Category Archives: Atheism

College is the period in your life after adolescence and before adulthood where you truly discover who you are as an individual. Experimentation with drugs and ones sexuality are interestingbut far more profound and lasting is experimentation with new ideas. One such idea you should at least read up on is atheism.

Atheism is a philosophical movement that has existed for thousands of years, spreading across many borders and cultures over the course of time. Simply put, atheism is the rejection of belief in any god or supernatural dimension. Any variation on that simple premise qualifies as atheism: there are hard atheists (also called anti-theists), who state with firm belief that a god certainly doesnt exist, and there are also soft atheists who reject the notion of a god but remain open to the possibility. Some atheists still consider themselves spiritual, but separate contemplative practices like meditation from any kind of faith system.

Generally speaking, many atheists put heavy emphasis on the power of science and philosophy on our everyday lives, and assert the superiority of such a position over religious belief. Many books have been published to this effect, putting forward arguments against religion and belief in the supernatural. In this list, we explore 10 such works that offer an absolutely essential view of the arguments associated with atheism. Whether youre a skeptic yourself, a firm believer, or havent made up your mind yet, this list will provide the most helpful material available for understanding the minds of those who doubt.

10. Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell

The classic pamphlet by mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell that declares boldly: I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.

In it, Russell goes through the numerous reasons he finds the Christian religion, as well as religion generally, to be unconvincing in the extreme. Our narrator argues that to be a Christian, one must overcome the historical difficulties surrounding the life of Jesus and the authorship of the Bible something he contends is impossible to an impartial reader of the texts.

9. God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens

Moved into action by what he saw as the creeping threat of theocracy in the world, the late journalist and literary critic treats his reader to a multifaceted critique of organized religion of every form, from Judaism and Christianity to Buddhism and Hinduism. Writing with profound wit and eloquence, Hitchens examines the texts and history of all the major faith traditions, showing explicitly where each allied itself with tribal violence and regressive thinking. Especially powerful is his exploration of how little humanity knew of science in the days when these religions came into existence, and how laden with obvious mythology each of them is. A thoroughly engaging read.

8. Breaking The Spell by Daniel Dennett

A philosopher and behavioral scientist at Tufts University, Dennett makes the case that religious belief must be treated as a proper scientific hypothesis that can either be supported or refuted (a topic which will appear later in this list). Dennett traces the development of religious thinking through evolutionary biology and social psychology, showing the thoroughly natural foundations for its claims. In true philosophical fashion, the last part of the book dismantles the idea that morality is derived from supernatural beliefs.

7. The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins

Evolutionary biologist and former Oxford professor Richard Dawkins lays out the factors that influenced the evolution of life on this planet and shows how it eventually culminated in Homo sapiens. In so doing, he demonstrates how the mechanism of natural selection requires no intervening god to guide the process.

The crucial point Dawkins makes here is that while we cant prove that a god didnt intervene in human evolution, whats important is that such a being is unnecessary; that is, we can understand nature in the exact same way if we abandon the notion that we are the center of the cosmos. This is summed up by one of the books most lyrical passages:

Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no minds eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.

6. God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger

In this New York Times bestseller, physicist Victor Stenger proposes the idea of God as a scientific hypothesis like any other: an idea open to consideration and debate, and therefore thoughtful criticism and refutation. Like the earlier entry by Daniel Dennett, Stenger contends that if a god really does exist, then his (or her) presence must be measurable in some way by science.

However, whereas Dennett focused on the philosophical and cognitive underpinnings of belief, our author here focuses on the observable claims made by the faithful. Evidence of intelligent design in biology, the efficacy of prayer in medicine, signs of salvation in human behavioral psychology, the existence of an immaterial soul in physiology, and discoveries in physics that may point toward divine creation are all examined and systematically refuted. A wonderful resource for those skeptics wanting to debate with believers head-on.

5. The Atheist Universe by David Mills

An excellent primer to give as a gift to those who are considering atheism, Mills does a fine job of setting fire to the straw-men presented by theologians and laypeople alike. Written in concise, straightforward language, the author tends to shun the complicated arguments used by professional philosophers and scientists.

Mills clarifies the facts surrounding the classic questions like, How did the universe begin?, and Is there any meaning to life without religion? for those who are just beginning to ask these questions. This entry is especially profound because of its scope and accessible language that nearly anyone can follow.

4. Why There is No God by Armin Navabi

This entry is styled along a Q&A format; it offers a typical point in defense of religion or in criticism of unbelief and then responds to the point with a straightforward and concise answer. Much like the previous entry, this one gets props for being accessible to a larger audience. Lets face it with the trappings of modern college life, most people dont have the time or energy to read some massive title. For those who want fast clarification on tough topics, this one is the way to go.

