Sherry Chandler » Atheists who believe in God?
Atheists who believe in God?
The morning’s NYTimes has a fascinating look at a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. “Survey shows,” to quote Monty Hall,
Although a majority of Americans say religion is very important to them, nearly three-quarters of them say they believe that many faiths besides their own can lead to salvation …For example, 70 percent of Americans affiliated with a religion or denomination said they agreed that “many religions can lead to eternal life,” including majorities among Protestants and Catholics. Among evangelical Christians, 57 percent agreed with the statement, and among Catholics, 79 percent did.
Among minority faiths, more than 80 percent of Jews, Hindus and Buddhists agreed with the statement, and more than half of Muslims did.
The findings seem to undercut the conventional wisdom that the more religiously committed people are, the more intolerant they are, scholars who reviewed the survey said.
“It’s not that Americans don’t believe in anything,” said Michael Lindsay, assistant director of the Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life at Rice University. “It’s that we believe in everything. We aren’t religious purists or dogmatists.”
It might be argued that to believe in everything is to believe in nothing, but hey! I’m agnostic.
Speaking of which,
The survey indicated that the group that had the greatest net gain was the unaffiliated, accounting for 16 percent of American adults.
The new report sheds light on the beliefs of the unaffiliated. Like the overwhelming majority of Americans, 70 percent of the unaffiliated said they believed in God, including one of every five people who identified themselves as atheist and more than half of those who identified as agnostic.
Since the American Heritage Dictionary defines atheist as “one who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods,” I find the concept of a believing atheist, well, unbelievable.
“What does atheist mean? It may mean they don’t believe in God, or it could be that they are hostile to organized religion,” [said John C. Green, an author of the report and a senior fellow on religion and American politics at Pew.] “A lot of these unaffiliated people, by some measures, are fairly religious, and then there are those who are affiliated with a religion but don’t believe in God and identify instead with history or holidays or communities.”
Boggles the mind, doesn’t it? Boggles mine, anyway.
Scholars said such tolerance could stem in part from the greater diversity of American society: that there are more people of minority faiths or no faith and that “it is hard to hold a strongly sectarian view when you work together and your kids play soccer together,” Mr. Lindsay said.
But such a view of salvation may also grow out of doctrinal ignorance, scholars said.
“It could be that people are not very well educated and they are not expressing mature theological points of view,” said Todd Johnson, director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. “It could also be a form of bland secularism. The real challenge to religious leaders is not to become more entrenched in their views, but to navigate the idea of what their religion is all about and how it relates to others.”
But if most of us seem to have some sort of warm fuzzy, especially fuzzy, notion of religion as something that lets us celebrate Christmas and eat chocolate bunnies at Easter, well, there is an upside:
Nearly two-thirds of respondents favored more government help for the poor, even if it meant going deeper into debt. Sixty-one percent of respondents also said “stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost.”
A majority said the United States should pay more attention to problems at home than those abroad, but in the area of foreign policy, 6 of 10 said that diplomacy, not military strength, was the best way to ensure peace.
There’s something I can believe in.
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Addendum: On the other hand, here via Juan Cole is an observation from Rick Shenkman, author of Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter (Basic Books, 2008). It seems right relevant to the notion that Americans are a little uninformed in their beliefs:
I do not wish to engage in a debate about the Iraq War. But the thought of planting a largely Christian army in the middle of the Muslim Middle East over the opposition of most countries in the region, when put as I have just put it, sounds daft. Why did it not ring bells of alarm to Americans in 2003 and after, especially as it became clear that our troops would be staying a long time and that no quick victory was possible? It did not because the administration saw to it that the issue was framed differently. We weren’t planting an army. We were spreading God’s miraculous gift of freedom to a benighted people very much in need of America’s missionary help. It was the triumph of myth over logic.
Why were Americans so susceptible to myth? Foreign policy specialists don’t usually spend a lot of time reflecting on this question. They should. It’s the key to what often goes wrong when foreign policy issues become the subject of public debate.
The answer is, I’m afraid, simple. Myths count more than facts in these debates because Americans don’t know many facts and don’t care to take the time to learn them…
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Update: It’s good to know, I suppose, that James Dobson thinks Al Sharpton an extremist. Lance Mannion has some intelligent things to say about this issue. But I still would like to see religion removed from our political discourse.
