More Americans admitting atheism

[Angrboda]

These forums need to figure a way to share content. Every time something newsworthy happens, the same thread gets created on every atheist forum. And just think of the possibilities for community and more interesting commentary, drawing from a larger community. (And imagine the possibilities for trolling!)

Anyway, since they're not linked yet (c'mon, FIDOnet did it years ago!), I'll just repeat my comments from the other forum.

"The global average of the 39 countries polled in both waves shows Religiosity Index dropped by 9% during these seven years.
Most of the shift is not drifting from their faith, but claiming to be ‘not religious’ while remaining within the faith."

Also note that the increase in convinced atheists is within the error margin for the survey.

"There is however a rise of 3% in atheism as well ... In general the error margin for surveys of this kind is ±3-5% at 95% confidence level."

[MountOlympus]

The Intellectual Evolution is gradual, but that just makes it awesome to watch!

[Jackalope]

Love the "my take on this story" poll on the left hand side of the page.

42% of people found it depressing, 41% found it brilliant...

When I looked it was at 55% depressing, 27% brilliant.

I find the number of people that find this story depressing or scary to be a bit depressing and scary.

---

I wonder how you could actually estimate this. Maybe if you sent out a religious questionnaire (as randomly as possible); would it stand to reason that P(X doesn't respond) + P(X responds as 'apathetic) >= P(X is apathetic about religion)?

I would expect that P(X doesn't respond) would consist of both P(X is apathetic about religion) as well as P(X is apathetic about questionnaires), amongst other reasons.

[CliveStaples]

I would expect that P(X doesn't respond) would consist of both P(X is apathetic about religion) as well as P(X is apathetic about questionnaires), amongst other reasons.

Right, which is why I gave the inequality that I did.

X is apathetic = (X is apathetic AND X responds to the questionnaire) + (X is apathetic AND X fails to respond to the questionnaire)

Since (X is apathetic AND X fails to respond to the questionnaire) is a subset of (X fails to respond to the questionnaire), P(X is apathetic AND X fails to respond to the questionnaire) <= P(X fails to respond to the questionnaire).

So under the assumption that every respondent is being truthful and honest (if they say they believe p, then they in fact believe p), and that all responses are properly tallied and so on, then I think we can conclude that:

P(X fails to respond) + P(X responds as apathetic) = P(X fails to respond AND X is apathetic to religion) + P(X fails to respond AND X isn't apathetic to religion) + P(X responds AND X is apathetic to religion) >= P(X fails to respond AND X is apathetic to religion) + P(X responds AND X is apathetic to religion) = P(X is apathetic to religion).

That is, P(X fails to respond) + P(X responds as apathetic) >= P(X is apathetic to religion).

How many random surveys have measured religious belief and included an option sufficiently similar to apathy? We can use them to get an upper bound on the number of people who are apathetic about religion (with confidence dependent on the sample size of the surveys used).

[Epimethean]

Let's just hope more people learn to become apathetic about religion.

[Lion IRC]

People should really start paying the Four Horsemen tuition...

...Experts have an idea why: The year the poll was last taken, 2005, marked the beginning of a string of bestselling publications on atheism by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris...

Religion ought to be indebted to the so-called 4 Horsemen for kicking a hornets nest.

Atheist polemics against religion, Christianity in particular, woke up a lot of apathetic sleeping dogs.

...not exactly what Wormwood and Screwtape would have done.

[Reforged]

When I looked it was at 55% depressing, 27% brilliant.

I find the number of people that find this story depressing or scary to be a bit depressing and scary.

I want to meet the people who actually voted the story scary so I can have the rare privilege of casually walking up to them in the street and suddenly shout "Boo! I'm an atheist! :-)" then wait afew seconds as their faces turn to an expression of sheer terror, they piss themselves and then run away screaming.
Who the hell votes that "scary"? Do these people also have night terrors about Scooby Doo? Utter nonsense.

[Epimethean]

People should really start paying the Four Horsemen tuition...

...Experts have an idea why: The year the poll was last taken, 2005, marked the beginning of a string of bestselling publications on atheism by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris...

Religion ought to be indebted to the so-called 4 Horsemen for kicking a hornets nest.

Atheist polemics against religion, Christianity in particular, woke up a lot of apathetic sleeping dogs.

...not exactly what Wormwood and Screwtape would have done.

Thankfully, theism of at least the christian variety seems to be slowly following its pagan ancestors' fade to black in the U.S. Not a fast exit, but at least one that can be perceived as atheists challenge strongholds that theists no longer keep by simple grandfather clauses. C.S. Lewis was a fine fantasy and rhetoric writer. If it takes atheists challenging theists to wake them up to the fact that the end times are at hand (for their superstitions), so be it-and how sad for them.