Why do Americans still dislike atheists?

Delirium

Spotted this article on the Washington Post website and thought some you might be interested.

Long after blacks and Jews have made great strides, and even as homosexuals gain respect, acceptance and new rights, there is still a group that lots of Americans just don’t like much: atheists. Those who don’t believe in God are widely considered to be immoral, wicked and angry. They can’t join the Boy Scouts. Atheist soldiers are rated potentially deficient when they do not score as sufficiently “spiritual” in military psychological evaluations. Surveys find that most Americans refuse or are reluctant to marry or vote for nontheists; in other words, nonbelievers are one minority still commonly denied in practical terms the right to assume office despite the constitutional ban on religious tests.

Rarely denounced by the mainstream, this stunning anti-atheist discrimination is egged on by Christian conservatives who stridently — and uncivilly — declare that the lack of godly faith is detrimental to society, rendering nonbelievers intrinsically suspect and second-class citizens.

Is this knee-jerk dislike of atheists warranted? Not even close.

A growing body of social science research reveals that atheists, and non-religious people in general, are far from the unsavory beings many assume them to be. On basic questions of morality and human decency — issues such as governmental use of torture, the death penalty, punitive hitting of children, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, environmental degradation or human rights — the irreligious tend to be more ethical than their religious peers, particularly compared with those who describe themselves as very religious.

Consider that at the societal level, murder rates are far lower in secularized nations such as Japan or Sweden than they are in the much more religious United States, which also has a much greater portion of its population in prison. Even within this country, those states with the highest levels of church attendance, such as Louisiana and Mississippi, have significantly higher murder rates than far less religious states such as Vermont and Oregon.

As individuals, atheists tend to score high on measures of intelligence, especially verbal ability and scientific literacy. They tend to raise their children to solve problems rationally, to make up their own minds when it comes to existential questions and to obey the golden rule. They are more likely to practice safe sex than the strongly religious are, and are less likely to be nationalistic or ethnocentric. They value freedom of thought.

While many studies show that secular Americans don’t fare as well as the religious when it comes to certain indicators of mental health or subjective well-being, new scholarship is showing that the relationships among atheism, theism, and mental health and well-being are complex. After all, Denmark, which is among the least religious countries in the history of the world, consistently rates as the happiest of nations. And studies of apostates — people who were religious but later rejected their religion — report feeling happier, better and liberated in their post-religious lives.

Nontheism isn’t all balloons and ice cream. Some studies suggest that suicide rates are higher among the non-religious. But surveys indicating that religious Americans are better off can be misleading because they include among the non-religious fence-sitters who are as likely to believe in God, whereas atheists who are more convinced are doing about as well as devout believers. On numerous respected measures of societal success — rates of poverty, teenage pregnancy, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases, obesity, drug use and crime, as well as economics — high levels of secularity are consistently correlated with positive outcomes in first-world nations. None of the secular advanced democracies suffers from the combined social ills seen here in Christian America.

More than 2,000 years ago, whoever wrote Psalm 14 claimed that atheists were foolish and corrupt, incapable of doing any good. These put-downs have had sticking power. Negative stereotypes of atheists are alive and well. Yet like all stereotypes, they aren’t true — and perhaps they tell us more about those who harbor them than those who are maligned by them. So when the likes of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Bill O’Reilly and Newt Gingrich engage in the politics of division and destruction by maligning atheists, they do so in disregard of reality.

As with other national minority groups, atheism is enjoying rapid growth. Despite the bigotry, the number of American nontheists has tripled as a proportion of the general population since the 1960s. Younger generations’ tolerance for the endless disputes of religion is waning fast. Surveys designed to overcome the understandable reluctance to admit atheism have found that as many as 60 million Americans — a fifth of the population — are not believers. Our nonreligious compatriots should be accorded the same respect as other minorities.

Link to article

Interesting to see that they say that the more religious states in the US have a higher murder rate than the less religious states. And that atheist soldiers are marked as deficient for not get a sufficiently "spirtual" score in the psych test.

liah

I'd like to see the enlistment rates for atheists in comparison to christians in the states.

Dades

liah wrote: »

I'd like to see the enlistment rates for atheists in comparison to christians in the states.