3. The End of Faith by Sam Harris

Provoked into action by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris argues that, in the age of nuclear weapons and targeted missile strikes, humanity must abandon religious barbarism if we are to move beyond this century. As he says, the worst fear of any sane individual in the 21st century needs to be the possibility of a state possessing weapons of mass destruction, with the psychological equivalent of Osama bin Laden at its head. Harris makes an interesting caseand treads fearlessly into deep philosophical waters in this scathing critique of human tribalism.

2. The Portable Atheist by Various

If your goal is to understand the actual ideas of unbelievers, look no further. A massive anthology containing essays from unbelievers like Einstein, Darwin, Marx, Hume, Orwell, Twain, Sagan, Spinoza, and Lucretius, as well as more modern writers like Penn Jillette, Salman Rushdie, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, this anthology is packed with memorable essays and profound ideas.

To add to its appeal, the whole collection has been selected and edited by Christopher Hitchens, the wit and prose of whom know no end. It also doesnt hurt that this anthology is a veritable gold-mine of memorable quotes, among them: All logical arguments can be defeated by the simple refusal to reason logically from the physicist Steven Weinberg, and Who wishes that there was a permanent, unalterable celestial despotism that subjected us to continual surveillance and could convict us of thought-crime, and who regarded us as its private property even after we died? from the eloquent editor of this collection.

1. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

So rarely does a work achieve such a level of name-recognition among those who were never its intended audience. In its heyday, Dawkins attempt to convert believers to atheism resulted in the publishing of more than a dozen books responding to the claims presented. It landed him on news programs and in the pages of magazines and newspapers to take up the mantle of atheism in formal debate. Any proper list of atheist writings would not be complete without this iconic book, which has slowly become a symbol of rebellion from authority.

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Excerpt from:
An Essential College Atheist Reading List - Uloop News

Why would God allow evil to exist? is one of the main questions asked by atheists, according to the first chapter of There is a God.

BYU-Idaho students typically feel comfortable explaining why God allows this to members of their same faith. But when the person they are talking to is an atheist, the conversation changes. Such was the case for Lauren Terry, a freshman studying public health.

I would use the idea that we all have agency because we all have it, said Terry I dont know.

Hyrum Lewis, a faculty member in the Department of History, Geography and Political Science, published a book titled There is a God on May 1, 2017.

Lewis said the book helps members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with tough questions asked by modern atheists.

The primary objective of There is a God is to address the questions and concerns brought by atheists, agnostics and members having doubts about the existence of God.

Lewis said this book was the result of years of thoughtful consideration with questions of faith until he had enough material to make a publication.

Link:
Responding to atheism in the last days - BYU-I Scroll

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

Religion was a major backdrop in the 2016 election. Donald Trump campaigned hard in white Christian America, promising voters that he would essentially turn back the clock to an America when religion and Christians overall were more influential in the country.

This strategy paid off, asthe Washington Postreported: Exit polls show white evangelical voters voted in high numbers for Donald Trump,80-16 percent. Thats the most they have voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 2004.

White evangelicals are the religious group that most identifies with the Republican Party, and 76 percent of them say they are or lean Republican, according to a 2014survey. As a group, white evangelicalsmake upone-fifth of all registered voters and about one-third of all voters who identify with or lean toward the GOP.

So it is no surprise that Trump has quickly moved with anexecutive orderto relax restrictions on thepolitical activitiesof tax-exempt churches in an effort to strengthen the role of religion, in essence working to strengthen the political hand of churches in political campaigns.

Trump playing the conservative religious card is in stark contrast to the role nonbelievers play in American society. Atheists, those who disbelieve in the existence of god, comprise a growing sector of American society. Their numbers are often hidden in polls and generally undercounted because some fear reporting their identity and facing social stigmatization.

There have been various reports showing a marked increase in nonbelievers, including atheists, agnostics and others who do not identify with a religion or say that religion is not important to them. Between 2007 and 2014, the portion of Americans who do not believe in a god grew by over 10 percent, according to astudydone by thePew Research Center. The growing numbers of nonreligious people in the United States are propelled by generational change, asyoung people, who are more likely to be unaffiliated with a religion, reach adulthood and slowly replace their older and more religious counterparts.

