We’re a long way from the day when the United States could reasonably be described as a non-religious nation. But we’re getting there. It’s sometimes hard to see the forest for the trees, but the longer-term trends are pretty unambiguous. (Which is not to say it’s impossible they will someday reverse course.) I suspect that, hand-wringing about arrogance and “fundamentalist atheists” notwithstanding, the exhortations of Richard Dawkins and his ilk have had something to do with it. If nothing else, they provide clear examples of people who think it’s perfectly okay to not believe in God, and be proud of it. That’s not an insignificant factor. It’s most likely a small perturbation on top of more significant long-term cultural trends, but it’s there.
Newsweek reports the facts: the number of self-identified Christians in the U.S. has fallen by 10 points over the last twenty years, from 86 to 76 percent. The number of people who are unaffiliated with any religion has jumped forward, from 5 percent in 1988 to 12 percent today. And the number who are willing to label themselves “atheists” has, it’s reasonable to say, skyrocketed — from 1 million in 1990 to 3.6 million today. That’s still less than two percent of the population, so let’s not get carried away. But it’s double the number of Episcopalians! (I was raised as an Episcopalian. Always been a shameless front-runner.)
Here’s how Jon Meacham sums it up in Newsweek:
There it was, an old term with new urgency: post-Christian. This is not to say that the Christian God is dead, but that he is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory. To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population.
I’ve said it before, but it’s time for us atheists to diversify our portfolio, as far as popular culture is concerned — skepticism and mocking of creationists are all well and good, but we need to put forward a positive agenda for living our lives without the comforting untruths handed down by religion. I’m doing my part by joining the Epicurus fan page on Facebook.
Ree Ree! Guess what, unicorns DO exist on a planet which is part of the landscape predicted by string theory! Here’s the proof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQJD1ura7G4
Pontificating that there is no god takes an equally large leap of faith as pontificating that there is a god.
Pontificating that there is no Santa Claus takes an equally large leap of faith as pontificating that there is a Santa Claus.
Furthermore, when an atheist takes a cheap shot at Christianity, they’re ‘enlightened intellectualism’ has unfortunately devolved into bigotry.
Rubbish. Cults deserve all the criticism they recieve and then some.
Lies are not worthy of respect.
Priests, witchdoctors, shamans and fortune tellers should go out and get a real job.
Showing an undeserving respect to charlatans only perpetuates the cancer.
Dear Sean,
I understand that you want this blog to be about religion, politics, etc. in addition to physics, but
to be honest I for one ,and I would guess many others, come here to read about physics and not
these other topics. You and the other authors of this blog are trained professionals primarily in physics. You are, in my opinion, not qualified to write about these topics with the same authority that you can physics. Consider how odd and inappropriate it would seem to have a political scientist’s blog presenting their opinions about a particular inflationary model as serious analysis when they had no professional expertise in physics. You’re opinions about these other topics are not presented in a balanced way or clearly distinguished from physics discussion. You present genuine analysis of physics topics along side your individual feelings about complex controversial topics in which you have no substantial expertise. So although it is your blog and you can write about whatever you like I am pleading with you to stick to physics and leave the other stuff to the professionals, or at least separate the two. Perhaps consider starting a non-physics blog for those that have an interest in your personal views on other topics.
Sincerely,
John Doe
Physics justifies atheism. Hence this topic is perfectly appropriate for this blog.
The big story about religion in America is not quarrels over evolution and even mores per se. It is the attachment of fundamental Christianity to the political right. But it never made sense to yolk any genuine spirituality, non-selfish ethical views and suspicion of materialism to the creepy, Randian self-interested megacapitalism of the Republican party. The religious rank and file are finally getting that, I don’t know why it took them so long. (I say the R&F since of course manipulative, cynical hacks like Jerry Falwell never gave a crap about verity or compatibility anyway. I saw just how literally evil he almost certainly was in a documentary about the Bakkers.)
But Christians etc. are not always tools of the manipulative type of conservatives. There is The Network of Spiritual Progressives, Swords into Plowshares etc. and don’t forget the way MLK expressed religious sentiments and movements. Andrew Sullivan did well to suggest use of a special subterm, “Christianism”, for the former sort and not the latter. BTW I don’t really appreciate someone saying that mocking anyone, is “all well and good.” And why not Stoicism instead of Epicurianism?
Steve Benen has a very good discussion of all this in the following post, with many astute and acerbic comments: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_04/017609.php.
Quick take: religious folks (even the more conservative in religious terms) are loosing “faith” in the Right. Good!
