Atheïsts are not to be trusted.

Teinz · Nov 22, 2011

I came across this research.

http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~will/Gervais%20et%20al-%20Atheist%20Distrust.pdf

Recent polls indicate that atheists are among the least liked people in areas with religious majorities (i.e.,
in most of the world). The sociofunctional approach to prejudice, combined with a cultural evolutionary theory of religion’s effects on cooperation, suggest that anti-atheist prejudice is particularly motivated by distrust.

A description of a criminally untrustworthy individual was seen as comparably representative of atheists and rapists but not representative of Christians, Muslims, Jewish people, feminists, or homosexuals.

And if that weren't bad enough.

Finally, Study 6 demonstrated that distrust of atheists translates into discriminatory decision making.

But there seems to be some hope.

On the other hand, based on the present findings, we predict that people living in largely nonreligious countries (e.g., Denmark; Zuckerman, 2008)—much like nonreligious participants in our studies—would exhibit greatly attenuated anti-atheist prejudice, or possibly none at all. Available evidence supports these predictions:
explicit anti-atheist prejudice among religious individuals is most pronounced in strongly religious countries, an association that holds up across more than 50 countries, even after including important individual-level and country-level relevant control measures.

Anyway, read the paper for yourself; it's long, but rather interesting.

Rufus Coppertop · Nov 22, 2011

I'll pass on reading it but just say that all of my friends are either fellow buddhists or atheists.

sunandshadow · Nov 22, 2011

People who are raised religious and live religious as adults really think differently from atheists. It's typical of humans to be prejudiced against anyone who thinks differently. Especially if the differences are seen as socially disruptive, which religious differences often are.

Tanglewood · Nov 23, 2011

The irony is that if the respondents were asked to describe criminals that they actually knew in real life, in all likelihood they would describe people with some measure of religious faith. Given that the vast, overwhelming majority of Americans adhere to some religious doctrine or other, the results could hardly be any different.

mscelina · Nov 23, 2011

Oh, really? I'm not sure that I'd classify this as "research" so much as a generalization and, I must say, I find the title of this thread vastly insulting.

But then again, perhaps my opinion is invalid? I could be one of those atheist people and therefore cannot be trusted. In which case, then, I find the title of this thread and the claim of "research" to be beyond vastly insulting and just downright inflammatory.

Just sayin'...I think I could assemble a long and equally valid list of people who could comprise a "Christians are not to be trusted" or "Muslims are not to be trusted" or maybe even a "Scientologists are not to be trusted" bit of 'research.'

veinglory · Nov 23, 2011

Minorities get crap from majorities. C'est la vie.

Wayne K · Nov 23, 2011

Trust no one

Ken · Nov 23, 2011

... great. Another reason for people to hate me; sigh.

Filigree · Nov 23, 2011

Trust, but verify.

In my life, the most moral paladin-type person I've ever met is an agnostic engineer. The most evil person I've ever met was a Southern Baptist PTA soccer mom from New Mexico.

areteus · Nov 24, 2011

Ooh! Vague, subjective survey data leading to sensationalist media driven generalised conclusions which play on peoples' inherent prejudices! It's not like we see those every day. Oh, wait, we do...

I love it when a study like this hits media and, suddenly, there is proof of something. Hurrah! We've proven that aetheists are dishonest! Give us a Nobel prize! Bloody sociologist don't really understand concepts like evidence and statistical significance and the good old fashioned adage 'correlation does not prove a direct effect'. At least not until you get a mechanistic connection...

This just hardens my resolve to continue to fight my crusade for teaching kids in schools what the proper scientific method is all about and why you can never 'prove' anything absolutely and the true meaning of the saying 'the exception that proves the rule'...

Teinz · Nov 24, 2011

mscelina said:
Oh, really? I'm not sure that I'd classify this as "research" so much as a generalization and, I must say, I find the title of this thread vastly insulting.

But then again, perhaps my opinion is invalid? I could be one of those atheist people and therefore cannot be trusted. In which case, then, I find the title of this thread and the claim of "research" to be beyond vastly insulting and just downright inflammatory.

Just sayin'...I think I could assemble a long and equally valid list of people who could comprise a "Christians are not to be trusted" or "Muslims are not to be trusted" or maybe even a "Scientologists are not to be trusted" bit of 'research.'

It was never my intention to be vastly insulting or inflammatory. I was merely trying to convey the general conclusion of the research. I surely don't agree with it, either. Maybe I should have added a questionmark to the title, or maybe I should have said: "The majority of people affiliated with a religion think atheists can't be trusted." I just thought it was a interesting piece and wanted to share it, maybe sparking an interesting discussion. Again, I've got nothing against atheists.

In reaction to your third paragraph. I'm not so sure you could, depending on where you came from. I think, for instance, in the US, with it's overwhelmingly Christian population, distrust against Christians will be non-existent. Overhere, in the Netherlands, where only 50% of the population calls itself Christian and only 5 to 10% goes to church regularly, distrust against Christians is also virtually non-existent. But, if I were to announce myself as an atheist to my parents, they would be shocked! I can hear my mother say: "I knew he lost his faith in God, but an atheist?"

The question is; why do people feel that in order for somebody to be a moral person, a watchful and vengeful God is needed?

Teinz · Nov 24, 2011

areteus said:
I love it when a study like this hits media and, suddenly, there is proof of something. Hurrah! We've proven that aetheists are dishonest!

The study doesn't say atheists are dishonest, it claims they are seen as dishonest by others, mostly people with a religious background.

areteus said:
This just hardens my resolve to continue to fight my crusade for teaching kids in schools what the proper scientific method is all about and why you can never 'prove' anything absolutely and the true meaning of the saying 'the exception that proves the rule'...

