If 86% of Americans said they believe black and white people are equal and said that they believe their actions are consistent with this belief, should I believe them? Or is it fair game for me to believe that at least some of these people are fooling themselves since very few people admit to harboring racist ideas?
You don’t have to do any of those things to believe in God, however. In a lot of faiths, actions aren’t required to hold a belief.
I’ll expound a bit on my political party analogy. One can say they are a Democrat or Republican, but refuse to pay attention to politics, hardly ever vote, and complain about the party. No one is going to tell that person, well I don’t really think you are a Democrat/Republican.
But I don’t think it’s wrong to look for evidence of someone’s professed belief, though. Especially if people are going to draw inferences from a survey. For instance, if someone to use the “fact” that 86% of Americans are willing to die for their country to justify the draft, I’d want someone to be arrogant and ask for evidence that this indeed what Americans want. People say all kinds of stuff. Doesn’t mean we should accept it at face value.
Now, if the group of us are just hanging out at a bar and someone in the group loudly shouts “I believe in God and I am willing to die for my country!”, then I agree it would be impolite to publicly question them and call them out for lack of “evidence”. But am I obligated to take them at their word? I don’t think so. I don’t think it is wrong for me to internally roll my eyes at such a person, especially if I know that they don’t live their life in a way that indicates he or she really holds those beliefs.
If someone told me they were a Democrat but they have never voted, can’t name any of the Democratic presidential nominees or their own Democratic elected officials, and can’t name one issue on the party platform, you betcha I will think to myself, “This person is lying to themselves. They are just following the crowd.”
We have all met people like this. They really do think they are geeks, even though they don’t like science fiction and hate video games. They really do think they are into politics, even though they’d prefer to watch science fiction and play video games than watch the presidential debates. Why is it so offensive to think there are folks out there who think they believe in a god (or God), when really they just want to believe they do?
I don’t think people would be taking this so personally if we were talking about any other kind of self-reporting. Why is that?
Seems a bit judgmental to me. The person says they are a Democrat. Why not accept them at their word? I mean, heck, there are tons of folks who can’t name their Democratic officials or the party platform, but pulled the lever for Obama. Would we call them a Democrat?
So likewise, there are plenty of folks who don’t read the Bible, don’t go to church aside from maybe Easter and Christmas, but affirm that there is a God. In a good deal of Protestant denominations that’s all that is needed.
I don’t think that’s true at all. Some of this actually reminds me of the stuff behind GamerGate - where some male ‘nerds’ outwardly indicated that attractive young females who called themselves ‘nerds’ were just faking it. It became a pretty big deal.
I’m all fine with “I don’t believe in God” not implying “Other People secretly don’t believe in God”. But no one is making that argument. Certainly not me.
I make the argument that people do not act like one would expect people who believe in God (at least a version of God who can infinitely reward and/or punish and has preferences in human behaviour) would act, and that their actions are a stronger indicator of belief than the words coming out of their mouth.
This only works, however, if you are pointing towards people who are not Protestant Christians, who may indicate that doing good works because you believe a version of God who can infinitely reward or punish you based upon those good works is nothing other than ‘works righteousness’ (which is a mild kind of a slur - basically you are no better than a Catholic ;)). And the majority of American believers are Protestant Christians.
OTOH, I guess you could make the deeper point that good works are an outpouring of the thankfulness you have that God saved you and if you aren’t doing good works, then you obviously don’t believe in Him or else you’re actions would indicate your thankfulness. Then again, its a bit more tricky to put a minimum bar on that one.
But can we agree that at least some people don’t act as if the God they say they believe in doesn’t exist?
I’m thinking in particular of a pastor, who a couple of years ago was in the news for sneaking off and having sex with men and doing drugs. Now, he kept his gay sex and drug taking secret from his parishioners, he kept it secret from the public, he kept it secret from the cops, he kept it secret from his wife. He was perfectly capable of not having gay sex and smoking crack while his wife was in the room. But when his wife wasn’t around, he’d go off and have gay sex and smoke crack.
So why didn’t he have gay sex in front of his wife? Because he was afraid of the consequences. He knew what could happen if his wife found out. But he purported to believe in a God that could see everything. He couldn’t keep his gay sex secret from God, could he? Except he didn’t act as if he thought God was really watching him, the same way he acted when he thought his wife was watching him.
