I believe there are a lot of people who really do not put much stock in religion, but don’t call themselves atheists or agnostics because they don’t want to take any of the hits you might get for being an atheist/agnostic in the US, especially in places like the South and especially in rural areas of the South, where fundamentalism is so widespread that open prejudice against atheists is the accepted norm. A lot of people will simply identify themselves as Christians who don’t go to church often enough (i.e., never) rather than get into a fight they aren’t all that interested in, in the first place.
In short, I believe that there are a lot of Christians who would happily and openly profess atheism and agnosticism if they weren’t afraid of the social consequences.
I realize this isn’t exactly what the OP is asking for, but if someone could find a similar reference (e.g., from a different year) we might be able to extrapolate some useful info.
I disagree that fear is a factor, but this is pretty much what I was getting at. A lot of people just don’t bother refining their position on this as they don’t care. So, on paper you might have someone listed as Christian, but in reality they are pretty much quasi-Agnostics.
And I think THIS trend is definitely on the rise in the US and certainly in places like Europe. By and large I think more people are in the ‘don’t know don’t care’ category than ever before. No cite on that…just my impression.
Oh certainly, especially on college campuses and other “intellectual” centers. It’s probably than atheists who would claim to be religious, but it’s there.
And another problem with the question is that plenty of people are vaguely “spiritual,” while not subscribing to the tenets of any particular faith (what Rev 3:16 called lukewarm - as opposed to the “hot” Christians or the “cold” rigorous atheists). These people could self-identify as either group, without substantially changing the religiosity quotiont (RQ) of the population.
Po-ta-toe, po-tah-to. If you believe in no gods, then you most certainly don’t believe in a god. Moreover, the point remains… atheism is NOT specifically defined as a-theism, nor is that the correct etymology of the term.
Interesting statistics there. A cover story in The Weekly Standard from late last year looked in depth at the case of the Netherlands. They found that religious observance seemed to have bottomed out in the 1980’s and was now on the upswing. Church attendance had gone down to ten percent but was now close to thirty percent. Also there is a new phenomenon of Christian groups that belonged to no formal church. These people gather in homes or restraunts without any official leader or liturgy.
I would have thought that someone keen to define things as they are would have more of a reaction than that. And you didn’t put “a god” the first time, you put “God”; I imagine that the etymology of those two terms are quite different. I have no problem with your point, or I would have mentioned it.
This is pretty much what I came in here to post, only you said it better. I think we have a long way to go before atheism makes real headway. I don’t think people will give up religion in my lifetime or even in my great-grandchildren’s lifetime. It’s just too ingrained; morever, places like North Korea have shown how bad it can get when people try to eliminate religion all at once.
We’re seeing legislation aimed at secularization gaining ground, and we can see people like Phelps and the WBC shifted to the absolute extremes of thought. This might seem like small progress at times, but if you look at the history of religion in politics, it’s a pretty significant gain.
I’m confident that as science and technology gain ground, the majority will gradually adopt an even more secular and less dogmatic point of view, and then someday atheism or at least agnosticism, but it’s going to take a long, long time. And even after we do adopt it, we’re going to have to be careful that we don’t make the same mistakes.
I always liked the quote by writer (and ex-nun) Ann Lamott: “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
He started a thread that was in essence a GQ thread in GD, and set the table with “…There are frequent threads here with atheists (myself included) posing very level positions on why organized religion is allegedly a sham…” as a premise and somehow I should ignore his plea to not debate his own premise?
Taking humanity as a whole in raw numbers the answer from what I can tell is no. The third world is both religious and multiplying whereas the secular first world is small and suffers stagnating or even negative birth rates. Any gains in the numbers of atheists are replaced and then buried under new theists elsewhere.
Another way it could gain ground is by becoming more politically powerful. Is this happening? Arguably atheism is now weaker than ever due to the fall of the USSR, although I wouldn’t go down that path. Tell me when the POTUS has weekly conference calls with a famous atheist to discuss policy. Tell me when a candidate has to pander to the non-believers at least some of the time. I’d love to be pandered to one of these days.
I don’t think there’s any hard evidence, only speculation, especially given the slippery definitions – at least for the United States. I am ignorant of the history of atheism in Europe. I understand that it is quite high in most countries (some nearing 80%) but was it really that different fifty years ago?
One thing is for sure, though. Whether it’s showing that a lot more people than one realized hold a certain political view or enjoy a deviant sexual fetish, the internet is good at bringing all sorts of uncomfortable subjects into the open in all their grisly detail. I know the internet (with help from books I only read because I heard about them via the tubes) has turned me into a fundamental atheist.
Unfortunately, “Atheists” weren’t mentioned in the 1990 survey, though agnostics were.
0.4% of the country self-identified as atheists in 2001.
Source: 1990 data, Barry A. Kosmin and Seymour P. Lachman,
“One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society”, 1993;
2001 data, Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar,
Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, Trinity College, Hartford, CT,
<http://www.trincoll.edu/secularisminstitute/> (Copyright).
Atheism, in its own way, is just as incorrect as blind faith.
Now, a rise in agnosticism, I can agree with. That is a good thing, as we (as a species) slowly move away from the mindnumbing stranglehold that religion has had on us from time immemorial.
I think we are pretty much in agreement here. I don’t know that “fear” is the right word. They don’t really know or care about religion, would just as soon spend Sundays worshipping at the Church of St. Mattress. It’s not that they’re afraid of being jailed or anything, it’s just that they don’t care to be hounded by well-meaning family and friends over their disbelief, so they just go along to get along. It’s not so much" fear" as “avoidance of bother” that motivates them.
Yes, sometimes there is alignment, sometimes conflict between God’s will and what I want.
I do agree that people do chose a set of rules and lifestyles that forms man made religious practices that matches their own viewpoints, none of this is of God however.
Since you asked for a person example, there was this person who came into my life, on the surface they seemed pleasant and giving, and seemed to have very few true friends. They were ‘saved’, then when through a very bad time in their life, so much so that they stopped serving God and placed themselves at the center of their life, this is a state of rebellion against God. It got so bad that they started to think that their will was God’s.
Once I started to know this person I noticed this trend and it was very unpleasant to be with this person and I understood why they had very few true friends. I knew God placed this person in my life for a reason, but I really wanted out of there. I saw it as hopeless and it was painful to be with this person (note this was nothing romantic, just friendship) and I prayed to be released from this, for something easie. God reminded me of what He delivered me from, and he is counting on me to reach them with His love. I didn’t like God’s reply at that time, but know that ultimately it will be for His glory and that is the goal. So I did continue, shortly after that person realized that they were fooling themselves and was living to glorify themselves and is making corrections, which has shown improvement.
Then if at all times you are doing what you most want to do, I don’t see how (if telling someone else what to do) how you aren’t telling them what you want them to do. You’re following your own wishes as much as I am.
