Way More Americans May Be Atheists Than We Thought
fivethirtyeight.com
fivethirtyeight.com
But I don't walk around all day thinking, "There's no god." The concept of god simply isn't something that ever factors into my thinking. I believe in science, rationality, the Enlightenment. I believe in all the human beings all over the world who I rely on and who make my life wonderful.
But I am also painfully aware of "Religious Privilege" in America. I must carry the words, "In God We Trust" on my money. My children are forced to pledge allegiance, "Under God" every morning at school. At the Coast Guard base where I used to work as a contractor, our group lunches and other gatherings were opened with a prayer to "Our Lord Jesus Christ." I was even asked to resign from our moral committee shortly after I requested we change our "Christmas Party" to a "Holiday Party."
Is it any wonder people are reluctant to admit they don't believe in god?
Not really. It could be that the universe has existed for an infinite amount of time, and the big bang was an event that occurs from time to time.
No matter what explanation you pick, something came from "nothingness" at some point, which suggests nothingness has some unusual properties.
That is a scenario where there is no ultimate explanation.
Religion tries to answer the questions on existence, meaning and morality (this is not meant to be defimitively comprehensive). An atheist who calls the religious person a fool for asking a question and finding an answer that still leaves some questions is himself the fool.
It's only equivalent to saying "I don't know" if you follow a line like Pascal's Wager, with any sort of faith or conviction you're saying you have established an answer.
The Big Bang is widely accepted yet is by normal definition impossible (you need time in order for something to change, the Big Bang requires a change before time existed). It's a cop out that allows people to curtail metaphysical enquiry at the bounds of known physics ...
People will challenge a theist "who created god" but don't challenge "who/what created the Big Bang". For some reason ex nihilo is fine for the Universe but preposterous for a creator? (The reason is usually a religious reliance on certain assumptions.)
>you stop looking for the actual answer. //
Your petitio principii is showing.
If I find "I get wet standing outside when it rains" I don't need to find a contradictory reason why I'm getting wetted by rain unless the original theory fails. Of course you stop looking and only consider then opposing answers if they present themselves.
When you wake in the morning do you enquire as to the nature of your reality afresh or do you assume it has the same realism as when you went to bed? (Until that realism is challenged?)
The big bang and what (if anything) cause it does get challenged and is challenged by serious scientists too. The current answer is we have absolutely no idea.
On the other hand, it's rare to see religous people acknowledge that gods (there is no logical reason for a single god) require a creator at all, it's a thought terminating proposition.
Which sounds like you're suggesting there is a logical reason for multiple gods, can you expand on this point?
Aside from that, given what we know about human evolution and how not unique we are, it stands to reason that a creator was subject to similar limitations.
You're declaring the Big Bang to be impossible due to what appears to be a simple semantic trick. But I don't believe you're even remotely qualified to determine whether the Big Bang is impossible or not, and the fact that it's widely accepted as a good explanation should be a big clue that maybe it's not so impossible.
> If I find "I get wet standing outside when it rains" I don't need to find a contradictory reason why I'm getting wetted by rain unless the original theory fails.
"God did it" is not a theory. It is the absence of a theory. It's what you say because you don't know the actual reason. For example, a thousand years ago, "God did it" was probably a well-accepted explanation for why it rains. But today we have a very detailed understanding of the physics involved and can explain rain without any supernatural explanation. You can't say that somehow in the last 1000 years, God stopped managing rain and physics started handling it instead. No, it was physics all along.
A big problem with "God did it" is it literally stops all progress. If you say "I don't know", you can go looking for the answer. If you have an actual hypothesis, you can test it, try to determine if it's true or not, and make progress towards finding the truth. But once you say "God did it" there's no where left to go, and you have no hope of ever finding out the real reason.
It's only a cop-out if they say it to avoid looking into reasons for the explanation. The religious people I know, myself included, have well established and agreed upon reasons.
Just because you disagree with their conclusions and reasons for them, it's ridiculous to call it a cop-out.
Why only one? What logical reason is there to think that there is only a single god like being?
On the other hand, how can one assume that god has any particular property, such as even being countable?
Good thought, I like it.
So perhaps a lot more people come under the Humanist umbrella, which generally share the same beliefs and moral codes when applied to the world around them, whether they possess a belief in a non-anthropomorphised God or not. That aspect of belief is just semantic.
