Is it socially acceptable to be an atheist in the US?

Great Debates
41

Legally, atheism is allowed and protected. An atheist cannot legally be attacked, for example, or discriminated against in employment, housing, etc. People are, however, perfectly allowed to be giant assholes toward people of non-faith, because being a giant asshole is also protected.

Of course, a great deal has to do with the atheist’s actions and attitude. If you spend all your time talking about all the stupid $hristian sheeple and their imaginary sky bully, you’ll piss people off. If you just stay home on Sunday morning and read the New York Times/play chess/masturbate, most people aren’t going to care.

For reference, I live in New England, and I consider myself to be a 95% atheist (as a rough estimate). My wife is Christian and attends church with our young son.

42

I’ll also include this as one (useful but not comprehensive and all the usual caveats about such things) data point: Americans Really Like Jews. Muslims And Atheists? Not So Much : Code Switch : NPR

43

Well, here are some figures from the last UK census, where we ask such questions:

It reports about 25% have no belief.

While Christianity is the major religion, many will put that down on the form when they really only ever go to church to be hatched, matched or dispatched.

Politicians generally keep religion out of polticial conversation, even if they have strong beliefs. Tony Blair, for instance is, I believe quite a devout Catholic, but in office, he kept quiet about it. His PR man Alistair Campbell, famously said of religion and politics: ‘We don’t do God’. The reason for this is that it would not go down well with the voters who regard religious piety as a personal thing, not something you wear on your cuff.

There are deeply religious people in the UK, this is most evident in immigrant communities from the West Indies and Africa and the Muslim and Hindus from India and Pakistan, where is a strong element of community life. They have more issues with each other than rest of the population.

There are one or two areas of the UK where Christianity does becocme poltiical and that is in Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland, where you get the last echoes of the Reformation and they have a sad history of sectrarian politics where being Catholic or Protestant marked you down as being automatically belonging to one political camp or another. Thankfully, that Constitutional problem is largely a thing of the past.

I the rest of Europe, it is pretty much the same except for countries like Ireland and Poland where Catholicism played an important political role. European history is littered with hideous religious conflicts and the many constitutions that were written after WW2 took care to put in clauses to guarantee religious freedom, just like the US.

The social trend in most countries is that religious belief matters less and less. The past decades have seen marked reductions in church attendance, in the UK it is about 6%. I am not sure why this is.

Though the UK, with its official protestant Church of England, still has seats in the second chamber of Parliament reserved for Bishops. Things don’t change very quickly around here.

With respect to Atheism, we have a few militant Atheists like Richard Dawkins who like to provoke a debate with bishops and are the scourge of the intelligent design people (if you can find any.) However, it is a rarified intellectual argument rather than a popular one. No-one is going to get too upset by it.

Rather than belief or non-belief in religious terms, people seem to contrive their own set of beliefs from different sources. One wry commentator observed that if the UK has one unifying religion it is the belief in the sanctity National Health Service and virtue of public service for the common good.

A bit different from the US, I think.

44

The Freedom from Religion Foundation’s publications (e.g., their newsletter every two months) document various kinds of harassment of non-believers throughout the US (as you would expect, more often in more rural areas). A good resource for the OP to peruse, I think. It also gives a good feel for the confidence and strength of many non-believers; their essays by young people (sometimes very young) are particularly inspiring.

Another data point: FFRF’s newsletter is sent to its subscribers in a plain-looking wrapper, lest nosy neighbors get riled up. Sad, but probably a good precaution.

45

As long as you keep your mouth shut, bow your head and mumble along with everyone else and deftly deflect questions about what church you go to it’s perfectly acceptable to not believe in the USA. Far too many Christians (don’t know about other religions) have been taught that atheist = anti-theist and they bristle at the notion of being in the same room as ‘one of those.’ So I only mention my non-belief in the Dope. It’s not like I would get a beating if I talked about it elsewhere, it would just be precieved as stirring up trouble for no good reason, like a teenager going through a rebellious stage.

46

I’m going to disagree with the general consensus and argue that an openly atheist presidential candidate could still be very electable. Why? Because his/her supporters would still prefer their candidate over “the other guy.”

If, for instance, the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016 were openly atheist, the vast majority of Democrat voters would think, “Well, it’s still better than seeing a Republican get elected.”

Same for the Republicans. If the Republican presidential candidate in 2016 were openly atheist (but conservative), the vast majority of Republican voters would think, “Well, it’s still better than seeing a Democrat get elected.”
Party affiliation is usually more important to voters than religious affiliation.

47

Probably true, but it’s the PRIMARIES where an open atheist would most likely be weeded out.

