Monthly Archives: May 2017

May 16, 2017

It's tough to figure out just how religious or nonreligious different populations of people are. Widely-cited telephone polls (e.g., Gallup, Pew) suggest U.S. atheist prevalence ranging from 3% to 11%. But in the US, there's heavy stigma leveled against religious disbelief, which might make people reluctant to disclose their lack of belief over the phone to a stranger. Using a subtle, indirect measurement technique, psychology researchers have found that atheists may represent anywhere from 20% to 35% of the U.S. population.

The study, "How many atheists are there?," appears in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Based on the results, "Just as there are, and have historically been, closeted gay men and lesbians out there, there are probably lots and lots of closeted atheists out there, who don't even identify themselves as such in anonymous polls," says lead author Will Gervais (University of Kentucky).

The authors surveyed 4000 people across two studies of 2000 people each in nationally representative samples. They used an indirect sampling method, which gives participants a list of things to look at and then record how many of the statements, but not which specific statements, are true for them. This technique lets researchers infer overall prevalence of things people might not want to admit, and has previously been used to estimate the prevalence of various undesirable or criminal behaviors.

"Within our sample, one in three atheists in our online survey did not disclose their lack of belief, highlighting the level of stigma associated with lack of belief," says coauthor Mazine Najle (University of Kentucky).

Gervais says he was "surprised by just how far the indirect measurement diverged from established polls of religious disbelief. Our best estimate is more than double what Gallup telephone polls estimate." Gervais and Najle expected a much more modest gap between self-reports and indirect measurements.

The findings also have potential impact for science. For decades, researchers have been developing and testing theories about how religion works, but they focus on belief being prevalent and atheism a rare occurrence.

"If it turns out that atheism isn't all that rare, it might challenge a lot of prevailing theories," says Gervais, "Basically, it'd mean that those of us who study the natural foundations of religion need to question our bedrock theories and assumptions."

It's important to note that their results weren't crystal clear and perfect. Their estimates are "pretty noisy," says Gervais, "It's 26% as a best guess, but it could be quite a bit lower...or higher. Could be 20%, could be 35%. We also had some findings that made us question the validity of the very task we employed."

The authors appreciate that even with the "noise" their research was accepted for publication.

"Social psychology has been taking a beating lately for producing results that are too good to be true, and it's a real feather in the cap for this journal that they didn't pressure us at all to put out the "perfect" paper, rather than just transparently communicate what we found, including the good, the bad, and the ugly," summarizes Gervais.

Explore further: Study explores distrust of atheists by believers

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Why would it be scarce? Atheism is a religion based on faith because it is impossible to prove there is no GOD.

Rderkis, that's like saying someone is superstitious because it is a leap of faith to believe -- in absence of evidence -- that unicorns do not exist.

Yet another comment from you that demonstrates you don't know how knowledge works. Atheists don't necessarily believe there is no god, they just don't believe there is a god. The assertion that there is a god can just be ignored by people who require proof to believe, because there is no proof. But lack of a belief is not a belief.

Besides, there's no way to prove that there's no Tooth Fairy, but not believing that once one is an adult is not a religion either.

rderkis:

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More here:
Atheism might be more common than assumed...but it's complicated - Phys.Org

Chinas Communist Youth League posted a video to advocate atheism.

Chinas Communist Youth League, the cradle for generations of Chinese Communist leaders, tends to be more and more active in the battlefield of public opinion, among the youth in particular. Recently, the Communist Youth League launched a new battle on religions: it posted a self-made video on its Weibo, Chinese equivalent of Twitter, to promote atheism.

The 11-minute video is called What If Atheism Is a Religion? Different from traditional Chinese communist propaganda or Western religious promotion, the video employed the style of satire and funny Japanese comics in order to cater to the contemporary young internet generation.

The video proposed the following fundamental questions:

What if atheism is a religion?

If atheism is a religion, who will be the icons?

Who saved the world, God or the people?

What kind of activities do atheists conduct?

The video starts as a young, innocent man meets a group of atheists dressed in white robes. The atheist pastor tells the young man that every day is a miracle to the atheist because the atheist religion believes that aday without God is the day with a miracle.

Then the pastor invites the young man to their church and introduces all the great philosophers and scientists in human history they worship, including Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Thomas Edison, Confucius, Karl Marx, and so on. The pastor says, It is the people rather than God who saved the world. For example, it is Willis Carrier, the god of air conditioner, who saved the world from ending up in hot hell. As for the activities the atheists conduct daily, they recite the physical laws, sing the song of the periodic table of elements, and pray to the almighty self for bringing food to the table.

The young man asks the pastor innocently: Other religions always curse us atheists to go to various hells. Now since we atheists also have formed a religion, shall we curse them back?

The pastor sighs: Our atheist religion is only a joke in the video, but we atheists will never curse anyone, despite other religious people holding prejudice against us in reality.

In reply, the young man, together with the atheist group, sing the song of The Internationale in Chinese, which has the line,there are no supreme saviors. Neither God, nor Caesar, nor tribunes.

In the end, the video switched back to a serious attitude. It invited some prominent professors from Chinese top-ranked universities, media workers, and online opinion leaders to declare their belief in atheism. Also, the video quoted Chinas Constitution:

No state organ, public organization, or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion.

