The Shared Common Ground with Young Evangelicals

But doesn't this show that resurgent atheism isn't having a negative effect? Throughout the time that Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have been media celebrities, young white evangelicals have grown less conservative.

Of course, if the religious want to support action against global warning or demand an end to the Iraq war, that's great. But these figures suggest that campaigning for secularism doesn't prevent that.

Indeed, Jon. Put another way, "Since Harris' The End of Faith won the PEN Award in 2005, the number of young evangelical Christians identifying as Republican has dropped 15 percentage points."

Or "Since the publication of Dawkins' The God Delusion in 2006, there has been a 20% decrease in conservatism among young fundamentalists."

This looks like concrete evidence that the New Atheist Noise Machine isn't the disaster that some claim.

I agree with Tulse. I think this, combined with evidence that the right wing evangelical movement is broadly losing it's support among the young over homosexuality and hypocrisy, if anything shows that standing up to religion works (Your spam filter is set to high for me to link the article over at denialism blog showing similar data from Barna). While it's by no means conclusive, I think your framing hypothesis is not consistent with this data. Yes, people who are set in their ways don't like their religion being challenged, but the next generation finds this nonsense distasteful and are abandoning it. The right wing nonsense should continue to be attacked, vociferously, so that these young people know their is an alternative to intolerance, anti-science, and hypocrisy.

Standing up to fundamentalists will, if anything, gain converts among the young. 20 or 30 years from now it may make all the difference to aggressively challenge the nonsense now.

I think it's awfully optimistic to attribute any major social change to the New Atheism, the old atheism, or any atheism at all. Could there be any even more prominent factors in the last six years that might be driving young people, evangelical or not, away from the GOP?

Only someone who really wants to believe atheism is going to be persuaded or reinforced by the God Delusion, surely!

None of the preceding posters, Epistaxis, said that the recent rationalist books were responsible for this.

They were pointing out that the new books haven't driven people *towards* conservative positions, considering the trends being observed.

I think that's a fairly sober assessment of the data.

I think this analysis is wrong. Or rather, here's one that is equally likely, in my opinion at least.

The religious right is slowly moving away from the Republican party. This is an already known fact. The graph shows that the declarations of some leaders echo the trend that can be observed in this movement's young base.

In other words: the biggest nuts are leaving the GOP, or will start to do so. One can hope that the ones who will stay are more reasonable conservatives. Not that I like conservatives, but at least a good deal of them have a higher education, even in science for some of them. Those are the people with whom some commin ground may be found. Not the young evangelicals, home-schooled in global warming denialism and abhorrence of evolution (not all of them, perhaps, but you get my idea).

RE: "doesn't this show that resurgent atheism isn't having a negative effect" and subsequent comments.

The answer is no. You're looking at the wrong population. The more appropriate question would be, in my opinion, are Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens driving away liberal religious/religious scientists from your camp (political,...ETC). Most evangelicals don't inhabit the same spheres as Dawkins & Hitchens, you'd have to look at the people who do.

Jon Eccles: "But doesn't this show that resurgent atheism isn't having a negative effect?"

A negative effect with regard to what? The trend among white evangelicals doesn't tell us whether they are more receptive to the scientific consensus on evolution and other matters, or whether they are less hostile to homosexuals.

Aren't we overlooking one obvious fact? Sane people (among whose number are counted some white evangelical Christians) are fleeing identification with the current Republican party during these long years of idiocy.

This might be a long-term trend, but I have my doubts. Once the spin cycle of the 2008 election comes up to full speed, we will see centrifugal forces bringing these backsliders once more into the fold.

It's quite possible that the fear and greed party will find itself continuing it's tenebrous existence in all three branches of government in 2009.