I wonder how the questions were worded and how the researchers themselves feel about atheists.

(...found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.”)

Why are you so impressed by the comparison of you with those unrelated and innocent groups-recent immigrants, gays and lesbians?

It's so shocking to you, huh? So do you, atheists, think that it is normal that you should be regarded more favorable over those groups? On what bases?

"It's so shocking to you, huh?"

Who's shocked?

The article is pretty straight forward. Nobody has claimed any of what you are suggesting.

No Big Surprise. The simpleminded tend to distrust those who frighten them.

The people that took that survey, were without a doubt christians themselves.

I used to sit in church(self-righteously) many many years ago and think, how could anyone be so lowly as to think oneself as an Atheist? I was wondering how could anyone bring themselves to openly reject God? This to me was admitted hatred of God. I used to think, How could anyone in their right mind, give up the free gift of Heaven or even remotely take a chance of going to Hell? I used to think(self-righteously), that Atheists were totally barbarians, with no respect for themselves nor any especially for Christians, and that Atheists no doubt cursed God and Jesus and his creations with every breath and had absolutely no morals, nor a conscious, able to torture babies and slaughter people without one bit of remorse.

I now know better! And I do greatly apologize for being so blatantly ignorant.

I know through the observations and actions of Christians, that there could not possibly be a Heaven or Hell. I also know by reading the Bible, there cannot be a God as described in the Bible.

For the most part Atheists do not Hate God or Jesus in any way, mainly because we do not believe that they exist and there is nothing to hate. It's impossible to hate something that does not exist, try it sometime. It's also impossible to Love something thats does not exist.

A christian may Love the religious concept of a God and Jesus, but thats all there is to love, the religious concept.

America changed 514 years ago, when the pirates brought over with them Bible, yes Christopher Columbus was a pirate, he is made out to be a hero, but actually he was a pirate, do some research.

American progress, yes we have Airplanes, Autos, etc. with so many conveniences we need not take over 100 steps a day to accomplish most of our daily tasks, but this land was stolen from the Native Americans, millions of Indians were killed and slaughtered in the name of God and Jesus, Christianity itself is barbaric, and has blood on it's hands.
Jesus said, go unto all the nations and teach the gospels and kill anyone that gets in your way.
No, he did not say kill, but that is just what happened, and if he was God, then he must have surely known that many people would die, for that stupid belief that Paul invented.

If I could turn the clock back and give it all back to the Indians, I would, what do we have today? A society based on greed with a 2000 year old religion controlling 97% of peoples minds, so damn depressing.

I am now proud to admit that I am an Atheist, and not associated with any religion.

Since most, if not all Christians have the wrong understanding of the label Atheist, I now label myself as a Confirmed Non-believer and Rationalist.

The only thing that Atheists hate, is total blissful ignorance, that one must profess to be a Christian or Muslim or Jew, etc.

I agree with you Matt. We do frighten christians above muslims and gays. Christains have those "groups" catagorized neatly. Christians feel we have not made a decision for any god, so they are mad that they can't put us in a place in their mind. Christians hate it when you are not christian, but they do the back stroke until they find commoness in some form of god and they are happy then. Christians can not associate in their simple minds with an athiest because we are not a fellow fanatic or caught in the fantasy. Childlike faith does not like being talked down too because of the fantasy. Faith is their survival mechanism and they can't stand people who might try to disturb it.

I do experience more backlash at work than my muslim couterparts. For some reason, they call me a Jew for not following Christianity.

Don't forget the pirate, Chris Columbus, also brought over some of the first slaves.

Riley J.
I used to work with a catholic guy, and no matter how many times I told him that I was an Agnostic because I did not know what God was, he would always say "You don't believe in God. You are an Atheist" He always called me a Nazi.

I would tell him again, that it was just that, I didn't know if there was a God, because I didn't know what God was, and neither did anyone else, but he never would accept that.
Dan (Rationalist)

Whenever I read stuff like I am glad that I live in Europe. People here are more open towards each other and they don't care so much about any gods.
By the way...it's the same in Canada. The Canadians are way more easygoing with religion.

