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Paulos Column

By stcynic on April 2, 2006.

John Allen Paulos' column at ABC News is up and it's quite interesting. In addition to his link to this blog concerning the Liberty University debate team, he also discusses a survey that shows that an enormous percentage of Americans have a negative opinion of atheists more than any other group:

Asked whether they would disapprove of a child's wish to marry an atheist, 47.6 percent of those interviewed said yes. Asked the same question about Muslims and African-Americans, the yes responses fell to 33.5 percent and 27.2 percent, respectively. The yes responses for Asian-Americans, Hispanics, Jews and conservative Christians were 18.5 percent, 18.5 percent, 11.8 percent and 6.9 percent, respectively.

When asked which groups did not share their vision of American society, 39.5 percent of those interviewed mentioned atheists. Asked the same question about Muslims and homosexuals, the figures dropped to a slightly less depressing 26.3 percent and 22.6 percent, respectively. For Hispanics, Jews, Asian-Americans and African-Americans, they fell further to 7.6 percent, 7.4 percent, 7.0 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively.

There isn't a shred of evidence to suggest that atheists are any different from theists in terms of unethical or anti-social behavior, of course, but public opinion only occasionally has even a tangential relationship with reality.

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Uh, I seem to recall a study that said that atheists tended to stay married longer?

part of this is due to the fact that conservative christians marry a lot, and multiple times. many atheists and seculars simply do not marry, or they marry late and once. also, the source for that study is accurate in the generality from what i can tell, studies for years have shown that evangelical protestants have rather high divorce rates despite their family values rhetoric, but george barna (the pollster) is a conservative christian who has expansive views of who atheists & agnostics are and who "true christians" are. so take the numbers with a great of salt....

What, they didn't have a slot for those who hope their kid never marries? Marriage is after all the leading cause of divorce, and I hope he manages to avoid that.

I made the following point on a Christian message board just yesterday:

Atheists are the least trusted minority in America because they have become useful bogeymen prominent leaders in the religious and political right. We've had the bogus "War on Christmas" slogan shoved in out face by Fox News on an annual basis in the past few years; we just had the ridiculous "War on Christianity" conference last week where Tom Delay was upheld as some sort of Christian martyr because of his current legal difficulties involving some dubious fund raising; and, of course, atheists are being (wrongly) blamed for the inability of public schools to teach anything about origins other that "atheistic" evolution.

D. James Kennedy just finished a two week evolution/atheism bashing session on his daily radio show (he does this several times a year); Albert Mohler, Richard Land, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Ted Haggard, Tony Perkins, and others are on the radio and TV constantly beating up on some "godless" group or issue. Given the amount of anti-atheist fearmongering coming from these people (not to mention from the strident right-wing radio personalities like Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity, O'Reilly, Scarborough, etc) it's not surprising that some of it sinks into the population at large. Honestly, you would think that atheists are the purveyors and instigators of all that is evil in this world if you listen to these people enough.

The only time you get to hear about atheists on TV or on the radio is when someone is beating up on the likes of Michael Newdow or Madalyn Murray O'Hair for their temerity for challenging the religious status quo. O'Hair is a particularly juicy target since she appears to have been a very unlikable person (at least that's what everyone tells me!) and met a bad end.

I can't think of another minority (even including the gay community) where the media coverage is so relentlessly negative. Some of it's bound to rub off eventually.

Atheists are the only group who can be bashed without fear of violating political correctness. But as an atheist myself it's never bothered me a bit because I don't see myself belonging to some group as I'm sure religious adherents do. It's just one of many things that I dispassionately don't believe in.

I can't think of another minority (even including the gay community) where the media coverage is so relentlessly negative.

sure, but it isn't like this is new or the opinions are novel. hostility toward atheism has been a fact of life for centuries. jefferson was attacked for being an atheist (he, being a pluralist deist) and rob ingersoll never flourished in his political aspirations because of his avowed agnosticism.

Yeah, I always had a secret desire to be in politics since I was a kid, but thanks to my atheism I feel like it would be a waste of time to even try. After all, the attack ad would be true, "Did you know Will is a GODLESS ATHEIST? Do you want a GODLESS ATHEIST to represent you? - Sponsored by the commitee against Godless Atheists and Satanists."