No it's not logical, it's completely irrational. If someone has something you want, and there is no way to get it, the rational thing to do is kill them and take it. If we wish to kill him while still being in a society where we won't get killed ourselves the solution is to kill them in secret in a method that makes it as likely as possible that you won't get caught while publicly supporting laws forbidding murder.
Saying that morality is rational is a cop-out answer. If morality were rational we would live in a world where people rarely do anything immoral because they realize it would be irrational to do so. The reason morality is even an issue is because immoral actions are rational where we can derive a benefit from them and not face consequences (either because we are very unlikely to get caught or there is no consequence for getting caught.)
The golden rule is nice and all but it is most certainly not a rational principle - as evidenced by the fact that neither Jesus nor any of its other proponents have every tried to offer up rational justifications for it. Instead it was justified with "I'm God, do as I say," and that was the only justification ever offered for it.
Even just now, you claimed it was rational but didn't even even attempt to give logical arguments in support of it. You merely asserted it was "the purest form of fairness" without either explaining why. Most definitions of fairness would find "eye for an eye" to be fair, fairness requires good for good and evil for evil. The Golden rule is not fair.
Also fairness, while something that many people value, is not a logical principle, we do not derive the value of fairness from logical reasoning but human feelings. . . The universe and the world is rarely fair and the desire for fairness is often contrary to sound reason.
Are you suggesting that the Golden Rule must be a divine law because it couldn't come from human reasoning alone? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or in simpler, less frilly terms treat others as you would want them to treat you is a basic form of preemptive reciprocity which even monkeys can grasp. Using deductive reasoning: if we can devise something as complex as language to describe our ideas, we can devise simple maxims.
> If someone has something you want, and there is no way to get it, the rational thing to do is kill them and take it.
In a constrained game-theory setting where 1.) there are only two players and 2.) it's something critical to remaining alive and it can't be shared, then you might have an argument. But squishy reality doesn't play well with half thought out game theory scenarios. If everyone did what you suggest, we'd all be dead. Instead we cooperate because we're gifted with theory of mind.
> If morality were rational we would live in a world where people rarely do anything immoral because they realize it would be irrational to do so.
Faulty reasoning - your position assumes all people are rational all of the time. We're bags of chemicals which in optimal conditions can be rational. Thankfully we have mechanisms to record our thoughts, including the odd rational ones we have which can then stand up to the test of time and consideration.
No Im saying there is no rational reason to choose golden rule over lying, cheating and pillaging.
>But squishy reality doesn't play well with half thought out game theory scenarios. If everyone did what you suggest, we'd all be dead.
But we dont live in that world where everyone does as I suggest. We live in a world where most people dont lie cheat or kill, and thus its rational to lie cheat and kill while maintaining the reasonable belief that others wont copy us.
Some people, like those in severely war torn countries where there is little or no government do live in a world where many people do lie cheat and kill. In absolutely 0 cases have humans in that circumstance chosen the supposedly rational path advocated here. In fact, in that circumstance, the supposedly rational path of not killing in hopes that others won`t wont kill you seems naive and foolish.
>Faulty reasoning - your position assumes all people are rational all of the time. We're bags of chemicals which in optimal conditions can be rational.
Maybe but we do make rational decisions most of the time, we dont need people forcing us to behave rationally because thats sort of the default. If someone offers ice cream for 1 $ and I offer the same ice cream for $ 100 people will rationally choose my neighbors ice cream. This is rational.
How about stealing or hitting, do we have to teach kids that or do they come to it by reason? Imagine a kid who is never punished for lying or hitting other kids, will he or she naturally derive that its wrong through reason.
> No Im saying there is no rational reason to choose golden rule over lying, cheating and pillaging.
Then you'd fail at any game theory scenarios with a player base larger than 2.
> But we dont live in that world where everyone does as I suggest.
Circular and somewhat nonsensical reasoning. Yes, we live in a world where most people cooperate and some don't. I never made claims otherwise. Just because some people act irrationally doesn't invalidate the claim that the Golden Rule is logical.
> do we have to teach kids that or do they come to it by reason?
You're making the error of suggesting I posited that logic is innate in all people and even at the earliest stages in life - I never made that claim. What I am willing to assert: we can learn things, and humans can build mental frameworks which can be transferred to others by speech and text.
