Community | September 22, 2009 | 20 comments

You can run, but you can't hide! The Godless are rising!

source: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/09/fear_the_atheist.php

Image
hpseaton
The results of yet another poll are out, showing that the godless are rising and promise to rise for years to come. In 1990, we made up 8% of the population; now in 2009, we're 15%. They're extrapolating forward and estimating that we will make up 25% of the country in 20 years.

It's not enough, is all I can say. I suppose it's good news, but I am disappointed in my fellow Americans. I will not be content until the number is 100%. (OK, 95%. It's not fair to demand rationality from people who are brain damaged or locked up in asylums.)

The really bizarre news here is the way people are squirming to put a twist to the data to reassure the believers. They've got a label for that 15% that isn't "godless atheist unbelievers": they are "Nones". Don't panic, they say, only 10% of them call themselves "atheists"! They're mostly agnostics and skeptics of organized religion! You don't have to stockpile food and ammo, bar the doors and windows, and prepare for the anarchy and evil that would follow if all those people were atheists.

It's rather annoying. Every article I see on this subject makes this desperate rush to reassure their readers that this growing cohort of Americans aren't really those goddamned atheists — they're nice people, unlike those cold-hearted, soulless beasts called atheists, and they aren't planning to storm your churches and rape the choir boys and boil babies in the baptismal fonts, unlike the scary atheistic monsters. They're special. And most of all, they aren't French.

"American nones are kind of agnostic and deistic, so it's a very American kind of skepticism," says Barry Kosmin, director of Trinity's Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture. "It's a kind of religious indifference that's not hostile to religion the way they are in France. Franklin and Jefferson would have recognized these people."

Oh, please. All the low frequency of self-reported atheists in the survey tells you is that the long-running campaign in American culture to stigmatize atheism has been highly successful — and it's an attitude that we still see expressed in reports like this. The most important news they try to transmit is not the increase in unbelievers, it's "Thank God they aren't atheists! They're just rational skeptics, instead!"

Atheism is not a state to be avoided. It does not distort your features so that the founding fathers would throw you out of the country as an undesirable alien. It does not give you a French accent. It doesn't even make you want to bomb churches. We are "rational skeptics," too, we're just the ones who aren't afraid to confront the social conventions that insist that you must be churched or in some way pious in order to be a good person — we are just the ones who will get in beatifically complacent faces and tell them they're wallowing in bullshit.

So don't be reassured. Those "Nones" don't believe in a Bearded Ape of Cosmic Proportions, they aren't propping up the local priestly den of ignorance with donations, and Pat Robertson is still confident that every one of them will burn in hell. Most are not as vocal or as confident as the spokespeople for atheism are, but then, most of the people who have been filling church pews for centuries haven't been as noisy or assertive about their faith as have the priests and bishops and deacons, but no demographers have therefore felt compelled to split definitions and point out the weakness of Christianity by declaring only some tiny percentage to be church leaders.

More at link. Great blog!
  1. groups:
    Community
  2. tags:
    Atheists,  godless,  PZ Myers,  Godless America
  3.     
    |

20 comments // You can run, but you can't hide! The Godless are rising!

  • arkansasrednck
    • 0
      arkansasrednck  

    • I by no means am the archetype of Christianity. I am filled with contradictions, and overwhelming urge to be evil and often forget what it is I am supposed to be doing to help others. That said, I find quite a bit of comfort that the Bible is filled with Joes like me, and are filled less with the self proclaiming righteous bigots we see today. People say practice religion; that is to say, its something to which we aspire to perfection or greater understanding. How is this search for truth any different then any other scientific discipline? It so easy to stand on the shoulders of intellectual giants and say...There is no god!

    • 2 years ago
  • hpseaton
  • curtisreed
    • 0
      curtisreed  
    • arkansasrednck:

      Even though I'm an agnostic, the notion of a world in which everyone is an atheist is FAR more frightening than one in which the majority are religious.

      I suspect that living under Sharia law would be preferable to living under atheist arrogance.

    • 2 years ago
  • spacemikey
    • 0
      spacemikey [removed]  

    • So once again current get's more indoctrination from atheists. Good, fine, well.... I'll even admit for the most part at least with the Christian religion; you're dealing with a bunch of hypocrites who don't really "follow Christ", and use the term Christian very loosely. I know many Christians can't stand Pat Robertson, the Catholic Church, Mormons, and the list goes on of faux Christians that that would make someone who follows and lives by Christs teachings; sick.

      In fact you have many groups, or people that co-opt the term Christian, to make insanity, manipulation, or abuse more palatable.....

      I have no problem admitting organized religion is flawed and there are bad examples. No problem accepting some truly don't believe and never will.

      The problem is attacking a core belief system (that can't be disproved) with insults and mockery. That's hateful and counterproductive to a cause that seeks to gain support of intelligent people.

      As someone who is no example or role model, yet really appreciates the teachings and principals of Christ, and Christianity in a; "follower of Christ" form. These god bashing submissions here are disturbing.

