During the past 63 years, several polls show the percentage of atheists has not changed at all, holding steady at only 4 percent of Americans who say they do not believe in God. Not only is atheism not growing in the United States, the majority of Europeans are not atheists (Ch. 14, "Atheism: The Godless Revolution That Never Happened"). Russia now claims 96 percent of its population believes in God, while a recent poll of China showed that atheists are outnumbered by those who believe in God(s).Moreover, the tendency to believe in miscellaneous paranormal entities increases in the less or non-religious categories, and is decreased in the "traditional" Christian categories. This is completely counter to the charges made by the New Atheists.
In both the 2005 and 2007 Baylor Religion Surveys, researchers found than 11 percent of the national sample reported they had "no religion." Although nearly a third of the "no religion" group are atheists who reject "anything beyond the physical world," the Baylor Religion Survey found that two-thirds of the "no religion" group expressed some belief in God and many of those are not "irreligious" but are merely "unchurched" (Ch. 17, "The Irreligious: Simply Unchurched-Not Atheists"). Delving into the actual religiousness of those who report having no religion, the Baylor Survey found that a majority of Americans who claim to be irreligious pray (and 32 percent pray often), around a third of them profess belief in Satan, hell and demons, and around half believe in angels and ghosts.
The Baylor Survey found that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases credulity, as measured by beliefs in such things as dreams, Bigfoot, UFOs, haunted houses, communicating with the dead and astrology (Ch. 15, "Credulity: Who Believes in Bigfoot"). Still, it remains widely believed that religious people are especially credulous, particularly those who identify themselves as Evangelicals, born again, Bible believers and fundamentalists. However, the ISR researchers found that conservative religious Americans are far less likely to believe in the occult and paranormal than are other Americans, with self-identified theological liberals and the irreligious far more likely than other Americans to believe. The researchers say this shows that it is not religion in general that suppresses such beliefs, but conservative religion.
"There's an old saying that a man who no longer believes in God is ready to believe in just about anything, and it turns out our data suggests it's true. That is to say, religious people don't believe this stuff, but there's no education effect," Stark said.
The New Atheists have no understanding of religion or the religious beyond their own fabricated stereotypes, which they use as straw men in their antiecclesial arguments. The Atheist visceral distaste for religion obstructs their view of truth, logic and actual fact.
5 comments:
Hmm...Baylor is a Baptist university, isn't it? Some atheists may claim any study released from that place would be unreliable. You may want to find other sources to corroborate this evidence to convince them. I myself think this is right, since surveys such as ARIS:
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/aris.pdf
launched by non-partisan groups have found that the number of atheists is only a small fraction of the total number of people who fall into the "no religion" group on surveys like these. It strikes me as odd that most 'unbelievers' would classify themselves as simply having 'no religion' rather than being atheist, agnostic, secular, or humanist, and there is some evidence, so I've heard, pointing towards the conclusion that a very large proportion of these people actually do believe in God or some sort of 'higher power.' In Europe, for instance, where church attendance rates have been dropping and where religion is held to be in decline (see Phil Zuckerman's work), according to the Eurobarometer poll from 2005:
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_225_report_en.pdf
Significant portions of the populace who don't believe in God believe instead in "some sort of spirit or life force." Indeed, for Estonians and Czechs, of whom only 16 and 19% of the population believe in God, respectively, 54% and 50% believe in some kind of 'spirit,' with only 26 abd 30 percent believing in nothing at all.
While I'm not sure, I have a suspicion that if research was done on the proportion of Americans claiming 'no religion,' a similar percentage of them would actually be vague deists or spiritualists.
Hope this helps.
wandering internet commentator said:
"Baylor is a Baptist university, isn't it? Some atheists may claim any study released from that place would be unreliable"
Thanks for your comment.
There is no doubt whatsoever that there are Atheists who will deny its validity, denial is what they do. However satisfying Atheists is not my priority here, and I have no reason to doubt the integrity of this source. If someone brings a specific charge against them - other than that they are not part of the right group - I'll certainly consider it.
The more data, the better of course, so long as it is not agenda-laden, as you suggest.
The difference between this report and the ARIS reports is the depth of questioning. I'm not sure the sample size is enough to get 4% granularity with reliability though. But the questions such as thoose concerning paranormal beliefs held by the main categories is certainly a unique feature that should be kept, and used by ARIS and others.
It's interesting to note that many believers in the paranormal are people who have actually experienced some of those phenomena (according to some surveys, more than 50% of the people have had one of those experiences). So, it's no only a product of "credulity" (because it implies a certain irrationality in believers).
In fact, some religious people doesn't believe in paranormal topics, because they see them as "diabolical" things (that is, they don't denied its possible existence, but don't take those things seriously because its suppossed satanic origin)
In this sense, some religious groups are hostile to the paranormal for ideological reasons, similar to the materialist hostility to it (also, by ideological reasons).
Many atheists think that religious persons are stupid, credulous and irrational; and as materialist atheists put the paranormal in that category too, they assume that religious persons have to believe in these things too (and in pink unicorns, Santa Claus, etc.).
Facts are:
-Religion is one thing, and paranormal phenomena (and research) is another.
-You can believe in the paranormal (e.g. having experienced some phenomenon like telepathy; or after studying the scientific literature and evidence about it, like the Dean Radin's books) and don't believe in God.
-You can believe in God, but not believe in the paranormal (e.g Antony Flew)
But totalitarian and reductionistic worldviews like those of materialist atheists can't draw the above (and other) factual distincions to objetively examine the reality.
As Stain wrote, "The Atheist visceral distaste for religion obstructs their view of truth, logic and actual fact". In other words, they're being irrational.
ZC
The "specific charge" in question is, of course, that it begs the question t state that Christianity somehow reduces belief in the paranormal. One can easily say that Christianity itself is an example of such belief. It is typical case of special pleading which is familiar from other contexts.
Meanwhile, I cannot help but note your disdain for metaphysical naturalism. However, I have not seen you provide any reasons for accepting the opposite. How about it?
Christianity is an explained metaphysic, whereas paranormal is a reference to unexplained metaphysical claims.
I have written elsewhere on the evidence that is compelling for metaphysical reality. While I haven't time for it now, I will post soon on that which is evidence of a theoretical nature, and that which is evidence of a non-theoretical nature.
None of the evidence is tactile, physical or material, as is expected of a non-material reality. So if you want empirical evidence, then you are locked out a priori.
Post a Comment