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16 Comments
1. MSW replies at 24th June 2008, 3:30 pm :
What does atheist mean? It may mean they don’t believe in God, or it could be that they are hostile to organized religion,
This seems to come uncomfortably close to the old claim that nobody is really an atheist, they just “hate God”. Which is not the case at all. None of the atheists I know find any god worthy of hatred, because they don’t believe they really exist and, to use the commont comparison, “hating God would be like hating Superman”. It just wouldn’t make any sense. At the risk of opening myself up to a “no true Scotsman” fallacy, I’d have to say that anyone who is actually hostile to any god, or who believes in any sort of supernatural entity or occurrence is not an atheist. They might not choose to associate themselves with a particular organized religion, but they still believe in the supernatural. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just get the feeling that there are still plenty of people who don’t exactly understand what an atheist really is, whether deliberately or not.
2. Koshembos replies at 25th June 2008, 5:30 am :
From the perspective of the European, American religious belief is beer-light. It’s not the heavy breathing religion as Europe sees it. I wonder how many Americans beer-light believers are such because they believe that that is the right response to the question. One wonders how serious is the Walmart shopper about salvation.
Basically, I think the survey results are self contradictory and ridiculous.
3. sherry replies at 25th June 2008, 9:36 am :
@MSW and Kosembos, yes, to both of you. I was musing about this on my commute this morning; I think our only real religion is consumerism. We define ourselves by what we own. And that is also what is preached to us from every secular pulpit from the president down through all the media. I guess it’s sort of redundant to say that, but I was taking a Zogby poll yesterday that kept asking me whether I thought the American dream was material or spiritual and I was insulted by the question. As a nation, we probably spend more time choosing a hair dresser than in contemplating our souls.
4. Tommy replies at 25th June 2008, 9:49 am :
Most American religion may be beer-light, but every so often you come across a dark Guinness in among the Pabst Blue Ribbon. I know at least one person who suffered a state of severe crogglement at our college when I told him that I didn’t go to church Sundays. Or Wednesdays. Or Saturday evenings. He recovered (eventually) and started applying subtle pressure to me to get me to come to prayer meetings and things. So I encountered that subculture called evangelism and experienced one member’s quiet desperation to save as many souls as he could, because he would be responsible if any of us ended up in hell.
5. Max replies at 25th June 2008, 10:19 am :
As a christian, I find it hard to understand this conversation. But if I were a non Believer maybe not.
Guess I need to sign off.
6. sherry replies at 25th June 2008, 11:14 am :
@Max, sign off? Leave the discussion. Please don’t. I place a high value on your additions to this conversation.
I have spent a lot of time on this site defending Christians against liberal pundits and defending liberal ideas against Christian fundamentalists. I wish you’d stay and talk to us about this.
I don’t mean to attack belief. All my moral, ethical, intellectual, and spiritual life was nurtured by evangelical Christians and I still consider my life informed by those teachings.
I also know atheists who live examined lives, who have high morals and who are forces for good in the world. I have learned much from these people too.
That is part of what I consider my spiritual journey — to learn as much as I can from as many people as I can.
What strikes me here in this survey is that Americans seem to be all over the place when it comes to religion, and that seems to indicate that most of them don’t take it as seriously as they might.
And actually, I think one of the things I learned from this last primary election is not to stereotype or judge anybody without some real knowledge of who and what they are. Not to choose up sides based on superficial ideas. Not to feel better than anybody else.
So if I seemed to be talking down my nose, I hope you’ll forgive me.
7. Max replies at 25th June 2008, 8:24 pm :
Nope, I’ll never abandon the only person that has read to me when I was a boy. I have read most all of your articles and enjoy them, and actually agree with you … lets say 85% to 90% of the time, pretty high agreement status.
I wholeheartedly agree that religion should not be used as a political tool. To me it has degraded it, but on the other side more people are hearing about it, to me is a good thing(if the intentions are good, but lets face it, it’s not). My teachings have been (like yours) from a small boy, that believing in Jesus will save our soles. (John 3:16) There are many more verses, but I’m not prepared to list them out. It doesn’t matter what religion a person is, just what’s in the individual’s heart. (Per Billy Graham)
Good works, being moraly upright and a good person doesn’t get you there. So non believers certainly can be good people. I don’t believe God is setting at the pearly gate with a tablet in hand listing the times you attended or missed services, how much you put in the offering plate. Frankly God don’t need your money, the money is to be used for others, to help them and spread his word.
When Religon is used as a wedge issue, I feel they are likely souring many people on religion.
When visiting family members, that frequently spout out Liberal intended to be pointed and demeaning, in the I’m right You’re wrong discourse, serves no purpose and likely does more harm than good. I believe those that are born into a religious family, will likely stay in that particular faith. The opinion poles are interesting.
