Obama and Religion

[kirisutogomen]

This is the sort of thing dpolicar usually posts, rather than me, but it was my mother who pointed me at it, and I figured people might be interested anyway: Obama and Religion.

Also, I saw the movie Traitor and it was better than I expected. It wasn't precisely the genre the ads had suggested, either, which had something to do with my pleasant surprise.

Comments

[dpolicar]

Heh. I dunno that I'd ever be inclined to post that, exactly, but I'm amused by the shout-out.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

Well, OK, but the blog Campos writes in (Lawyers, Guns, and Money) is the sort of erudite left-wing stuff that I expect your flist to be well-endowed with, so I was self-amused that I would be the one posting it. (Of course, for all I know, I'm the fifth person whose journal you watch to post it.)

[bakedweasels.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I disagree with Mr. Campos and would suggest he spend some time thinking about why we disagree.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

You're wrong. Stick them apples in your craw and chew on them for a while.

[bakedweasels.livejournal.com]

If you're serious, I'd say Mr. Campos starts from the viewpoint that I (as an enlightened atheist) expect everything my smart friends believe to be entirely rational. I don't--I can accept that they are sentimentally driven or that there are beliefs they have which they don't want to examine too closely.

For example, I think my daughter is the most wonderful girl in the world. I'm sure that a coldly rational friend of mine could sit down with me and seek to persuade me of the absurdity of that belief. But it wouldn't be a fun or productive conversation.

I just assume that there's some personal experience on the part of my intelligent friends who are religious which has led them to believe in God. Good for them--it's a comforting meme to buy into. I would love to believe in an afterlife if I could.

But Mr. Campos needs to get off his race-losing horse. "Lots of smart people feel this way so other people should accept that it's a legitimate way to feel" isn't all that persuasive as a scientific argument. What would Mr. Campos have said to Copernicus?

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

If you're serious,

I'm not. I just wanted you to talk more. Hey, it worked!

For example, I think my daughter is the most wonderful girl in the world.

You couldn't reasonably have been expected to know this, but as it turns out, my niece is the most wonderful girl in the world. Even if she did call me stupid the other day.

[psychohist.livejournal.com]

It strikes me that the author of that column has misanalyzed the situation.

The controversy is not about the fact that Obama chose a religious figure to lead the invocation, but about which religious figure he chose. Did anyone expect him to choose a nonreligious secular authority to deliver the invocation?

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Well he started with the situation at hand but decided he'd prefer to talk about how atheism is just like religion, thus veering away from any actual point he might have made in favor of what I suspect is a favorite little sermon of his.

[billmarrs.livejournal.com]

That article sucked, but it does remind me of a nagging disparity I have in my head. My impression is that most of the smart, liberal people I know are not theists (agnostic is probably the most commonly expressed affiliation). And yet, polls seem to show that there are only about 3 atheists in the entire country. So, that does make some part of me suspect that a fair number of smart, liberal people aren't being sincere.

I'm an atheist and I support gay rights (especially gay marriage) but I'm not bothered at all by Warren giving the invocation. It seems like most religions hold similar beliefs to Warren, so what were people expecting?

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Well admitting being an atheist in many circles is still only slightly above admitting being a child molester, so you might expect polls to underreport.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

apparently a survey done about Americans' religious attitudes earlier this year found that 21% (or maybe 18%) of self-identified atheists report believing in God. (http://dpolicar.livejournal.com/211753.html)

(Also, 17% of agnostics are "absolutely certain" that there is a God.)

[psychohist.livejournal.com]

In my experience, those polls tend use questions that are very poorly worded from the standpoint of the irreligious.

For example, I remember one question that went something along the lines of, 'do you believe that something controls all that happens in the universe'. Since I think that everything that happens is ultimately the result of physics, I had to answer "yes", despite the fact that it might cause researchers to think that I was 'an atheist that believed in god'.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

In my experience, those polls tend use questions that are very poorly worded from the standpoint of the irreligious.