A recentstudyby psychologists Will Gervais and Maxine Najle at the University of Kentucky concluded that the number of atheists in the United States exceeds 20 percent with a roughly 0.8 probability. This estimate is more than double the conclusion of the study collected over the telephone by Pew Research Center, which found that approximately 10 percent of Americans dont believe in god and only 3 percent of Americans identify asatheists. This disparity toward what is essentially the same question suggests that people are hesitant to identify themselves as atheists.Furthermore, a study byPRRIin 2016 revealed that more than 30 percent of atheists hide their disbelief from friends and family for fear of disapproval, suggesting that many might find an admission over the telephone similarly difficult.

To obtain accurate results, Gervais and Najle constructed a very subtle test that would remove the stigma around atheism.Using a sample population of 2,000 Americans, they asked respondents to answer true or false to seemingly banal statements such as I am a vegetarian or I own a dog.The control group responded to nine statements while the test group responded to the same nine statements plus an additional one I do not believe in God.

Participants only had to acknowledge the number of statements that applied to them. They never had to deny believing in god or identifying as an atheist, which omitted any social stigma from the test.

By comparing the responses of the two groups, Gervais and Najle came to their conclusion approximately 26 percent of Americans are atheists. Assuming the number of vegetarians and dog owners is the same between the two groups, any increase in the test group compared to the control group indicates the number of atheists.

The two psychologists admit that their study is not free of error, but they have undoubtedly proven that previous polls conducted over the telephone or in person have yielded deceptively small numbers.

In fact, another study performed by the Pew Research Center found evidence supporting the existence of social stigma around being openly atheist. Pew found that only a third of Americans feelwarmly toward atheists. Daniel Cox of PRRI wrote in FiveThirtyEight that a third of Americans believe that atheists should be banned frombecoming president, and a similar percent thinks that they should be prohibited from teaching in public schools. With pressure to conform to the dominant religious beliefs, some American atheists choose to hide their beliefs.

In an interview withSlate, Renee Johnson, a single lesbian mother in Point, Texas, said that she would rather have a big L or lesbian written across [her] shirt than a big A or atheist, because people are going to handle it better. Johnson is just one of many who feel uncertain about revealing their nonbelief in a country where religion and spirituality seem like national imperatives.

As the discrepancy between the poll performed by Gervais and Najle compared with previous polls indicates, the role of religion in the daily lives of Americans is becoming increasingly complex. Many polls require respondents to select a single religious identification from a list, which does not allow people to choose multiple answers. By this method, someone cant be Jewish and an atheist or Catholic and atheist. Although its possible to follow a religion for cultural, heritage or spiritual reasonsseparate from a belief in godin previous polls, religion and atheism have been considered mutually exclusive. This method of polling fails to recognize the possibility that religion may be determined by heritage and cultural background, rather than belief; it also presumes one concept of god.

However, ideas of god or spiritual forces are entirely subjective, as indicated in a study byGallup, which found that 89 percent of Americans believe in god, but only about half believe in an anthropomorphic god. The various studies about religion, belief and god exemplify how the United States necessitates having a society that can accept a full range of religious belief and spiritual ambiguity.

While feelings toward atheism are certainly changing60 percent of Americans reportknowingan atheist, which is significantly more than 10 years agothe stigma surrounding people who do not believe in god is continuing to stifle freedom of belief in America. As with his other attempts to turn back the clock in America, President Trumps remark inhis inaugural address about joining all Americans together with thesamealmighty Creator, threatens the intricate and varying histories, beliefs and ways of being that are present in this country.

Here is the original post:
Trump Evangelicals face a growing number of hidden Atheists - Salon

Ivy Taylor, the mayor of San Antonio who blamed generational poverty on broken people who didnt believe in God, no longer has a job. City Council member Ron Nirenberg defeated her 55%-45% in a runoff election yesterday.

While theres no proof Taylors anti-atheist comments led to her downfall, they did go viral online, and its worth reminding people of just how awful they were.

They took place during a mayoral forum in April in which candidates talked about the impact of and challenges for non-profit groups in the community. At one point, Taylor was asked about the deepest systemic causes of generational poverty. Theres no simple answer to that, of course, but Taylors response didnt even come close.

To me, its broken people. People not being in a relationship with their Creator, and therefore, not being in good relationship with their families and their communities, and not being productive members of society. I think thats the ultimate answer. Thats not something that I work on from my position as Mayor of the community

It was bizarre, offensive, and not based on any facts whatsoever. It was irrelevant that she was directing her response to an openly Christian questioner. Poverty isnt caused by atheism, and atheism doesnt mean you dont have a good relationship with your family and community. (And you better believe we contribute to society.)