I’ve known people to say they were athiest, but when that person was pressed on a sensitive issue, seemed to be a believer. I have helped bury many family members, it is peaceful for me to know where they have gone, it would most unpleasant to think they didn’t make it to heaven.
I’m easy pickings, but that’s the way I feel.
8. Jack replies at 26th June 2008, 12:51 am :
It’s always a techy argument. Anyone read the gospel according to america? good book, not what one might think, but it seems to me that the American religious right has so tied politics to religion that it has hampered response to various religious texts. When was the last time anyone heard a sermon out of Luke, or from the Sermon on the Mount? What doesn’t fit with the GOP doesn’t make it to USA pulpits, far too often. I’m a believer, albeit a poor one, but I, like Sherry, spend a great deal of time in the uncomfortable space between Jesus and both political extremes.
9. Max replies at 26th June 2008, 7:27 am :
Jack - thanks for your article.
Either you are a believer or your not, so I understand you are a believer too.
We are having this discussion because of the Right buying in totally to the Republican party. Two weeks ago on the Souther Baptist Convention (SBC) website, their survey showed that all ministers would vote for McCain, one percent for Bama, and none for Hillary. Five leading evangilicals spoke out and supported Bush/Cheney for the war. Now it is blatent they lied to start the war (now we’re finally going to be pumping oil), the judicary has now been skewed to the Republican side. Check out the Supreme court, 7 Republicans, and 2 Democrat appointees. If McCain wins, it will likely be all Republican appointees. I guess my point is, they have been made fools of by their own doing. (Irony is they still support the Republican Party)
How noble of them is it to demonize Hillary? If God does have a check list at the Pearly Gates, I’m sure they would be questioned about it.
Either way, I will proudly maintain my Faith, no matter how much I’m told how I should feel. God gave me a brain to use, not blindly follow.
Have a good day……
10. Max replies at 26th June 2008, 8:52 am :
Addendum. Politicizing Religion.
One key component that’s left out in the politicization of religion is sin. The King James (KGV) teaches there is no ranking of sin, simply put sin is sin. A murder can enter the kingdom of heaven; if they repent, sincerely ask God for forgiveness, then live a rightous life.
The hang their hat on abortion only, is it a sin, sure; can the person be forgiven? YES.
Is lying, fibbing, white lyes, distortion of facts, infidelity, coveting, jealousy, failing to help/lift up your fellow citizen a sin? Yes absolutely. Simply put the govt does not stop these actions; it is still up to each individual. (OUR CHOICE)
As related to sin, God forgives, the problem is, we don’t forgive ourselves, and others don’t forgive others very easily either.
Recently I heard an old aunt burdened by things she had done when she was young; Certainly God had forgiven her; she needed to let go and forgive herself.
Off my rant now!
11. sherry replies at 26th June 2008, 11:44 am :
Hooray, Max. Rant on. It was a pleasure to read to you and now it is a pleasure to write to you — and Jack and Koshembos and Tommy and MSW and all. You may remember that Granny used to say hate the sin and love the sinner. I’ve seen that maxim made fun of on the web but it always seemed like a good guideline to live by. Especially since “we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God” whatever our concept of God.
12. Jack replies at 27th June 2008, 11:47 pm :
“hate the sin and love the sinner” seems a good stretch more tolerant than we’ve seen from many these days. Hate the sin and fire the sinner, hate the sin and politically ostracize the sinner, and hate the sin and accuse the sinner of lacking patriotism, courage, and masculinity seems to have been the mantra for the last eight years.
13. Jack replies at 27th June 2008, 11:54 pm :
and also, thanks max and sherry, right back at you.
14. Harry replies at 29th June 2008, 8:20 pm :
Just in passing: the flip side of atheists who believe in God. In the UK census, 72% of people described themselves as Christian. But in a survey in 2004, when asked the question ‘do you believe in God?’, only 44% of people said yes. 35% said no, and there were a lot who said ‘don’t know’.
Even allowing for a big margin of error, that must imply an awful lot of Christians who don’t believe in God.
More details from that survey are here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1479811/Britons%27-belief-in-God-vanishing-as-religion-is-replaced-by-apathy.html
15. sherry replies at 30th June 2008, 12:46 pm :
Hmmmm, Harry. You don’t suppose there’s any possibility in all these surveys that people lie???
Thanks for the info. It’s droll.
16. Harry replies at 30th June 2008, 1:32 pm :
Well, I know my father lists himself as C of E on the census, and I’m pretty sure it’s been several decades since he’s shown any evidence of it. As far as I can gather, he regards it as a kind of ethnic identity.
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