Atheists coming out of the skeptical closet

Good news. We need counterweights to this country's out-of-balance religiosity.

Comments

[Stuart]

I think that the battle is already won. Rationalism has triumphed over Blind Belief for the majority of the population, even in America. And it will become more and moreso as time goes by and older people die off. Even fundamentalist religious people realize that the trend among youth is to a more scientific, technological, and "live and let live" attitude.

We sometimes get the wrong idea, because we read surveys that say a sizable chunk of the population believe that evolution is theory not fact. But this means very little. Hold the belief one way or the other has little to do with how we actually live our lives. Responding to a telephone survey tells us little, because the respondents have nothing at stake in how they answer.

But if you look at people's actions, how we really live (and not just the beliefs we declare with words), it's clear that scientific method is gaining, and Judeo/Christianity is on the wane (not to mention Hindu cultishness etc). When people want to protect themselves from the flu, how many depend on vaccines developed through an understanding of how viruses mutate? A whole whole lot more than those who depend on prayer to stay healthy.

The "coming out of the closet" analogy is apt. We're herding animals, so we like to express beliefs that the crowd around us shares. Declaring religious beliefs is so often a matter of establishing connections to a community... rather than really believing in the beliefs themselves.

Belonging to a church community is vital to many people. Actually following everything the church says is far less so.

Stuart
http://stuart-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/