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

[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!