Word up, Ryan! Also, John Doe has a point yet I do appreciate some eclectism in the blogosphere (IMHO Bee at Backreaction does it better.) Yet I do find the subject interesting … Comparing the question of “God” to that of e.g. Santa Claus as some do is silly. In philosophical practice, “God” means the necessary being that is responsible for the universe’s existence (if it needs such justification), so it is abstractly defined as a category fulfilling a certain logical role (exist or not, the logical principle is the same.) I don’t know why people think that clumsy conflation of all hypotheticals is an intelligent response. It is no more sensible than conflation of all entities we do know of. IOW, it’s a fallacy to imply that statements about the credibility of any give hypothetical X are inherently no better or worse than those about any other entity Y or Z. Well no, it all goes back to the pro and con arguments about X v. Y v. Z etc.
Kin Cynic, WTF?
As for this universe and WITSION, one important point: it is logically preposterous for any particular set of laws to be uniquely graced with a special status, “existence” (that cannot even be logically defined.) So either the brute fact of this world is an awkward logical loose end, or we have the mathematical universe hypothesis, AKA Ultimate Ensemble. That’s a mess though, as Davies explains in Cosmic Jackpot.
Saying “X exists” is not symmetrical with saying “I don’t believe that X exists”.
I am an atheist because I see no evidence for a deity. That doesn’t mean that I am 100 percent sure that no deity exists, though I am reasonably sure that the deity of the Bible doesn’t exist (just as I am sure that Zeus, Wotan, Thor, etc. don’t exist).
That is why the “unicorn” analogy is proper: if one claims that a unicorn exists, one should provide evidence for it.
Now if someone uses a deity as some sort of “metaphor for life” and uses their “relationship” to that deity to live a better life, ok. The problems arise when people think that some deity is going to perform some sort of magic trick (e. g., save the world from the consequences of its actions as Rep. Shimkus believes) and bases their world view and decisions on these anticipated actions.
“Ryan Says:
April 5th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I really have trouble understanding why some self described atheists are so comfortable with conflating their atheism with science/rational thought. Pontificating that there is no god takes an equally large leap of faith as pontificating that there is a god. And really, why is there the need to share one’s faith; whether that faith is in nothing or in something? From where I am sitting, hearing about somebody’s personal beliefs about existence is lame. Very few people actually enjoy being preached at no matter what the sermon is about”
You’re missing the point. Religion is dangerous, damaging and is currently causing untold suffering. It is the enabler, the lame excuse to restrict education, limit human inquisitiveness and blow people up. It’s becoming increasingly clear that to remove religion from all state consideration and all schooling would be to bring about new growth in human understanding and compassion for the world and each other.
I was told about fstdt.net by a colleague and spent a little time reading through what religious people have to say. The site is supposed to be funny, but I find it really frightening. I never really understood war, terrorism, suicide bombers, etc. but after the hate I saw there, I know a little bit about what drives those things.
The argument of “God as the first cause” is not really a valid one.
First, the idea that the universe needs a cause stems from the idea that everything in the universe has a cause (which is a principle of what we think of as logic), but the pitfall is that it’s hard to tell if we can extend logical principles derived within the universe to the universe itself (and outside of it, if such a concept is meaningful). Causality is a logical principle because of time, and the jury’s still out on time (which has been the topic of more than one post in this blog, in fact).
Second, postulating God to fill this hypothetical need for a cause for the universe only pushes the problem back one step: what, then, is the cause of God? If you say that God needs no cause, or is its own cause, you might as well ascribe that same property to the universe and avoid the whole thing.
Third, the idea of God as a “being” is absurdly anthropomorphic. Beings, as far as we know, exist on this planet and nowhere else, and our entire effect on the rest of the universe consists of some satellites, rovers, and footprints. Beings comparable to ourselves certainly may exist elsewhere in the universe, but their effect would then be comparable to ours as well, even if possibly more widespread.
Fourth, there’s absolutely no logical step you can take from the argument of God as the first cause that gets you anywhere but deism. As deism itself is functionally identical to atheism, since we currently see no evidence of the influence of any God, it’s a moot point as well as a flawed one.
Empirically, God is a concept for which no evidence exists, just like any other object of fantasy, so the comparison to unicorns, Santa Claus, etc. is apt from the empirical perspective.
Religion will never go away. You cannot prove that there is no God.
you cannot prove God does not exist.
And since you decline to even define God in any preexisting mathematical or physical language the entire exercise would be one of a fool. Even your statement itself is foolish.
In some circles, this is called “topping from the bottom.” In other circles this is called “Concern trolling.” In still other circles, these sorts of pleas are best responded to with “Skip the posts you don’t like.”
Oh, I don’t know. The thought that we might all be the result of a young hyperdimensional being’s eighth-grade hyperdimensional physics experiment is rather compelling to me 🙂
Nicely succinct post, BTW.
If Christians are wrong, and God does not exist, how is the God they worship any different from any child’s imaginary friend that was created to bring comfort and companionship in times of loneliness or difficulty?
