everyone (else) seems to be hating on atheists

[Mister Agenda]

Sorry I am a bit delayed, I went on the most amazing discernment retreat of my entire life.

No worries.

Comparing two locations is fine. When you get into territory such as: "Southern states are more religious and also have more teen pregnancy, ergo religion is correlated with pregnancy" that it starts to get sketchy, especially when on that individual level you note that more religious teenagers are less likely to get pregnant than their irreligious peers--Southern states are just poorer in general.

Substitute 'less religous' for 'irreligous' and I agree on the pregnancy issue. Which brings us to the link between poverty and religion. I don't think religion makes a region more likely to be poor, but I do think an area being poor makes it more likely that the population will tend to be more religious. An area being prosperous is likely to have a population that is both more educated and less religious on average.

It is a fair point, and yes, there are atheists who are religious--some 1-2% of American Christians (iirc) are atheist, and there are atheist Unitarian Univeralists, etc. Any religion has its share of atheists within it. And of course there are theists who are totally irreligious. Sometimes that line between religious/irreligious and theism/atheism is conflated, probably because so many atheists are anti-religion, and often use the stats of people with "no religion" as the numbers of atheists (which you can actually see on that very freethoughtpedia link you gave me).

So yes, even trying to talk about "atheists on average" being more aggressive, impulsive etc. isn't necessarily true--its "non-religiouson average", but there are religious atheists and irreligious theists. So yes, I think you do have a point and I should be perhaps a bit more care in my wording.

And I think I may have been harsh in my estimation of your reasonableness. My apologies.

Welll....yes. Yes very much so, because I thought that was the point. If you just wanted to say that atheists have died for reasons totally unrelated to atheism than yes, absolutely, I am sure, in every era atheists have died.

Right. When atheists are executed by the authorities, their atheism is not the reason they give for doing so. When theists are executed by the authorities, their theism is not the reason they give for doing so. Even in totalitarian communist states, no one was executed for 'being a theist'.

There is a difference, but those headlines are both sensationalized and also not true. Science reporting in the mainstream media is infamously terrible.

The 'not true' part is what you need to make a case for, rather than merely observing the sensationalism. And remember that critiquing the study is not the same thing as showing its findings are untrue, which is what you're claiming. A lousy study is not evidence either way.

I am sorry for that one? For me those anti-atheist attitudes and state atheism and similar anti-religious forms of atheism are tied together--not rightfully so.

I remember from when I was a devout Christian how shocking the idea that there were people who didn't believe in God was. I didn't need any historical context to consider atheists as being pretty close to alien beings who might be capable of anything. I was already primed to accept anything my pastor had to say about them. I think the tying together of these things is a post hoc justification for feelings people already have.

Oh please. Those "many beliefs" don't include the actual key one worth highlighting, right? The use of force and violence? You know? By all means, criticize me if you find fault in me, but don't criticize me because someone else who believed in the Eucharist thought it was okay to torture.

If you re-read what you just said enough times, I think you'll get my point.

And yes, it is hypocritical if you do accuse all Christians or lump them under the Inquisition.

It would be illogical rather than hypocritical. I tend to blame whoever brings up body counts first. There are people whose group identities are relatively blameless: Quakers, Jains, and Humanists come to mind.

Resistance against the state---suppressing religion. The churches "went back up" after rules relaxed during WWII, but you cannot say they were left alone. The Church (or religion in general, if you'd prefer) will always "go back up" when it is allowed to.

Who allowed it?

You can't destroy the human spirit I don't think. Even in the most hateful of times, there are those who keep it alive, and will die to do so throughout all ages.

There's nothing like oppression to forge an oppressed minority into a determined resistance.

ANOTHER link to "Freethoughtpedia?" The very same "pedia" that tried to claim Pol Pot was a Buddhist? "Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people"? God help me. But you said you prefer the studies they used with respect to prison populations aaand... okay. Well, that cool, lets "follow the sources". I am nothing if not open to this.

I prefer them to less-existent studies, yes.

First, they have a random string of info they admit was "floating around the internet", and they literally have no other info on where it came from. They actually are asking for any random reader to step forward and find a source for this info--post first and ask questions later I suppose.

Do you not think this is an effective way to find out the source, if any?

They also cite "The New Criminology" from Schlapp and Smith (not to be confused with a newer book from Taylor et al)..... wow. Its written in 1928. Like....almost 90 years old. Apparently this book was written in order to prove that criminal behavior was caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, and not from a lack of moral training.

It is also the ONLY verifable study of the actual topic, the representation of atheists in prison. It's not much, but it does have the advantage of not lumping in atheists with people who don't go to church much, which is more than any of your sources have done.

I don't really have anything to say to this. I get a few thousand results when I google for this book. Apparently it was an unpublished study, and was written in a very sensationalized format. Very obscure paper since we now know that criminology is quite a bit more complex. Atheists seem to like it though, because 4 out of the first 10 results I got were actually from atheists clinging to this particular study.

It's about atheists and there isn't much else. Why shouldn't we be interested?

And if you think that conflating "irreligious" with "atheist" is flawed (because some atheists are religious),

Much more because the vast majority of 'irreligious' are theists.

this (or really, how some atheists have chosen to interpret this article) is to conflate "atheism" with "lack of any sort of religious training". Welp! You seem like a thoughtful person so I hope I don't need to say more about either of these.

I suspect constant accusations of being unstable and/or immoral may account for a quickness to latch on to 'evidence' showing otherwise.

Freethoughtpedia is like some bizarro atheist (or "free thinker") version of conservapedia isn't it?

I'm not familiar enough with the site to judge it, I was more looking for sources.

Really? I usually think of atheism as sort of a bit of a default (weak atheism anyway), and then both strong atheism and theism are that which you need to "think yourself into" a bit.

In a country where atheism is the default, that would be the case. However, most of us North Americans are raised to believe in God, and most atheists come to the conclusion God isn't real later.

But now that I have reflected on it some, I suppose maybe weak theism might be the default instead.

But you are right, if they were to study atheism in prisons, it would need to be straightforward "are you theist or atheist or unsure?" type of question. Or do the "Do you believe in God, a higher power, or neither?" question as seems popular in some studies, since actually quite a few (21%) of self-described "atheists" will also turn around and say they believe in God. I can get you the source for that as well. I fear the complexities of studying these sorts of correlations go quite deep.

Oh, I know that one. I think the population of people who think they're atheists but believe in God are the main source of Christians who say they used to be an atheist.

Since some pastors seem quick to define atheists as people who don't go to church, drink, smoke, swear, and have sex outside of marriage; I think some theists honestly believe they are atheists even though the believe there is a God.