Taylor later said that clip was a dishonest, politically motivated misrepresentation of her record, intentionally edited to mislead viewers.

That was a lie. You can see the full exchange at the 1:07:39 mark in this video. Her comments arent any better in context.

She was condemned by several national atheist groups, many of which offered to set up a meeting with their members so Taylor could see for herself what they offered the city of San Antonio.

She never took them up on it.

And now she wont have to.

When speaking to her supporters last night, Taylor once again brought up her faith.

Taylor seemed to concede during her speech, saying, A majority of the votes have come in. It doesnt look like its going the way that we anticipated this evening. But you know what? I am so grateful to God I am at peace. I am so thankful to God for each and every person in this room, for your support, for your prayers, for being here.

And were thankful to no-God that shes no longer in office.

Even though he just got elected, I hope Ron Nirenberg does what Taylor never did and offers to meet with atheists as a gesture of solidarity. He doesnt have to agree with us on theology, but theres no reason to shut us out. It would be a welcome overture.

In case youre wondering, the city council is a non-partisan group and Nirenberg does not declare affiliation with any political party.

(Thanks to @SarahHancock23 for the link. Portions of this article were published earlier)

More here:
San Antonio Mayor Who Blamed Generational Poverty on Atheism Loses Runoff Election - Patheos (blog)

Kawartha Media Group

Atheism, or agnosticism, ends in meaninglessness and despair Kawartha Media Group Atheism, or agnosticism, promise enlightenment and freedom, but followed to their logical conclusions, must end in meaninglessness and despair. To acknowledge the existence and, perhaps inconceivably, the wisdom of God may mean the end of our own ...

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Atheism, or agnosticism, ends in meaninglessness and despair - Kawartha Media Group

For more than a millennium, scholars have noticed a curious correlation: Atheists tend to be more intelligent than religious people.

Its unclear why this trend persists, but researchers of a new study have an idea: Religion is an instinct, they say, and people who can rise above instincts are more intelligent than those who rely on them.

Intelligence in rationally solving problems can be understood as involving overcoming instinct and being intellectually curious and thus open to non-instinctive possibilities, study lead author Edward Dutton, a research fellow at the Ulster Institute for Social Research in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. [Saint or Spiritual Slacker? Test Your Religious Knowledge]

In classical Greece and Rome, it was widely remarked that fools tended to be religious, while the wise were often skeptics, Dutton and his co-author, Dimitri Van der Linden, an assistant professor of psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, wrote in the study.

The ancients werent the only ones to notice this association. Scientists ran a meta-analysis of 63 studies and found that religious people tend to be less intelligent than nonreligious people. The association was stronger among college students and the general public than for those younger than college age, they found. The association was also stronger for religious beliefs, rather than religious behavior, according to the meta-analysis, published in 2013 in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review.

But why does this association exist? Dutton set out to find answer, thinking that perhaps it was because nonreligious people were more rational than their religious brethren, and thus better able to reason that there was no God, he wrote.

But more recently, I started to wonder if Id got it wrong, actually, Dutton told Live Science. I found evidence that intelligence is positively associated with certain kinds of bias.

For instance, a 2012 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychologyshowed that college students often get logical answers wrong but dont realize it. This so-called bias blind spot happens when people cannot detect bias, or flaws, within their own thinking. If anything, a larger bias blind spot was associated with higher cognitive ability, the researchers of the 2012 study wrote in the abstract.

One question, for example, asked the students: A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? The problem isnt intuitive (the answer is not 10 cents), but rather requires students to suppress or evaluatethe first solution that springs into their mind, the researchers wrote in the study. If they do this, they might find the right answer: The ball costs 5 cents, and the bat costs $1.05.

If intelligent people are less likely to perceive their own bias, that means theyre less rational in some respects, Dutton said. So why is intelligence associated with atheism? The answer, he and his colleague suggest, is that religion is an instinct, and it takes intelligence to overcome an instinct, Dutton said. [8 Ways Religion Impacts Your Life]

The religion-is-an-instinct theory is a modified version of an idea developed by Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, who was not involved in the new study.

Called the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis, Kanazawas theory attempts to explain the differences in the behavior and attitudes between intelligent and less intelligent people, said Nathan Cofnas, who is pursuing a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom this fall. Cofnas, who specializes in the philosophy of science, was not involved with the new study.

The hypothesis is based on two assumptions, Cofnas told Live Science in an email.

First, that we are psychologically adapted to solve recurrent problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestorsin the African savanna, Cofnas said. Second, that general intelligence (what is measured by IQ tests) evolved to help us deal withnonrecurrentproblems for which we had no evolved psychological adaptations.