Religion will never go away. You cannot prove that there is no God.
you cannot prove God does not exist.
Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor — but they have few followers now. ~ Arthur C. Clarke
The really bad news is that human brains are wired for religion. The other really bad news is that if Christians understood science as a disipline they would be against it.
If you are hoping for a new golden age, I regret to be the one to point this out to you all. But you are living in it. Now don’t tell anyone.
They would rather not know anyway, and if you persist they will only create their own brand of “science” to confuse the unwary. Eventually they will muster the support to get you fired, (or burned at the stake.)
An interesting point:
“Let’s be clear: while the percentage of Christians may be shrinking, rumors of the death of Christianity are greatly exaggerated. Being less Christian does not necessarily mean that America is post-Christian. A third of Americans say they are born again; this figure, along with the decline of politically moderate-to liberal mainline Protestants, led the ARIS authors to note that ‘these trends … suggest a movement towards more conservative beliefs and particularly to a more ‘evangelical’ outlook among Christians.'”
I.e., American Christianity is diminishing proportionally, but it’s also radicalizing. I’m not sure if a shrinking overall percentage that amounts to losing the moderates, while the conservatives get even more immoderate, is clearly a good thing. The U.S.A. has always been very different from Europe, so I think we have to be guarded in our optimism about the advent of a post-religious America. Europe’s Christians are being replaced by Muslims as the only deeply religious sect, and we hear about those cultural tensions ever more frequently. In fact, it has much to do with the reluctance of many in the EU to accept Turkey into the club. I rather think a much harder-line evangelical Christian base could become a very nasty problem if they’re what’s left of our spiritual class. We must be careful.
ollie said: “Now if someone uses a deity as some sort of “metaphor for life” and uses their “relationship” to that deity to live a better life, ok. The problems arise when people think that some deity is going to perform some sort of magic trick”
Ah, but there have been MANY magic tricks, even ones performed in the past 50 years. They’re called miracles. Miracles have been reported by believers and non-believers alike, you know. Check it out yo. There are many which have, to this day, not been able to be accounted for in terms of mechanistic processes. There you go, Dude. When you verify this, I expect you to apologize and become a believer in God.
Thomas said: “And since you decline to even define God in any preexisting mathematical or physical language the entire exercise would be one of a fool. Even your statement itself is foolish.”
God is the all-knowing, all-powerful, immaterial being who created the universe 13.7 billion years ago. According to Christianity, God became incarnate in the person of Jesus, in order to redeem mankind. Booyaa!
Later, and take care everybody.
(By the way, there’s no evidence that the universe was produced by a natural, mechanistic, or quantum gravitational process. We haven’t observed such pieces of evidence, just like how we haven’t observed evidence supporting the belief that God created the universe. So if string theorists say the universe was born because two branes collided, etc., then believers in God can say that God did it. Cheers yo.)
And yet not one of them has happened under scientifically controlled and observed circumstances. However the number of supposed miracles that have turned out to be frauds, hallucinations, or cases of misinterpreting naturally occurring events are legion.
That should tell you everything you need to know about miracles.
To paraphrase a certain president — yes, they can. But that doesn’t give them the right to teach my child that the Universe is only 6,000 years old, or to tell people that they cannot have sex with someone of the same gender.
If the only issue was how it all began, there would be little for anyone to argue over, since nobody would be trying to run the lives of others according to some neolithic hand-me-down religious texts.
“Grant H Says:
April 5th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
You’re missing the point. Religion is dangerous, damaging and is currently causing untold suffering. It is the enabler, the lame excuse to restrict education, limit human inquisitiveness and blow people up. It’s becoming increasingly clear that to remove religion from all state consideration and all schooling would be to bring about new growth in human understanding and compassion for the world and each other.”
That is great if it is becoming increasingly clear (read: Newsweek survey). I came to the same conclusions quite a while ago. What do you propose to do about it? Talk about your atheism until all the Christians are super mad and everybody else who stopped listening a while ago continues to not care? In the US the conflict between the secular and religious is largely a cultural one, where evidence has very little effect.
“ollie Says:
April 5th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
I am an atheist because I see no evidence for a deity. That doesn’t mean that I am 100 percent sure that no deity exists, though I am reasonably sure that the deity of the Bible doesn’t exist (just as I am sure that Zeus, Wotan, Thor, etc. don’t exist).”
That is where I’m at, but I would not call myself an atheist. I see a very strong distinction between belief in no god, and not believing in a god. Actively denying the possibility of a god is just as silly as actively affirming the existence of a god. Even if there is no god, those people who feel compelled to argue that there is no god are just going to be bogged down in a pointless culture war, who cares if they are right?
“And yet not one of them has happened under scientifically controlled and observed circumstances. ” Hmmm…there have been a few reported cases of advanced forms of cancer disappearing overnight after prayer. Doctors looked at them, and they were perfectly fine. Does that count? The patient said a prayer to a holy Catholic dude who had just passed away. Look it up.