So did this guy really believe in God? Maybe? I mean, I get the argument that my idea of how people would act if they believed in God might be incorrect. My idea of what people say when they say “God” might be wrong. And it certainly is true that lots and lots of people really do act like I think they would if they believed in God.
I don’t have to believe in monsters under the bed to have an opinion about whether my daughter really believes in monsters under the bed. Does she act as if the believes in monsters? Does she seem actually scared of them? Or does she only talk about them to manipulate me into sitting with her on the bed and telling her another story?
It can be both though. It can be one sometimes and the other at different times. Maybe she believes in the monsters when the lights are out, but doesn’t when the lights are on. Or her conception of the monster that she believes in may be different than my conception of the monster I don’t believe in.
Anyway, telling her “You don’t believe in monsters” isn’t an effective way to get her to stop believing in monsters. “There are no monsters under the bed” is a bit more straightforward, and doesn’t require me to assert as fact things that I can’t know about her internal mental state. But I can shine a flashlight under the bed and we can look under there and not see any monsters. Yeah, yeah, not seeing them isn’t the same thing as them not existing. There could be subtler monsters. Invisible, intangible monsters. Maybe to see the real monster…I should look in the mirror.
This is really about hypocrisy. Do people say one thing and do another? Yes. We do.
Think about all of the anti-gay politicians/clergy who, imagine that, were discovered to be less than hetero themselves.
And on and on and on…
The question of this poll, in its most basic sense, is asking whether or not we hold the opinion that people are being hypocritical about their religious beliefs. Are they saying one thing while, in truth, holding a contrary position?
The answer is: Yes. and No. This is certainly true for some people and certainly not at all true for other people.
Is it true for the “majority” of people?
** an entire post about hypocrisy without mentioning Trump.
Words mean something to me. But of course it depends on the context. If the old lady next sitting on the bus next to me tells me she’s a Democrat and in the very next breath says she doesn’t know who Hillary Clinton is, then I’m probably going to feel more pity than anything else. But if I’m dating someone and he brags that he’s a blue dog Dem and in the next breath he says he’s thinking about voting for Donald Trump, then I am well within my rights to be “judgy”, right? Being judgmental is a GOOD thing sometimes.
If they are the “live and let live” type of Christian, I’m fine with whatever. But if they use their "belief"to badmouth me and keep me from doing what I want to do, then I will be as judgy about them as I want to be. Yes I will.
They were misogynistic assholes because they were equating pretty and feminine with not being a geek. That’s stupid and juvenile. It’s also stupid to keep people out of your “club” just because they don’t fit your narrowingly defined categories. But it is NOT stupid to think that “geek” must mean something for it to be a useful descriptor. I’m not a geek, even though I enjoy some science fiction. I appreciate why a geek wouldn’t want me to go around calling myself a “geek” when I can’t be bothered to participate in the subculture.
I don’t think it’s a causal relationship. Your phrasing “just because” is, I think, incorrect.
I think that many people who claim to believe in God really don’t, and are either deceiving themselves, just pretending in order to be safe in a threatening society (they might lose their friends, and might even lose their jobs,) or have doubts which they don’t explore.
I don’t believe this “because I’m an atheist.” I believe this based on the behavior of the Christians I observe in my life. How can someone believe in God, yet refuse to act godly? How can he believe in Hell…and still continue to sin?
At very least there is a conceptual disconnect.
I think this is the best argument for being skeptical of the 86% claim. Many if not most atheists start life out as self-professed theists. I personally started questioning my faith at a very early age, so strongly in fact that hindsight being 20/20, I can’t really even say that I was a Believer. I went through the motions of believing, though. It wasn’t until my mid-20’s that I felt free enough to abandon the Christian label.
If you’d ask me as a young adult whether I believed in God, my answer would have been yes. But I know that isn’t true. What is more accurate is that my self-image was that of a God-believer, and admitting otherwise (even anonymously) was too uncomfortable.
I understand the desire to take an individual at their word that they believe in God (but I don’t think we are obligated to do so). But to think we can’t question whether belief within an entire population is as high as reported doesn’t make sense to me. Like, if a random guy tells me he’s slept with over 50 women, I’m probably not going to doubt him. Same thing if a random woman tells me she’s only had 1 lover. But will I blink an eye if 86% of men report sleeping with > 50 women? Yup, because lying about these things is way too common for me to not be skeptical.
