Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
Btw, also I think it's worth noting that a lot of the misconceptions about atheism have to do with the fact that most atheists who talk about the subject are vocal, self-identifying, often come from an academic background, have thought about the subject a lot and often use a lot of highly specific terms and categories.
The "just don't give a f***" category of atheists just ignore the subject if possible. If asked to pledge to god, they'll do it because it's convenient and it's just not a big deal for them, for example. They might even belong to a church for social reasons.
Having talked about it with some people like that (for a specific reason connected to me once belonging in this one non-religious youth organization, which would be more complicated to explain than interesting), those people in many cases prefer to say they believe in god if asked about it, simply because it's more convenient.
One reason being, if they admit they think it's just silly believing in a god, there's a chance that an atheist or a really religious person gets all riled up and they just hate it when that happens, because it's such a boring subject and yet everyone seems to expect that they, as "atheists" have a lot of well thought out opinions about it they'd like to share. The same does not apply to religious people, as "the silent majority" of religious people is something everyone is familiar with.
I don't know how common this type of atheism is, but based on the fact that most groups of people tend to have a silent majority and a vocal minority, I'd guess it's more common than people realize.
EDIT: basicly, being non-religious can often be socially inconvenient, so many atheists just do what everyone else does and claim to be religious. It's just easier.
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This is a good point, you'll find in Iceland and the nordic nations which went from mostly religious countries to almost 60-80% non religious in a matter of a few generations; the prevailing attitude is to not even discuss it. Most people here in Iceland think the idea of a God is silly and don't get worked up about it, until recently when the humanists here (my peeps) and others wanted to finally get it on the books to seperate church and state. We have priests going to public schools, we have a national church, we have tax payers paying the church and its employees, etc.
That will soon be gone, but even with this debate; people just see it as 'obviously the right thing to do' and its not remotely close to heated or controversial (polls show about 80% for this to be put in our upcoming new/citizen created constitution.)
The reason the atheists seem so angry/loud in the US is pretty obvious, look at what they deal with on a daily basis in their politics and national debate. Religion in America is very much in your face, and after 9/11 this new atheism movement began out of the utter frustration of how badly the various religions of this world are behaving and how if you don't speak up nothing will ever change in this world.