Also look up the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. Cool stuff yo.
“To paraphrase a certain president — yes, they can. But that doesn’t give them the right to teach my child that the Universe is only 6,000 years old, or to tell people that they cannot have sex with someone of the same gender.”
I’m not saying these people should teach that God created the universe 13.7 billion years ago, just that people can privately believe in that if they want to because there’s no evidence as to the natural cause of the birth of the universe. Sure, we have the big bang model, but what started the big bang? Lots of theories out there about other universes, and branes colliding, all of which we cannot observe. All we can observe so far, is a bunch of photons at 2 Kelvin. Good luck.
“That is where I’m at, but I would not call myself an atheist.”
Then perhaps you need to check again what an atheist is.
I don’t mean to be sarcastic so please don’t take offence.
I honestly think you should check out what atheism is.
Ollie’s description was right on the money.
If that’s where you are then…don’t be spooked by the word “atheist”.
http://www.atheist-experience.com/
Actively denying the possibility of a god is just as silly as actively affirming the existence of a god.
Actively denying the possibility of Bigfoot/Santa Clause/Zeus/ is just as silly as actively affirming the existence of a Bigfoot/Santa Claus/Zeus.
Maybe there is a Bigfoot. Maybe. Yet there’s no reason to believe in one based on the evidence so far.
If, at some time in the future, evidence actually comes in then I will be happy to change my mind.
In the meantime, I’m not going to donate 10% of my taxes to the Bigfoot Protection Society,
I totally agree with you about the need for a more positive agenda. This is why I rarely describe myself as an atheist — it doesn’t really say anything about what I _am_.
As a sidenote, I don’t have a driver’s licence or a car either. This affects my everyday life more than any belief in the supernatural. Yet I don’t call myself carless or licenceless. No one in the society really cares about my acarism. If I need to talk about my daily commute, I’ll use the positive terms like “I’ll walk” or “I’ll go by bike”.
The concept of religion and its relation to human life is far too complex to be summed by one categorical term: “christian”, “muslim”, “hindu”, “None of the above”.
I feel that the proper form for answering questions about your religiosity is at least a triple. Firstly, what is your preferred cultural environment? I’ve been born and raised in a Finnish (Lutheran) community. I hold many of those values. I enjoy the same holidays and festivities.
Secondly, what is your ‘lifestance’? I am a humanist with a whiff of stoicism. Some people might have a more spiritual lifestance, based on surrendering to a deity and some might have a very materialistic one. Your relations to other people and to the world are only weakly correlated( with your cultural background or theism or non-theism.
Thirdly — and this is what some people seem to really care about — what do you feel about the supernatural. The last bit is really inconsequential when compared to the other two. Yet it seems to cause the biggest noise.
So the next time you speak with someone about your religion, consider the previous three dimensions of the word. It might be that you share two out of three and only differ in the last. In my view that makes you more similar than different.
Hopefully with this approach it is possible to take some bite out of the us/them division. Politics + us/them = good for us + bad for them
“which came to the point where the professed, practicing Catholic Democratic nominee for the President of the United States, John Kerry, was denied communion (or threatened with such) by bishops in his own church because he did not take the “correct” conservative political positions.”
And this atheist thinks the church is consistent in doing so. Remember, the RCC claims an authoritative interpretation of Natural Law. The clear teaching of the church is infallible (as well as the more well-known case of the Pope speaking ex-cathedra). In their club, they’re entitled to insist that you play by their rules.
This is all part of the point sometimes made that religion practised in a way that has no impact on everyday life is exceedingly rare (and pointless).
Personally, I’d prefer to see more liberal Catholics realise that their beliefs really are incompatible with their Church’s and simply quit going. I know mine are.
I think the issue of supernaturalism hangs especially on one point: The question, “What will happen, and what will I experience, when I die?”
I think it’s safe to say that none of us have any direct evidence on that question.
Those of us who believe that science provides a complete description of all experience will believe that there will be some kind of fade-out.
Those of us who are not so sure that what has been accomplished over the last 300 years is close enough to being complete can believe in some kind of post-death experience: hence, a form of supernaturalism.
I don’t see much angle in someone from one side trying to convince someone else from the other side. And why bother? A proselytizer for atheism is no less annoying than a proselytizer for a religious sect.
Couple of Items:
1) This very blog is discussing God. Atheism and all other sibling philosophies cannot cease mentioning God. Ergo, God exists!
2) Non-belief, at its core, is sheer “ungratefulness”. So let’s all be thankful for the beauty within and the wonders without!
Salam, Shalom, Peace!
>> Non-belief, at its core, is sheer “ungratefulness”.
Then I take it that you believe in the invisible pink unicorn ?