      A little friendly advice, you'll get a better response from everyone if you can avoid posting petty insults, and hate speech.

      And for all those hateful atheists I hope for your sake you are never confronted by a; "Bearded Ape of Cosmic Proportion" or have to answer for your intolerance....

    • 2 years ago
  • hpseaton
    • 0
      hpseaton  
    • spacemikey:

      lol...I always like a little friendly advice, spacemikey. You noticed, I hope, that this was from a blog. Seems like people that believe in a deity tend to get far more upset and are far more apt to insult and attack!

      I agree with you...I sure hope I don't run into a Bearded Ape of Cosmic Proportion. Sounds rough, indeed!

    • 2 years ago
  • Chod77
  • acontradiction
  • hpseaton
  • acontradiction
  • hpseaton
    • 0
      hpseaton  
    • acontradiction:

      lol...acontradiction with that fluid sense of violence I sure hope you follow Odin and Thor! You sound like a real Norse warrior! When you fall in battle may the Valkyries swoop down and bear you to Asgard!

    • 2 years ago
  • arkansasrednck
    • 0
      arkansasrednck  

    • There are an infinite ways humans have come to be where we are today. Until I am shown by science that everything in the universe including humans; was created by accident; I shall continue to belive that intelligence reigns supreme over all maters of the universe. As it stands, of the total universe, we only sort of understand 4%.

    • 2 years ago
  • hpseaton
    • 0
      hpseaton  

    • unclecharlie, atheism is closed minded? Really? Close minded is thinking that the deity you worship is the correct one. The burden is on you to prove why you think this is so. They're are hundreds, probably thousands of deities that have been worshipped, so I think it's really close minded of you to think yours is the correct one.

      But you go on believing we're close minded....

    • 2 years ago
  • curtisreed
    • 0
      curtisreed  
    • hpseaton:

      what you just wrote is proof of what unclecharlie just wrote. He never mentioned his own belief in God, my friend.

      You can no more prove the inexistence of God than anyone can prove His existence. Absolute belief in God's existence--or non-existence--is nothing but a FAITH.

      The religious have faith that there is a God, and do not require proof.

      You apparently have faith that there is no God, and do not require proof.

      But for you to declare that your faith that there is no God is more valid that another's faith in God's existence, is as closed minded and arrogant as would be the opposite scenario.

      I will repeat once more, a Sanskrit saying...I believe you currently fall under the first phrase:

      He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool; avoid him.
      He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a student; teach him.
      He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep; wake him.
      He who knows and knows that he knows is a wise man; follow him.

    • 2 years ago
  • hpseaton
    • 0
      hpseaton  
    • hpseaton:

      curtisreed...thanks for the sanskrit. I love eastern religions so quote away. I don't think you added to the argument, but that's cool. I don't agree that I made unclecharlie's point. In fact I would say just the opposite....but let's just say we both have faith that our respective posts are correct.

    • 2 years ago
  • curtisreed
    • 0
      curtisreed  
    • hpseaton:

      the point was made in the first line, let me clarify

      it's impossible to know if there is a God or not. Can't be proven. it's a matter of faith either way.
      anyone who is sure he knows, when in fact he doesn't even know what he doesn't know is a fool.
      "He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool; avoid him"

    • 2 years ago
  • unclecharlie
    • 0
      unclecharlie  

    • It's simply a matter of barring the door, refusing to say "perhaps...." and believing that you are intellectually superior. It's not being open, it's refusing to be open to the possibility that God exists. Agnostics, at least, choose to excercise their intellect. Atheism? I can't think of anything more closed minded.

    • 2 years ago
  • curtisreed
    • 0
      curtisreed  
    • unclecharlie:

      unclecharlie, you spoke the truth.

      I was once an "atheist", despised religion and hated Christians and spouted all the nonsense that you hear from these "godless" fools.

      Until one day I heard myself arguing with a really closed minded Christian who was proclaiming that there was only ONE way to heaven, and ONLY if you believed exactly what HE believed, and of course, I was arguing that there was NO God, while he was positive that there WAS a God, and in an instant I had that epiphany that we were both being equally arrogant, and neither of us could EVER prove of disprove the existence of God...

      Since that day, I've become FAR more open to religion.

      So I studied Eastern religion a little (I'm certainly no scholar) and I think it was then that my understanding and acceptance of world religions blossomed, and my atheism was forever abandoned, replaced with a humble, knowledgeable agnostic statement of "I know not"

      He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool; avoid him.
      He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a student; teach him.
      He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep; wake him.
      He who knows and knows that he knows is a wise man; follow him.

    • 2 years ago
  • SamuraiDave
  • hpseaton
    • 0
      hpseaton  
    • SamuraiDave:

      I saw it more as hopeful thinking.

      Christians are always waiting for that day when the whole world has heard their message (so Jesus can return), Islam looks forward to the day when Allah has been proclaimed to all (and accepted, whether they like it or not), so why can't an atheist dream of the non-religious taking over America?

    • 2 years ago
  • SamuraiDave
more from Community:
from the community

top videos