48

Not in my experience they don’t. I never have, though as others have pointed out it rarely comes up.

Well, I’ve lived and worked in most parts of the country, even what seems to be the dreaded South, and it’s never been an issue. Of course, I don’t tend to throw peoples religion in their faces or attack them for it, so that might have something to do with my own experience. It’s also not a subject I’m generally interested in talking about, especially to complete strangers.

49

I’m not an atheist, but I live in Northern Virginia an it seems to me that atheism doesn’t seem like much of an issue to me. Then again, this is a fairly diverse and somewhat liberal area, so I don’t see a whole lot of issues related to religion, or race either for that matter.

A couple observations I will offer. One, I think race/enthicity is a much larger issue than religion/belief if, for no other reason than because that’s something that’s immediately obvious. To that extent, there is some noticeable racism toward Hispanics and Middle Easterners, and I very little toward Blacks, and virtually none toward Asians.

Second, while I do notice some antipathy towards atheists, mostly from some of my most religious family and acquaintances, mostly of the form that they’re angry at God or in denial, there is outright hostility toward Islam from pretty much all the same people. For example, one notable very religious family member will just say that atheists are angry, confused, or deceived, and sees them as redeemable, but a Muslim is straight up evil, willing to lie or whatever it takes to enact Sharia law and conquer or kill the Infidels. And while, sure, this is more widespread among the rightwing religious types, I’ve heard this to a lesser degree from some liberal and even the casually religious C&E types. Still, that seems to be more the exception rather than the rule, and it’s more of an aside.

That said, I can’t really say that there’s anything socially unacceptable about atheism, at least not in areas that are going to be more socially accepting in general. I would, however, suspect that it’s not going to go over as well in more religiously conservative areas.

50

You’re ignoring the primary process. You have to get to the starting line to run in the race.

51

Okay, that’s a good point.
Maybe a Democrat could “compensate” by being super-liberal and a Republican could “compensate” by being super-conservative…

52

Either party would be crushed if they lost 5% or 10% of their voters to the other party or apathy. So they could still keep a vast majority of their supporters and still come nowhere close to being electable.

Being super-liberal wouldn’t help an atheist Democrat. It’d make the problem worse, since I can’t imagine that candidate competing in the Midwest or getting the kind of support from black and Hispanic voters that Democrats have come to rely on.

53

Message boards are the only places the subject of one’s religion ever comes up in my life. I typically interact with an average number of people, why doesn’t anyone talk about it with me? (I’m glad they don’t)

FTR, I live in a very conservative part of suburban Baltimore.

54

I’m surprised at the reaction by some that they have somehow been aggrieved by being an atheist.

I’ve live in New England, Pennsylvania, Virginia, California and Washington DC and I’ve felt no effects whatsoever for being an atheists. no one has seemed to care either way.

Now I have to say that if I was militantly against religion, than those who were religion would get in my grill, but how is that any different than if the roles were reversed?

And frankly, I’ve worked in the same place for a number of years now and I couldn’t tell you what religion (if any) my co-workers are and I don’t think they could tell you.

I’ve never felt anything other than the “live and let live” vibe. Nobody cares.

55

You seem to be insinuating that black or Hispanic Democrat voters don’t like it when their Democratic politicians are very liberal…?

56

Also, lets keep on other thing in mind.

At most, folks here say they would get into an equivalent of a heated discussion over religion. There are people getting killed, stoned to death for example over religion. Virtually none of that happens here. So I think we need to put a minor, minor five minutes our of one year inconvenience into proper perspective.

57

I’m saying black and Hispanic voters tend to be more religious than average, so this atheist Democrat might have a problem connecting with them. (I’m not sure where they rank in terms of liberal-ness.) Most Democratic voters don’t describe themselves as liberal either, and if the candidate moves further to the left, he might struggle in Ohio and Pennsylvania and Virginia and Iowa and on and on. So I’m saying this atheist candidate can’t just make up the votes he or she is losing that way.

58

Ah, okay, gotcha.

59

I live in Central Florida and it doesn’t make much difference in my daily life. However, I’m pretty quiet about it except among friends. I know people who haven’t been to a church/synagogue/temple/whatever in 40 years who would flip out if they found out I actually disbelieved (rather than merely not caring).

60

The issue that being “closeted” prevents issues is evidence that it is not socially acceptable. Imagine if a coworker was selling candy bars for a southern baptist convention fundraiser among coworkers, what would the response be. Now contrast that that with selling those same candy bars for the FFRF. The social costs are much higher for the atheist than someone raising money for a sexist and racist christian church in most places in the country.