You seem to have missed the point. I was responding to your objection that if everyone killed we would all be in trouble so we shouldnt kill ourselves.
My response was that we dont live in a world where everyone lies cheats and kills and there is no reasonable risk of others following my example if do lie cheat and kill. The mere fact that I kill someone wont create a world where everyone kills so your point about not wanting to live in such a world is moot.
I never made a point about not wanting to live in any kind of world. Please quote the exact piece of text where I said such a thing.
The original argument, made by you, was that the Golden Rule wasn't logical as I suggested. What you possibly meant to say is that it isn't innate -- as in something present in all of us from birth. I never posited that the Golden Rule is innate.
Logic doesn't require all of humanity to follow it, to flow only within its boundaries like a fleshy stream, to validate it. It exists in spite of us.
your initial reply:
>If everyone did what you suggest, we'd all be dead. Instead we cooperate because we're gifted with theory of mind.
This is moot because not everyone is doing as I suggest. A murderer doesn't think "wait, if I kill, that might lead to a world in which everyone would kill" because that's ridiculous and it won't happen.
Seeing as that's the only reason you can provide for the golden rule, and it's not a very logical reason, we can conclude that following the golden rule is not rational, regardless of whether it is innate.
> > I never made a point about not wanting to live in any kind of world. Please quote the exact piece of text where I said such a thing.
> your initial reply:
> > > > If everyone did what you suggest, we'd all be dead. Instead we cooperate because we're gifted with theory of mind.
You've failed to demonstrate what I asked: quote the text where I mentioned not wanting to live in such a world
> A murderer doesn't think "wait, if I kill, that might lead to a world in which everyone would kill"
And you present a bait-and-switch argument. Just because a killer is irrational doesn't mean the Golden Rule isn't logical.
I'm not seeing the logical flow, perhaps you can point it out to me:
John wants Tim's wife, Marcy. Marcy is not happy with Tim, and she is in love with John. However, John knows that Marcy will never marry him while married to Tim.
One day John and Tim are out for a Swim in the lake and Tim begins to Drown. John can save him but decides not to knowing that he will never get caught for the murder. After letting Tim die, John seduces his wife.
Before the murder, John has a consideration "wait, if everyone killed, that would lead to an unpleasant world where I may get killed myself." Then John comes to his senses and realizes:
1. No one is going to find out so it is impossible that my actions will influence anybody.
2. This consideration of what happens if everyone kills is not relevant to my current act of killing Tim as killing Tim is very unlikely to result in everyone killing.
Thus, John realizes it is advantageous to kill Tim and John and Marcy live happily every after.
Please point out to me the logical (not moral, but logical ) flaw in John's reasoning:
If this was normalised then there would be more murdering and we would still be more likely to be murdered ourselves. It's rational that we don't want the world to be like this.
This can be found in Neithzche's philosophy when he talks about master and slave ethics. Neithzche said that slaves will follow what custom dictates, but masters will make their own ethics. This seems abhorrent to me, however, in a world without a God dictating things and a hell for bad people, I must admit it is rational.
Also the "act in a way that you would will all your actions be normalized" has already been proposed by Kant and has shown to not be workable as an ethical system. (Here's an article explaining why
It is simply easier and considerably less risky not do something like this. But there still exists people who argue similarly to your ideas and act based on them. These people are called murderous psychopaths.
So, add to your calculations that you can not deceive all the people around you all the time. Your own biology will betray you.
And this is yet another danger of a powerful AI. It will be able to lie to us. With total impunity.
edit: Not sure why this is being downvoted. I'm just pointing out that the title is misleading and maybe should be changed to "Way More Americans May Be Atheists Than We Thought, Or Not". I think "An Analysis of Atheists in America" would be a more appropriate title.
In particular, the primary numbers 538 published for the 2016 election were chances of winning, which can easily be misinterpreted as percentage of the vote. As of Nov 8, they had Clinton having a 71% chance of winning (with Trump at 27%), with 302 electoral votes, and 48.5% of the popular vote. This isn't a landslide prediction, and the 71% chance of winning is much lower than what was reported in many other publications.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
In the submitted article, they're quite careful in their language in support of the title, which purposefully includes the operative word "may". This is in keeping with what I've come to expect from 538.