Graphs: Who wants to be called an atheist? (spoiler: college-educated men)

[rug]

Tobin Grant | May 23, 2014

As I previously posted, the 2012 American National Election Study, atheist is not a popular identity among the “nones.” Atheists made up less than one-in-five of those who did not belong to any religious group, never attended church, and said religion wasn’t important in their lives. So, who identifies as an “atheist”?

The first answer is simple: women rarely consider themselves to be atheists. Gender problems well-known among those active in atheist or secular groups. The survey found nearly half of secular woman eschew both “atheist” and “agnostic” in favor of “spiritual but not religious.” Men are nearly twice as likely to identify as “atheist” or “agnostic”.



Atheists also face an education gap. “Atheist” and “agnostic” are rare among the “nones” who have not attended college. It is only among college graduates that “atheist” and “agnostic” (together) outnumber the “spiritual but not religious.”



This is a different phenomenon than the gender gap. For the gender gap, it’s a trade-off. women choose “spiritual but not religious” as an alternative to “atheist” or “agnostic;” men do the opposite. For education, the situation is different. People don’t drop “spiritual but not religious” in favor “atheist” or “agnostic” (note that the percentage who see themselves as “spiritual but not religious” doesn’t vary much by education). With more education, those with no religion are more likely to understand what the words “atheist” and “agnostic” mean and identify with them. They change from being people with no identity to being “atheist” or “agnostic.”

http://tobingrant.religionnews.com/2014/05/23/graphs-wants-called-atheist-women-education/

[LostOne4Ever]

1. Some of the conclusions

Are rather bad

For the gender gap, it’s a trade-off. women choose “spiritual but not religious” as an alternative to “atheist” or “agnostic;” men do the opposite.

The graph does not show this at all. Both groups prefer spiritual over atheist and both groups obviously had a large number who did not want to answer (35+20+20=75%, and 48+11+12=71% meaning 25% of men and 29% of women did not answer) which could skew the results drastically.

Maybe this is because there is a stigma on the word atheist?

[stone space]

2. I've called myself an atheist for at least half a century.

I used to be a rather militant atheist, which seems to irk some these days (even some of my more timid fellow atheists).

Not so militant any more, but still most certainly an atheist.

I do have a PhD in mathematics, for whatever that is worth in placing me on those charts.

[cbayer]

4. How do you define a "militant atheist"?

Why do you think it might irk some people?

Do you think that being a mathematician has any bearing on your seeing yourself as an atheist?

I tend to think that mathematicians and other hard scientists are more "left brained" (though there is a lot of debate about what that actually means) and that there is a clear and understandable correlation between that and being a believer/non-believer.

Nice to see you back, stone space.

[stone space]

7. Well, that's several questions. Let's see if i can try to address them without the number of...

...beers I've consumed so far today becoming too obvious.

How do you define a "militant atheist"?

By a militant atheist, I mean a militant who is also an atheist. (Or is it an atheist who is also militant?)

While I am certainly stlll an atheist, you can rest assured that if you see me posting on the internet, that is probably pretty good evidence of my lack of militancy. It probably indicates that i'm in a seated position and too tired to stand up.

But I've had my days, when I was younger and stronger.

Why do you think it might irk some people?

Militancy in any form seems to bother some folks. It scares them. People often like to "go along to get along" in order to try to fit in to society, and any hint of militancy or radicalism can be threatening to some folks. I've seen it here at DU. But DU is not special in that regard.

Do you think that being a mathematician has any bearing on your seeing yourself as an atheist?

Hmm...this might require some thought. My involvement in mathematics goes back as long as my atheism, so maybe there is a connection. Thinking mathematically certainly does effect the way that I think about other matters, even if it is somewhat difficult to describe exactly how. Maybe I'll come back to this later.

I tend to think that mathematicians and other hard scientists are more "left brained" (though there is a lot of debate about what that actually means) and that there is a clear and understandable correlation between that and being a believer/non-believer.

I think that I may look at mathematics a little differently, although it's a little hard to verbalize. I don't necessarily see mathematics as a science, certainly not a "hard science". There's too much freedom in math. Science is somehow ultimately constrained by the "real world", whatever that means. Math isn't. It's as much an art as it is a science.

As for left-brain/right-brain stuff, mathematics seems to me to involve both. Intuition, beauty and elegance pay a huge role in mathematics.

Nice to see you back, stone space.

Thanks, cbayer. For a week or so, I couldn't even get this place to load properly in my browser, so I started chatting over at the new sister site Discussionist. Recently, in the couple of days, I've been able to load the pages here. Maybe it's my new Surface Pro 2 tablet?