In this case, the full report gives the wording for the questions, and they seem fairly straightforward: "Do you believe in God or a universal spirit?", "How certain are you about this belief? Are you absolutely certain, fairly certain, not too certain, or not at all certain?", "Which comes closest to your view of God? God is a person with whom people can have a relationship or God is an impersonal force?", and

"What is your present religion, if any? Are you Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox such as Greek or Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, something else, or nothing in particular?"
INTERVIEWER: IF R VOLUNTEERS “nothing in particular, none, no religion, etc.” BEFORE REACHING END OF LIST, PROMPT WITH: "and would you say that’s atheist, agnostic, or just nothing in particular?"

[psychohist.livejournal.com]

There was a person asking the questions? That seems like a particularly bad way to get honest answers from agnostics and atheists to me. Normally I wouldn't be too worried about offending the survey caller with my answers, but religion is an area where I might feel uncomfortable with it.

Given they have a "nothing in particular" category, I might be tempted to use that rather than atheist. I might also be tempted to say "Wiccan", because although I have atheistic religious beliefs, I do follow some Wiccan practices; our wedding was CUUP, and we hold vigil at Yule. Something similar might account for, for example, the roughly 1% of Christians and up to 10% of other monotheistic religious people who "do not believe in God". In fact, I suspect the 5% who answered "do not believe in God" might be a better measure of how many atheists there are than those who used the word "atheist".

I also think that "universal spirit" can be pretty broad, and when I get questions like that, I tend to ask for clarifications that Pew may not have anticipated. Their policy should really be that the interviewer shouldn't clarify, but I've rarely had interviewers that stuck to that.

The fact that "God" can end up being an "impersonal force" in this survey I think again shows that the survey is not drawing clear lines for the purpose of categorizing atheists or agnostics. The laws of physics can be argued to qualify for "God" by the definitions used in this survey.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

Agreed on everything, except that (1) I think you're being too generous to refer to the survey as using definitions, (2) I am certain that the 5% who don't believe in God are a more accurate count of atheists, and (3) you would have to shove razor blades under my fingernails before I called myself Wiccan.

To the extent that there's anything to be gleaned from such a survey, I think the remarkably high number of people across all religions who believe in God as an impersonal force is the most interesting, and the large number of people who do not believe their religion holds a monopoly on entrance to paradise is also pretty nice to know.

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I remember that one.

I seem to remember also some of those polls find a lot of avowed (X's) who don't actually believe in (any of the N core tenets of X).

[fredrickegerman.livejournal.com]

The phrase "ethnically a Christian" comes to mind. Or whatever the wording non-believing Jews who still call themselves Jewish would choose.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

I find it a lot easier to understand a Catholic who doesn't believe in God than an atheist who does. The self-identified Catholic considers himself a member of a cultural grouping, with social functions, various shared rituals and customs, etc. The beliefs are mostly irrelevant.

And I'm not too troubled by that. It's slightly inconsistent, but no more so than many other things we commonly do, and I think it highlights some of the reasons religion appears to persist, and makes it clearer that despite our first inclination, treating a religion as equivalent to its dogma is missing most of the picture.

[billmarrs.livejournal.com]

I'm absolutely certain that is the sort of thing dpolicar usually posts!

[harrock.livejournal.com]

This provides as good a moment as any to trot out my original aphorism on religion: "The most dogmatic person I know is an atheist".

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

You've got a lot of company using that aphorism.

In my experience most other people are using it to defend why X Christian practice should be left officially enshrined, because not mentioning the Christian God is somehow militant dogmatic atheism.

You are probably the only person in the country using it as an actual description of personal experience.

[harrock.livejournal.com]

Actually, upon reflection, I should probably say "the most religiously intolerant person I know is an atheist". I'm pretty sure that this is due to the company I keep, and that I'd have no difficulty coming up with different intolerant people if I was in a different environment.