The assumptions imply that intelligent people should be better than unintelligent people at dealing with evolutionary novelty situations and entities that did not exist in the ancestral environment, Cofnas said.

Dutton and Van der Linden modified this theory, suggesting that evolutionary novelty is something that opposes evolved instincts.

The approach is an interesting one, but might have firmer standing if the researchers explained exactly what they mean by religious instinct, Cofnas said.

Dutton and Van der Linden propose that, if religion has an instinctual basis, intelligent people will be better able to overcome it and adopt atheism, Cofnas said. But without knowing the precise nature of the religious instinct, we cant rule out the possibility that atheism, or at least some forms of atheism, harness the same instinct(s).

For instance, author Christopher Hitchens thought that communism was a religion; secular movements, such as veganism, appeal to many of the same impulses and possibly instincts that traditional religions do, Cofnas said. Religious and nonreligious movements both rely on faith, identifying with a community of believersand zealotry, he said.

I think its misleading to use the term religion as a slur for whatever you dont like, Cofnas said.

The researchers also examined the link between instinct and stress, emphasizing that people tend to operate on instinct during stressful times, for instance, turning to religion during a near-death experience.

The researchers argue that intelligence helps people rise above these instincts during times of stress. [11 Tips to Lower Stress]

If religion is indeed an evolved domain an instinct then it will become heightened at times of stress, when people are inclined to act instinctively, and there is clear evidence for this, Dutton said. It also means that intelligence allows us to be able to pause and reason through the situation and the possible consequences of our actions.

People who are able to rise above their instincts are likely better problem-solvers, Dutton noted.

Lets say someone had a go at you. Your instinct would be to punch them in the face, Dutton told Live Science. A more intelligent person will be able to stop themselves from doing that, reason it through and better solve the problem, according to what they want.

The study was published May 16 in the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science.

Original article on Live Science.

See the rest here:
Why Are Atheists Generally Smarter Than Religious People? - HuffPost

After blaming generational poverty on broken people who dont believe in God, San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor loses her bid for re-election.

ABC reports:

Following a Saturday runoff election, the Alamo City has elected a new mayor into office. Ron Nirenberg garnered 54.59 percent of the votes with 54,010 votes, beating out incumbent Ivy Taylor who obtained 45.41 percent of the votes with 44,919 votes.

Earlier this year, while speaking at a mayoral forum, Mayor Taylor was asked about the deepest systemic cause of generational poverty.

Mayor Taylor replied:

To me, its broken people. People not being in a relationship with their Creator, and therefore, not being in good relationship with their families and their communities, and not being productive members of society. I think thats the ultimate answer

(Watch: San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor claims poverty is caused by broken people who dont believe in God )

In short, Mayor Taylor claims generational poverty is caused by broken people who dont believe in God, essentially making the ludicrous claim that atheism causes poverty.

The mayors remarks about poverty reflect an astonishing and willful ignorance. Perhaps more important, there is something deliberately cruel and profoundly vicious in Taylors attempt to claim the root cause of poverty is people who dont share her religious superstition, and that those individuals who do not share her religious superstition are somehow broken people.

After the election results came in, Taylor conceded the race, telling her supporters:

A majority of the votes have come in. It doesnt look like its going the way that we anticipated this evening. But you know what? I am so grateful to God I am at peace. I am so thankful to God for each and every person in this room, for your support, for your prayers, for being here.

Ron Nirenberg, Taylors opponent, and the new mayor of San Antonio, told his supporters:

Tonight, the voters got it right on a lot of things. Tonight, the voters rejected the politics of division and false choices. And they said yes to a bigger and brighter vision of inclusion, of diversity, of fairness, or respecting each and every person in San Antonio, no matter if you live on the North Side, the South Side, the East Side, the West Side or any place in between. Tonight, the voters said yes to a mayor for all of San Antonio.

Bottom line: Mayor Taylor is an intolerant conservative Christian with no respect for poor people or atheists. Her remarks indicate a callous and insensitive disregard for both. As such, she has no business serving as Mayor of San Antonio.

Atheist Hating San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor (Image via SanAntonio.gov)

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Atheist Hating San Antonio Mayor Loses Re-Election Bid - Patheos (blog)

Photo Credit: ep_jhu / Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0

Religion was a major backdrop in the 2016 election. Donald Trump campaigned hard in white Christian America, promising voters that he would essentially turn back the clock to an America when religion and Christians overall were more influential in the country.