[cbayer]

8. But militant about what? Your atheism?

If so, why?

I think militancy scares people when the militancy involves some kind of crusade to attack or eliminate the "other".
If it is more about just challenging the other or trying to get them to see/adopt a different POV, that's not really militant.

My son-in-law is a mathematician and also a muslim. His field is applied mathematics, which, iirc, is where you are as well. He is a cultural muslim mostly, but also follows some of the practices/traditions of islam. I am not sure what he actually believes or doesn't believe.

There was a problem with an ISP in certain regions last week and a lot of people had trouble loading pages. From what I understand, it's been resolved.

I haven't been on discussionist much yet. What I don't need is another addictive website, lol..

[cbayer]

3. Nice breakdown on this, though it's very difficult to really draw any clear conclusions.

I'm having trouble finding the original data, so it's even harder to analyze.

[rug]

5. The data comes from this organization.

http://www.electionstudies.org/

I don't know if you can access any raw data from there.

[cbayer]

6. You have to register, which I am not going to do.

It makes an interesting point of discussion, though.

I just linked to a PEW study about educational level and religious beliefs/non-beliefs in another thread.

Interestingly, there was absolutely no correlation between religious belief and level of education.

[AtheistCrusader]

13. There was, if you look at the ENTIRE study, not just one excerpt. The clear takeaway from chapter 3

is that there IS an inverse correlation between religious belief and education, with some statistically negligible exceptions in the US.

[cbayer]

15. Got a link to that? I can't seem to get to the entire study.

[cbayer]

16. Never mind. Did not know you were referring to the PEW report.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. I'm going to immediately ignore this survey as idiotic.

Because 'Atheist', and 'Agnostic' are not separate fucking categories. They can COMPLETELY overlap, or be COMPLETELY non-overlapping.

Essentially this graph shows a shitload of people who don't really know what Agnostic means.

[LostOne4Ever]

10. +infinity (nt)

[cbayer]

11. Yes they are. They are clearly defined and those of you (fortunately a very

small, but very vocal minority) who continue to make this lame argument are pissing into the wind.

Many, many people consider themselves agnostic but neither theist or atheist. Don't like it? Too bad.

While you may be able to make a completely academic argument to support your point, it makes not sense at all in terms of general use.

You know all the arguments you made for colloquial use of the word delusional. Apply them all here.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Except you're completely wrong.

'Delusion' HAS a non-clinical meaning. Common use. One has to go digging in the DSM-V to find the clinical term, and that is not a widely-available publication. Harper-Collins is the single highest dictionary definition of delusion as a clinical term. And it's second, not first.

The 'common use' of 'agnostic' as an 'alternative' to 'atheist' isn't found on the Harper-Collins definition of Agnostic at all. Same for Random House, which buries your clinical use of 'Delusion' at #6, last place.

Both Harper Collins and Random house clearly define agnosticism as being about KNOWLEDGE. Atheism as being about Belief.

You're completely wrong here. Did you think I wouldn't check?

[cbayer]

14. Agnostic has other meanings to.

Just do a search for other definitions than the one you have offered and you will see that there are many, in fact the majority, that define it as an independent noun or adjective and not just a modifier.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agnostic
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agnostic
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/agnostic

Of course I did not think you wouldn't check. And of course, I knew you would cherry pick the one you could find that supported your argument and disregard the others.

At any rate, I'm not going to argue it, because it is useless. There are a massive number of people who refer to themselves as agnostic and not atheist, and that's not going to change.

Even here on DU, we have an atheists and agnostic group. The SOP for the group is this:

A place where atheists and agnostics can engage in frank discussions about the effects of religion on politics, free of debate about the existence of a deity or deities.

[AtheistCrusader]

17. I didn't cherry pick, I used the TOP meanings for each.

You're playing games again. I used the CONSISTENTLY top-meaning definition in both cases. You didn't.

[cbayer]

18. I don't play games and I don't like being yelled at.

See you around.

[AtheistCrusader]

19. Well, then stop doing it.

It's not hard.

I used the consistently top-definition English language use of each word in question.

You used a non-standard, clinical term. You tried to assert the non-standard clinical term was what people using the top-definition in common parlance meant. Because it was highly convenient to your point. Except, that wasn't what the posters (myself included) were doing.


The proper comparison would have been what you pointed out when I ignorantly used the term 'word salad', which I hope I responded to, to your satisfaction, once I became aware of the top-definition in and outside the clinical context. The common parlance for that term is the SAME as the clinical term. Not so with 'delusion'.