Their survey could also imply that there are far more Christians in prisons and on death row 97% more, than Atheists. They shot themselves in the foot on that one, sounds like a bunch of snot nosed punks taking the survey.

I don't believe this. It is more like 10-20% of the population that are athiest/agnostic, I think. Not counting all those sitting in church because of family/social issues who have stopped being able to swallow the nonsense.

And I also wonder who was really behind this survey and how it was worded.

It all boils down to lies spouted by so called religious leaders of all denominations. They repeat over and over that athiests are devil worshippers, hate gawd, have no morals, etc, etc. The sheep believe everything they hear from their preachers and get completely brainwashed.

Regards, carol

Good points!

I'd like to add a couple of my own.

First, there are a way too many things wrong with this survey. When your sampling percentage is extremely low (200,000,000 adults in USA but only 2,000 surveyed: .001%!) you cannot claim to have shown anything statistically.

Second, it is already a known fact that probably around 80% of America would consider themselves a Christian/Catholic/Muslim/religious in some way so assuming that we even go with the 2000 surveyed, we already know that the number of religious adherents would be approximately 1600 IF the sampling was truly random. If they called mostly the midwest and south, you might find the % is way off, say 1900 religious or even ALL!

Third, atheists already know that Christians would not trust them. This is not news.

I agree with those who said that the simpleminded, prejudiced, and fearful are always going to distrust those who are different.



tim

I love the "below" other human beings.

Christianity is the single largest hate group in the world.

After some investigating...this survey apparently is part of a much larger project called the American Mosaic project, sponsored by the Minnesota based Edelstein Family Foundation, focused on racial, religous, and cultural diversity. The target groups of the project were religous and community organizations.

This doesn't appear to be a completely random survey, and a cohort of only 2000 households of a potential population of millions of households gives the results little statistical power, and less credibility.

Still, I'm not too surprised at the results. People of a religous background, whatever the stripe, still hold that their supreme being is the origin of moral uprightedness. It is difficult for such people to accept the truth, that basic goodness has nothing to do with belief in any god.

I was an atheist for most of my life before I became a dedicated Christian in my fifties. I was a dedicated Christian for ten years and I mean dedicated, until I began to question a few biblical contradiction. This led me into an indepth research and my return to atheism for good. What I want to say is this. I have alway consided myself to be an honest, compassionate person all of my life, not just my period in Christianity. When Christian teaching tried to tell me atheism was evil, I would not have it as I know many non believers who are honest decent people,who just do not believe in the Christian God, So why should this make them as being evil. What crap.

I've got some good news for ben. I happened to find the time to read your post. The good news is that Jesus as per New Testament is a myth. He never existed. There is no documented reliable evidence anywhere in the world as to his existence. That is a fact. Millions may believe in the Jesus freak, but those who do have been conned.

The poll only lent validity to what I had suspected for a long time. I consider myself and agnostic with latent atheistic tendencies ;=D.

I've suggested to the CNN Website that they have a poll asking "should Atheists be stripped of their citizenship," or "should atheists be allowed to have citizenship in the United States."

I thing the results would be interesting.

"First, there are a way too many things wrong with this survey. When your sampling percentage is extremely low (200,000,000 adults in USA but only 2,000 surveyed: .001%!) you cannot claim to have shown anything statistically."

You would be suprised how many surveys are less than 5,000 people, including a lot of Gallop polls [so my professor says]. It is hard to have 20,000 results.

A philosphy of statistics course informed me that when you have a huge geographic area and a huge population, a small sample is acceptable.

I do not remember the test name or the formula for determining this. Ask your local doctorate of statistics.

Throw something a little wild out here... this came up in political science... since a lot of states have documented evidence their criminal code was based on the Ten Commandments, and the Ten Commandments have now been thrown out of the courts, who will be the first to commit murder and say that murder is okay because it was based on the Ten Commandments and it has now been thrown out... so murder has been thrown out as wrong.

Teeter

Of course we atheists cannot be trusted in the eyes of the christian populace. We have been, and will continue to be a thorn in their collective asses, because we know their religion is chock-full-o-shit, and have no reservations about exposing it as such!!!!

Hello, Mr. atheists,

May I ask you a question? How are you so sure that there is no god. I think I understand well the position of agnostics. But I am curious about your conviction of no god. Anybody tell me?

Dear Mr. Inquisitive Fundamentalist,

Firstly, Atheism is not a "conviction", so right out of the gate, you are misinformed. Atheism is merely the non-belief in God(s). We could say that Atheism is the "default" position, that is, UNTIL adaquate objective evidence for the existance of such a being is put forth BY the one making the claim(in this case, you, I presume).

More over, I assume that you either have this evidence---in which case we'd love to hear it---or, that you take your belief on "faith"(like the bible SAYS you should.) Notwithstanding, in the words of Dan Barker, "Faith" is nothing more than a form of Agnosticism...i.e..."I can't prove the existance of God, so in turn, I can't KNOW the existance of God, yet, I have Faith that there is one." Conversley, if you have said "evidence", then "faith" is out the window, and vica verca. Got it? 'Glad I could help.

boomslang,

Good reply.

There are so many reasons not to believe that gods exist that it's really hard to list them all in a small forum post.

If a person is raised believing in such and such then they tend to take it for granted as being true. Now if this such and such happens to be a dogmatic religion such as Christianity or Islam, common sense, rationality, logic, etc., all go out the window.

If I had been raised as an atheist then I would tend to think atheism was true without even investigating religious claims.

The difference is a willingness to examine the evidence presented by any particular argument. Christians are not willing to do this. Muslims will kill you if you draw a picture of Mohammed. I shudder to think what they would do to a person if they drew a picture of Allah.

With this kind of close-mindedness, it is easy to clean to a believe that has no evidence or practically none while simultaneously rejecting a position that has a ton of evidence to support it.


Why don't I believe any gods exist, anonymous? I have yet to see any evidence presented in support of any god or gods that couldn't be explained in a naturalistic fashion. When is the last time you saw a true miracle? Has any of the faith healers restored an amputee's limb? Has Benni Hinn (sp?) ever brought anyone back to life?


I could go on and on about the negative evidence or lack of evidence for gods but let me ask you to present one piece of evidence that you think supports the idea of an almighty deity.


The chances are you are going to post something that to you seems to point to a god but under closer examination it will be revealed that you are simply ignorant of the facts surrounding your point. Go Google "intelligent design", print off some arguments by Behe and Dimbski and... feel good that these Ph.D.ed scholars believe in a god so there must be one since they are smarter than you, THEN come back here and we can discuss why each of their points fail. :)

I won't hold my breath.

Tim

As a anti-theistic "Weak" Deist, I sympathize w/my atheist friends.
What the hell? why is faith and theism given such privelage? whilst we , the faithless get looked down upon so greatly! It truly is sad?

I used to be a Thiest, a dedicated evangelical christian-for years, I too was prejudiced about theism and it's faithless counterparts.
The world needs to wake up and small the coffee man.

In Reason:
The very irreverand Bill "Iconoclastithon" Baker

I find the article to be totally ridiculous and not based on any facts what so ever. Do I need to mention what happened a couple of weeks ago when the public found out the Arabs were buying ports in Philadelphia? Or how about gay marriage?
It's just the fundy propaganda machine spreading lies.

