that christians would stop trying categorize atheist. We don't work that way.

>65 Roundpeg: We don't work that way.

Who is "we"? Are you talking about all people who "do not believe in the existence of a god being", or only people who say they "do not believe in the existence of a god being"? Because those two categories are not the same. For instance, there are a number of people who are "religious" (in terms of going to church, self-identifying as "Christian", etc.) who also "do not believe in the existence of a god being". (For such people, it's necessary to get really serious about defining such terms as "existence" and "being".)

On the other hand, there are people who say they "do not believe in the existence of a god being", when what they really appear to mean is that they don't like the god being that other people appear to believe in.

Atheists don't proselytize.

Then what are you doing when you say something like: "atheism is growing and will continue to grow as ''old'' ideas die out. As people become more educated and aware of what is going on in the world..." ?

> 66

"atheism is growing and will continue to grow as ''old'' ideas die out. As people become more educated and aware of what is going on in the world..." ?

That is not proselytization. That is just stating an observed fact.

lol.

>65 Roundpeg: I really wish that christians would stop trying categorize atheist

The article linked in the OP is by an atheist, not a Christian. It appears that this is an atheist trying to categorise atheists. And he's not trying to categorise all atheists as being the same, which would be as ridiculous as trying to categorise all religious people or all Christians as the same, but he is describing different types of atheist. That you don't recognise yourself as one of the atheists he describes is fine, but it doesn't negate his experience and analysis of atheism.

>67 JGL53:

That is just stating an observed fact.

Does this remind you of the thread about "facts" in the Republican debates.

The fact is that worldwide atheism is in decline. A Gallup International poll found that between 2012 and 2015 the number of people who responded that they were "convinced atheists" declined from 13% to 11%.

“Religion continues to dominate our everyday lives and we see that the total number of people who consider themselves to be religious is actually relatively high. Furthermore, with the trend of an increasingly religious youth globally, we can assume that the number of people who consider themselves religious will only continue to increase.”

Source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism

Do try to get your facts right, please.

It seems to me there are two main, contrary factors—on the one hand the decline of government suppression of religion and promotion of atheism, and on the other the rise of atheism in the developed west. My guess is that the former trend is weaker than the latter, long-term, even with the birth-rate differential, and when North Korea is finally free. But if China catches fire religiously, all bets are off.

> 70

Some atheists are sticklers for perfection and thus demand hegemonic robust atheism. I don't. As pointed out above, atheists are as diverse a group as any other, i.e., stereotyping atheists is just as illogical as stereotyping any other group of humans culled for some reason from the entire species.

To paraphrase the famous movie line from Jack Nicolson's character "Atheism?! Most people can't handle atheism." lol.

We really must tease apart the various categories or types of "religion" or religious people in order to get a handle on where we as a species may be heading, cultural-wise.

In the east - especially China and Japan - there is a great tendency toward pantheism - an idea that I have stated my attitude on before - that I don't see the great difference between such and atheism - or deism for that matter. In-depth polls on religious belief in the U.S. have shown that many who identify as christian are in fact more deist than anything else. E.g., the concept of universal salvation for all "good people", including the non-christian, seems quite popular across the broad spectrum of nominal christians.

So - if 200 years from now the vast majority of people are either deists (in the west) or pantheists (in the east, and (organized) sectarian/literalist religion and atheism are both fairly marginalized, then I would consider that a victory for reason and morality. What's the shibboleth? - Oh, yeah, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."