UBC study finds believers distrust atheists as much as rapists
Odd, never thought Canada would harbor such feelings, this study did take 350 Americans in the poll but also 420 UBC (tee hee 420) students who had overwhelmingly low opinions of atheists.
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The only group the study’s participants distrusted as much as atheists was rapists, said doctoral student Will Gervais, lead author of the study published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Makes sense, not believing in god and raping people seem completely of the same mindset.
Where do they find these participants? Mental asylums?
Well, it kinda make sense. I look at all believers like serial killers. Some study I read showed an over whelming majority of serial killers in North America, came from predominantly religious upbringings.
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Well, it kinda make sense. I look at all believers like serial killers. Some study I read showed an over whelming majority of serial killers in North America, came from predominantly religious upbringings.
Kind of funny - they chose to ask university students about how they perceived athiests, and even they had the same negative views. I wonder if it might be because of asinine comments like this?
Kind of funny - they chose to ask university students about how they perceived athiests, and even they had the same negative views. I wonder if it might be because of asinine comments like this?
Just as asinine as have a parallel view of atheists and rapists?
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“This antipathy is striking, as atheists are not a coherent, visible or powerful social group,” says Gervais, who co-authored the study with UBC Associate Prof. Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff of the University of Oregon. The study is titled, "Do You Believe in Atheists? Distrust is Central to Anti-Atheist Prejudice."
The researchers conducted a series of six studies with 350 American adults and nearly 420 university students in Canada, posing a number of hypothetical questions and scenarios to the groups. In one study, participants found a description of an untrustworthy person to be more representative of atheists than of Christians, Muslims, gay men, feminists or Jewish people. Only rapists were distrusted to a comparable degree.
The researchers concluded that religious believer’s distrust –- rather than dislike or disgust –- was the central motivator of prejudice against atheists, adding that these studies offer important clues on how to combat this prejudice.
One motivation for the research was a Gallup poll that found that only 45 percent of American respondents would vote for a qualified atheist president, says Norenzayan. The figure was the lowest among several hypothetical minority candidates. Poll respondents rated atheists as the group that least agrees with their vision of America, and that they would most disapprove of their children marrying.
Wow, the logic suggested by the article makes it sound like the only moral compass used by people is "whether or not someone is watching." What a bunch of garbage and flawed reasoning. There are people who can do the right thing even if they aren't being coerced into doing it. Stupid religion.
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So it's not really about morality, at least not directly. Instead, Christians distrust anyone who is either so evil or so dumb that they can't see and accept the obvious. How can someone who makes such an elementary error be trusted with more "nuanced" decisions, especially the kind that dominate politics? Or morality?
While it seems a bit naive to suppose that no Christians believe atheists to be inherently immoral (there are certainly enough preachers preaching sermons to that effect...) there is probably merit in this. One of the most common themes coming from both pulpits and personal testimonies is the joy of seeing god in everything from the grandeur of the universe to the smile of a baby. And many Christians seem nonplussed when atheists suggest that
This is a real dilemma for atheists and Christians alike. The truth is that many atheists view Christians the same way. They feel that faith blinds believers to the obvious realities of the world, and causes them to make immoral decisions. Many non-believers will not date or marry Christians. Many do their best to vote for the least religious candidate in elections.
To an objective observer, we must admit that Christians and atheists look very similar in this respect: Each believes that their worldview is obvious, and each believes the other is less trustworthy because of their inability to recognize it as such.
Important to point out - it was Christians who were asked these questions - not the public at large.
Religious believers are by and large firm in their belief that their is a god, and that their particular brand of god is the "correct" one. They'll demonstrate varying degrees of tolerance to other groups depending upon how closely they resemble their own beliefs, but the concept that it's all a made up myth is abhorrent to their entire value system.
Most of the Christians polled probably believe other things that are out of wack with society at large - global warming is god's plan, abortion is wrong, gays are wrong, yadda yadda yadda.
The media only grabs it when it's something crazy like "believers believe non-belivers less trustworthy than rapists". It's not like most rational people think that.
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To an objective observer, we must admit that Christians and atheists look very similar in this respect: Each believes that their worldview is obvious, and each believes the other is less trustworthy because of their inability to recognize it as such.
One is a worldview based on fact and reason. The other is based on faith and myth. How can any "objective" observer consider the later to be trustworthy?
Much as traditional religions view Scientology - that's how atheists view all religion.
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I am an atheist. There, I said it. Are you happy, all you atheists out there who have remonstrated with me for adopting the agnostic moniker? If “atheist” means someone who does not believe in God, then an atheist is what I am.
But I detest all such labels. Call me what you like — humanist, secular humanist, agnostic, nonbeliever, nontheist, freethinker, heretic, or even bright. I prefer skeptic. Still, all such labels are just a form of cognitive economy, a shortcut into pigeonholing our fellow primates into tidy categories that supplant the deeper probing of what someone actually thinks and says.
When asked, “Do you believe in God?” I reply, “No.” When queried on the God question, I simply say, “I don’t believe in God.” No far-left rants, just simple answers. But the bottom line is what we all know: In America, atheists are associated with tree-hugging, whale-saving, hybrid-driving, bottled water-drinking, American Civil Liberties Union-supporting, pinko commie fags hell-bent on conning our youth into believing all that baloney about equal rights and evolution. I’m not one of those #######s, am I?
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Kind of funny - they chose to ask university students about how they perceived athiests, and even they had the same negative views. I wonder if it might be because of asinine comments like this?
The only reason they could consider atheists to be untrustworthy is if all of the nut job religious people who go psycho gets re-labelled as atheists.
UBC study finds believers distrust atheists as much as rapists
