watch it: “Door To Door Atheists Bother Mormons”

Hilarious! This is why I have a sign on my front door informing the religious to bugger off and shut the gate behind them.
Anyone who disturbs the weekend sleep-in deserves nothing less than termination with extreme prejudice!

can’t watch this at work but “evangelical” atheists annoy me as much as evangelical christians do

taboo against atheism rather.

Lisa (Tue Apr 20 10, 8:05AM)

can’t watch this at work but “evangelical” atheists annoy me as much as evangelical christians do

Religion is an intellectual plague, it is a root cause of wars, intolerance, death, and its proponents brainwash children. Best be careful not to speak up too loud against it… wouldn’t wanna annoy anyone.

That’s why this video is so funny, and why it works as satire: because atheists do not do this.

Neither do Mormons. I’ve had Mormons come to my door, and none of them have been as aggressively rude as this guy. To a one, they’ve taken my disinterest graciously and then left me in peace.

Let’s be honest here: he was looking to pick fights with these people to get good footage. In fact, from the looks of it many of them did give him a fair and polite listen, and it wasn’t until he started talking over them that they got angry.

JoshB (Tue Apr 20 10, 10:48AM):

Neither do Mormons. I’ve had Mormons come to my door, and none of them have been as aggressively rude as this guy. To a one, they’ve taken my disinterest graciously and then left me in peace.

Nonsense! This guy was perfectly civil to everyone he talked to, right up until they slammed the door in his face… I think you’re taking his attitude from the earlier bit and projecting it onto his conversations with the people he visited.

They were every bit as upset about being disturbed on a Saturday morning as he claimed to be, which is the point of the video. Why is “we believe there is no god” ruder than “we believe in jesus christ and joseph smith”? This is the ridiculous dichotomy that atheists really need to start fighting a little more aggressively. And I don’t mean by being rude, but it’s time to speak up; somebody’s gotta save those kids… give them a fighting chance at a life that isn’t all meaningless ritual and perpetual fear-mongering.

@Newbs:

What dichotomy? Mormons get doors slammed in their faces athiests get doors slammed in their faces.

There absolutely is a dichotomy. Newbs is completely correct.

When an atheist does this, the reaction from ‘good honest church going folk’ is outrage. How DARE they push their atheistic viewpoint.

For fuck sake.. an old guy physically assaulted him in that video, are you not seeing this?

The attitude to religious people doing exactly the same thing in the street and at your front door is much more relaxed. it is seen as entirely normal. This is the dichotomy, and it’s utterly appalling. We do need to make our point, because our society is still unfairly influenced by religious values and prejudices.

Oh of course atheists have been brutalised and murdered for their beliefs. We’re vilified across the world. We’re apparently the least trusted minority in the United States… and while you have a point about unpopular points of view, the point we were making is that the reaction to atheists is worse.

People who wear their christianity on their sleeves are usually the worst kind of hypocrites. Look at the Pharisees.

I’m an agnostic – I don’t foist my beliefs on anyone!

Nonsense! This guy was perfectly civil to everyone he talked to, right up until they slammed the door in his face

Like hell! 3:17 – 3:22 the lady clearly states that she is not interested and he goes right on talking.

4:35 – 4:45 same thing.

4:24 – 4:30 “Just imagine if you’re wasting your entire life going to church and it all adds up to nothing.”

4:48 -4:55 he shouts through the door.

I’ve never had a Mormon do any of that to me.

But that’s not “dichotomy,” that’s “consistency”…

…but now I digress into semantic hairsplitting.

Who’s “they,” anyway? If all or even most Christians were out knocking on doors you’d never get a moment’s peace and there’d be a line from curb to door at everyone’s house.

Stereotyping, a bit?

Dr. King was an ordained and active Baptist minister throughout his political activism, and that was common knowledge. His speeches were loaded with Biblical allusions and metaphor. “Wearing ones religion on one’s sleeve” does not, to me, necessarily require one to be continuously verbally prosyletizing. He knew the difference between a sermon and a political speech, but that doesn’t mean he set aside his religion for the latter.

As for using religion to meet a secular end, that’s what all Christians who work in the system to change the world are supposed to be doing, and they don’t have to do it by preaching at people.

I don’t know what you mean by “classic Christianity.” Would you include Mormonism, which to this point you have used interchangeably with Christianity? Surely there’s room under that broad umbrella for a Baptist minister?

I’ve read God is Not Great, and I would also heartily recommend it. I heard somebody call it “Hitchin’s ‘God is Not Great, I Am” the other day on the radio… but I rather doubt he’d read it, since there’s nothing self promoting about it.

Frizzy… yes, villified across the world. As I said, least trusted minority in the United States… we basically exist outside of normal society in Africa and South America… and I have seen Iranian cartoons which portray the Jews as atheists because in the eyes of the fundamentalist Muslim, atheists are actually WORSE than Jews.
It’s really only in parts of northern Europe than atheism is considered particularly acceptable.

bitchen frizzy (Tue Apr 20 10, 3:20PM):

“Wearing ones religion on one’s sleeve” does not, to me, necessarily require one to be continuously verbally prosyletizing.

bitchen frizzy (Tue Apr 20 10, 1:38PM):

Rev. M.L. King, Jr. wore his Christianity on his sleeve…

Just responding to what you wrote. If that’s not what you meant, choose your words better next time :P

He knew the difference between a sermon and a political speech, but that doesn’t mean he set aside his religion for the latter.

I find it interesting that you can state so authoritatively what Dr. King “knew” or didn’t know. You can talk about what he said, or what he did. You can quote him. But how can you be so confident in his own inner thoughts? He could’ve been a practicing Satanist in his private life, sacrificing baby goats and doing voodoo in his bathtub, for all you know.

But all of this is beside the point… it’s probably best not to hold up any one person as a signatory for an entire religion. They often don’t hold up to the scrutiny. As far as the Atheist who Knocks on Doors, I’ll say this: he has every right in the world to expect to be treated with kindness and respect, regardless of his beliefs, and regardless of his crazy antics. Nobody should ever have a door slammed in their face, or be smacked by some old dude, just for saying something about their personal beliefs, even if it’s unsolicited.

I’m reading all this, and all I can think of a story a friend told me. When he was too young to know better, some missionaries knocked on their door and he answered it with a Doberman at his side.

Missionary: What a lovely dog. What’s his name?
Little Boy: Satan.

And they left.

I don’t like being the recipient of unsolicited religious propaganda either and yet when I look back over all the annoying neighbors I’ve had to deal with in the past, I’d rather put up with the annoying Mormon who knocks on my door at eight a.m. than the annoying secular idiot who plays his car radio full-blast outside my bedroom window at 2 a.m.

And in a world in which Christians are still being imprisoned for their religious beliefs in various countries that are officially atheist, I find it sadly amusing that atheists in this country kvetch about the fact that people continually say bad things about them at the same time they’re describing almost every one who holds a different religious philosophy from themselves as being stupid, ignorant or evil. Heh. Irony.

Geez, you really think there aren’t people out there who also diss Jews and Catholics? And do you really think all those disses are really all that accurate? And aren’t the accuracy of such disses kinda besides the point?

How does that old saying go?

Oh, yes.

If I am not for myself, who is for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?
–Hillel

@Bitchin Frizzy what I said was…

“and I have seen Iranian cartoons which portray the Jews as atheists because in the eyes of the fundamentalist Muslim, atheists are actually WORSE than Jews. ”

Perhaps I should explain that in a little more detail?

In the Iranian cartoon, there had supposedly been a massacre of muslims in a village by an “evil and atheistic Israeli colonel”

The way I interpreted it was that, from the cartoon’s perspective, calling a Jew an atheist dehumanizes and villifies him more than just calling him a Jew. By extension… this implies that the only thing the script writer respects LESS than a Jew, is an actual atheist.

What the hell is this about?

“And don’t even suggest your plight is as bad as that of Jews in Iran.”

When did I do that?

And I am standing by what I said. It is really only in parts of Northern Europe where being an atheist is considered particularly acceptable. Everywhere else you might be one, there is at least an air of disapproval… the “How can you not believe in God?” The “What’s wrong with you?” situation.

This might also be of interest.

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2008/12/how-to-be-an-ally-with-atheists.html

An excerpt:

9: Be aware of how religious belief gives you a place of mainstream and privilege.

This is a lot less true for believers in minority religions, like Jews and Muslims in the U.S. But even though the specifics of your belief marginalize you, the fact that you have belief at all does give you some privilege that you may not be aware of.

The assumption that everyone believes in some sort of God is so widespread as to be practically invisible. And the assumption that morality must stem from religious faith is incredibly pervasive. Many religious believers — even the more hard-core ones, maybe especially the more hard-core ones — are more trusting of other religious believers whose beliefs they don’t share than they are of atheists.

[…]

And if you are a Christian? Forget about it. If you are a Christian in the United States, then — when it comes to this particular area of the “privilege/ marginalization” palette — your Christianity puts you squarely in the “privileged mainstream” category. Christians are in the clear majority in the United States, and they are in the clear mainstream of politics and culture. You’re not being thrown to the lions anymore. You haven’t been thrown to the lions for almost 2,000 years. You are in the group that is running the show.

The whole thing is worth reading IMO.

Tonio: How do you know the 2 a.m. idiot is secular? Is he playing the audio book of The God Delusion? :-)

1. He isn’t playing religious music such as gospel, Christian rock, etc.

2. He chooses to play songs very loudly that are in a genre most religious people often either avoid listening to or overtly criticize.

3. He chooses to play songs with the type of profane language that isn’t much heard in the religious music I’m familiar with.

Then again, an idiot is an idiot is an idiot is an idiot. As far as I’m concerned, the guy could be playing excerpts from Handel’s Messiah at that time of the morning and he would still be an idiot.

Sure, lots of people are too ignorant or intellectually lazy to make the distinction between ideological atheism characteristic of communism, and intellectual atheism of the West.

I have no problems with the intellectual atheism of the West. My late father used to be an atheist and so for a long while was my middle brother. To this day, my middle brother will give impromptu sermons on the evils of organized religion which make even MaryAnn seem kinda soft-spoken on the subject.

What I have issues with is the mentality that any one group–including my own–is exempt from the vices of human nature and that any one group would somehow be automatically immune from succumbing to said vices if it ever took power. It’s not that simple and it never was.

Apart from that, what Bitchen Frizzy said.

Intersectionality, everyone. Please remember to mind the gap.

As a Hispanic Catholic whose Mexican-born father–a former migrant worker, btw–once lost a job because he refused to pass for Anglo or Italian, I’m sure glad I’m part of the privileged class. ;-)

Touché, Tonio. To be fair to Greta Christina, she clarifies that statement about religion and privilege:

When it comes to the “privilege/ marginalization” palette, most people have some of both. I am privileged as a white person, a college- educated person, a middle- to- upper- middle class person, a more or less able bodied person, an American. I am marginalized as a woman, a queer, a bisexual, a fat person, an atheist. And my privileges don’t confer wickedness onto me, any more than my marginalizations confer virtue.

But my privileges do confer some responsibilities. They confer the responsibility to educate myself about the experiences of marginalized people, and the myths about them. To speak out against bigotry, even and especially when it isn’t against me. To not assume that everyone is just like me. To remember that passionate anger is as important to a movement as gentle diplomacy. To learn what kind of language people prefer when talking about them, and what kind of language totally sets their teeth on edge. (Which is just good manners anyway.) To tread carefully when I’m criticizing marginalized people, and to make sure I know what the hell I’m talking about.

And to not act like a victim when my privilege is questioned, or indeed simply pointed out.

This attitude should, ideally, go both ways. Not that I’m always perfect about observing it myself. :-)

Grrr. One missing tag. I’d edit it if I could. Sorry.

@Bitchin Frizzy and Bluejay

First of all, thankyou Bluejay, you rather calmly reinforced and paraphrased my points.

Bitchin… I brought up the cartoon to illustrate attitudes towards atheism in a specific part of the world. I was ‘taking it worldwide’.

You’ve assumed that I am a resident of the United States (or at least that is the impression I got). This is not the case. I am Scottish.

At no point did I imply that Jews do not suffer terribly in Iran, etc. In fact I know from a recent report that there are just 8 Jews now resident in all of Iraq.
I was pointing out that the word atheist is used as an insult to rob the recipient of their humanity in the eyes of the one who delivers it. It is therefore strongly implied that the only thing worse than a Jew, in the eyes of fundamentalist Muslims, is an atheist.
As Bluejay said, atheism effectively bars a person from holding political office in the United States. In Iran, as he said, being an atheist isn’t even an officially recognised status.
Even here in Scotland, there are public sector jobs I cannot hold as an atheist, since about a third of our state funded schools are Catholic faith schools and will not employ a non-Catholic in a promoted post, or as a teacher if there is a Catholic candidate available.

You cannot tell if somebody is an atheist by looking at them Bitchin. That is the reason we have never had to deal with being told to sit at the back of the bus.

But we have been burned at the stake. We have been tortured. We do endure discrimination and it is almost worldwide.

Openly admitting one’s atheism effectively kills or severely diminishes one’s chances of holding public office in the US. And probably cuts you off from other social or career opportunities as well, depending on the attitudes of the people in your town.

Why is that? What should be done about it?

Because, as Kenny pointed out, atheists are the least trusted minority in America. From the Wiki:

Atheists note that few politicians have been willing to identify as non-theists, since until recently such revelations would have been “political suicide”, and welcomed Representative Pete Stark’s 2007 decision to come out as the first openly nontheistic member of Congress. In 2009, City Councilman Cecil Bothwell of Asheville, North Carolina was called “unworthy of his seat” because of his open atheism. Indeed, several polls have shown that about 50 percent of Americans would not vote for a well-qualified atheist for president. A 2006 study found that 40% of respondents characterized atheists as a group that did “not at all agree with my vision of American society”, and that 48% would not want their child to marry an atheist. In both studies, percentages of disapproval of atheists were above those for Muslims, African-Americans and homosexuals.

What should be done about it? Lots of things, I suppose; probably similar things to what other marginalized groups are doing to promote their causes. More atheists should speak up, for starters, and show their neighbors they’re godless and good people. Organize more, to strengthen our voice and be counted in national conversations. Point out where and when discrimination against atheists does occur, and not keep silent about it. Reach out to religious groups to form partnerships to accomplish mutual goals. Be more visible as a force for good. Fight to maintain the separation of church and state. Fight to keep public education secular. Increase science literacy–because, I think, a more scientifically literate public will be more tolerant and accepting of skepticism and atheism. And so on.

Well now we’re getting into a more reasonable conversation.

I am not sure how wide a belief it was, but Obama did become president despite the fact that there were sections of the voting public who firmly believed him to be a Muslim.

I would challenge you to find much in the way of discrimination against the religious in the Scandinavian countries where atheists are in the majority.

I am sorry, but I do not think it is wrong that your father has missed out on jobs because he will not perform abortions. I believe that the duties of a particular job exist independently of the religious views of the person doing the job.
If I worked for an adoption agency and I refused to place a child with a homosexual couple because of MY religious convictions, I would not be doing my job properly.
Your father has obviously decided that his religious principles are more important to him than the jobs he has decided not to take. This is NOT discrimination on the part of the employer.

Now, your point about the Catholic faith schools is a good one. Since it is not direct discrimination against atheists, I will not bring it up again.

Well now we’re getting into a more reasonable conversation.

Yes, we are. ;)

Almost nobody who believed Obama was a Muslim voted for him. Many people who did vote for him would not have if he had been a Muslim. He probably would not have won the election if he were a Muslim.

Father-in-law, not father.

This is NOT discrimination on the part of the employer.

No, it’s not. That wasn’t my point.

My point was that religious conviction can cost, and that isn’t likely to change with a new set of bosses. You appear to be arguing that society will be made right when atheism doesn’t cost, even if [insert term]ism has to cost more to get there.

If, in the future, religious conviction must be kept in the privacy of one’s home, then effectively the atheists have merely changed places with the religious in society. Religious people will have to be functionally atheist. They stand to lose in this case, and they don’t want to be driven into the closet any more than anyone else.

Okay, all of the above is not entirely rational or fair, but that’s the concern your political opposition has, and it is not an entirely groundless fear. That must be understood for there to be constructive engagement.

All religions promote themselves as the one true faith, and all the others as a lie…

I see no practical distinction between this and your own conviction that religion is crap. Mirror, mirror.

@Bitchin

My conviction that religion is a crap idea is based on the historical evidence. It is simply not a sweeping generalization to say that religions have been responsible for the majority of wars, bigotry, torture and inequality across the whole span of human civilization.

It is not a coincidence that societies become fairer and more tolerant as religion becomes weaker. Look at the Scandinavian nations for examples of this.

The theistic view that their religion is the ‘one true faith’ is not based on evidence… it is based on power.

Perhaps it would help if I discussed with you what atheists generally see as an ideal solution.

1. Complete separation of church and state.
Religions should have no say in how a nation is run. That is not to say there should be no organised religion. In fact, with no ‘state’ religion, others can flourish and religious bigotry is lessened.

That’s basically it. :) I can’t think of anything else I’d add that isn’t covered by that. Nobody sensible is saying the religious should practice their faith only within the confines of their homes.

I think we’d also rather like (but won’t get) there to be a general acknowledgment that being an atheist is the default setting for human beings. Nobody is born believing in Jesus, or Allah, or the Invisible Spaghetti Monster… they are born ‘without belief’ which is what an atheist is.

Overlapping with Kenny’s post, I see, which makes some of the same points in fewer words. Sorry. :-)

Paul, the human brain has evolved to find patterns in things. It is why people think it’s amazing when they meet somebody they know in an unexpected place. They think meeting that person is somehow statistically more remarkable than meeting any one of the other people who happened to be there.

This need to see patterns in things is what drives scientific research and discovery.
Religion is partly based on the same thing. Early on, with no better explanations for what was going on, people made shit up.
This doesn’t mean we aren’t born atheists, everybody is,… it just means that in the absence of rational scientific reasoning our species had to go through a ‘religious’ stage during its social development.

The second, and I feel the more driving and important reason for religion is power. Power over land, power over wealth and resources, power over women (who were and in places still are almost universally considered to be property or second class citizens) and power over other religions.

This doesn’t mean we aren’t born atheists, everybody is,… it just means that in the absence of rational scientific reasoning our species had to go through a ‘religious’ stage during its social development.

The second, and I feel the more driving and important reason for religion is power. Power over land, power over wealth and resources, power over women (who were and in places still are almost universally considered to be property or second class citizens) and power over other religions

This is psuedoscientific conjecturing, based largely on a desire to conform the facts to what you wish to believe. Essentially, you’re crafting your own belief system.

So what? Tax exemption and freedom of speech/religion are not the same thing. You pay taxes, do you feel your freedom of religion is being infringed upon?

Please reread what I wrote. I spoke of churchs’ tax exemptions, not a personal one.

…and you get a strong disposition toward belief in the supernatural.

Which is what I said. Did you assume I was making a theological point? Is it pattern recognition and not tribal programming? Not sure, myself. I’ve heard both. Either way, same point.

Science also supports the idea that greater scientific knowledge tends to correlate with lesser religious belief. What do you make of that?

Another oft-quoted canard that I’m supposed to accept uncritically because, as an atheist, you’re smarter than me.

Ok. I am going to answer these in a numbered list.

1. It is difficult to find a war which does not contain religious elements. The second world war, which you described as non religious, had at its heart the cults of personality of Hitler and Stalin… Hitler’s complete with master race. The holocaust, the collaboration of the pope, the Japanese kamikaze and banzai charges.
This is not a belief I maintain. This is a conclusion based on the available evidence.

2. If you accept that the atheism of Stalin’s Russia was not what we are discussing as atheism, then kindly stop brining it up. The ‘but still…’ is utterly meaningless. Historical anti Semitism is part of life across Europe. It is, thankfully, historical in many nations, rather than currant. It is also a holdover from the Christian religious belief that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. It therefore has NOTHING to do with atheism and the modern ultra secular Scandinavian nations.

3. Let me pose this one as a question. Why do you think women are cast as sinners and property in so many world religions? Why do you think so many religions urge their adherents to conquer, enslave or destroy those who adhere to other belief systems? Why, when Christianity was strong in Europe, did it seek to control every aspect of life?

4. http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm
These statistics show that despite the proportion of atheists in the United States being in the region of 8-16% (though the most common figure I have heard is 10%) in 1997 the percentage of prisoners held in the United States who are atheists was just 0.2%.
Why should the proportion of atheists in the general population be 50 times greater than the proportion of atheists in the prison population?
If atheism brings about no change in human nature, why are the percentages not the same?

5. Of course religious people should get a say in how a nation is run. They have a vote, just like everybody else. That’s what a democracy is. One adult, one vote. Religious, atheist, everybody.
When we advocate a state where religions have no role in government… we are not advocating one where the religious are excluded from government. Hopefully you can see how these are not the same thing.

6. While the evidence that smaller religions can flourish when a state religion is abolished is limited, there is plenty of evidence that strong state religions smother their competition.

7. Who said people shouldn’t practice or express their religion? I didn’t. Bluejay didn’t. Nor did Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchins.

8. Science does not support the idea of a hard wired human need to believe in the supernatural. That certain areas of the brain become more active when we pray is not evidence of spiritual hard wiring. What humans do have a hard wired desire to do is to explain things. It is what drives scientific study, and (partly) what drives religion.

9. No. You are incorrect.
Atheism… a means without, and theism means belief. Agnostic… a means without, and gnostic means knowledge.
These are dissimilar concepts.
Neither Bluejay or myself have stated that God does not exist. We will never do that, because doing so would be a claim without evidence. It would be a statement of faith. Atheists do not believe in God… that’s not the same as saying it does not exist.
Bitchin, you were an atheist when you were born. You did not pop out believing in God. You became theistic. (Actually that is an assumption… I don’t believe you have actually professed to any particular faith.)
I struggled with Christianity as a young boy. I couldn’t make myself to believe in it.. I actually got pretty worried.

Lastly… psuedoscientific? No. It is conjecture, based on some reasonable assumptions. Without science, early people made things up to explain the world around them. This is what happened. I am not crafting a belief system when I say this.

No, we’re all human, and we all have irrational as well as rational tendencies.

Well, that’s right. Atheists are human, too. Equally prone to human foibles, like corruptibility and hubris. That’s why I don’t accept that governance by atheists would be any better than governance by theists. They’re all human beings.

So what was that you were saying earlier about not lumping things together?

I know, but I needed a good example of what we might call irrational atheists – if it’s not too simplistic to call Maoists and Stalinists that. That goes with the point I just made above. I know that communist rhetoric has never matched reality, on atheism or egalitarianism. Makes them hypocritical.

I do not accept a priori a positive correlation between atheism and tolerance.

I do think that science, and a humanistic philosophy that doesn’t rely on supernatural motivations, yield better results in interacting with the universe and with each other.

How else should this be interpreted, but as a belief in superior ethics? “Better results”? Granted, that’s no different than any religion’s similar claims. Fair enough. We all think we’re on the right path or we’d change paths. Here, I will acknowledge that I don’t regard you entirely in the same light as some others. You are not one of those spewing bile and hyperbole.

This seems like paranoia to me. From reading and talking to other atheists, I’d say that atheists will fight for religious people’s right to express themselves.

Hmmm. Let’s see how my point about taxing churches goes over. What I honestly don’t know is if the notion that churches should be taxed out of the political arena is a majority view, or just that of a loud minority of atheists.

You know that Jesus also told his disciples, “Go forth and make disciples of all the nations” and that he got himself killed by being very public about his religious POV. He, and the religion that he founded, never did believe that religion should be kept in the privacy of the home. In the passage you quote, Jesus was condemning public display of religion by those who did so hypocritically. He was not suggesting that religion had no place in public life.

Yes. May we say so?

Of course, as far as I’m concerned. You can even come knock on my door and tell me in person. We can have a beer while your at it. But I know that you, for one, wouldn’t begin ranting about me “brainwashing children” and being an “intellectual plague.”

What’s your basis for this claim?

Simple. List those countries that have no state religion (or state church), and see what you come up with by way of a correlation. You can’t include Norway, Sweden*, or Finland, though – isn’t that interesting, in light of what’s been said?

Here’s wikipedia’s list (from the page State_Religion)
Albania, Australia, Brazil, Bolivia, Canada, Chile,
Cuba, People’s Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan), East Timor, Ecuador, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kosovo, Laos, Lebanon, Mexico, Montenegro, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, North Korea, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden (*on Sweden, the wikipeida article contradicts itself, but in either case it had a state church until 1999), Turkey, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam

Tolerant Norway has a state religion. So does England. Lebanon, North Korea and Turkey do not. Etc. Correlation?

It is difficult to find a war which does not contain religious elements.

That’s a tautology. Wars include religious combatants, so “religious elements” are present. WWII was not a religious war. Hitler and Stalin “personality cults” as equivalent to religion? That’s a stretch. And the Holocaust was directed at those who were ethnically Jewish. It was based on ethnicity, not religion. Didn’t matter to the Nazis what religion those rounded up professed. Atheist Jews, too, went to the gas chambers. The Holocaust also included other ethnicities, like Gypsies.

It is, thankfully, historical in many nations,

I don’t believe that anti-Semitism is dead in NW Europe. You’re idealizing.

If atheism brings about no change in human nature, why are the percentages not the same?

Something an atheist once wrote about “lies, damn lies, and statistics”…

…Maybe that atheists tend to be wealthier and can afford better lawyers has something to do with it? Blacks are disproportionately represented in the prison population. Should I extend your logic to conclude that they are of lower nature? I don’t think you’re bigoted, but when you make an argument like this to extol atheists’ superior nature (yes, you did say that) you’d best think before you type lest you be seriously misunderstood. And you’re obviously discounting other sociological factors that govern the statistics of prison populations.

Point 5, pending. Point 6, not supported by facts, read my other post. Point 7, ditto Point 5. Point 8 I addressed elsewhere.

Point 9, semantics b/t atheist and agnostic, but an interesting logical conundrum. If people are born atheist, then doesn’t that make it the unthinking default, and not agnostic/unaffiliated? I mean, most atheists I encounter began as something or other as children, or explored this or that, before concluding with atheism. But hang on a minute…

Merriam-Webster defines an agnostic as
“a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god”.

Your stated position on your own belief is much closer to the dictionary definition of agnosticism.

An atheist is defined as “one who believes that there is no deity”. That’s NOT what you’re professing.

A baby is born not believing anything one way or the other. According to the dictionary, that’s agnostic.

Science also supports the idea that greater scientific knowledge tends to correlate with lesser religious belief. What do you make of that?

And yet one of the most religious person I ever knew–a former atheist, btw–was a computer programmer who knew a lot about raising plants and do-it-yourself construction work and yes–science. Yes, I know. It’s anecdotal and may be at best an exception that proves the rule.

And yet when–like myself–you’ve read articles in various conservative magazines in which people use “science” to “prove” that blacks and Hispanics are intellectually inferior to non-Hispanic whites, that Mexican immigrants don’t read that much, and that AIDs victims should have been treated the same way TB victims were treated in bygone eras, one tends to get skeptical about the way “science” gets used to prove points the same way I get skeptical when people who advocate such-and-such a practice because “God told them to.”

After all, both Isaac Asimov and William Shockley knew something about science. Yet the latter thought I.Q. tests proved something about various racial groups and the former did not. Who was right?

I think which one I believe and I don’t side with old Isaac because the Bible told me to. But the fact that two different individuals could look at the same scientific statistics and come to different conclusions is something very disturbing.

And when–like me–you have a father who for many years was held back in his chosen field because his would-be employers in the computer programming field–who is supposedly a field in which you expect the top people to know something about science–thought people of his ethnic background were too dumb to work with computers, one tends to be wary of any science-based ideology.

Yes, knowledge is good and there is much to be said about the promotion of learning. But knowledge is only good when it’s used by good people and put to good ends–and not all men who would use knowledge are necessarily good just because they’re not religious any more than they’re necessarily bad because they are religious. All too often, people acquire just enough knowledge to justify their particular ideology–and yes, I guess I could find that statement ironic but as I noted on another thread, the nonbeliever who is killed because the local government considers him to be genetically inferior tends to be just as dead as the one who is executed because he refuses to bow to the one, true God.

China is neither fair nor tolerant. Neither was Stalinist Russia. I know, that’s a different kind of atheism, but still…

And most Christians I know practice a different sort of Christianity than that practiced by Cotton Mather or the Spanish Inquisition. And many will not only denounce the guy who pickets funerals, covers up clerical abuse cases or bombs abortion clinics as loudly as most atheists but will do so more loudly precisely because they expect the people who do such deeds and yet claim to be Christian to know better.

Anyway, I suspect the point Frizzy was attempting to make with that statement was not “atheists are evil–let’s keep them out of power.” It was “atheists on occasion have done great evil. It’s a mater of historical record. And just because you see little similarity between your kind of atheists and that kind of atheists doesn’t mean said record should be ignored. Any more than the record of the Spanish Inquisition should be ignored just because few people nowadays would consider the members of that group true Christians.” And if so, he has a point. Besides, which the counter-argument smacks a bit of the “No True Scotsman” Fallacy.

Even if it didn’t, atheists are hardly alone in being blamed for the sins of others who supposedly share their religious philosophy. Many Catholics here in the U.S. were persecuted during the Know-Nothing riots of the 1840s and said persecution was often justified by various Vatican scandals supposedly uncovered by Napoleon. There was even a book, The Confessions of Maria Monk, which, despite being blatantly fictious, proved to be very popular and very influential with said Catholic-baiters.

And of course, the number of Jews persecuted for the deeds of others is endless.

These statistics show that despite the proportion of atheists in the United States being in the region of 8-16% (though the most common figure I have heard is 10%) in 1997 the percentage of prisoners held in the United States who are atheists was just 0.2%.

Why should the proportion of atheists in the general population be 50 times greater than the proportion of atheists in the prison population?

If atheism brings about no change in human nature, why are the percentages not the same?

How many of those people were atheists before they went into prison? How many were jailhouse converts? How many turned to religion as a way to survive? What influence does the fact that a prisoner who shows interest in “churching up” often gets leniency in his parole hearing have on the religious status of such prisoners? And how can we tell that a poll taken of a group not necessarily famous for its ability to tell the truth is not necessarily a whole bunch of people telling the poll takers what they want to hear?

Yes, I know I’m unduly cynical about a study that might be quite accurate. But then much of my religious philosophy was influenced for a time by a late cousin who himself was a jailhouse convert who used to speak many times of how professing to be a Bible enthusiast got him out of many a prickly situation while he was in prison. Of course, in the long run, I discovered that he wasn’t as reformed a character as he initially pretended to be when he first got out of prison–which created a temporary crisis of faith on my part–sorry, t.m.i.–but the point still stays. Some prisoners find a distinct advantage in turning to religion in prison.

Why, when Christianity was strong in Europe, did it seek to control every aspect of life?

I have no idea.

Why did things not improve in Mexico when the government still passed laws in the wake of the Mexican Revolution that sought to reduce the influence of the Catholic church in Mexican society? And why did such measures–despite being the strongest anti-clerical laws passed against a dominant organized religion outside of the former Eastern bloc–ultimately fail to curb Catholic influence?

Why did so many pagan cultures such as the Imperial Romans seek to control every aspect of life? Why were the wars of the Romans against fellow pagans in Carthage, Gaul and Germania so brutal?

I can ask such questions all day. But it is late. And this post is already long enough.

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

Can we at least agree on the awesomeness of MaryAnn. the self-professed Geek Goddess who may someday become known as Our Lady of the Raggedy Doctor?

I think which one I believe and I don’t side with old Isaac because the Bible told me to. But the fact that two different individuals could look at the same scientific statistics and come to different conclusions is something very disturbing.

What I meant:

I know which one I believe and I don’t side with old Isaac because the Bible told me to. But the fact that two different individuals could look at the same scientific statistics and come to different conclusions is something very disturbing.

…but the point still stays.

Or stands. Whatever.

Please feel free to delete the post directly before this one.

Bitchen Frizzy, I think you need to be a little bit circumspect in making correlations about England having a state religion. It’s a technicality – Church of England is officially the and a state religion, but it’s a bit of joke, really. Having lived for a year in the USA (in Virginia) there is a vast difference between people who refer to themselves as CoE in England and people who refer to themselves as baptist in the USA, for example. My experience is that England is mostly a secular nation – those who refer to themselves as CoE usually have almost no active belief whatsoever, and don’t behave according to a religious agenda, don’t attend Church etc etc. The church is pretty much an empty figurehead, much like the Queen.

Hold on a second. I’ll respond to other points later, but why are we having a serious discussion here where the Romans are described as ‘pagan’?
Tell me you’re not going with the dictionary definition which also describes pagans as “pertaining to the worship or worshipers of any religion that is neither Christian, Jewish, nor Muslim” in other words, an attempt to sweep their religions into one big pile and pretend they don’t matter.

Roman polytheism is still religion. Also, given that the Emperor Constantine effectively invented the Catholic church and made it the State religion (if not to more effectively control his people, then why?) I don’t think the Romans act particularly as evidence for the defence.

Now. I phrased what I said about the evidence of varying religiosity in the public at large and in prisons as a question because it is something I wish to have a conversation about.

I fully accept, and believed prior to posting that the following points are true.

1. That prison populations have a larger number of people from deprived backgrounds than the general population.

2. That atheists tend to be educated liberals. (I know some conservative atheists, but I think the overall tendency is liberal.)

I do not accept that more than a tiny minority of atheists who go into prison become religious as a way to shorten their sentence.
Adult atheists tends to have arrived at an intellectual conclusion, and nothing short of a physical manifestation of God in front of their eyes will make them religious.

So all that being said. The proportion is about 50 times greater than the proportion in the general population.

You disliked the positive claim I implied, fair enough… I’ll make the point in another way.

Religion does not make you a better person. What I think is that religious doctrine teaches some values which are morally questionable.
I have never heard of an atheist deliberately flying a plane into a building (well, I don’t know anything about the IRS building guy, but I think he was suicidal for a rather different reason), or the deck of an aircraft carrier, or severing a young girl’s clitoris and sewing up her vagina… or of having sex with a virgin to cure AIDS.

Our world is chock full of examples of some really disgusting abuses which are directly attributable to religiously held views.

It is do not think it is a stretch to consider the cults of personality built up around Hitler and Stalin as religions. I would be interested in discussing that further with you..

Oh and there is no such thing as “ethnically Jewish”. That is a common misconception. Jews come from all over the world. It is a belief system. I know many atheist Jews, but they exist because Jewish culture is very strong and while they don’t believe in God, they still consider themselves culturally Jewish.
The same is often true of Catholics. The comedian Dara o’Brien states on stage that he “doesn’t believe in God or Jesus or angels or the bible or anything, but I’m still a catholic.” While tongue in cheek, and while he also calls himself an atheist, I hope you will take the point.

@Isobel:

I agree with you that the English are not devout about their state religion. The point is, those nations you mentioned did not find it necessary to abolish state religion to achieve religious tolerance. They got there, one way or another, without resorting to that. And the U.S., which constitutionally prohibits a state religion, is arguably no more religiously tolerant. Remember, I’m not making a correlation, I’m arguing that there’s no correlation.

@Kenny:
I think that Tonio’s point was, in response to your statement about Christianity wanting to control everything, that the Romans – before and after Constantine – wanted to control, conquer and dominate. That wasn’t something introduced to that part of the world by Christianity.

No, I won’t accept a rewrite of the dictionary. Words have to have meaning. Your professed belief is more congruent with the commonly accepted definition of agnosticism. I’ve encountered plenty of atheists who assert that there is no deity. They aren’t required to prove that because it’s not necessary to prove a negative.

One thing that is true of Western intellectual atheists is that they’ve never held the reins of power.

If they had the power that religions have had at times, or that communists have had, would they be any less susceptible to hubris and corruption? It’s never been tested.

Woops… literal. Sorry, passionately typing there…

Your link says to see “atheist”, and there it expands on the meaning of the Gr. “atheist” as “godless, to deny the gods”.

The definition you supplied is consistent with the one I supplied. What am I missing?

Besides, your source doesn’t supply a current meaning of the word in English, but only the etymology. You didn’t actually provide a definition.

Plenty of atheists deny there’s a god, and require proof of existence from theists with which they debate. In the rules of debate, that’s a fair and valid request. It’s the affirmative assertion that requires proof in a debate.

I know the Nazi’s didn’t care. Did I say anything to the contrary? All I pointed out was that there is no such thing as being ethnically Jewish. I’m not particularly sure we still want to be using terminology and thinking on the culture they attempted to exterminate… do we?

Jews come from all over the world. They are a genetically diverse culture, similar to Christianity and Islam.

Hitler, was NOT avowedly anti religious. Nazi soldiers had “God is with us” stamped on their belt buckles for crying out loud.
http://www.nobeliefs.com/mementoes/buckle.jpeg

Christian symbolism was rife in Nazi Germany. I am NOT equating Christians with Nazi’s… simply pointing out that your assertion is utterly false.

By the way, women are treated as property or second class citizens almost everywhere religion is strong. It is most assuredly the secularisation of the West that has allowed women more equal status.

I think you should expand your argument against my point that religiously held beliefs result in horrific abuses. You said “atheists likewise”…

What? We likewise what? Without religious dogma telling me to, I would have to be criminally insane to, for example, cut off a young girl’s clitoris and sew up her vagina.

Let me pose this one as a question. Why do you think women are cast as sinners and property in so many world religions? Why do you think so many religions urge their adherents to conquer, enslave or destroy those who adhere to other belief systems? Why, when Christianity was strong in Europe, did it seek to control every aspect of life?

How many theists do you actually know that fit the description above? What about the churches/synagogues/mosques in the town where you live? How much of the above have you researched as opposed to reading somewhere on teh intarwebz?

This is a hilarious way to shoot your argument in the foot. Do you seriously think that people won’t be able answer this question?

I personally know many Christians (my relatives, who I love dearly but who drive me insane) who would happily see homosexuality outlawed.

And yet when–like myself–you’ve read articles in various conservative magazines in which people use “science” to “prove” that blacks and Hispanics are intellectually inferior to non-Hispanic whites, that Mexican immigrants don’t read that much, and that AIDs victims should have been treated the same way TB victims were treated in bygone eras, one tends to get skeptical about the way “science” gets used to prove points the same way I get skeptical when people who advocate such-and-such a practice because “God told them to.”

Tonio, you’re arguing against a point that I didn’t make. I didn’t say that science makes people moral, I said science has a tendency to make them less religious.

The conversational thread that I was following was about whether or not people are hardwired to believe in the supernatural. The point that I (and Kenny, I believe) was making was that, absent science, people inherently have large gaps in their knowledge of the natural world that tend to get filled with supernatural explanations. Once science fills those gaps people tend to become less religious.

OK, I don’t accept it, because it’s not true.

Cool. Just one question: why not? I can site this (from wikipedia):

A study has shown atheism in the west to be particularly prevalent among scientists, a tendency already quite marked at the beginning of the 20th century, developing into a dominant one during the course of the century. In 1914, James H. Leuba found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected U.S. natural scientists expressed “disbelief or doubt in the existence of God” (defined as a personal God which interacts directly with human beings). The same study, repeated in 1996, gave a similar percentage of 60.7%; this number is 93% among the members of the National Academy of Sciences. Expressions of positive disbelief rose from 52% to 72%.

What have you got?

This is fun, isn’t it? :D

Can we dispense with the “Nazi’s were atheists or anti-religious” rubbish please?

http://www.nobeliefs.com/images/Reichstag%20election.jpg
http://www.nobeliefs.com/mementoes/DeaconMagazine.jpg
http://www.nobeliefs.com/mementoes/MLMC2.jpg
http://www.nobeliefs.com/mementoes/HitlerYouthCross.JPG
http://www.nobeliefs.com/mementoes/CrossSwastika2.jpg
http://www.nobeliefs.com/mementoes/MothersCross.jpg

As you can see, it is utterly false.

Hah.. Bitchin, are your morals and values not divinely inspired?

The core beliefs of the religions I am familiar with are more conservative and dogmatic than their modern sets of morals and values.

Unless you are actually talking about a modern reinterpretation of your religion’s core beliefs?

What difference does any of this make, in reference to this debate? I am who I am, and I believe what I believe. I suspect you wish to fit me into a stereotype, and I’m not cooperating.

You seem pretty set on centuries old interpretations of the word atheist…

I’m using current English dictionary definitions, and what most atheists I dialogue with tell me. Once again, many atheists are quite comfortable asserting that there is no god.

I don’t know why you’re hung up on this. If you’re an agnostic and not an atheist, does it matter?

I personally know many Christians (my relatives, who I love dearly but who drive me insane) who would happily see homosexuality outlawed.

Of course. Your relatives, practicioners of female circumscion, your neighbors, torturers, oppressors, me, Tonio… paint us all with one broad brush. Make no distinctions. Then assert your moral superiority. Then complain when you get compared to a Maoist, and then wonder why atheists are widely mistrusted in Western society.

I do think that science, and a humanistic philosophy that doesn’t rely on supernatural motivations, yield better results in interacting with the universe and with each other.

How else should this be interpreted, but as a belief in superior ethics? “Better results”? Granted, that’s no different than any religion’s similar claims. Fair enough. We all think we’re on the right path or we’d change paths.

Sure. I don’t think I’m intrinsically superior to anyone else. But I do think there are better and worse paths, that are available to anyone who wants to switch. There’s a difference.

Everyone has beliefs and is at least moderately convinced of their rightness. The real question is, what evidence are those beliefs based on? Does that evidence sufficiently apply to human experience, or to observations about the universe, that you can validly claim that everyone ought to accept it? I said “better results”–sure, why not? Antibiotics yield better results than trying to exorcise sickness demons. Installing lightning rods saves more lives than claiming that God strikes whomever he pleases (which lightning rod critics used to say). Treating men and women equally because they’re demonstrably moral and intellectual equals leads to a better society than treating women as inferiors because a deity says they are. These are extreme examples, and I’m not saying religious people today all hold to these beliefs, but I’m just trying to show that there are better and worse ways to treat each other and to think about how the world works. I think skepticism is a toolkit that helps us figure out what those ways are.

Well, that’s right. Atheists are human, too. Equally prone to human foibles, like corruptibility and hubris. That’s why I don’t accept that governance by atheists would be any better than governance by theists. They’re all human beings.

[…]

I do not accept a priori a positive correlation between atheism and tolerance.

[…]

One thing that is true of Western intellectual atheists is that they’ve never held the reins of power.

If they had the power that religions have had at times, or that communists have had, would they be any less susceptible to hubris and corruption? It’s never been tested.

Fair points. Dogmatic atheism has existed, as has dogmatic theism, as well as human foibles, and all have caused harm.

Sorry to keep mentioning The Science of Liberty by Tim Ferris, but having just read it, my mind is still full of his arguments, and I think they’re relevant here. He contends that science–not its facts or discoveries, nor its technological products, but its methods–is the key to encouraging the liberal values that result in tolerant democratic societies. He argues that the practice of scientific inquiry by a serious scientific community has only really flourished under “liberal democratic” conditions because: science is “inherently antiauthoritarian”; “self-correcting” (i.e. individual scientists are human and make errors or have dishonest intentions, but the science community as a whole subjects all ideas to criticism so that bad ideas are eventually exposed and good ones are proven to be so); “must draw on all available intellectual resources” in order to flourish (hence, “nations aspiring to compete in the front ranks of science and technology cannot afford to suppress any element of their society–since none has a monopoly on brainpower–and so are obliged to educate their people”); and so on. And he contends that liberal democracy historically arose alongside (because of?) this scientific mindset, and draws parallels:

It helps to consider that whereas prior systems dealt in claims of certitude, such as philosophers’ allegedly airtight reasoning and monarchs’ god-given right to rule, science and democracy are steeped in doubt. Both start with tentative ideas, go through agonies of experimentation, and arrive at merely probabilistic conclusions that remain vulnerable to disproof. Both are bottom-up systems, constructed more from individual actions in laboratories and legislatures than from a few allegedly impervious precepts. A liberal democracy in action is an endlessly changing mosaic of experiments, most of which partially or entirely fail. This makes the process frustratingly inefficient, but generates its strength.

Ferris rejects the notion of a dictatorship run by scientists as much as one run by priests or godless communists; he “favors the messy, selfish, and often foolish and greedy push-and-pull of democracies as they are–neither rational nor expert but experimental–as better attuned to the spirit of science than are enchantments with authoritarian expertise and top-down planning.” Nor does he claim that science and democracy are perfect: “On the contrary, the very notion of perfection is inimical to both institutions. Scientists and democracies sometimes make mistakes or act contrary to their ideals, which leads some to condemn or dismiss them; but “All such arguments consist of comparing a real system with an imagined ideal that does not exist and (the deadly dreams of idealists notwithstanding) almost certainly never will.”

There’s more, but that’s more than enough for now. Here’s my point: If Ferris is right, that science leads to (or at least is intimately connected with) liberal societies that can experiment with (i.e. try out and discard) leaders, ideas and programs through democratic elections, then that’s the kind of social system that would safeguard against the abuses of rigid human ideologies, whether secular or religious. It’s what we have now, in fact. Didn’t like Bush’s rigid conservative/religious principles? Here, try Obama. Don’t like Obama’s socialistic tendencies? Vote him out next time. And so on. It’s messy, but as Churchill said, it’s the worst form of government except for all the others.

I think that Western intellectual atheists are atheistic because of arguments from the skeptical, empirical methods of science. And if they take “the reins of power,” it would be within the framework of the science-based, experimental, liberal democracy that made their atheism possible in the first place. This doesn’t make them better people. But it does arguably mean that an experimental, skeptical spirit, applied to science and politics, leads to more flourishing societies. (How do we define flourishing? I guess that’s a whole other conversation.)

Also, I do very much like the reasonable tone Bluejay uses to frame his arguments. I should take lessons. :D

Can we dispense with the “Nazi’s were atheists or anti-religious” rubbish please?

I never said Nazis were atheists. I said Hitler was anti-religious, and like any clever and cynical politician he used religion for his ends. Yes, Nazi-era Germany had a lot of religious symbolism and ceremony. Western civilization still does. What does that have to do with anything? Again your “wars contain religious elements” statement is a tautology. “Gott mitt uns” doesn’t say shit about the soldier wearing the belt buckle, any more than “In God We Trust” in an atheist’s wallet means anything.

Atheists as human beings are fully as capable of the evil that men do to each other as anyone else… however the point that I have repeatedly made is that we are without the dogmatic beliefs which excuse and encourage such behaviour.

What difference, if it doesn’t make you better people?

…has been disproved by the history of the West.

Atheists do not yet hold power in the West. It’s still theists running the show. All of this enlightenment and tolerance has come about while atheists are still in the small minority, and as you say, still underrepresented and mistrusted.

I’m not asserting my moral superiority. I am asserting my intellectual superiority, to you as an individual. Throwing a non sequitur laced tantrum, as you have done several times in this thread, will make me do that.

Its not nonsequitur. It’s in direct response to statements made on this thread. I’ve been very careful about that.

To be honest, I thought I was responding to Kenny. My mistake. Point stands, though. If atheists will not make any distinctions between the theists they know and the perpetrators of atrocities, then they aren’t demonstrating that intellectual superiority.

I already allowed that you’re smarter than me. ;) You can have that if it makes you happy.

Kenny:

You’ve glossed over my point about affirmative claims. Does that mean you accept it?

It means I don’t care as much about the distinction as you do. To be fair, you seem to be claiming to be an atheist that won’t go so far as to state that there is no god, but you believe there isn’t. I don’t know what difference it really makes whether babies are born agnostic or atheist.

Also where is the ‘pending’ comment for point 5 waaaaayyy up there?

It’s awaiting your – anyone’s – response to my question about taxation of churches. I do actually have a point.

Bluejay:

If Ferris is right, that science leads to (or at least is intimately connected with) liberal societies that can experiment with (i.e. try out and discard) leaders, ideas and programs through democratic elections, then that’s the kind of social system that would safeguard against the abuses of rigid human ideologies, whether secular or religious.

Well, that’s right. But religion is not inherently inimicable to that process, obviously, or those liberal societies would never have developed. Like I said, theists are still calling the shots… and did so throughout the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The deists and humanists and so forth were not burned at the stake.

To be honest, I thought I was responding to Kenny.

Oh, then my apologies.

I think skepticism is a toolkit that helps us figure out what those ways are.

Of course. And Augustine, Aquinas, and Martin Luther would agree with you. That’s why fundamentalism is abhorrent to thinking theists. Religion evolves too, and in the West it’s been coevolving with science, and because the process is necessarily messy it hasn’t always been harmonious.

Belief in the power of antibiotics is shared by theists. ;)

Could you make your point anyway? I think you were trying to connect taxing churches with somehow infringing on their freedom of expression, and I was puzzled as to how or why.

Churches are organizations of theists, where they promote and share theistic ideas.

The separation of church and state in the U.S. has always included the exemption of churches from taxation.

Taxing churches will involve a reinterpretation of the separation clause of the Constitution. People do get touchy and paranoid when it comes to that.

I’ve heard people call for the taxation of any church that espouses a POV related to a political issue. Right now, IRS regulations say a church crosses the line only if it endorses by name a specific candidate or ballot item. Some are calling for that line to be pushed back to the point that churches must effectively remain silent or be taxed.

If fairly applied, this would open Pandora’s box, of course. Any tax exempt organization, secular or not, would have to stay completely out of politics or be taxed. That could include universities, PETA, whoever. If unfairly applied… well, there goes Farris’ ideals.

Are these calls a majority view amongst atheists? Seriously, I want to know.

Can you see why that might contribute to mistrust and reluctance to support atheist candidates at the polls?

Again, the fairness or reasonableness of those suspicions are beside the point. Theists stand to lose, a lot, if that comes to pass. Maybe we all stand to lose, if we give the government that kind of power.

I wonder, though, if religion has evolved reluctantly, in response to scientific progress.

Well, that’s an interesting debate in itself. I find the interplay of science and religion in the West to be a fascinating topic. However, in reference to this increasingly lengthy thread, and not to be dismissive, does it matter? Seriously, I’m not being not flip.

Would taxing churches financially ruin them, or would it still be possible for them to accept taxation and freely express themselves?

Oh, they’ll express themselves all right, with none of the constraints that currently limit them. They stay out of Washington, to the degree that corporations are involved, because they don’t want to be taxed and regulated like corporations.

Pulling bricks out of the wall of separation of church and state is a really bad idea, with all kinds of unintended consequences to all of us.

In the long run, it could render churches – and other tax-exempt organizations, don’t forget that – identical to corporations from the standpoint of the U.S. legal system. Then, they’d have to adopt the same bland similarity as corporations, to comply with various regulations and laws. Short term, there might be rejoicing by those who want to force that compliance on them, but in the long run it would diminish the cultural diversity of the U.S. and that would be a shame.

It also erodes the concept in U.S. culture of the private entity, as it applies to organizations. Corporations are “persons” under the law, subject to government regulation and such. Tax-exempt organizations are outside that process – “private”.
Moving them into the public sphere would be one more increment down the slippery slope toward fascism.

Pulling bricks out of the wall of separation of church and state is a really bad idea, with all kinds of unintended consequences to all of us.

I absolutely agree, as I think I’ve said a couple of times in this thread. I guess my question is, does taxing and regulating churches amount to abolishing church/state separation? As you say, corporations are taxed and regulated; but they’re still considered private enterprise, not government-run. Being taxed and regulated means that businesses have to follow certain rules (e.g. to meet health and public safety standards and such), but does it necessarily lead to “bland similarity”? Your favorite mom-and-pop restaurant isn’t the same as McDonald’s.

Moving them into the public sphere would be one more increment down the slippery slope toward fascism.

Maybe. I think there’s some room for argument there. (But again, I don’t have a firm position on this, not yet; just thinking aloud.) Everyplace is a slippery slope towards everyplace else; I think critics of Social Security and Medicare were afraid they’d lead us down the slippery slope to–well, some kind of hellish dystopia, but that didn’t happen, did it?

I find the interplay of science and religion in the West to be a fascinating topic. However, in reference to this increasingly lengthy thread, and not to be dismissive, does it matter?

Matter in relation to what? It matters to those interested in discussing it. It’s cool if you’d rather not. This is getting lengthy, and rather off-topic, though not as much as some others I’ve been in. ;-)

I guess my question is, does taxing and regulating churches amount to abolishing church/state separation?

I think it does in U.S. culture, yes. At the very least, it does involve messing with the wall of separation, and if that’s a bad idea, then why do it?

Being taxed and regulated means that businesses have to follow certain rules (e.g. to meet health and public safety standards and such), but does it necessarily lead to “bland similarity”?

Well, they’d have to follow equal employment practices, too. That effectively ends their uniqueness. I’m sure a lot of people would rejoice at that, but in the long run…

Since Godwin’s Law has already been invoked, lets go back to Germany. The Weimar Republic was a slipshod construction with half-assed checks and balances and inadequate barriers between the power blocks. Once a charismatic leader ascended the throne of the Chancellorship – and it was effectively a throne despite intentions to the contrary by the constitution’s framers – he didn’t have much trouble bringing the corporations and religions into line. Long before aggressive rearmament, the Nazis were pouring public money into corporations as part of revitalization. The line between corporations and government eventually disappeared. No wall prevented churches from actively participating in government if they wanted to, and no wall protected the leaders that did not wish to play along. They could get in line, go into exile, or go to the gas chambers as enemies of the state.

Tax exemption in the U.S. is symbolic. It’s a meme. It draws the line between the public and the private in people’s minds.

So back to the U.S. The ease with which corporations can already tap into the public treasury ought to horrify more people than it does. Eliminate the ingrained cultural distinction between churches and corporations, then add a leader who can bring religious power in line behind his agenda, then remove the bars to church participation in the government process, and what do you have, potentially?

Isobel: Bitchen Frizzy, I think you need to be a little bit circumspect in making correlations about England having a state religion. It’s a technicality – Church of England is officially the and a state religion, but it’s a bit of joke, really.

Now it is. As I seem to recall, at least one group of American colonists in times past emigrated from England precisely because they had issues with the Church of England.

But that’s besides the point.

Kenny: Hold on a second. I’ll respond to other points later, but why are we having a serious discussion here where the Romans are described as ‘pagan’?
Tell me you’re not going with the dictionary definition which also describes pagans as “pertaining to the worship or worshipers of any religion that is neither Christian, Jewish, nor Muslim” in other words, an attempt to sweep their religions into one big pile and pretend they don’t matter.

Roman polytheism is still religion. Also, given that the Emperor Constantine effectively invented the Catholic church and made it the State religion (if not to more effectively control his people, then why?) I don’t think the Romans act particularly as evidence for the defence.

Bitchen Frizzy: I think that Tonio’s point was, in response to your statement about Christianity wanting to control everything, that the Romans – before and after Constantine – wanted to control, conquer and dominate. That wasn’t something introduced to that part of the world by Christianity.

What Bitchen Frizzy said.

Sorry, passionately typing there…

No worries. It’s obvious that there are a lot of passionate typists here.

Hey bitchen frizzy:

Thanks for your thoughts re: church taxation. I’m still not familiar enough with the issue to take a definitive stand, but your argument has inspired me to see what other people are saying about it.

Here are some links arguing the other side (interestingly, also claiming church/state separation as a reason):

http://www.taxthechurches.org/

http://www.daylightatheism.org/2006/10/tax-the-churches.html

http://www.gainesvillehumanists.org/chrchtax.htm

And a discussion on Gospel.com, “a community of online ministries”:

http://www.gospel.com/blog/index.php/2010/04/15/should-churches-be-tax-exempt/

(Interesting that some pastors in the comments are against tax-exemption status, for a variety of reasons.)

I”ll look at more pro-tax-exemption arguments too, promise. :-) Let me know if you have any recommendations.

Thanks again.

Here are some links arguing the other side (interestingly, also claiming church/state separation as a reason):

Thanks for the links.

To me, it still doesn’t seem worth the risk. The interpretation of the separation clause has been consistent from Day 1 of the republic. It’s bedrock. And in my opposition I’m not just selfishly guarding my church’s funds. I think that there’s all kinds of unintended consequences that most people aren’t thinking through.

Let me put it another way: think about Halliburton, and ExxonMobil, and GM. Consider the power and connections they have in Washington, and how they can dip into the public till in so many ways. Do you want a world where the LDS, the Catholic Church, and the Southern Baptist Convention can do the same thing? I don’t even like the fact that corporations have that kind of access to government power. Eisenhower tried to warn us, and we didn’t listen.

Bitchin, wait wait… Godwin’s law has not been invoked! Hah. We were discussing the Nazi’s. The law requires inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one’s opponent) with Hitler or Nazis or their actions.

Fair enough. And that’s bitchen, not bitchin. ;)

Of course… you have rather tried to lump me in with Mao and Stalin…

Now that’s not fair. I wrote a paragraph explaining the distinction in my mind, and when I did reference Mao and Stalin I made it clear why I was doing so. We cannot honestly discuss atheism in world history and politics without reference to ideological atheism.

We want religion out of politics.

That’s an ideal of many, but it’s also effectively impossible. Voters will vote conscience and policy informed by their religious belief; there’s no way to stop that without unintended consequences. Churches also have access to the media – that’s also bedrock – and will express political opinions, and the media is a powerful force in the outcome of elections.

Also, in the U.S., court cases often set public policy. Churches and religious individuals can be parties to lawsuits, both as plaintiffs and defendants. Atheists can, too.

You seem to have a problem with my refusal to make the affirmative assertion that there is no god.

No, I don’t. I was curious as to why you thought it so important to carry the label “atheist” instead of “agnostic,” and I’m particular about the meaning of words used in a debate. It’s not really all that important at this point. It’s your beliefs and opinions that matter, and once I got past the label and down to what you really meant, the label ceased to matter.

If a church does charitable work, then of course, tax exemption should be granted on that work and all funds associated with it.

Almost every church does charitable work, and you would find it suprisingly difficult to separate the funds. The popular misconception of churches sitting on mountains of cash is far off base. The exceptions prove the rule, as those are generally con men.

I think we can see from historical and current trends that in general, they fought for every inch.

You need to watch those sweeping generalizations. Consider the Catholic Church’s reaction – rather, nonreaction – to Darwin’s ToE. Or the active involvement of religion in abolitionism and the civil rights movement in the U.S. It’s a mixed bag, part of that mess and tension Bluejay mentioned.

I tried posting a couple of links earlier, but I guess the spam filter slapped me down. Anyway:

I was also wondering what the deal is with churches and taxation in other countries, and how it affects the relationship between religion and the state. Does the US already have the ideal arrangement, or are there useful ideas we could adapt from other variations? Here’s a Wiki article on “church tax” in other countries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax

Interesting to see how the much-discussed Scandinavian countries are doing it. I wonder what rules, regulations and restrictions are involved.

Sorry ’bout the spam filter. When I’m sitting in front of the computer, I approve those legitimate comments tagged as spam immediately, but I was out most of the day today. Sorry.

Well, no Bitchen, I think it’s a lot simpler than that. There is a wall between church and state in the US, yes, that’s absolutely true, but religion has bled into politics rather insidiously (I use the word to indicate the way in which this has occurred, rather than to cast religion in a negative light) and society is rather less secular than it could be as a result. (It is my view that Christianity in America is rather having its cake and eating it.)

In Europe, in spite of most nations still having a state religion… the overall level of religiosity is somewhat lower and religion doesn’t filter into politics anywhere near as much. I think that is one of the reasons we have no problem at all with the idea of church taxation.

Bitchen, I’ve been away from my computer for a couple of days… so I’ve not really been posting here, but I kept meaning to post this.

You didn’t think it mattered particularly whether I called myself an agnostic or an atheist. Well… I don’t know what particular denomination you are, but I am sure you would correct me if I described you as being the wrong one.

What I am, along with all sceptical atheists is an atheist agnostic. Now don’t jump in there with an “I told you so” :) You see, Richard Dawkins said it rather well.

“I am an agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden.”

In other words, atheism is the important and defining bit of the definition. As a scientist, (and I am scientifically trained) it is abhorrent to me to make a claim without evidence to back it up. No matter how unlikely I consider something to be I won’t say it is definitely not the case. I think it unlikely that a UFO, piloted by my, now sadly departed, springer spaniel will crash through my bedroom wall… but I cannot say it definitely will not happen.
(Bluejay may think I am gifted with brevity, but Dawkins rather has me beat at the moment.)

Here is a wiki link on the subject,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist_agnostic

On a side note, there is a graphic on the page that I want to link separately as it illustrates the world distribution of atheists. (You’ll note the Scandinavian nations.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atheists_Agnostics_Zuckerman_en.svg

In other words, atheism is the important and defining bit of the definition. As a scientist, (and I am scientifically trained) it is abhorrent to me to make a claim without evidence to back it up. No matter how unlikely I consider something to be I won’t say it is definitely not the case.

margaret atwood defines this as “orthodox agnosticism.” as in, “I am an Orthodox Agnostic.”

That’s interesting, but gives no indication of what she believes (or doesn’t believe) so I suspect she was much more the agnostic and much less the atheist.

In other words, atheism is the important and defining bit of the definition. As a scientist, (and I am scientifically trained) it is abhorrent to me to make a claim without evidence to back it up. No matter how unlikely I consider something to be I won’t say it is definitely not the case. I think it unlikely that a UFO, piloted by my, now sadly departed, springer spaniel will crash through my bedroom wall… but I cannot say it definitely will not happen.

Bingo. We are *all* agnostics: No one knows *for sure* whether there is a God or not, up to and including the Pope and Pat Robertson. I wish all those religious types who insist that those of us who calls ourselves atheists should *really* be calling ourselves agnostics would realize that the same thing applies to them, too.

Do I know *for absolute, 100 percent certainty* that there is no God? No. Do I know *for absolute, 100 percent certainty* that there is no Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, or Flying Spaghetti Monster? No. Do I know *for absolute, 100 percent certainty* that gravity isn’t just a huge joke being pulled on us by advanced alien beings who are controlling our perception of everything outside our atmosphere? No. But it seems likely that these things do not exist. It seems unlikely that they do. It also seems to me that any deity who — as many religious types claim — gave us a brain to use and a universe to observe *and* who made it appear as if it did NOT exist and THEN proceeded to punish those who looked at that evidence and concluded that said deity did not, indeed, exist is a monster whom all decent people should decry and fight at every conceivable opportunity.

Bingo. We are *all* agnostics: No one knows *for sure* whether there is a God or not, up to and including the Pope and Pat Robertson. I wish all those religious types who insist that those of us who calls ourselves atheists should *really* be calling ourselves agnostics would realize that the same thing applies to them, too.

This reminds me of something Richard Dawkins said: We’re all atheists about the majority of defunct gods in human history (Zeus, Thor, Baal, etc). Some of us just go one god further. :-)

Wow, I’m gone for a day or two and 100 new posts. I shall attempt to comment in brief.

Kenny – I do not believe there is any contradiction between what we said about the nature of the brain, only at what point the brain deduces a religious belief.

I think the issue of prison conversion isn’t about if people in prison are religious or not, but can they be trusted to accurately self-report. In the same light, the statistics on how many Americans have cheated on their spouse range from 30% to 70%, which is an amazing spread.

As far as I know, blacks are both more religious and more likely to end up in prison than white people, but this does not mean that religion = crime, but rather both result from racism. Crime is the economic result of racism, and racism also leads to more and longer prison sentences, and blacks use religion as a psychological counter to racism.

I don’t believe Constantine invented the Catholic Church, but rather a wide spread State Church that, via the twists and turns of history, later seperated into the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

General audience: I think the irony of taxing churches is that liberal churches would suffer more than conservative ones, because in my experience conservative churches are better funded and therefore better able to withstand a tax. Thus atheists would be hurting their defacto political allies within religion.

I used to think that religion = oppression, but I don’t think religion is the source of oppression anymore; I think it is a primary psychological tool of oppressors, but obviously not the only one.

And sometimes religious belief takes a life of its own. Christianity started out as a little cult, so started with a moral structure that assumed its powerlessness in the face of the Roman State. As it expanded, it compromised. Then it became part of the State, a tool of imperial unity. Since the New Testament and early theology was written during this time of transistion, it’s pretty easy for good and bad people alike to go back and find what they want. Which is why on the Third Crusade King Richard went to fight Muslims but Saint Francis went to preach to them, but both came from the same religious tradition. The blacks and whites fighting over civil rights came from the same religious tradition, but one side used religion as a form of control and one side used the same religion to shame them.

And while there is a gulf in understanding between people who believe in gods and those who don’t, I think there is an even bigger gulf between those who believe things because they’ve thought about it, and those who believe things because it gives them an excuse to do what they want to do anyway.

Tonio, who do you mean by “politically inclined atheists”? Do you mean simply atheists who are vocal about our views? Should we, as a minority, be quieter to gain more mainstream acceptance, and to persuade government to remain secular in its motivations? Do you think that would work? Should blacks have been quieter? Should gays be quieter?

I’m talking about atheists who are not just content to be atheists but feel to carry their cause further into the political arena. And I’m also saying that atheists who keep talking about wanting to do away with this, that and the other thing should try the same tactics that worked in the Scandinavian countries rather than the same tactics that failed so miserably in the Communist Bloc.

And I’m not suggesting you and the other atheists who post here be less vocal. I’m suggesting you’d be more successful if you were more diplomatic.

After all, it shouldn’t take a genius to guess that if you continually refer to people who hold a different religious philosophy from you as morons, you are going to lose a lot of would-be allies who might be more sympathetic if you concentrated more on the freedom of philosophy angle and not the “my philosophy is better than your philosophy” angle.

Everybody believes that their particular religious philosophy is better than the other guy’s and yet most Jewish politicians are smart enough to know that they wouldn’t hold office in a Gentile neighborhood long if they went on and on about being God’s chosen people. Nor would Catholic politicians get many votes if they continually emphasized their membership in the One True Church. And if I feel inclined to just ignore the born-again Christian who keeps loudly insisting that he is a better person than me because he knows the Lord and I don’t, then by what logic should I be expected to pay more heed to the person who automatically considers himself more enlightened than me because he doesn’t believe in a Supreme Deity?

I too wrestled with the theism question when I was younger and I also went through a phrase of atheism. Technically, it should be simple to just declare myself one of the smart people by just re-declaring myself an atheist here and now but in order to do that, I would have to believe that my late father–a former atheist and life-long Mensa member–dropped several points off his I.Q. the minute he stopped being an atheist and I’m sorry but that just sounds stupid. Just as it would be equally stupid to believe he automatically became even more intelligent when he started attending Catholic Mass. Life doesn’t work that way–at least in my experience.

If you want to believe that you deserve the same rights in society as the average theist, Bluejay, then I agree.

But if you’re going to argue that said rights means being able to talk smack about people outside your group without getting called on it, then I disagree.

And I’m not suggesting you and the other atheists who post here be less vocal. I’m suggesting you’d be more successful if you were more diplomatic.

Tonio, you’re making a Tone Argument here. The Tone Argument is condescending and dismissive. Don’t do that.

Tonio… Soviet atheism has nothing to do with what I believe. I doubt very much that it has anything to do with what Bluejay or anybody else in the thread believes.

You see communist atheism had basically two aspects.
1. Marx thought that religion was “the opium of the masses”, in other words, he thought it was something the poor turned to for momentary relief from the grind of their daily lives. He felt that it was deliberately promoted by the upper classes as a means to control those beneath them… with the sop of religion, they were less likely to revolt.
Now, I think he had a point, but the thing about the Soviets is that they used Marx dogmatically and in many cases, unthinkingly.
2. Stalin, who was the most fervent of the State Atheism proponents, hated competition. He sent people to die in Siberia or simply hung them or had them shot for the slightest bit of opposition. He saw the religions as competition for dogmatic socialism and he persecuted it.

Stalin was an atheist, but he was also a megalomaniac, a despot and probably suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder… as far as he was concerned, he was god.

So to sum up. Soviets were atheists purely as a reaction to the ‘opium for the lower classes’ view of religion, and because they had their own Marxist dogma, and religion was competition.

This has already been addressed, but Hitler was not an atheist.

Oh and Tonio, I am glad your father was a lifelong Mensa member. Nobody here is saying the stupid people are the only ones who believe in God.

We are saying that intelligence often leads to atheism… not that religion makes you stupid.

Various studies have shown that the more intelligent you are, the less likely you are to be religious. Obviously this has to do with education, as intelligent people will have more of it, and a greater understanding of the world will often lead to atheism.

This is why the National Academy of Sciences has an almost reversed percentage of believers and non-believers when compared to the general population of the United States.

So although 90% of leading scientists are atheists… 10% are theists. These are still very smart people.

I think a difference in proportions that large is significant. I think there is something else going on, beyond factors such as education and economic circumstance.

OK, then you need more data. The conventional explanation for disproportionalities in U.S. prison populations is poverty. Poverty breeds crime, and the poor are also unable to afford quality legal representation. In sentencing, judges and juries are biased toward lighter sentences for “upstanding” or “productive” members of society.

That’s the generally accepted explanation, and it fits the observable facts better than yours. Yours completely fails to address the racial disparities in prison population. You’d also need to establish a causal relationship between religion and the crimes committed by the prison population. Rather few of the inmates in U.S. prisons are there for genital mutilation.

(Female genital mutilation, BTW, and to be precise, is a cultural practice not connected with any particular religious tradition.)

This has already been addressed, but Hitler was not an atheist.

Nobody said that he was. Let’s avoid binary logic.

There’s an article on Hitler’s religious beliefs on Wikipedia, FYI.

It’s very clear, from the statistics, that the National Academy of Scientists seldom elects theists to its membership. It also didn’t elect its first black member until 1965. I should assume, then, that there were no sufficiently intelligent or qualified black scientists until 1965.

Bitchen, the national academy of sciences seldom elects theists to its membership because there are not very many theists in the top flight of scientists in the USA. If there are 99 apples in a barrel for every orange, I’m not going to get oranges very often.

I never said I didn’t need more data for the prison statistics discussion.
This is actually why I said “I THINK there is something else going on.” I did not say
“There is something else going on dummy! Open your eyes! Holy shit!”
I also didn’t say there were many people in US prisons for infant genital mutilation (which IS a religiously inspired practice, you don’t get to discount it by saying a culture defined by is simply practising “cultural” genital manipulation.)

Oh and in New York state, a rabbi was giving little boys genital herpes when he sliced around their foreskins and then sucked them off with his blistered mouth. Oh but it was ok for him to do that, he was practising his religion. (One of them died.)

Also… what? The USA was rife with civil rights abuses against blacks for decades, and you’re decrying the fact that the National Academy of Sciences elected a black member in 1965? Holy crap, the “I have a dream…” speech was only made in 1963.

The NAS doesn’t elect women in proportion to the number of female scientists, either. Maybe there just aren’t many women in the top flight of scientists? And no woman has ever been elected president of the NAS. See what statistics can do for you?

I never said I didn’t need more data for the prison statistics discussion.

Fair enough. Then I should take your conclusions based on prison statistics with a grain of salt.

My point was – again – that few U.S. inmates are in prison for religiously-motivated crimes. It’s not a question of them doing bad things dictated by their religious beliefs. That must be allowed for in your analysis.

Oh but it was ok for him to do that, he was practising his religion.

Who said it was o.k. for him to do that?

I’m saying that academia is not immune to prejudice and bias. Read or listen to what women in academia have to say about that.

Hmm.. I don’t think I said drug related offences were anything to do with religion.

However you’re mistaken if you think that I’m talking about religion being overt in these situations.

Domestic violence has to do with control. If a man hits his wife, it is because he believes he needs to to exert his authority over her. The reason he thinks he has authority over her in the first place is because there is a religiously inspired cultural idea that women are property.

There are obvious exceptions to this… maybe the guy’s just a psycho, but it is the perceived superiority and authority of men in the relationship that leads to violence in the majority of cases.

It is religion we have to thank for these factors.

P.S. Sophomoric? My, aren’t we getting a little free with the name calling? You might as well just have called me an idiot.

It is religion we have to thank for these factors.

More oversimplification.

Religious fundamentalists do this, too. Simple, once-sentence explanations to distinguish “us” from “them” and to explain the evils of the world, while assuring themselves that they are above it all.

Don’t know what happened above. Imps, or faeries, I’m sure.

@bichen

They don’t generally target assertive women – it’s not a need to find an empowered women and beat her down to satisfy their notions of a woman’s place.

It is anecdata, but, my personal experience tells me that this statement doesn’t necessarily follow the first statement. (I did not give myself my internet handle, it was bestowed on me many years ago because of my assertiveness. I also regularily get threats tailored for me as a woman stepping over some artificial boundary.) I also have seen other people going through shit when the abuse escalated once someone stood up for herself.

Man.. you really don’t want to read that document do you?

@ Kenny

P.S. Sophomoric?

I don’t necessarily agree with what bichen is saying, but I’d like to point out that it was the statement that was called sophomoric, not you.

That is a given.

To you, it is, because it fits with your need to simplify everything down to “religion.”

To an anthropologist, it’s much more complicated than that.

Hmmm, bichen,

But initially, the women that tend to fall into abusive relationships and not exit when they see the red flags, are often unassertive and lack self-esteem.

And why is that? could it be because they are taught by their culture (which often has a HUGE religiously-derived intellectual base) that they are worthless or second-class?

I may be a ‘believer” (whatever the hell that means) due to an epiphany, but I do credit a great deal of my self-esteem to being brought up in a family environment where religion was an intellectual puzzle to be observed in others, but not something to indulge in myself. It was also NOT something to provide me with rules to live by. My father was most definately an atheist and he took an anarchist’s approach to human behaviour: You have to be very honest to live without law.

It’s very clear, from the statistics, that the National Academy of Scientists seldom elects theists to its membership. It also didn’t elect its first black member until 1965. I should assume, then, that there were no sufficiently intelligent or qualified black scientists until 1965.

The NAS doesn’t elect women in proportion to the number of female scientists, either. Maybe there just aren’t many women in the top flight of scientists? And no woman has ever been elected president of the NAS. See what statistics can do for you?

I’m guessing you didn’t think this through.

Women and blacks have historically been marginalized and underrepresented in virtually every aspect of society. Religious people, on the other hand, are in the clear majority of virtually every aspect of society.

If we follow general social trends then atheist membership in the NAS should be at best equivalent to their representation in the general population, if not lower. Again, see atheist membership in, say, Congress. Female and black underrepresentation is predictable. Atheist overrepresention is a reversal, the exact opposite of predictable. How do you explain that?

I mean, you seem to be implying that there’s some culture of exclusion in the NAS against theists. This notion begs the question of how atheists managed to get so much power within the organization as to be able to exclude what in your hypothesis is a clear majority of theist scientists.

Nice ziggurat!

Nice ziggurat!

I know, what a mess! Sorry if that’s hard to read.

Bitchen, first, what the hell was that thing? If those were supposed to be quotes of mine, you’ve obviously not looked particularly carefully at the names which come directly after “posted by” at the top left of each post.

Secondly, I have repeatedly stated that the attitudes which lead to domestic violence are rooted in cultural bias which comes from religion. I did not say that Little Timmy read in the bible that women are property so he went out and beat the shit out of his girlfriend because she didn’t respect him enough.

Thirdly…. are you separating us into good atheists and bad atheists? Bluejay already quoted Greta Christina.

Bitchen, first, what the hell was that thing? If those were supposed to be quotes of mine, you’ve obviously not looked particularly carefully at the names which come directly after “posted by” at the top left of each post.

I’m also dialoguing with La Sargenta. Obviously, I tried to take one too many shortcuts. Again, I’m sorry.

Thirdly…. are you separating us into good atheists and bad atheists?

I’m treating you as individuals.

You’re treating us as individuals, but you’re still attempting to divide and conquer :D

I don’t expect Bluejay or Josh or Rocketscience or Paul to stand by everything I say, and they do not expect me to do so for them. However I think you’re trying to separate us into good atheists and bad atheists and win your argument that way.

We are having a debate about ideas, so let’s talk about ideas…

Ok. I see now why you’re participating so enthusiastically in this nearly 200 post thread. :D On the plus side, I am enjoying myself immensely.

OK

Bitchen, you cast aspersions about the NAS. Yes, they elect members based on qualifications. That’s the thing about a meritocracy.

You clearly insinuated that the NAS were biased against theists.

“new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”

The NAS has one criteria for election of new members, religious belief is not it.

The wonderful thing about Occam’s razor is that in the absence of any evidence for your second explanation, while it could be made to fit the facts, it is far less likely, and can be discounted until you find any evidence to support it.

Fair enough.

I also know that women and minorities are underrepresented on the boards of major corporations. Corporations promote and hire without regard to gender, race, creed, color, or ethnic origin – trust them.

I would hesitate to draw conclusions about the superior leadership of white males, based on that…

…I know that “old boy” mentality can exist at the top of a field, and it’s self-reinforcing. Just sayin’.

Have a read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/science/04women.html

That because the NAS doesn’t elect new members until they are in their 50’s and are distinguished and continuing contributors in their field, their membership doesn’t reflect the demographics of science as a whole.
Dr Summers comments don’t anything to do with selection… only his thoughts on why there might be relatively few eligible women.

If the membership is lagging the demographics, then why are atheists a higher percentage of membership than of science as a whole?

Why are the male atheists of the NAS lagging in electing women but leading in electing atheists?

Because atheism in science is not new Bitchen. For well over a century, we’ve known enough about the Universe for scientists to widely reject religion.

That does not explain the statistical disparity between scientists in general and the NAS, unless they are either rejecting theists, or the best scientists are atheists. We’ve come right around to where we were.

You’re making a circular argument. You hold up the NAS statistics as proof that atheists are the best scientists, and argue that’s why the vast majority of the NAS membership is atheist.

Maybe the NAS membership just thinks the best scientists are atheists, just as you and a lot of other atheists do.

Maybe the NAS membership just thinks the best scientists are atheists, just as you and a lot of other atheists do.

I’m going to quote JoshB from this other thread (which, in length, this thread is fast rivaling):

From my perspective that is the difference between the atheist, (or rather scientific) view, and the theist one.

Science assumes that the universe is knowable, that we can figure out why things are the way they are if we put our minds to it.

The theist view is that we don’t have to because: God.

This may be a bit of a generalization, but I think there’s some truth in it. A scientific mindset that’s committed to following the evidence wherever it takes you, more often than not leads to atheism. This seems to be true whether you take the 60% atheism in scientists in general or the 97% atheism in the NAS.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson has pointed out that throughout the history of science, even when scientists were religious, they were religious about what they couldn’t yet explain. In other words they believed in the “God of the gaps.” Newton explained an enormous amount of things in great detail in the Principia, and only when he came to stuff he couldn’t figure out did he mention God. But then other scientists came along, generations later, and explained those mysteries without referring to the divine; and so on.

(Of course, there’s still an awful lot that scientists don’t understand, but maybe modern scientists are comfortable being atheists because of science’s established track record: they now see it as likely that any mysteries in the universe can be explained by science, provided we have time to figure it out.)

The thing about bringing God into scientific work is that, I think, it’s an impediment to having the proper mindset to solving mysteries in the natural world; there’s always the temptation to say “God did it” and stop trying to figure it out.

I’m not scientifically trained, just an avid science reader. Maybe Kenny has more to say about this.

The thing about bringing God into scientific work is that, I think, it’s an impediment to having the proper mindset to solving mysteries in the natural world; there’s always the temptation to say “God did it” and stop trying to figure it out.

It’s potentially an impediment, agreed. Certitude of any kind is always an impediment to further study. Lots of people can fall into that trap, including theists.

You’re misunderstanding the “God of the Gaps” as it applies to theism. Newton’s faith in God was in no way diminished by his scientific discoveries. Science did not replace a portion of his theism. It’s not a tradeoff, except for those whose theism runs no deeper than superstitious explanations of natural phenomena.

The NAS doesn’t “think atheists make better scientists”
The point is that better science tends to make atheists.

These sentences contradict each other. If you believe something to be a fact, then that’s what you think.

These sentences contradict each other. If you believe something to be a fact, then that’s what you think.

No they don’t.

Most scientists are atheists.
Most A’s are B’s

All athiests are good scientists.
All B’s are good A’s.

The second statement does not at all follow the first. See Stalin, Lysenkoism.

Well in response to Bluejay, what I’d say is simply that any preconceived idea is a bar to good science. It’s just that when you already think something is the case, it’s harder to be analytical and keep personal bias out of your work.

“Better science tends to make atheists” is the belief.

The NAS elects atheists much more often than theists, is the action.

Are atheists objectively better scientists? If both statements above are accepted as fact, and the NAS action is not due to outright bias, than the answer to the third question must be “yes.”

Therefore, the notion that “better science makes atheists,” leads to the conclusion that “atheistic scientists are better scientists.” So you (or the NAS, at least) must think – or know, if you prefer – that the atheist candidates for the NAS are the better scientists.

Otherwise, there’s no point to quoting the NAS statistics in the first place.

That’s the train of thought, isn’t it?

Josh already refuted your statement Bitchen, but I’ll expand upon his post a little.

“The NAS doesn’t “think atheists make better scientists” The point is that better science tends to make atheists.” Is not a contradiction.

When I say that A does not make B, I do not contradict myself when I say that B does can make A.

Paintings do not paint painters, but painters paint paintings.

“Better science tends to make atheists” is the belief.

The NAS elects atheists much more often than theists, is the action.

Are atheists objectively better scientists? If both statements above are accepted as fact, and the NAS action is not due to outright bias, than the answer to the third question must be “yes.”

Therefore, the notion that “better science makes atheists,” leads to the conclusion that “atheistic scientists are better scientists.” So you (or the NAS, at least) must think – or know, if you prefer – that the atheist candidates for the NAS are the better scientists.

Otherwise, there’s no point to quoting the NAS statistics in the first place.

That’s the train of thought, isn’t it?

Ok. No, that isn’t the train of thought.

The point of quoting those statistics in the first place was as part of a discussion based on the effects of intelligence on religiosity.

These statistics did not exist until fairly recently. To say that the NAS had an opinion on the religiosity of its members is daft, as they generally didn’t know how religious these people were. They elect members based on their careers as scientists.

Also you’re entirely missing the point that the NAS doesn’t recruit like a corporation. They don’t elect people based on what they think their future contributions are going to be… they elect those who have already had a successful career in science.

And even if you don’t accept that…

The NAS doesn’t think atheists do better science, they think that better science tends to make people atheists.

Works just fine.

[Kenny wrote] Well in response to Bluejay, what I’d say is simply that any preconceived idea is a bar to good science. It’s just that when you already think something is the case, it’s harder to be analytical and keep personal bias out of your work.

[bitchen frizzy wrote] Totally agree with this.

But where are you going with this, bitchen? Going by your comments thus far, it’s not hard for me to suppose that you think scientists’ atheism is itself a “preconceived idea.” (If I’m putting words in your mouth, please stop me.) Are you setting up to argue that scientists should formally consider God as a possible explanation for every scientific problem? Because even if a scientist is religious, it seems to me that the notion of God as a cause of natural phenomena is an empirically untestable (and therefore useless) hypothesis in science. It’s why the Intelligent Design proponents have no credibility in the scientific community; ID is not science.

Bluejay :) I have a dragon in my garage.

Apology accepted, Captain Nee–I mean, Tonio. ;-)

Aw, gee. I’m all choked up.;-)

I’ve taken to picturing Bluejay like this, cuddly and with near infinite patience.

That toy looks neat. And it just so happens my sister’s daughter collects stuffed animals in that series.

What would this athiest diplomacy look like? How would you, Tonio, be diplomatic in explaining to a Hindu why you believe in Jesus rather than Shiva? In my estimation the only way to do this would be to open the conversation with “Let’s agree to disagree. How about those [insert sports team]!”

Fair enough, JoshB. But I learned the hard way that people were more likely to listen to my complaints about various ethnic stereotypes when I stopped trying to play the fiery Chicano militant than when I did.

Plus I grew up with a Mexican-born father who noted many times the difference between taking a legitimate stand against prejudice (which he approved of) and shameless Anglo-baiting (which he didn’t).

However, those are my issues, not yours. And I should not have offered unsolicited advice.

Plus I have noted the points Kenny and Bluejay have already made in response to that post.

Oh and in New York state, a rabbi was giving little boys genital herpes when he sliced around their foreskins and then sucked them off with his blistered mouth. Oh but it was ok for him to do that, he was practising his religion. (One of them died.)

You realize, of course, that most Jews would approve of that rabbi about as much as most Catholics approve of Father Rudy Kos.

Nice ziggurat!

Yes, it was, Bitchen Frizzy. Bluejay’s wasn’t too shabby either. :-)

*given them herpes and killed one, as well as just sucking off their foreskins.

Another cracking thread I find late. Oh well. Good readin’ times in any case.

I note this from bitchin’ way up top, discussing whether people are atheist or agnostic:

By default, people are undecided or follow their parent’s beliefs without much consideration. An atheist has reached the intellectual conclusion that religious belief is false.

I don’t think that definition of atheism holds anymore. Increasingly I meet people who can’t be described as either of the above. They have grown up with no religious or supreme being concepts whatsoever. There’s no rational conclusion to reach (or be unsure of) since the question for them does not exist.

This isn’t a big surprise in Australia, being one of the more secular places on earth for a couple of generations now. But there really isn’t a better term than atheist for these people, regardless of how technically apt one thinks it is.

This is something worth keeping an eye on too, since, as we can see here, most of our definitions depend on addressing one way or the other the idea of a supreme being (and it is pretty exclusively monotheistic). The notion that the whole question can be brushed aside entirely, psychologically and culturally irrelevant to enough people to potentially call a population, is utterly marvellous to me.

For the time being we’re probably stuck with the old paradigm, however. On that subject there is a lot of talk about vocal atheists being “nicer” or more diplomatic around the place.

Well, for one thing, you can’t expect Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and coiner of the Meme concept, to not behave as though his ideas are in aggressive competition with other ideas. That would be silly.

But also the religious seem to forget that there’s no nice way of saying that the font of all grace, maker of all things, the beacon of light in the universe, the thing of pure love most dear to you, where you come from and shall return… doesn’t actually exist, at all. There’s just not. OK, you can couch it nice polite terms and sort of ease the shock a little bit, but ultimately there’s no way of getting around it. It’s a horrible psyche shattering thought atheists hold. Being reminded of it hurts. They’re insulting your mother and kicking your dog at the same time.

Some will say they know lots of atheists who are their friends and they agree to disagree all the time and it doesn’t affect their faith in any discernable way. This is probably true, but I’m willing to bet they don’t get down to brass tacks in these discussions very often. When you actualy do it can get rather uptight. And it always will.
Once all the “who is the ultimate font of all evil?” stuff is hashed out there’s still that sticking point that can’t help but offend, regardless of the words used.

I don’t think that definition of atheism holds anymore. Increasingly I meet people who can’t be described as either of the above. They have grown up with no religious or supreme being concepts whatsoever. There’s no rational conclusion to reach (or be unsure of) since the question for them does not exist.

That’s very interesting.

I’m working my way (slowly) through the book Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht, in which, among other things, she argues that religious belief was once held with this kind of easy-going attitude; people lived in small, like-minded communities and simply took faith for granted, the same way they took for granted that the sun was bright and water was wet. There saw no need to question or even really think about it. It was in the big cities, with all sorts of cultures brushing up against each other, that people realized their beliefs weren’t universally shared, and began to see their religion as a matter of active belief. And once there was active belief, there was active doubt as well.

Anyway, interesting stuff. I may be misstating her argument, so I suppose I should go back to reading the book soon…

Oh, yeh, the original point of this thread.

I felt my ire rise somewhat when I read “this atheist”, as if it’s some kind of insult… but I’ll let it slide.
He is from Australia. Was your mission in Australia? Do you know of the policy of the LDS church concerning door approaches in that nation?
My assumption, and it was just that, was that he had been the victim of numerous door approaches early on a Saturday morning.
He chose to travel to the heart of LDS territory for a bit of satire.

What I am driving at, Bluejay, is confirmation as provided by Kenny.

Atheists hold a belief that the “theistic mindset” [quotes because it’s your words] renders a person less capable of doing good science. They’re just not going to work as hard at it.

I’ve seen this reasoning before, in other circumstances, complete with the same circular argument.

When white males hold the positions of power in politics and business, it must be because they are best suited for that. The proof is that are the ones in charge, so obviously they’re best suited. Those who challenge the glass ceilings are met with the same patronizing condenscention. Those that hold the top positions are sincerely convinced of their own entitlement to those positions – they rose to the top, didn’t they, and on their own merits. Of course the path to the top is open to anyone qualified – the company policy clearly states that promotions are without regard to gender or race.

9:1 ratio, just happened spontaneously? Really?

And if atheists don’t want theism out of science, how do you explain the likes of Dawkins? And, honestly, do you really have no desire to see theism taken out of science, or is it just not polite to say so in mixed company?

Just wanted to add, 24:50-27:20 of that video is especially applicable to the conversation of theism in science.