I agree completely

Ken · Nov 24, 2011

Teinz said:
The question is; why do people feel that in order for somebody to be a moral person, a watchful and vengeful God is needed?

... it doesn't necessarily amount to that. My guess is that if you ask most religious people how faith helps them be good you'd get a much different answer. The modern version of God isn't altogether vengeful, either, like his predecessor Zeus was. The new God is more about love and forgiveness as far as I understand.

p.s. You can change thread titles by going back and editing them.
(Just wrap it in quotation marks and site the source.)

Rolling Thunder · Nov 24, 2011

Odd. I'm an atheist and my closest friends are born-again Christians. I think it just comes down to a person's individual character and that most polls are biased towards the group it's meant to serve.

ColoradoGuy · Nov 24, 2011

Teinz said:
The study doesn't say atheists are dishonest, it claims they are seen as dishonest by others, mostly people with a religious background.

Precisely. Why people think this is a perfectly reasonable thing to talk about.

ColoradoGuy · Nov 24, 2011

Teinz said:
It was never my intention to be vastly insulting or inflammatory. I was merely trying to convey the general conclusion of the research.

I have no problems with your thread title. Like many thread titles, it has a bit of a hook to attract folks.

I think it's generally a good idea to assume good will, rather than search for an affront.

Teinz · Nov 24, 2011

ColoradoGuy said:
Precisely. Why people think this is a perfectly reasonable thing to talk about.

It´s not?

(Again, I'm not interested in this perceived atheist dishonesty (which I don't think exists, I got atheist friends and trust them with my life), I'm just puzzled why some people think this is the case.)

Teinz · Nov 24, 2011

Ken said:
The modern version of God isn't altogether vengeful, either, like his predecessor Zeus was. The new God is more about love and forgiveness as far as I understand.

The God I knew as a kid wasn't. In the PKN (protestant church Holland) Heaven is only achievable for a few.

Teinz · Nov 24, 2011

sunandshadow said:
People who are raised religious and live religious as adults really think differently from atheists. It's typical of humans to be prejudiced against anyone who thinks differently. Especially if the differences are seen as socially disruptive, which religious differences often are.

I get that. But everyone seems to double down on the prejudice when atheists are involved.

ColoradoGuy · Nov 24, 2011

Teinz said:
It´s not?

(Again, I'm not interested in this perceived atheist dishonesty (which I don't think exists, I got atheist friends and trust them with my life), I'm just puzzled why some people think this is the case.)

I suspect it's related to the notion (incorrect, I think) that morality requires a religion. We've had threads about that in the past, such as here.

Teinz said:
The God I knew as a kid wasn't. In the PKN (protestant church Holland) Heaven is only achievable for a few.

As a one time student of religion, I find the Dutch Reformed Church quite interesting, although what I know if it is mostly from the 17th century.

Teinz · Nov 25, 2011

iwriteforkids said:
This is another way of saying something William Durant's wife said back in the '70s. She stated in an interview that her husband "could think of no moral code that survived the death of its gods and no society that survived the death of its moral code."

Maybe he meant he had no trust in humanity. I spoke with my dad about this once and he said more of less the same thing.

iwriteforkids said:
People seem to need a belief in a higher power in order to act in any way reflecting universal ideals of morality or abiding a code of decency--and all societies have them.

I googled it and came up with this.

http://freethinker.co.uk/2008/11/08/how-an-amazonian-tribe-turned-a-missionary-into-an-atheist/

So it seems possible.

iwriteforkids said:
I agree with another post above: "Trust no one."

Too cynical for my taste, to be honest.

PorterStarrByrd · Nov 25, 2011

Several things make the argument irrational.

First of all, if it is scientific, it CAN be Proven, or disproven. When you get into social science, opinion wades in too often. Pretty good clue that social science is in many cases a misnomer.

I believe that you could get the results you want based on who and how you ask the questions.

Ask a caucasion in generations past to characterize Blacks and you might get the generalization that they are lazy ... stupid.. violently criminal .. poor father .. drug usres etc etc etc .... BUT every one you ask will know blacks they like and trust. Few will be able to put a honest name to one that fits one of the adverse definitions.

The same is is true of any other ethnicity, and any strong religion, outside that of the responder.

I can remember how surprised Japanese engineers were that American workers were MORE productive than those in the home factories.

We have learned and continue to learn to distrust outsiders. The closer they are to being our competitors, the more we distrust them. These studies say more about the respondant than they do about the subject.

Passed as a scientific study this matter fails badly.

Rufus Coppertop · Nov 25, 2011

ColoradoGuy said:
I have no problems with your thread title. Like many thread titles, it has a bit of a hook to attract folks.

This.

I think it's generally a good idea to assume good will, rather than search for an affront.

And definitely this!

shakeysix · Nov 25, 2011

as my deeply religious father used to say--never trust a sunday school teacher--s6

Max Vaehling · Nov 25, 2011

I'm okay with religious types not trusting us atheists. I don't trust them either.

Not generally, and not as paople, mind you. I know tons of religious people whom I wouldn't swap for all the Richard Dawkinses of the world, but they all have one thing in common:

They're civil, smart individualists who look at the people and not at their belief systems. And their decisions on how to interact with others comes from them, not from what the Bible says.

They don't let their religion do their thinking.

I try to return the favor and not judge them by their belief system, either. If Faith had a hand in making them the awesome people they are, then I'm okay with that.

It's people who put their religion above verything else, including their peers, that I can't trust. Even when they're doing good. There's a difference between doing good because it's good and doing good because it's this week's dogma.

I don't think people need Faith to do good. Even animals have been found to act altruistically. Unless they're doing it for religious reasons, I remain convinced that altruism predates religion, and religion only hijacked the notion.

Atheïsts are not to be trusted.

Back at it again.

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