I can think of several more likely explanations than some sort of ‘theological Stockholm Syndrome’ impacting anonymous internet surveys:
(1) They have a different notion of what “sin” consists of - they do what appears to you to be objective “sinning”, but in their minds, they are justified by something or other.
(2) They know they are sinning, but isn’t [their version of Christianity] all about ‘forgiveness of sin’? They will sin, then seek ‘forgiveness’. Everyone sins. Their sins aren’t so terrible.
(3) They are hypocrites. They are too weak/selfish/etc. to do what they know to be right.
These are not all particular to religious beliefs BTW - a person could well believe (for example) in global warming, but still drive a car. Their environmental ‘sin’ is necessary for their job and so justified, they do other stuff to make up for it, they give to environmental causes, it’s a small thing in the grand scheme of things, everyone else is doing it, they are too weak/selfish not to drive, etc. That does not mean they secretly do not believe global warming is an environmental disaster, and are just pretending to do so.
That seems, again, to mirror folks saying “People who say they’re atheists? Deep down, they believe in God, but may have a hard time admitting it to themselves.”
If you met a self-described former atheist who said that, how would you reply?
Maybe not, but plenty sure as hell will be thinking that.
If you met a guy who admitted to regularly giving men blowjobs (for fun, not for money), would you not raise an eyebrow even if he insisted he was straight? If so, I will raise both my eyebrows for you.
That said, I don’t think believing in God requires certain behaviors. “God” can mean different things to different people. But it’s certainly not unreasonable to think societal pressure is such that it could make many non-believers reluctant to admit the truth to themselves and others. For the same token, I assume any poll results about abortion frequency among women to be an underestimation.
Pretending to yourself that you believe in something (to the point of claiming you do, even anonymously) is functionally indistinguishable from believing in something. You may not ‘really’ believe, but what does that even mean? I suspect that if this was turned around, and people were claiming some significant portion of atheists were just ‘pretending to themselves’ about their non-belief (presumably, to appeal to their friends on internet chat boards 
), it would not be convincing - even if some anecdotal examples were provided. 
That’s quite different from consciously lying for lulz (claiming one slept with dozens of women when one hasn’t).
There is zero reason to consciously lie about theology in an anonymous survey. It doesn’t convey any bragging rights, subject one to any coercion, or even be funny in the lame-assed sense of answering ‘10,000’ to ‘number of sexual partners’.
Has someone ever told you that you’re a bad person who is going to burn in hell if you ever deny your non-belief and lack of faith?
Have you ever heard about this happening to anyone else?
How would a threat of burning in hell work on an atheist? Hell doesn’t exist.
In the modern world, an even more potent threat is ridicule: it works on believers and atheists alike. Have you ever heard believers being ridiculed?
Rather patiently, I would point out that that there is far more societal pressure to claim belief than to claim disbelief. So there is no reason to compare the two beliefs as if the stakes for them are equal.
A Believer has the benefit of being seen as good, moral, and safe. Claiming belief means you won’t be viewed as a pitiful scary heathen who is destined for Hell. In contrast, an atheist is opening themselves up to all kinds of judgments and criticisms. Who wants to have others to see them as damned eternally?
In a society under the heavy influence of Christian dogma, by what mechanism would it be hard for a self-professed atheist to admit belief? I could see this happening on a small, limited scale, but it’s like imagining someone calling themselves gay rather than “out” themselves as straight. This phenomenon is very rare compared to the converse. So rare in fact that it’s pretty laughable when you think about it.
That said, if someone really want to insist that deep down inside I believed in God, despite the words coming out of my mouth, I wouldn’t be offended. I would write them off impossible to reason with, and probably not bothering arguing with them.
People are ridiculed for all kinds of beliefs. Liberals are called “libtards” and conservatives are called “evil”. Still, people usually don’t lie about their political leanings. They may play up how much they care about a particular issue. But they don’t say they are a liberal when they are really a conservative unless they are very insecure in themselves.
But in many religious households, to deny God is tantamount to casting your lot with the devil. It’s not just a small difference of a opinion. It is more of a outright rejection of everything your family stands for and has always stood for. A lot of people risk being being disowned by their friends and family when they “come out” as agnostic/atheist.
Are there people who say they are agnostic/atheist when really they believe in God? Sure. Is it the same proportion of the people who are deluding themselves in the other direction? No. The pressures just aren’t the same.