I'd say there's a disproportional amount of religious given the demographic that sign up.

liah

I wonder what exactly it is that drives the American variety of Christians to be so particularly bloodthirsty.

MagicMarker

liah wrote: »

I wonder what exactly it is that drives the American variety of Christians to be so particularly bloodthirsty.

God bless America. Only way to make sure he does that is to ''kill dem islams'' etc etc.

irishh_bob

liah wrote: »

I wonder what exactly it is that drives the American variety of Christians to be so particularly bloodthirsty.

( american ) protestants believe that wealth and might bring you closer to god , catholics believe that being weak and meek does the trick , i dont care for either view

robindch

liah wrote: »

I wonder what exactly it is that drives the American variety of Christians to be so particularly bloodthirsty.

Hmm... have you read the old testament?

baalthor

liah wrote: »

I wonder what exactly it is that drives the American variety of Christians to be so particularly bloodthirsty.

This handy table shows the percentage of Catholics, NC Christian, non-believer and other for 48 US states in 90 and 08 (they left out the freak states ...)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-09-ARIS-faith-survey_N.htm

Generally the southern states score highest in "Other Christian" and lowest in non believers.

Looking at murder rates, the southern states are also the most homicidal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_rate#Country_subdivisions

Interestingly Idaho and Wash. DC have similar religious profiles but are at opposite ends of the murder rate scale.

So are these states more homicidal because they are more religious or is it the other way around?
Or could it all be explained by "distance from the Canadian border" as suggested by one commentator (Daniel Moynihan?)

Galvasean

I think a lot of it is left over from the Cold War. Those Godless Communists gave atheism a bad name which still lingers in the core of American society.

liah

irishh_bob wrote: »

( american ) protestants believe that wealth and might bring you closer to god , catholics believe that being weak and meek does the trick , i dont care for either view

I never understood this perspective. I've read the Bible before and I'm fairly sure there's a few bits in there about greed being a mortal sin and something about camels and needles and worshipping false idols (in this case money). I suppose they've forgotten about that..

Did anyone watch that Derren Brown special that was released recently where he trained a guy to be a faith healer and exposed faith healing?

Galvasean

liah wrote: »

I never understood this perspective. I've read the Bible before and I'm fairly sure there's a few bits in there about greed being a mortal sin and something about camels and needles and worshipping false idols (in this case money). I suppose they've forgotten about that..

They also like to ignore the parts of the Bible where Jesus instructs them to sell all of their belongings and give the money to the poor...
Just a metaphor that bit :rolleyes:

amacachi

Galvasean wrote: »

They also like to ignore the parts of the Bible where Jesus instructs them to sell all of their belongings and give the money to the poor...
Just a metaphor that bit :rolleyes:

Jesus wasn't no Goddamn Socialist!

ShooterSF

Galvasean wrote: »

They also like to ignore the parts of the Bible where Jesus instructs them to sell all of their belongings and give the money to the poor...
Just a metaphor that bit :rolleyes:

Reminds me of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mLOUWl-L-s

irishh_bob

amacachi wrote: »

Jesus wasn't no Goddamn Socialist!

he so was but then again most of what he said was impractical

Galen

By Gregory Pauland Phil Zuckerman, Published: April 30

Opinions


Why do Americans still dislike atheists?





By Gregory Pauland Phil Zuckerman, Published: April 30


Long after blacks and Jews have made great strides, and even as homosexuals gain respect, acceptance and new rights, there is still a group that lots of Americans just don’t like much: atheists. Those who don’t believe in God are widely considered to be immoral, wicked and angry. They can’t join the Boy Scouts. Atheist soldiers are rated potentially deficient when they do not score as sufficiently “spiritual” in military psychological evaluations. Surveys find that most Americans refuse or are reluctant to marry or vote for nontheists; in other words, nonbelievers are one minority still commonly denied in practical terms the right to assume office despite the constitutional ban on religious tests.
Rarely denounced by the mainstream, this stunning anti-atheist discrimination is egged on by Christian conservatives who stridently — and uncivilly — declare that the lack of godly faith is detrimental to society, rendering nonbelievers intrinsically suspect and second-class citizens.

Rest of article

ShooterSF

I often skim over some replies but at least I read the OP :P :pac: