Atheism on the Upswing in America

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Dardedar
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Atheism on the Upswing in America

Post by Dardedar »

Thanks to Art for the tip about this. The first three of a six part series in the Washington Post, by Greg Paul.

Atheism on the upswing in America

By Greg Paul
Atheism – The absence of theism. So if you doubt the existence of any gods more than you believe in one or more of them, you’re an atheist.

Some years back Washington Post Magazine ran a then-rare story on a strange and scarce species. A kind of person most Americans are so bigoted against that they refuse to vote for them, marry them, or even allow them into the Boy Scouts. These unusual creatures are American atheists, which the old joke said could all fit into a Manhattan phone booth. That was then, this is now.

As the survey results come in, as the irreligious best-sellers sell, and as the scientific analysis gets published, it is increasingly clear that Western atheism has evolved into a forward-looking movement that has the wind at its back, is behind the success of the best run societies yet seen in human history, and is challenging religion as the better basis of morality. Even in the U.S., a religious anomaly in the Western world, atheists are making major gains while Christianity withers, already having lost the mainstream culture to secularism. The least religious regions of the nation are enjoying superior societal conditions.

Religious conservatives commonly contend that only a transcendent supernatural intelligent designer can provide the absolute and perfect morality and the wisdom necessary to run successful societies – it’s become the de facto position of the GOP. Many religious liberals and atheists agree that both theism and atheism are sufficiently moral and practical to generate similarly successful cultures. This series will show that both views are errant. The science-based evidence leaves no doubt that, although very human in its flaws, democratic atheism is proving superior to faith-based mythical doctrines in practical societal and moral terms.

Before we proceed further, we need to take a look at where the planet is concerning the changing status of popular opinion on the reality or non-reality of the gods. According to the tabulations of the World Christian Encyclopedia, the globe was fairly consistently religious circa 1900. It no longer is. The WCE concludes that atheists from committed to agnostic currently number about a billion. Pew calculates that some 1st world countries are only a quarter or a third as religious as are the most pious 2nd and 3rd world nations. In some of the secularized democracies large pluralities and even strong majorities qualify at atheists--including agnostics, while the devoutly religious are small minorities, and those churches that are not nearly empty on most Sundays have been converted to other uses."

The rest of part one, here.

Part two: A ‘loving’ God, a world of suffering?

Part three: Is religion good for society?
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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Re: Atheism on the Upswing in America

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As seen on Skeptic Money

Religious Affiliations At Yale Law School

"...as you can see in the table below the single largest religious affiliation at Yale Law School is Agnostic at 20%. The second largest group is atheist with 14%. Catholic is the only religious group to have more than 10%, unless you add all of the Christians together. Total of all types of Christians is 33% and this is still less than the 34% for atheists and agnostics."

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"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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Re: Atheism on the Upswing in America

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Atheists in Arkansas
The godless find a voice.
by Doug Smith

It's said there are no atheists in foxholes, and that's baloney, according to a military man we'll call "Brad." At an atheists' social gathering in Little Rock, Brad told a reporter that as an Air Force pilot, he'd been in situations where his life was in danger, and on those occasions, the farthest thing from his mind was seeking assistance from an omnipotent Santa Claus.

"In an emergency, you do what you've been trained to do," he said. "If you're praying, you're not doing the very thing you need to be doing, your job."

Brad recalled that when the airline pilot Chesley Sullenberger was asked if he'd prayed while facing great hazard during a memorable incident over New York in 2009, Sullenberger had replied that passengers were probably taking care of the praying; he personally had been too busy setting his airplane down safely in the Hudson River.

It may be another indication of keeping a cool head under fire that although Brad mixed freely with fellow freethinkers in a beer-and-pizza get-together at Vino's, and answered questions for a reporter, he didn't want his real name or photograph used in a newspaper article. "The military is a conservative culture," he said. "One ultra-religious commander could ruin your career." Don't ask, don't tell, applies to more than sexual preference in the military."

the rest here...
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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