This strategy paid off, asthe Washington Postreported: Exit polls show white evangelical voters voted in high numbers for Donald Trump,80-16 percent. Thats the most they have voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 2004.

White evangelicals are the religious group that most identifies with the Republican Party, and 76 percent of them say they are or lean Republican, according to a 2014survey. As a group, white evangelicalsmake upone-fifth of all registered voters and about one-third of all voters who identify with or lean toward the GOP.

So it is no surprise that Trump has quickly moved with anexecutive orderto relax restrictions on thepolitical activitiesof tax-exempt churches in an effort to strengthen the role of religion, in essence working to strengthen the political hand of churches in political campaigns.

Trump playing the conservative religious card is in stark contrast to the role nonbelievers play in American society. Atheists, those who disbelieve in the existence of god, comprise a growing sector of American society. Their numbers are often hidden in polls and generally undercounted because some fear reporting their identity and facing social stigmatization.

There have been various reports showing a marked increase in nonbelievers, including atheists, agnostics and others who do not identify with a religion or say that religion is not important to them. Between 2007 and 2014, the portion of Americans who do not believe in a god grew by over 10 percent, according to astudydone by thePew Research Center. The growing numbers of nonreligious people in the United States are propelled by generational change, asyoung people, who are more likely to be unaffiliated with a religion, reach adulthood and slowly replace their older and more religious counterparts.

A recentstudyby psychologists Will Gervais and Maxine Najle at the University of Kentucky concluded that the number of atheists in the United States exceeds 20 percent with a roughly 0.8 probability. This estimate is more than double the conclusion of the study collected over the telephone by Pew Research Center, which found that approximately 10 percent of Americans dont believe in god and only 3 percent of Americans identify asatheists. This disparity toward what is essentially the same question suggests that people are hesitant to identify themselves as atheists.Furthermore, a study byPRRIin 2016 revealed that more than 30 percent of atheists hide their disbelief from friends and family for fear of disapproval, suggesting that many might find an admission over the telephone similarly difficult.

To obtain accurate results, Gervais and Najle constructed a very subtle test that would remove the stigma around atheism.Using a sample population of 2,000 Americans, they asked respondents to answer true or false to seemingly banal statements such as I am a vegetarian or I own a dog.The control group responded to nine statements while the test group responded to the same nine statements plus an additional oneI do not believe in God.

Participants only had to acknowledge the number of statements that applied to them. They never had to deny believing in god or identifying as an atheist, which omitted any social stigma from the test.

By comparing the responses of the two groups, Gervais and Najle came to their conclusionapproximately 26 percent of Americans are atheists. Assuming the number of vegetarians and dog owners is the same between the two groups, any increase in the test group compared to the control group indicates the number of atheists.

The two psychologists admit that their study is not free of error, but they have undoubtedly proven that previous polls conducted over the telephone or in person have yielded deceptively small numbers.

In fact, another study performed by the Pew Research Center found evidence supporting the existence of social stigma around being openly atheist. Pew found that only a third of Americans feelwarmly toward atheists. Daniel Cox of PRRI wrote in FiveThirtyEight that a third of Americans believe that atheists should be banned frombecoming president, and a similar percent thinks that they should be prohibited from teaching in public schools. With pressure to conform to the dominant religious beliefs, some American atheists choose to hide their beliefs.

In an interview withSlate, Renee Johnson, a single lesbian mother in Point, Texas, said that she would rather have a big L or lesbian written across [her] shirt than a big A or atheist, because people are going to handle it better. Johnson is just one of many who feel uncertain about revealing their nonbelief in a country where religion and spirituality seem like national imperatives.

As the discrepancy between the poll performed by Gervais and Najle compared with previous polls indicates, the role of religion in the daily lives of Americans is becoming increasingly complex. Many polls require respondents to select a single religious identification from a list, which does not allow people to choose multiple answers. By this method, someone cant be Jewish and an atheist or Catholic and atheist. Although its possible to follow a religion for cultural, heritage or spiritual reasonsseparate from a belief in godin previous polls, religion and atheism have been considered mutually exclusive. This method of polling fails to recognize the possibility that religion may be determined by heritage and cultural background, rather than belief; it also presumes one concept of god.

However, ideas of god or spiritual forces are entirely subjective, as indicated in a study byGallup, which found that 89 percent of Americans believe in god, but only about half believe in an anthropomorphic god. The various studies about religion, belief and god exemplify how the United States necessitates having a society that can accept a full range of religious belief and spiritual ambiguity.

