Note to the 'usual suspects': please don't kill the messenger here. I WANT to treat this as a serious discussion.
In Atheism We Distrust: Scientific American
Atheists are one of the most disliked groups in America. Only 45 percent of Americans say they would vote for a qualified atheist presidential candidate, and atheists are rated as the least desirable group for a potential son-in-law or daughter-in-law to belong to. Will Gervais at the University of British Columbia recently published a set of looking at why atheists are so disliked. His conclusion: It comes down to trust.
I don't know that this remains true. If it does, however, I suspect it might be because atheists do not subscribe to an objective moral code, center or weltanschauung.
Hmm. I am an atheist ans I trust me ;-))
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@"Subjects believe that people behave better when they think that God is watching over them"
Shouldent that be: "Subjects believe that people behave better when they think that God is keeping an eye on them"?
I have met an number of religious people who think 'fear of gods punishment' is the reason they behave better than atheists (even when they demonstrably dont).
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You are right. Us atheists dont have any hard and 'objective' rule saying "Dont slash through womens bellied to kill their unborn child". But then again the one situation I have read of where that happened was in the bible where God downright order the Israelites to do that. Its in Samuel ;-))
Phrase it however you want. It's still the same sense in different words. :-) Yes, yes, I get that there's a subtle difference...but still.
Demonstrably indeed. Respondents to this study have clearly discounted the number of clergy who've been guilty of all manner of atrocities against children.
Eh, nevertheless, I think there's something to the idea that people don't trust what they can't understand or with which (whom) they cannot identify. Believers operate by a readily understandable set of rules whereas atheists tend to be independent moral reasoners. (That's not to say us believers can't be independent moral reasoners, but many of us aren't.) Believers' motivations are understood whereas those of atheists' are not.
Edit: the Dennis Miller Disclaimer applies here. :-)
Don't forget the Qur'an. :-)
Rarely for me, a one word answer.
Indoctrination.
*like*
No one does. No one gives a hoot.
Perhaps if you provided examples...?
All in all an excellent, well-reasoned post!
I'm so glad you didn't take the usual path of going on the offensive against anyone who even broaches the subject.
That said, I'll go ahead and admit to my own biases as manifest, in this case, by surprise at the notion of atheist 'beliefs' (Paragraph 5). I've always assumed, perhaps wrongly, that atheists weren't terribly big on issues of faith.
1) Agreed. Although I'm thoroughly cognizant of the fallacy, I still have to catch myself prior to falling into the one-size-fits-all paradigm in regard to atheists. My biggest foible is to assume that "all atheists" close themselves off to potentiality. Perhaps some do (i.e., the self-limned 'militant' atheists) but more often than not the atheists I encounter are a bit more 'agnostic.'
2) Speaking as one who 'toyed around' with atheism at a much younger age, I'm OK with the use of the word faith in conjunction with atheism. After all, almost everything we do requires faith. Hell, it'd be damned near impossible to get anything done if we didn't BELIEVE that X would yield Y on the basis of previous experience. :-)
All of them? Why do you think so?
Matthew 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment.
It's first because God is the God of rightness. If you don't put rightness first, it doesn't matter much what you do instead.
Yourself (and the test subjects referenced in the article) being the obvious exception. You did, after all, respond. :-)
1) Examples of the latter.
2) Excellent!
Bravo!
I think I'm going to enjoy conversing with you! :-)
LOL!
The way I learned it from arguing with Christians in the past over this same subject was that many believe one can't be moral if they don't believe in God or ever read some religious text. If you want to have a serious discussion on this from my opinion only atheists are not a large percentage of the population (more are actually agnostic than 100% true atheist.) If religious people are highly moralistic more so than true atheists...why are many religious people in prison? Why do we have religious serial killers? Why do we have religious terrorists? Why do we have religious wars? Why do we have religious genocide?
I'm not trying to demonize one religion over the other because it is our actions only in the end but when a religious person says that about morals to me.. I know they been indoctrinated. Can't have non religious people spreading their "filth" around can we? Smear tactics keep a population complacent.
Now as for the article:
"Subjects believe that people behave better when they think that God is watching over them"
People who believe that are basically admitting that humanity is essentially evil and without the "idea" of God they would do evil things. This is sort of contradictory that religion is essentially good in reality it is people that make up a religion not God. If there was no people to make up a religion there would be no idea of a God.
If the people are naturally evil how can any religion be good???? Everything we do is a reflection of us how can we or any of our ideas then be good if we are naturally evil? There's many underlying facts that I can say about this but I won't because that statement is pure crap.
