PRRI - Study of Nones - The Rise of the Unaffiliated

[Tom Sawyer]

Several polls, notable Gallup show that up to 11% of respondents claim to not believe in God or a Universal Spirit, depending on how the question is phrased. But only a small percentage self identify as atheists. Sp atheism as such is a problem. Many "Nothing in particulars" do not believe in God or a universal spirit, nor agnostics. So we atheists have a ways to go as far as image and acceptability to the general public. And as discussed in another thread, Pew surveys show 26% of belivers believe in God as a force, not a personal God.

As far as the image of atheism, it doesn't help when closeted atheists like Neil deGrasse Tyson throw atheists under the bus in order to try and score "open-minded" points for themselves. He isn't the only closeted atheist that publicly rejected atheism in favor of "agnosticism" under the false assumption that atheism entails being absolutely certain that God doesn't exist. Gould made similar bogus arguments against atheism. Gould said he would bet against God's existence and be "very surprised if God existed." That is atheism and belief that that God doesn't exist, because a belief does not require absolute certainty, but merely viewing the idea as more probable than the alternatives.

Also, one of the main rationales behind atheism is that you're an atheist because you don't think that the current evidence supports any of the claims about the existence of all the various gods. That position carries with it the implicit assumption that the position would change in light of new evidence. If evidence turned up tomorrow which proved God, I'd say "Oh, that's interesting" and start believing in God - I have no particular emotional attachment to the atheist philosophy beyond the fact that I see it as factual. The difference between that and agnosticism is that I see there as being essentially a zero percent chance of that happening and don't see a need to refrain from taking a stand on the matter in order to wait for the unlikely event that I turn out to be mistaken.

 

[barbos]

Several polls, notable Gallup show that up to 11% of respondents claim to not believe in God or a Universal Spirit, depending on how the question is phrased. But only a small percentage self identify as atheists. Sp atheism as such is a problem. Many "Nothing in particulars" do not believe in God or a universal spirit, nor agnostics. So we atheists have a ways to go as far as image and acceptability to the general public. And as discussed in another thread, Pew surveys show 26% of belivers believe in God as a force, not a personal God.

As far as the image of atheism, it doesn't help when closeted atheists like Neil deGrasse Tyson throw atheists under the bus in order to try and score "open-minded" points for themselves. He isn't the only closeted atheist that publicly rejected atheism in favor of "agnosticism" under the false assumption that atheism entails being absolutely certain that God doesn't exist. Gould made similar bogus arguments against atheism. Gould said he would bet against God's existence and be "very surprised if God existed." That is atheism and belief that that God doesn't exist, because a belief does not require absolute certainty, but merely viewing the idea as more probable than the alternatives.

Not a big fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson but my understanding his position is pretty common among professors in universities. You need to be popular among students to survive as a professor and atheist is still a dirty word in US even among students.