I live in Southern Appalachia, which is in Bible Belt territory on anyone’s map of America.
Then again, I live near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory — a place where the nerdy PhD’s per-square-foot count is the same or higher than, well, the California Institute of Technology or the University of California, Berkeley. In other words, it’s surprisingly easy to run into local atheists and agnostics just about anywhere one engages in conversation (take the gym, for example).
Are these unbelievers hostile? Let’s just say that the real people I meet in this niche religious group (#ducking) are different from those I encounter in cyberspace. Maybe there’s something about the Southern Highlands that attracts friendly atheists-agnostics?
I thought about this phenomenon when I saw this recent Graphs about Religion headline from political scientist (and GetReligion contributor Ryan Burge: “Just How Much Do Americans Dislike Atheists?”
This new Burge piece reminded me of his earlier piece: “No One Participates in Politics More than Atheists — Even White Evangelicals.” Remember these reflections on the Cooperative Election Study question: “Have you done any of the following activities in the previous month?”
The group that is most likely to contact a public official? Atheists.
The group that puts up political signs at the highest rates? Atheists.
HALF of atheists report giving to a candidate or campaign in the 2020 presidential election cycle.
And while they don’t lead the pack when it comes to attending a local political meeting, they only trail Hindus by four percentage points.
Anyway, I stashed these Burge URLs in my growing “Thinker piece” file — along with a very interesting (and I would argue, related) Pew Research Center post with this headline: “One-in-six Americans have taken steps to see less of someone on social media due to religious content.”
Let’s try to connect a few dots.
Here is the overture to the summary post on that Pew survey:
Some Americans use social media for religious purposes, such as posting prayer requests, following religious leaders or sharing articles or videos about religion. However, what people post or see online about religion does not always make a good impression.
A recent Pew Research Center survey shows that 17% of U.S. adults have unfollowed, unfriended, blocked or changed their settings to see less of someone on social media because of religious content the person posted or shared.
Atheists (36%) and agnostics (29%) are more likely than most other religious groups in this analysis to say they have blocked or unfollowed others due to religious content. Some 20% of Jews have done this, as have 13% of Protestants and 12% of Catholics.
As you would expect, this observation about religious discourse in social-media life is linked to some other logical findings in the survey:
U.S. adults with a low level of religious commitment — that is, those who say that they seldom or never pray or attend religious services, and that religion is not too important or not at all important in their lives — are more likely than other adults to say they have changed their social media settings to see less religious content from other people.
About 24% of people with a low level of religious commitment say they’ve blocked or unfollowed someone due to their religious content, compared with 13% of those with a high level of commitment and 14% of those with a medium level of commitment.
Meanwhile, Democrats and independents who lean toward the Democratic Party are more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to say they have blocked, unfriended or unfollowed someone due to religious content they posted (22% vs. 12%).
This is a variation on a Catch-22 theme during the past half century of American life and public discourse. That is: Many Americans find it hard to tolerate people that they believe are intolerant. And for a growing choir of Americans, expressions of religious faith — especially statements of doctrinal belief on hot-button cultural issues — are automatically considered intolerant, if not “violent” hate speech that could lead to lost jobs or even jail time.
What if we turn that around?
Obviously, I have no doubt that there are traditional religious believers who shun online atheists and agnostics, in part because the digital media marketplace keeps making it easier for Americans to hide in concrete information silos in which we only hear voices that we want to hear. If you don’t like what someone is saying (or reporting), then it’s easy to click “mute” or “unfollow” (or to cancel that subscription).
That said, it is interesting to note that the people in the religious and non-religious “left” (if that word applies these days) appear to have — according to this Pew survey — thinner skins than believers in traditional religious groups. Like I said earlier, I have not found that to be the case in face-to-face talks with atheists here in my local community. But online?
All of this is part of what I believe is today’s most important trend in American public life and in public media — the growing evidence that the “middle” of our public square has all but vanished. We live in the divided states of America.
Once again, here are the opening lines of that must-read David French book from 2020, “Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.”
It's time for Americans to wake up to a fundamental reality: the continued unity of the United States cannot be guaranteed. At this moment in history, there is not a single important cultural, religious, political, or social force that is pulling Americans together more than it is pulling us apart.
Obviously, if many atheists-agnostics are quick to judge their religious online neighbors, it’s logical to assume that many of those believers will judge them right back, one way or the other. Chicken and the egg?
That leads us back to Burge and his recent post, “Just How Much Do Americans Dislike Atheists?”
Which group is the most ostracized in America? If you grew evangelical like I did, you were told that conservative Christians were the most marginalized group in American society. It was almost a badge of honor. I can’t tell you how many times I heard preachers quote James 1:12, “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test.” If you are being persecuted, it means you are living boldly for Jesus.
In my experience, most people on the right side of American religious life believe that they face oppression, to one degree or another, from elites in mass media, academia, law, etc. (as opposed to their neighbors) In other words, citizens in flyover-country red zip codes believe that folks in powerful blue zip codes have too much cultural and legal power (even as conservative citizens consume just as much elite mass media and popular culture as anyone else).
But what about attitudes at the personal level? Burge notes:
When it comes down to it, I think the most empirically defensible conclusion is that atheists face more persecution and animus in American society than another other “religious” group.
So who distrusts who? Burge turns to a “thermometer” scale via the American National Election Study.
Remember this: The higher the numbers, the “warmer” the feelings toward a specific group in American culture. The lower the numbers, the “colder” the emotions.
Which religious group scores the highest? Christians, easily. Among Democrats, the average is 68. It’s 65 for Independents. For Republicans it’s 78. That’s higher than Democrats rank the military. Catholics score a bit lower, but still are far above average ranging from 54 to 65.
There are several groups who score below the midpoint, though. Muslims score 49.6 for Democrats and just 38 for Republicans. Mormons are pretty much in the same range, as well.
How about atheists?
Democrats put them around 43. That’s just 1 point higher than their score for Christian fundamentalists. Atheists score 39 for Independents and 33 for Republicans. That puts them in the same category as the federal government and Congress. Great company!
In this essay, Burge offers lots of interesting numbers from a variety of sources and some are, frankly, rather confusing.
The big idea, however, is that religion is a divisive subject — period. What topics should Americans avoid at work or in restaurants? Politics and religion. As for me, I think journalists would like to know the degree to which these negative emotions are connected to specific moral, cultural and religious issues in public life. Just saying.
Let’s look at one more graphic from this packed Burge piece. These numbers are taken from a YouGov poll in November of 2022 in which participants were asked about their feelings about members of 35 religious groups.
Yes, lots of “neither” results. But there are some interesting things to note in the “red (negative)” and “blue (positive)” numbers.
For example, let’s end with this interesting comparison.
… 38% of Americans have an unfavorable view of [atheists], while 24% are favorable. But nearly 40% are ambivalent. Agnostics are a bit more liked. Their unfavorables are just 29%. But their favorables are 24%, which is no different than atheists.
The only mainstream Christian group that comes close to that level is the Southern Baptist Convention. Their unfavorables are 33% compared to just 27% who are favorable toward the SBC.
Maybe atheists and Southern Baptists need to get together and talk about their negative numbers?
That sounds like a great idea for a series of podcasts. Hold these meetings in in a bar (#ducking).
As my favorite history professor (known for his seminar on the French Revolution) used to say, while striking his forehead with his palm: “What a world!”