While feelings toward atheism are certainly changing60 percent of Americans reportknowingan atheist, which is significantly more than 10 years agothe stigma surrounding people who do not believe in god is continuing to stifle freedom of belief in America. As with his other attempts to turn back the clock in America, President Trumps remark inhis inaugural address about joining all Americans together with thesamealmighty Creator, threatens the intricate and varying histories, beliefs and ways of being that are present in this country.

Anna Sanford is an editorial assistant at AlterNet's office in Berkeley, CA.

See more here:
Trump Evangelicals Face Growing Number of 'Hidden Atheists' - AlterNet

When white atheist Islamophobe poster child Bill Maher referred to himself as a house nger in an interview with Senator Ben Sasse, he was not only demeaning black bodies but doing a familiar minstrel danceappropriating a term with deep cultural and historical symbolism in black speech. Maher has prided himself on the kind of f-you outlaw irreverence and establishment-bashing that only a cis-het white male with the reward of a multi-million dollar HBO contract can enjoy without censure. Supposedly docile and less black, HNs have been characterized as complicit with white massa; a distortion that erases the painful history of black female domestic slaves who were often subject to rape and other forms of ritualized violence in the so-called plantation Big House.

Mahers racist vitriol is not new to atheists and humanists of color who have long pushed back against the unapologetic Islamophobia, Eurocentrism and misogyny of him and his fellow alpha males Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens. His identity as an atheist is relevant to this latest flap because hes long been a golden boy of the white New Atheist clique; slobbered over for the dudebro swagger with which hes skewered right wing and liberal sacred cows. This kind of stagecraft pimping black experience has become a hallmark of the dudebro white atheists. In 2013, white atheist You-Tuber Dusty chastised black Christians on being House Negroes and Uncle Toms because of their religious indoctrination and was called out by black atheists like myself and Foxy Jazzabelle. Prior to that, American Atheists trotted out the black enslaved body in a 2012 street billboard campaign to boost its activist cred with a lily white donor base that didnt give a damn about segregated African American communities.

Some are starting to learn. I recently received an outlier email from a white donor to the Black Skeptics Los Angeles First in the Family scholarship fund who acknowledged that his primary mission should be to let humanists and non-believers of color lead without white intervention. This was the recurring theme during a May forum featuring black, feminist, trans and indigenous activists across the religious spectrum at the Humanist Institute in Minneapolis. Ashton Woods, Diane Burkholder, Andrea Jenkins, Desiree Kane and Sincere Kirabo spoke out powerfully on the right to self-determination of people of color in radical, progressive and intersectional movement organizing, and the necessity of getting white folk hell bent on being allies to sit down, shut up and retreat.

This issue of white incursions into intentional, as well as institutionally segregated, spaces of color is magnified by the seismic shift occurring in urban communities of color pushed to the brink by gentrification. As black and brown neighborhoods are increasingly under siege from white homebuyers, developers and speculators, communities of color are in even greater peril. Housing and rental affordability has plummeted, and the unemployment rate for African American youth has continued to skyrocket (with the unemployment rate for black male youth ages 16-24 hovering around 20% as of July 2016, in comparison to approximately 9% for young white males). The malign neglect of neoliberal democratic policies is symbolized by the Obama administrations piecemeal attention to black youth employment under the anemically funded My Brothers Keeper Initiative, which shut out African American girlsbased on the erroneous premise that their status was better than that of black boys. Since his election, Trumps Orwellian misinformation about 59% black unemployment has only fueled the familiar narrative of pathological inner cities overrun with lazy, shiftless violent black men.

Taken in this context, Mahers minstrel-esque appropriation of the term House N is even more infuriating as it implies insider-outsider status within a power structure based on white supremacy. Outsider or outlaw status has been a card frequently played by white atheists fronting as though their non-believer status makes them an oppressed class bereft of race and class privilege. Now, as they bemoan the Trump administrations latest assaults on secular rights and womens rights, more of themas Diane and Desiree noted to the Humanist Institutes mostly white audiencehave become freshly galvanized as freedom fighters and allies when the liberation struggle of people of color was never on the menu before. Mahers use of the black body to front is yet another reminder of why atheist identity politics will always be a sham.

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This Week in White Atheism - HuffPost

For more than a millennium, scholars have noticed a curious correlation: Atheists tend to be more intelligent than religious people.

It's unclear why this trend persists, but researchers of a new study have an idea: Religion is an instinct, they say, and people who can rise above instincts are more intelligent than those who rely on them.