As a scientist (applied sciences, though, aka engineering) who also can be called a theist (although I certainly don’t go along with the idea of a divine watchmaker or some human-shaped law-giver on a throne or something similar) I’ve got to say that the problem with a helluva lotta theists I’ve met who go into the sciences are that they are too wedded to their dogma. They bring it along and cling to it and encase it in steel to prevent it from changing and they try to make their work fit the dogma instead of exploring and seeing where it leads.

Personally, my epiphany happened when I was very small and I held to the memory of my experience and didn’t try to bind or explain it with any dogma. The more I studied as I grew up, the more I found a place to fit that experience in the real world instead of in a set of rules from a heavily edited text. The study did not lessen my belief in the eternal, if anything, it actually increased it.

In another thread, I’ve told a story about a geologist I met who managed to live with some severe cognitive dissonance as he was a strict creationist but still working as a geologist. I must say, with regards to that individual, I do think that his religious (note I did NOT say theistic) ideas and ideals made him an inferior scientist. He was still perfectly good at mechanics — how hard a substance is, what its engineering properties are, etc. — but, the broader work in geology requires an ability to see the history of our planet as something older than one created October 22, 4004 BC in the evening.

I concur with pretty much everything Josh said. As far as “explaining the likes of Dawkins,” I’d say that he wants science to be free from useless (in terms of scientific inquiry) God hypotheses; but he wouldn’t have a problem with religious scientists as long as they set aside any notions of unprovable supernatural causation when they’re at work, and just do science. I could be wrong about Dawkins’ opinions, though; do you have any passages of his in mind? If you can quote me something, I could tell you if I agree with it or not.

Also: I don’t think the NAS asks scientists what their religious beliefs are, before they’re admitted. And unlike with women or minorities, it’s not obvious on sight who the religious and nonreligious ones are. Therefore, it’s not a factor in their selection criteria. Therefore, yes, in this case, the 9:1 ratio was not engineered to be that way, but just happens to be so.

Kenny said as much already, but I don’t think you addressed it:

They induct scientists based on long, successful careers and real meaty contributions to science. They don’t ask them if they believe in God or not first. It just so happens that when they’re done electing people, there are not that many theistic ones.

the “theistic mindset” [quotes because it’s your words]

If you’re talking to me, those are Kenny’s words, not mine.

Thanks for the link, Josh. I can’t watch the whole thing now, but I saw a portion where he talked about the Dover trial, which was a fascinating case, I think. Some good ID-demolishing arguments were made there.

By the way Bitchen… I have tried, very hard I might add, to use your words in context. I do this because I am having a debate with you about logic and reality.

Do not take my words out of context, as this just looks like you’re trying to score points. Let’s try to keep the debate honest shall we?

And before I forget, touche Bluejay on “theistic mindset” not being your words. If that bit on “theistic mindset” being a hindrance to good science does not apply to you, then I apologize.

@LaSargenta:
I am not a creationist, and yes, holding onto explanations of the workings of the universe in contradiction to the evidence would indeed hinder science. I maintain that the notion of the “god of the gaps” as science displacing theism in an honest theistic scientists mind is often oversimplified. Newton was as theistic as any creationist.

Fair enough, and agreed.

@JoshB:

That dig about “mixed company” was appallingly bad manners on my part, and I regretted it as soon as I posted it.

The first part of that sentence, valid question: Do you desire to see theism taken out of science?

That’s been answered as such: Theism should not influence the science done by theists.

How does that figure into the membership of the NAS, if at all? I don’t know. The statistics are very interesting, and well worth discussing. I am permitted a hypothesis. In a debate, when someone presents statistics, it can be expected that the opposition will present another way of explaining those statistics.

This isn’t the kind of debate format where someone can be forced to answer a yes-or-no question then be cut off, like a witness being cross-examined. Those being asked the question can disagree with how it is phrased, or the challenge the logic behind it, qualify their answers, of just not answer it.

And I don’t think you’re a dummy, or a mysogynist, or a woman-hater.

Then again, maybe I’m a paranoid asshole making the hypothesis. Could be, could be.

( And it shoulda been, “religion-hater” not “woman-hater”.)

You have taken the term “theistic mindset” out of context. It is dishonest of you to do that…

No, it means I misunderstood you. Genuine puzzlement: then you are saying that not all theistic scientists have a theistic mindset? Do most of them?

Oh I don’t doubt that some theists consider the majesty of the Universe to be a complement to their faith… these would of course tend to be slightly less literal believers.

No, it means I misunderstood you. Genuine puzzlement: then you are saying that not all theistic scientists have a theistic mindset? Do most of them?

In that case I apologise. Firstly, I dislike the term “theistic scientists” it has tinges of the morons they wheel out to support intelligent design. Let’s call them “scientists who are theists”. I know it’s more cumbersome, but it at least indicates that their theism doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with their jobs as scientists.

I am saying that the theistic mindset is one which colours everything about a person’s view of the world. I am saying that this “god did it” view, when strong, would probably mean somebody would never become a scientist in the first place. I think that you can be a theist and not hold this mindset. Many, many people are what would probably best be described as deists, though the term has somewhat fallen out of use. Many people who are theists consider their faith to be entirely separate from the dogma of their particular religion. Again, they would not be at nearly as much of a disadvantage.

@Kenny

OK, but based on the above statistics, of those theists who pursue higher education in science and engineering, fewer than half of them enter academia. And of those that do enter academia, almost none achieve the honor of NAS membership.

And the numbers are way past the point of statistical fluctuations.

This isn’t “just happening.” Somebody has a bias, and I want to know who. Either scientists who are theists are biased (and I do believe they can choose this, they aren’t victims) against doing good science, or the atheists who do the electing are biased against the theists.

And if it’s the former, then it would have to be that most – almost all, in the case of the NAS – of the scientists who are theists are biased due to a theistic mindset. That’s the only way the math works out.

What does “good science” consist of, anyway? You make a novel discovery or groundbreaking research… that’s “good science,” at least to a layman’s understanding. How on earth could theistic astronomers, say, manage to fail at that so badly? I can’t imagine most of them saying, “Well, what I see through the telescope defies my belief in God, so I won’t report it or won’t believe it!” I mean, I’m a theist, and I look at the universe and say, “Yeah, it’s awfully big, and old, and the center is clearly not the earth.”

Heck, even the ones that support intelligent design aren’t all “morons,” just the ones that are coopting that term to support a sort of crypto-creationisism – unless that’s most of them. I mean, intelligent design (unless the term now means something different than last I checked do to co-option) doesn’t preclude valid and valuable work on evolutionary biology.

Heck, even the ones that support intelligent design aren’t all “morons,” just the ones that are coopting that term to support a sort of crypto-creationisism – unless that’s most of them. I mean, intelligent design (unless the term now means something different than last I checked do to co-option) doesn’t preclude valid and valuable work on evolutionary biology.

The reasons why ID isn’t accepted by the scientific community as valid science seem to be pretty clearly laid out here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design#Defining_science

The reasons why ID isn’t accepted by the scientific community as valid science seem to be pretty clearly laid out here

I read the articles, with apologies to MaryAnn for adding to the click count.

I’m not defending ID as valid science. I’m asking why ID renders an astronomer incapable of valid science, or hinders him or her to such a degree that they would not be able to do good science.

How is commitment to the scientific method gauged? What criteria establish commitment?

1. Atheists are more likely to ‘self-select’

Please explain what you mean by this. I think I know, but I don’t want to misunderstand.

The NAS does not ask people if they are religious before election. We’ve said it dozens of times… they don’t overlook people who go to church and take inferior candidates who don’t. They just go by how good a scientist they’ve shown themselves to be.

Let’s take it as a given that they don’t apply litmus tests, and that they sincerely select the scientists who they deem are most qualified, so we can get past this and not add another dozen iterations.

It is the last part, I think, which would cause many theists to stumble.

How would it become evident in their work? What would be the “fail”?

Allowing the evidence and results to dictate your thinking. Not being afraid to throw your entire theory out the window and start over when the observed data doesn’t fit.

Am I misinterpreting if I take this to mean that you are stating that scientists who are theists are more likely to do this than scientists who are not? Why would an astronomer who is a theist be less likely to reject results that don’t fit his hypothesis than one who is not a theist? Would it go too far to say they have a subconscious bias against the data or conclusions, due to their theism? Or is it that their theism is due to the same shortcomings that render them incapable of objectivity in their scientific studies?

Your kids are less likely to be scientists if you’re of the opinion that the world is 5000 years old and you think Jesus made friends with the dinosaurs.

To be fair to the children of devout parents who are demonstrably good scientists, this is not something that is congenital or inescapable.

I hope that wasn’t too rambling and that it made a certain amount of sense.

Three details don’t entirely make sense to me. Correct me anywhere that I’m wrong:
1) Lots of devout Christians aver that Darwin was correct and his conclusions are not inconsistent with their beliefs. Assuming that they are not lying, are they carrying a subconscious bias that they consciously deny but cannot overcome in their work?
2) Failing to note morphological differences in a species being studied sounds like a gross oversight, as is failure to follow up on the reasons behind why some can jump farther than others. Do I read you correctly in stating that a theist is more likely to commit such an oversight subconsciously?
3) How does this generalize to math, or to astronomy, or to engineering, or to any other field where conclusions are highly unlikely to conflict with preconceptions due to theism? I’m having a great deal of difficulty understanding how a mathemetician or a chemist could be so affected. Could you explain?

@Kenny

1. Well, I know that’s what we’re discussing. That’s why I was interested in your answer to this question.
2. Preconceptions affect everybody. I can almost understand your point about a creationist missing or subconsciously overlooking a detail supportive of evolution, though it does require me to accept as a given that perceptiveness is blunted by judgement at the subconscious level. I have trouble believing that theists are adversely affected by preconceptions, in far higher numbers than atheists, and in all fields of scientific endeavor.
3. You lost me here. Preconceptions, of the theistic sort, will compromise a scientist’s ability to do math, or to study black holes?

The Big Bang theory was proposed by a Roman Catholic priest.

What’s also interesting is that Einstein that missed his opportunity to make the discovery of an expanding universe. He noted the necessity of a coefficient of expansion to make the math work. He then refused to believe the conclusion, on the preconceived notion that the universe cannot expand. Lemaitre had to correct him. Einstein’s initial comment to Lemaitre? “Your math is correct, but your physics is terrible.”

Now I think Einstein was a pretty damn good scientist, myself. But he was not free of preconceptions that blinded him to something staring up at him from the page, either.

Here’s video of Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about that idea that religious belief has hamstrung the thinking of various scientists in history.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vrpPPV_yPY

just in case folks want to check it out. It’s the sort of point Myers and Coyne et al often make as well. How relevant it is today and how big an issue for a given scientist doing particular work in some field is up for debate I suppose. It would be hard to pin down. Ken Miller is the poster boy for the best of both worlds and he seems to be doing ok, I guess. Although the above two guys do, on a regular basis, lay into the wishy-washyness that creeps into Ken’s books when wanders off to that subject.

(and cheers to Bluejay for the book recs)

Well, I don’t necessarily want to say it, but the original point of the investigation which provided us with the statistics was about intelligence and how it affected religiosity.
Their findings were that, as you went up the scale of intelligence, fewer and fewer people in each percentile were religious.
The thing is, the average IQ in the NAS is higher than the average IQ in the scientific community as a whole.

Whoa! Stop the presses! There’s no litmus test for the NAS, and that includes IQ, which is a measure of intelligence derived from standardized testing.

It’s one thing to say that atheists are better scientists than theists, it’s another thing to say that atheists are objectively and measurably more intelligent than theists.

Can I be forgiven for wondering if you are implying that theistic scientists are stupider than atheistic scientists?

There are theistic scientists in the NAS.

And I’m sorry, but that was the original point of the survey they did to establish religiosity in the NAS in the first place.

Here’s a wiki link for you. Please enjoy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence#Studies_comparing_religious_belief_and_I.Q.

It’s when they try to scientifically prove God’s existence and intervention in the universe that they run into trouble, as criticisms of Intelligent Design Theory show.

Bluejay, unless you can demonstrate that the majority of scientists who are theists are actively engaged in this, then this assertion has no broad application, especially with regards to sciences other than biology and geology. If you truly believe that this behavior is characteristic of theistic scientists, then you are stereotying.

Carl Sagan was a pop scientist, more famous and highly regarded for his TV shows and bestselling books than anything groundbreaking he did in science. The NAS gave him a medal, but they denied him membership. He was also denied tenure at Harvard. Basically, he was a talking head.

@Kenny:

I didn’t ingore the remainder of your post. First, a lousy analogy to sunrise – the belief that the sun will rise tomorrow is not a preconception, it’s a conclusion based on mountains of data and repeatable results.

As for the rest, you repeated your insinuation that a theistic scientist will not follow a line of reasoning to its conclusion.

I read your wiki link. The two scientists who have made a correlation between testable IQ and atheism are Helmuth Nyborg and Richard Lynn. Both of them and their conclusions are highly controversial and hotly disputed within the scientific community.

Helmuth Nyborg has also asserted that men have higher IQ’s than women. Richard Lynn claims his evidence shows that whites have higher IQ’s than blacks. Their methodology and reasoning are both under attack, and not by me but by the scientific community.

I can however make a call based on logic. I think NAS members, on average, are more intelligent than the average scientist. I do not think that is a controversial claim.

A call based on logic requires evidence, not supposition. To the truth, it matters not what you think. It was you who put forth the claim that NAS members have higher IQ’s. That’s a testable claim. I can reasonably request the data. If you don’t have it, then it’s a hypothesis at best, not a call you can make. And if it’s an unsupported assumption, then it’s entirely fair for me to suppose that your preconceptions are coloring that assumption.

It’s when they try to scientifically prove God’s existence and intervention in the universe that they run into trouble, as criticisms of Intelligent Design Theory show.

Bluejay, unless you can demonstrate that the majority of scientists who are theists are actively engaged in this, then this assertion has no broad application, especially with regards to sciences other than biology and geology. If you truly believe that this behavior is characteristic of theistic scientists, then you are stereotying.

I never said that the majority of religious scientists are engaged in doing this. I was saying the opposite: that religious scientists can do good science, and it’s only when they (i.e. some of them) attempt to prove ID that they don’t pass muster with the scientific community. I meant it more as an aside, and I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear. Please don’t be so quick to assume the worst about my motives.

Carl Sagan was a pop scientist, more famous and highly regarded for his TV shows and bestselling books than anything groundbreaking he did in science. The NAS gave him a medal, but they denied him membership. He was also denied tenure at Harvard. Basically, he was a talking head.

I’m surprised you dismiss him as a “mere” popularizer of science, as I happen to think making science accessible to the public is a pretty important job. His gift for communication made him a talking head, but he knew what he was talking about. And he had respectable scientific achievements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Scientific_achievements …He did solid work, contributing to the increase of scientific knowledge–which is more often incremental than “groundbreaking.” That’s a point a lot of people don’t seem to get.

In any case, this is an ad hominem dismissal, isn’t it? What does any of this have to do with the validity of his description of the scientific community?

@Hank: That’s a fair point.

Please don’t be so quick to assume the worst about my motives.