Whatever the percentage, people who value knowledge over faith spearhead human evolution. Thanks to non-believers, the masses don't believe that the sun is god anymore or that disease is caused by demons. If there is a collective hero of the human race -- that guy in the white hat boldly going where none has gone before -- that would be the non-religious, the group that puts pursuit of knowledge before surrender to faith. It's the only way that people get anywhere. The evidence indicates that only a small percentage of the population possesses the courage to face life on its own terms at any given moment. But the masses always end up following the pursuers of knowledge, whether decades, centuries, or millenia later. Its the only way to survive in the long run. In a few decades very few Westerners will believe in god. In a few centuries very few of anyone will believe in god. And this is the handwriting on the wall that so frightens the believers of today. Their way of life is going the way of the dinosaur. They lash out at scientists and freethinkers, but that's like trying to sweep back the tide. Once you realize there is no Santa Claus, there is no going back to believing in him again.

I'm tired of hearing these idiots who keep saying that they feel God in their heart and that's enough to know he exists. We atheists are done useing our hearts to determine our beliefs and have begun to use our brains instead.

So far as I know the irreligious are the second largest religious denomination in the United States, well over the number they're giving here.

If you subtract all the people who profess being christian but rarely or never go to church, read the bible, or worship, but lead wholly secular lives, christians become a rather insignificant minority. If these polls and such probed deeper into the religious PRACTICE of those who claim to be christian, it would no doubt reveal that the vast majority are christian in name only. Now that's food for thought.

“It seems most Americans believe that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common ‘core’ of values that make them trustworthy—and in America, that ‘core’ has historically been religious,”

Yeah, the catholic church, which if I am not mistaken, is the largest christian group in america, is a shining example of trustworthiness. What a bunch of tripe.

Not to mention the staggering amount of rampant criminal activity propagated by the leaders of other protestant deniminations. Embezzlement...rape..molestation...adultery...forgery...kidnapping....and fraud. Just count the news items on this site alone!

What is a nation, without a core value/symbol? Just a land mass, with resources, waiting to be attacked by others who have their core value(s)/symbols.

I don't agree that religion is the right "core" value/symbol to unite a nation, but it appears to be the one currently displayed, and used to hire employees, rally political support, etc.

A nation needs a face, what that face should be, appears to be lost to the leaders, of a diverse nation. Historically, a nation must find some element that all citrizens can agree upon, and then be considered 'one of us'. Unfortunately, it appears that "god" has been used as that element, and the catholic religion vying to put god in the pledge of allegiance is part of that forcing citizenship to rest on god as a common symbol.

What could be a nations' common core value? Perhaps, some nations' just need a face lift. Its not the beauty within, that appears to be the issue, its what is perceived on the outside many times. Perception is reality for many. I'd prefer to see a non-religious core value, focused on peace, environment, etc., however, it appears that the "god" supporters don't want to devalue their symbol, even though it is not accepted by the majority as a legitimate symbol for the whole.

God is an Atheist.

Well, at least it said that the Eastern coastal areas and the Western coastal areas are more tolerant with atheism. Only the midwestern areas, and may I add the Southern, also? tend to be more intolerant. Rejoice! They don't like us Hispanics, and may I add Muslims, Jews and others, either. It ain't that bad, folks.

Michelle Vaillancourt wrote:
"God is an Atheist"
--
Michelle,
While your statement made me laugh, it's possible that god isn't really an atheist per se.
How so, you ask.

Because it seems there is some god-like-force above him that stops him from making his own decisions when it comes to us humans.

He obviously was told by his 'boss' that he had only ONE shot at creating his human pets, Adam and Eve. After he saw he created a sinful flawed pair of humans, it was too late to start over again.

Also, if god was really in charge of everything here on earth, why would he wait a few thousand years before sending his 'son' down here to rectify the original sin problem?
The answer must be that god's boss had to be persuaded to give god's human pets another chance and that takes a lot of coaxing time I guess.

I'm also guessing that his boss will no longer allow him to 'play' with his human pets, as he's been all too silent for 2000 years now.
Good thing most of his pets know how to feed themselves, or they might starve to death waiting for the divine dinner plate to arrive.

ATF (who thinks the human god needs to find a new boss to work for)