"Intelligence in rationally solving problems can be understood as involving overcoming instinct and being intellectually curious and thus open to non-instinctive possibilities," study lead author Edward Dutton, a research fellow at the Ulster Institute for Social Research in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. [Saint or Spiritual Slacker? Test Your Religious Knowledge]

In classical Greece and Rome, it was widely remarked that "fools" tended to be religious, while the "wise" were often skeptics, Dutton and his co-author, Dimitri Van der Linden, an assistant professor of psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, wrote in the study.

The ancients weren't the only ones to notice this association. Scientists ran a meta-analysis of 63 studies and found that religious people tend to be less intelligent than nonreligious people. The association was stronger among college students and the general public than for those younger than college age, they found. The association was also stronger for religious beliefs, rather than religious behavior, according to the meta-analysis, published in 2013 in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review.

But why does this association exist? Dutton set out to find answer, thinking that perhaps it was because nonreligious people were more rational than their religious brethren, and thus better able to reason that there was no God, he wrote.

But "more recently, I started to wonder if I'd got it wrong, actually," Dutton told Live Science. "I found evidence that intelligence is positively associated with certain kinds of bias."

For instance, a 2012 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychologyshowed that college students often get logical answers wrong but don't realize it. This so-called "bias blind spot" happens when people cannot detect bias, or flaws, within their own thinking. "If anything, a larger bias blind spot was associated with higher cognitive ability," the researchers of the 2012 study wrote in the abstract.

One question, for example, asked the students: "A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?" The problem isn't intuitive (the answer is not 10 cents), but rather requires students to suppress or evaluatethe first solution that springs into their mind, the researchers wrote in the study. If they do this, they might find the right answer: The ball costs 5 cents, and the bat costs $1.05.

If intelligent people are less likely to perceive their own bias, that means they're less rational in some respects, Dutton said. So why is intelligence associated with atheism? The answer, he and his colleague suggest, is that religion is an instinct, and it takes intelligence to overcome an instinct, Dutton said. [8 Ways Religion Impacts Your Life]

The religion-is-an-instinct theory is a modified version of an idea developed by Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, who was not involved in the new study.

Called the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis, Kanazawa's theory attempts to explain the differences in the behavior and attitudes between intelligent and less intelligent people, said Nathan Cofnas, who is pursuing a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom this fall. Cofnas, who specializes in the philosophy of science, was not involved with the new study.

The hypothesis is based on two assumptions, Cofnas told Live Science in an email.

"First, that we are psychologically adapted to solve recurrent problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestorsin the African savanna," Cofnas said. "Second, that 'general intelligence' (what is measured by IQ tests) evolved to help us deal withnonrecurrentproblems for which we had no evolved psychological adaptations."

The assumptions imply that "intelligent people should be better than unintelligent people at dealing with 'evolutionary novelty' situations and entities that did not exist in the ancestral environment," Cofnas said.

Dutton and Van der Linden modified this theory, suggesting that evolutionary novelty is something that opposes evolved instincts.

The approach is an interesting one, but might have firmer standing if the researchers explained exactly what they mean by "religious instinct," Cofnas said.

"Dutton and Van der Linden propose that, if religion has an instinctual basis, intelligent people will be better able to overcome it and adopt atheism," Cofnas said. "But without knowing the precise nature of the 'religious instinct,' we can't rule out the possibility that atheism, or at least some forms of atheism, harness the same instinct(s)."

For instance, author Christopher Hitchens thought that communism was a religion; secular movements, such as veganism, appeal to many of the same impulses and possibly 'instincts' that traditional religions do, Cofnas said. Religious and nonreligious movements both rely on faith, identifying with a community of believersand zealotry, he said.

"I think it's misleading to use the term 'religion' as a slur for whatever you don't like," Cofnas said.

The researchers also examined the link between instinct and stress, emphasizing that people tend to operate on instinct during stressful times, for instance, turning to religion during a near-death experience.

The researchers argue that intelligence helps people rise above these instincts during times of stress. [11 Tips to LowerStress]

"If religion is indeed an evolved domain an instinct then it will become heightened at times of stress, when people are inclined to act instinctively, and there is clear evidence for this," Dutton said. "It also means that intelligence allows us to be able to pause and reason through the situation and the possible consequences of our actions."

People who are able to rise above their instincts are likely better problem-solvers, Dutton noted.

"Let's say someone had a go at you. Your instinct would be to punch them in the face," Dutton told Live Science. "A more intelligent person will be able to stop themselves from doing that, reason it through and better solve the problem, according to what they want."

The study was published May 16 in the journal Evolutionary Psychological Science.

Original article on Live Science.

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Why Are Atheists Generally Smarter Than Religious People? - Live Science