I’m not quick to assume that. If the majority of theists aren’t doing that, then why do you think this point is even relevant to a discussion on why the majority of scientist are atheists? You’re bringing it up for some reason. I thought it was as evidence for why theistic scientists don’t do as good a job as atheistic ones. But that cannot be a valid point unless it applies to a statistically significant number of theistic scientists. If I’m wrong, please explain.

In any case, this is an ad hominem dismissal, isn’t it? What does any of this have to do with the validity of his description of the scientific community?

Goes to his credibility. If he was a mediocre scientist, as gauged by the scientific community, then how is his POV on science any more valid than any other mediocre scientists, or anyone else’s POV?

Otherwise, the point stands.

You brought a wikipedia article. So did I. Why is my burden of proof higher than yours?

You point about IQ is proven only so far as Nyborg’s and Lynn’s work is credible.

I also did NOT insinuate

OK, so you didn’t insinuate. You said it outright. And I don’t agree with you.

If the majority of theists aren’t doing that, then why do you think this point is even relevant to a discussion on why the majority of scientist are atheists?

Ah, I see. I wasn’t trying to speculate on why there are more atheist scientists, as you and Kenny are doing. I was trying to address your specific question about “how commitment to the scientific method is gauged.” My answer was the peer review system, and criticism of ID was my example.

As for Sagan, I don’t think his description of peer review in the scientific community is controversial; I’ve read other eminent scientists saying the same thing, though I admit I don’t have those quotes at hand. If you’ve seen or heard of NAS members disputing that this is how scientists work, I’d be genuinely interested in knowing about it. And just because Sagan’s work wasn’t deemed NAS-worthy doesn’t mean his points about scientific process can’t be valid. An actor can speak knowledgeably about the workings and politics of the acting community even if he or she hasn’t won an Oscar.

Otherwise, the point stands.

You brought a wikipedia article. So did I. Why is my burden of proof higher than yours?

No you didn’t. I did look… you did not bring anything other than your “Nah, they’re hacks and the scientific community all think so.” comment. No links. Perhaps you forgot to put it in? I would love to read it.

I also did NOT insinuate

OK, so you didn’t insinuate. You said it outright. And I don’t agree with you.

I did no such thing. You have decided what you think I was saying, and drawn an incorrect conclusion. You therefore are disagreeing with your own erroneous conclusion. I find that interesting.

ARRGH!! Sorry. In the above, I switch back to Kenny after “Fair enough.”

Merely acheiving tenure is not just about results or test scores, it’s also an honor that must be conferred.

And he became, a scant two years later, a professor (complete with tenure) at Cornell University. Are you arguing that somehow Cornell is not a noteworthy institution? It is reasonably common for young aspiring academics to move between a couple of universities before they settle into their tenured position. Trumpteing that Sagan was somehow not a good scientists because he was “denied tenure at Harvard” while leaving out the rest of the facts about his career is simply silly.

And Sagan was an atheist. If the NAS has some sort of bias in favor of atheists (which you seem to imply) then wouldn’t that mean that he would have had a leg up in getting membership? And yet he didn’t. Your arguments, no matter which way you look at them simply don’t make sense.

…while leaving out the rest of the facts about his career is simply silly.

And for the rest of his science career, he did fairly routine work. Solid work, but nothing revolutionary or that someone else assigned to it would not likely have accomplished.

Why are you rising to his defence, out of the blue?

Sagan is a darling to the choir he preaches to, but outside of that his credibility is limited.

I suppose this is fair, although the choir seems to be pretty large; I’m actually not familiar with those who question his credibility and their reasons for it. Look, the guy was a public figure and got recognition from lots of different sources, not all of them equally distinguished; but among his awards (see his Wiki article) are four medals from NASA, including for “Distinguished Public Service” and “Exceptional Scientific Achievement,” and the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction. The award you mentioned that was given to him by the NAS was the Public Welfare Medal, for “his ability to communicate the wonder and importance of science, to capture the imagination of so many, and to explain difficult concepts of science in understandable terms.” Which tells me that, whatever the NAS thought of his own individual work as a scientist, they thought he was doing a pretty darn good job of communicating science to the public. Which makes his general-audience books about science credible enough to me.

Can we agree that Cornell is not a talisman that dispells mediocrity and preconceptions?

Is Harvard?

And if I’m being patronizing, then smack me.

SMACK!!!

Hah.. good point Dokeo.

I’m arguing, essentially, that the National Academy are not bigots with an unfair selection process weighted against people who believe in God.

I think that, in general, scientists who are atheists are higher achievers. Part of this debate has been a very detailed discussion of why that might be the case.

Apart from that, earlier in the debate, we discussed multiple topics. The usual tropes of any theist vs atheist debate, though with a focus on morality, since we don’t have a creationist in the mix.

Bitchen, I’ll write this separately, in case it gets lost in the recent posts.

Is your theory about the fact that the NAS only has about 35* theistic members supported by anything other than the fact that they only have, well, 35 theistic members?
And is this a theory shared by other theists in general, or did you come up with it on your own? I had never heard a whiff of it before you brought it up.

(* The last membership total I heard was 500+)

Running down Sagan’s credentials seems a bit of a non sequitor in all this. I’m not sure what the point of that would be (the last time I saw that was Ben Stein doing it in the midst of the Expelled farrago, if memory serves).

If him not being Einstein is somehow a problem for what he says, just substitute Richard Feynman who says largely similar things and is probably the second most quoted science populariser of the seventies and eighties (sixties too, for that matter). I trust his credentials are up to standard. (although I suspect his battles with the NAS would just muddy the waters of an already confusing topic)

Well, Dokeo, the problem isn’t so much that people of faith choose other professions (I am sure they do… as a group, atheists are disproportionately well represented in Science as a whole)

It’s just that the general scientific community boasts something like 40% believers, and the elite NAS boasts only 7%… we’re arguing over why that difference exists.

You know. I am going to go out on a limb here. I’m going to submit another hypothesis.

Could it be that the general scientific community has a level of knowledge which allows 40% of them to reasonably happily hang onto their faith… while the elite of science simply know more about it and just don’t feel like they need God?

I would be interested in how many of the 93% were theists earlier in their careers.

Also. I am going to say this as nicely as I can Bitchen… You made another dig about atheism and agnosticism being interchangeable.

Not that the labels matter as much today as they did then.

We’ve very patiently explained this to you. We are atheists who also happen to be agnostic. Atheist because we do not believe in God, and agnostic only in so far as to make the claim that there definitely is no God would be a statement we cannot make without evidence.
As Richard Dawkins said… I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of my garden.
The labels do matter. When you pretend they don’t, it sounds like you’re dismissing our beliefs as irrelevant. I have never done this to you.

I would be interested in how many of the 93% were theists earlier in their careers.

Yes, this.

I would hazard a guess that most of the 90% do not come from long family traditions of atheism. Most probably come from religious families and became atheist.

OK, had a family emergency this week, pressed for time. Don’t know if I can come back to this much. Let me summarize some points.

You effectively told me to go and do your research for you. Not good enough.

Well, you gave me a wikipedia article and a few lines about why you thought it was relevant; I responded in kind. I believe the science behind the IQ claims on your wiki link lacks credibility; and my look at the wiki pages about the scientists that came up with those claims confirmed my suspicion that their work is far is from generally accepted by their peers. Then too, there’s my own informed inclination to believe that IQ tests are of limited usefulness and reliability as a measure of intelligence – particularly given challenges to the methodology of the researchers conducting them and interpreting them. So, I guess that’s a long-winded way of saying that I don’t give the IQ argument much merit to begin with.

You will accept no explanation other than the one you decided upon a hundred posts ago.

It’s not necessary for me to accept explanations, or agree with them, and my failure to accept them is no reflection on the effectiveness of your presentation or your persuasiveness. I understand them while learning a lot in the process of understanding them. It’s my hope that you understand my argument but I never for a minute believed you were going to buy it.

Seriously, when do people ever actually change each other’s minds on these internet debates, in a big way? I think it’s been a productive discussion, and I take a lot away from it. The introduction to Greta Christian is a real gem for me to take away, for instance. There comes a point, though, when the argument starts to go in circles or stalls, because it gets down to what we believe to be true and I’ve seldom seen forum debates change people’s minds on the major points.

I certainly hope the “fool” statement was recognized as a figure of speech – used by no less than Obi-Wan, for one – and not intended literally as calling anyone a fool. It was specifically in response to AJP’s comment,

Your arguments, no matter which way you look at them simply don’t make sense.

on the grounds that if he feels that way then why read my drivel, or take time out of his life to dignify it with a response; and why are others actually working at reading and refuting me? “Sod off, bitchen” would be a lot less work to type and would save a lot of posts if I’m simply not making sense.

I’m not “running Sagan down”. As a kid, I took in every episode of “Cosmos” like the desert takes in rain; and he was one of my inspirations for an amateur interest in astronomy and cosmology. But putting his achievements into perspective is not unreasonable. I was suprised by the vigor with which people rose to his defense, and learned a bit from that: he’s still something of a hero.

Kenny, you’ll scroll up to find others making the suggestion that perhaps the labels don’t matter as much, and I must respectfully submit that I’m inclined to agree with them on this. You’ll have to take the matter up with them. It is not necessary for you (not “we”) to keep “patiently explaining” to me why I am obligated to agree with you. Please also note that I pointed out to someone who called Sagan an atheist that he actually insisted on being called an agnostic. On your’s (sincerely) and Sagan’s behalf, I didn’t let it slide.

When you pretend they don’t, it sounds like you’re dismissing our beliefs as irrelevant.

I certainly don’t mean to do that. I’ve gotten into arguments with theists who won’t draw the distinctions between reasoned atheism, agnosticism of someone who didn’t go to church as a child but has never really thought about it, agnosticism of social churchgoers, ideological atheists, etc.

I would be interested in how many of the 93% were theists earlier in their careers.

I would too. That’s a very good question. And you know where a devil’s advocate would go with that: how much did peer pressure and conformity have to do with their change of heart, especially given that many childhood theists are that way largely out of habit?

Bluejay said:

Is Harvard?

I’m not sure what you mean. I don’t think any university is. And smackdown accepted. I don’t know how to make suggestions to people without coming across as patronizing, and maybe it’s not possible, though a more gifted or persuasive speaker than I might have managed better.

AJP, I meant, why are you rising to Sagan’s defense. Sorry that wasn’t clear.

But that doesn’t fit your narrative, so I’m sure the facts won’t get in your way.

This is nothing but flamebait. Again, why bother with me, if you think so little of me or my argument?

LaSargenta:

Kenny, there could be another issue at work with the stats. What is the breakdown of the fields in the NAS? Is there a difference in percentage of theists in different fields? Are the less theist fields heavily represented in the NAS?

Another good question: as I remember from what I gathered on teh webz, it varies a little bit but it’s an overwhelming majority atheist in every field. I would like to be corrected on this if I’m wrong. If it’s just biologists and geologists, well then I really am a fool for having argued this long. I seem to recall that theists were the most represented in field of mathematics – 12% is my hazy recollection.

This is why I emphasized the point that it’s not merely a question of straining out the creationists and ID’ers. It’s not simply a matter of theists who overtly bring religion into their work – like a creationist – being ruled out for high honors. Astronomers, engineers, and mathemeticians too, to only a slightly lesser extent.

Back to Kenny (I think this was Kenny’s):

And is this a theory shared by other theists in general, or did you come up with it on your own? I had never heard a whiff of it before you brought it up.

I can’t generalize to all theists, but it’s not my personal hypothesis (not theory, I don’t have anything like the kind of proof for that, nor am I anywhere close to convinced that I’m anything more than paranoid). I don’t think your typical theist has given it much thought, to be honest. The NAS is not exactly close to daily life or in the news all the time, and academia is to some extent a world of its own, too. To see it expressed with conviction elsewhere, surf the sites of the radicals, for example creationists.

Oh, and I hope your family emergency works out ok…

bitchen: First off, re: your family emergency–I hope everything is okay.

Bluejay said:

Is Harvard [a talisman that dispels mediocrity and preconceptions]?

I’m not sure what you mean. I don’t think any university is.

What I meant was that you used Sagan’s denial of tenure at Harvard as part of an attempt to discredit him, which implied that you thought Harvard’s standards were unimpeachable, as opposed to Cornell’s. I was pushing back against that. I also think that, given his accomplishments and publications and the degree to which he influenced the public’s knowledge and attitudes about science worldwide, suggesting that he’s merely the liberal atheist/agnostic equivalent of Ann Coulter is pretty silly. But this all seems beside the point in this thread. Sagan’s reputation doesn’t need my defense, and everything he’s done and said is in the public record. If you’re not impressed, you’re not impressed.

As a kid, I took in every episode of “Cosmos” like the desert takes in rain; and he was one of my inspirations for an amateur interest in astronomy and cosmology. But putting his achievements into perspective is not unreasonable. I was suprised by the vigor with which people rose to his defense, and learned a bit from that: he’s still something of a hero.

Fair enough. I’ll admit he’s a hero to me. (Just FYI, I discovered Sagan as an adult, so he’s not just a hero to impressionable young kids.) And I wish you’d mentioned this about yourself earlier; the way you immediately attacked Sagan after I quoted him implied you scorn and dismiss everything he did. I suppose lack of context and nuance is one of the hazards of Internet conversation.

And no, putting his achievements in perspective is not unreasonable. I would make a distinction, however, between his achievements as a scientist–how much he made significant contributions to the increase of scientific knowledge–and his achievements as a science educator–how accurately and compellingly he presented scientific knowledge to the public. I’ll argue that his contributions as a scientist were important (though you and the NAS might disagree), but his contributions as an ambassador for science are even more so (and the NAS awarded him for that). Basically, Sagan was a teacher, and he’s revered the way we revere those teachers in our past who opened up our minds to various subjects, even if they weren’t personally at the bleeding edge of the fields they taught.

why are others actually working at reading and refuting me? “Sod off, bitchen” would be a lot less work to type and would save a lot of posts if I’m simply not making sense.

Personally, I’m responding to your arguments to clarify my own thinking and see if my own arguments hold up. It’s good brain exercise. And IMO sometimes you make sense. :-)

Seriously, when do people ever actually change each other’s minds on these internet debates, in a big way? I think it’s been a productive discussion, and I take a lot away from it. […] There comes a point, though, when the argument starts to go in circles or stalls, because it gets down to what we believe to be true and I’ve seldom seen forum debates change people’s minds on the major points.

Yes, I’m finding this to be true as well. Although I do try to keep an open mind, if the other side presents their case thoughtfully and respectfully.

Since a recent comment bumped this up in the “recent comments” page, I’ve been rereading this. Wow, what a discussion. (And clearly I used to invest a lot more effort in my posts.) So many regulars who aren’t regulars anymore: Kenny, JoshB, Bitchen Frizzy… Wonder where they all are? Hope they’re well.

Not in the primaries, I suspect, unless he gets much closer very soon. But if he does manage to win the nomination, you bet your ass it will.

What was the recent comment? Something that got deleted? You and the replies under you are the only post-6 year old comments.