[cbayer]

20. And I abhor being patronized or talked down to.

When you get to this point, which you often do when frustrated, I am truly done talking to you.

I said above that I am not going to argue about this. It's useless. It's a semantic argument with absolutely no value, chance of changing anything or winners.

I thought your response to the "word salad" discussion was very well done and I think I told you so.

[AtheistCrusader]

22. It isn't 'being talked down to' when you are wrong.

I was wrong about 'word salad'. It would be nice if you could admit the same about your interpretation of how people were using 'delusion' across two or three threads.

My usage was entirely consistent with each definition in question. I used the common term. It was not worthy of objection. I did not make it a clinical mental health insinuation. If you ever addressed that, I missed it.


What you called 'yelling' earlier, was emphasis, not yelling, because the caps lock is a hell of a lot more convenient than the italics controls on this website. It's not like I typed a whole sentence or paragraph, or the entire message in caps.

[cbayer]

24. But I have not conceded the point. It is your conclusion that I am

wrong that constitutes the talking down to.

I have conceded the point about delusion. I now try to ascertain from people how they are using it. Some are clearly using it to denote psychiatric illness. Others are not. You suggested that I clarify, and I appreciate that because it allows me to more accurately take on those who are using it as a clinical term.

Caps lock is yelling, whether that is how you intend it or not. The lack of other cues makes it seem like one is being yelled at. You may find it more convenient, but it may be important to know how others experience it.

[AtheistCrusader]

25. I will make an effort to use italics when not actually yelling from now on.

I was not yelling upthread.


Where I see people using the clinical, mental health term for 'delusion' I will, and have opposed it. I don't see many people doing it here. It's really not the norm.

I suggest both the common use and dictionary terms, based on the two most common dictionaries cited by dictionary.com, in this case, random house and harper Collins respectively, are in agreement, and concur with my point that Gnosticism is about knowledge, and theism is about belief. a- being a negative modifier. With that in mind, separating atheist and agnostic as different forms of non-belief is a canard. You can be an agnostic or gnostic atheist. You can be an agnostic or gnostic theist.

The survey in the OP is terribly worded, and I content, therefore; extremely unreliable. My reasons for that interpretation are supported by the common use as well as the dictionary definitions.

I don't have to go rooting in some obscure, non-public theological treaties to make the case. (Similar to DSM-V for the other word)

[cbayer]

26. I agree that it is not many people who are using the term to say that all religious

believers are psychiatrically ill, but there are some and I am glad you are objecting. It's profoundly objectionable, imo.

Once more. I am not going to have this debate about atheism/agnosticism. I know that there is a rhetorical argument for it that is pretty solid, but I do not believe that counters or trumps the more vernacular use of the word. We will just have to agree to leave it there. But to be clear, I find it objectionable when someone is told that they are not what they personally say they are, rhetorical argument or not.

The study in this OP is not available without registration, but I suspect it is not a very good one. Just an interesting point of discussion, which I think we are having.

[AtheistCrusader]

27. I certainly agree, the survey methods are questionable and there are better sources.

PEW, which we discussed, I think, being one of the better.

[cbayer]

28. I have been consistently impressed with the PEW studies and

tend to find them well done and pretty reliable.

The problems lie primarily in definition, as we have been discussing at length, and with the large number of variables that are very hard to control for.

But most of these other "studies" and surveys have major areas of unreliability, imo.

[rug]

21. Is somebody telling you you can't?

[AtheistCrusader]

23. No, why?

Well, cbayer has objected to the common definitions of these terms, but no, you did not.

[Tikki]

29. I am a Woman..I am an Atheist

Tikki

[enki23]

30. A group that tends to have resources and secure social status necessary to be honest.

I live in a place, like much of the rest of the nation, in which your employment opportunities and/or the social standing necessary to obtain any sort of community support or assistance would be severely hampered if you were known to be an atheist. Our child's elementary school teacher openly proselytized to our child. She even did it during "grandparents" day, when many of the parents and grandparents of the kids sat in on their classes all day. Several times over. Nobody said a word. I, needing to maintain the possibility of being employed in the area, am utterly powerless to do a fucking thing about it. I had to work at not rolling my fucking eyes, because I have very real reason to fear possible repercussions.

I am sick of Christian privilege. I hope for a day in which I can be truly open about what I think, as so many of the idiots around me clearly are. But I can't. This is not symmetric. "Both sides" are not wrong. And I have absolutely zero patience for any more "Christian-splaining" bullshit about atheism and atheists.