Undoubtedly, the video is public advocacy foratheism for the Chinese young generation produced by Chinas Communist Youth League. What is noteworthy is that the video won some popularity among Chinese netizens. So far, the video has beenre-posted 4,960 times and liked 4,234 times. Among the 3,687 comments, most are positive and supportive (though negative ones could have been deleted) and the most liked comment is an compliment for the video: The League finally began to publicly advocate atheism. [Ill] give the League 100 thumbs-up.

The praise for the videosomewhat goes along with the data published by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The Communist Party of China officially is atheist, and according to the Commissions latest-released 2017 Annual Report, more than half the countrys nearly 1.4 billion population is unaffiliated with any religion or belief.

Continue reading here:
China: What If Atheism Is a Religion? - The Diplomat

The Guardian has reported this, recently:

The secularisation of Britain has been thrown into sharp focus by new research showing that for every person brought up in a non-religious household who becomes a churchgoer, 26 people raised as Christians now identify as non-believers.

The study also shows that inner London is the most religious area of the country, mainly because of its large Muslim and migrant communities. The least religious areas are the south-east of England, Scotland and Wales. People identifying as non-religious are typically young, white and male and increasingly working class.

It paints a picture of a Britain in which Christianity has seen a dramatic decline although figures suggest a recent bottoming out in recent years. The avowedly non-religious sometimes known as nones now make up 48.6% of the British population. Anglicans account for 17.1%, Catholics 8.7%, other Christian denominations 17.2% and non-Christian religions 8.4%.

Between 1983 and 2015, the proportion of Britons who identify as Christian fell from 55% to 43%, while members of non-Christian religions principally Muslims and Hindus quadrupled.

Non-Christian religions have significantly higher retention levels; overall, only 2% of nones were raised in religious homes other than Christian. The nonversion rate was 14% for Jews, 10% for Muslims and Sikhs and 6% for Hindus. The picture is very different for people brought up as non-religious 92% continue to identify as nones as adults. Conversely, the proportions of the non-religious who convert to a faith are small: 3% of cradle nones now identify as Anglicans, less than 0.5% convert to Catholicism, 2% join other Christian denominations and 2% convert to non-Christian faiths.

However, the studys author goes on to mention that the market for nones might have reached saturation, with a stabilisation in the proportion of nones. Part of this comes down to growths in non-Christian religions (and something can be said for Islam with its strong memetic failsafes). As nominal Christianity has fled the scene, we are left with a hardcore remnant that is harder to shift.

There are some interesting comments regarding educational qualifications and religiosity:

Bullivant identifies a generational shift in terms of education and religious affiliation. Among older nones, a high proportion had degree-level education. But the nones above-average levels of higher education fade further down the age groups. Thus the non-religious have the lowest levels of degree-level education among 25- to 34-year-olds and 35- to 44-year-olds. (The proportion of graduates is highest among Catholics and the non-Christian religions, he notes.)

My first-hand experience is that religion simply does not play a major part in so many peoples lives here, unlike across the pond, and where people might have begrudgingly attended church out of nominal Christian duty in the old days, now they simply dont bother. It is absolutely socially fine to admit to not believing. Indeed, these days, in the UK, you are deemed a little odd when you say youdobelieve.

Excerpt from:
Nearly 50% of UK Have No Religion, but Is This Peak? Atheism in the UK - Patheos (blog)

As a comedian, Neville Shah seems to be doing it right. He has the delivery and timing of a good stand-up.

As someone who wants to mock atheists, Shah is just God-awful.

His new special What Are You Laughing At? is now out on Amazon and it include a bit about the problem with atheists.

See if you can spot all the flaws.

Ill lay off on the jokes themselves. I have no problem with him mocking atheists. But when the premises of his jokes are wrong, the set becomes more frustrating than funny.

Here are my concerns:

He claims that atheists are certain about their disbelief. He thinks we said things like There is no God with absolute certainty. We dont. Even Richard Dawkins doesnt go that far.

He says atheism has become a religion. Thats the sort of insult you only hear from religious people. Were not a religion. We dont have a shared belief in anything. We dont all gather regularly. We dont knock on your door. Your salvation doesnt depend on you agreeing with us. As the saying goes, atheism is a religion like off is a TV channel.

He thinks atheists proselytize sometimes violently so. Like everyone else, we believe were right. But unlike religious people, most atheists would fight for church/state separation and refrain from pushing our beliefs on everyone else. Meanwhile, in India, a man was just hacked to death for posting pro-atheism messages on WhatsApp. Were not the ones who kill people who disagree with us.

Ill give him credit for one thing, though, even if it is unintentional. His final joke in that clip is all about pretending to be God when an atheist is on his deathbed. When Shah whispers in the atheists ear, Hi, I am God, the atheist in the story reacts as if God is real.

Which is exactly what we would do if we ever came across proof of Gods existence. It shows that were open to evidence. Shah probably wasnt thinking about it, but that joke contradicts what he said seconds earlier about how atheists have this dogmatic belief in our non-belief.

That concludes this edition of Lets dissect a comedy routine by taking every line far more seriously than intended.

Go here to see the original:
This Stand-Up Comedian Gets Just About Everything Wrong When It Comes to Atheists - Patheos (blog)