Quantcast


Advertisement

The God Blog

Email | Print | Text - Text +

June 23, 2008 | 10:12 am

How many atheists believe in God?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Photo

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life today published the second half of a massive study on American spirituality. (The first, which found Americans change faiths frequently, appeared in February.) The new portion is full of information; some, like the fact that religion is “closely linked to political ideology” and that many Americans consider themselves spiritual but not dogmatic or even belonging to a specific religion, is not that surprising. Neither really is that 42 percent of Americans consider the entertainment industry a corrupting cultural influence.

But what about the 21 percent of Americans who say they don’t believe in God but aren’t sure of his non-existence?

FaithWorld explains this potential double-speak:

It found that 92 percent of Americans believe in God or a universal spirit, with 71 percent of those surveyed saying they were “absolutely certain” on this score.

Curiously, more than one fifth — 21 percent — of those who counted themselves as atheists said they believed in God while eight percent expressed absolute certainty about this state of affairs.

One thing does seem absolutely certain: at least a few U.S. atheists must be confused.

My “Dictionary of Beliefs and Religions” (Wordsworth Reference Series, 1992) begins its definition of the word “atheism” in the following manner: “The denial of the existence of God or gods.”

One wonders what dyed-in-the-wool atheists like Christopher Hitchens – no confusion about his stance — would say about this lot. Probably nothing very kind.

Among U.S. agnostics, 55 percent professed a belief in God and 17 percent were absolutely certain. The dictionary cited above though says that a defining characteristic of an agnostic is that they “claim ignorance” on such matters and so one wonders how they can be so certain.

This is significant, not because nearly a third of Americans don’t believe God, with two thirds of them maybe believing in God, but because the evangelical-atheist movement has tried to go big tent in the past few years, and has added agnostics in its fold. It’s a political move meant to foster a larger no-longer-silent minority. But it seems a bit insincere, even for politics, if 55 percent of agnostics actually believe in God.

9 Comments — Leave your comment

Share this post: del.icio.us Favicondel.icio.us Digg FaviconDigg Facebook FaviconFacebook Google FaviconGoogle Reddit FaviconReddit StumbleUpon FaviconStumbleUpon Technorati FaviconTechnorati YahooMyWeb FaviconYahooMyWeb

COMMENTS

We welcome your feedback. Comments may not exceed 700 characters.

Privacy Policy

Your information will not be shared or sold without your consent. Get all the details.

Terms of Service

JewishJournal.com has rules for its commenting community.Get all the details.

Romans 7:7-13 bout sums it up.

Comment by Guy Vestal on 6/23/08 at 4:10 pm

Romans huh?  I’m reading this @ JewishJournal.com

Comment by Snoopy Dog Style on 6/23/08 at 7:18 pm

How many Christians really know what being a Christian means?!?!?

Comment by Linda on 6/26/08 at 6:09 pm

Being a Christian means being a good Jew.  Jesus is not G-d, but he had some interesting teachings.  Being a good Jew means being a good Muslim.  Being a good Muslim means being a good Jew and loving G-d.  Even though, we sometimes do not believe in him.

Comment by Abu Moshe Dawud Muhammad al-Yahudi on 7/12/08 at 11:39 am

What a name.

Comment by Brad A. Greenberg on 7/12/08 at 2:58 pm

It’s not that atheist believe in some supernatural being, it’s just that the great majority of the citizens of the US thinks science got it wrong. So that the oil hungry gas guzzling ignorant crowd can just do what it wants and the rest of the world pays their debts. A reverse Marshall plan. But if your health is at stake, don’t go to a hospital, the people there might be scientists and you might be cured. Not a thing to tell to saint peter. So yust die, like other christians. And muslims. And Stalin, a preacher student like his mother wanted him to be. And Hitler, with his connection to the roman pope pius XII. And a bunch of clergicals who couldn’t keep their hands of little children. Do you believe in that crap? I’m just a Dutch atheist who speaks your language, do you speak mine? No, you dumb kristians do not even know where my country is. But it will be over soon, when the US dollar looses whatever value it may have had to the Zimbabwe dollar. There are much more of those.

Comment by robbie48 on 2/26/09 at 1:08 pm

BTW: my father was a jew and lost his family in Auschwitz while hitler and pius devided the word. But then, I never felt the urge to turn to any delusion. I feel sympathy for Isreal, not because of any irrational believe but for what the islam wants, another irrational bunch.

Comment by robbie48 on 2/26/09 at 1:44 pm

Atheists and Gnostics are right in most of their thinking

It has been common among religious believers to look with misgiving to atheists and Gnostics, and to think that they are mistaken; however, in many instances the opposite is the truth; some religious beliefs are not just irrelevant, but baseless. The “God” of main line traditions simply does not exist. I accepted the challenge of finding the One who may be recognized even by Gnostics and atheists: the Existence itself, “All-That-Is.” If something is there, that is God. Look at the book “Christianity Reformed From ist Roots - A life centered in God” (Amazon.com). I am confident that some of your friends will be relieved of the illusion, as I did myself.

Jairo Mejia, M. Psych., Santa Clara University
Retired Episcopal Priest
Carmel Valley, California

http://www.mbay.net/~jmejia/Grudzen.htm
http://www.mbay.net/~jmejia/Churcher.htm

Comment by jairomejiagomez on 7/30/09 at 7:40 pm

This entire blog does not make any sense. First, where are you getting your “statistics” that there are certain atheists who believe in god?

Who are these people? Where do they live? Where does this information come from and why should we believe it?

Most atheists I have known are former theists, and understand what an atheist is. An atheist is someone who does not believe in ANY god or diety.

I question the integrity of this article. I want to know where these stats come from and why we should believe anything your blog says.

Comment by naomi chambers on 9/04/09 at 11:03 pm

Post a Comment

Name:  
Email:  

Type the word you see below:

Comment:


About this Blog

Blog Home
About the Blogger(s)
Contact

RSS


Blog Archive






Newspaper

Serving a community of 600,000, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles is the largest Jewish weekly outside New York City. Our award-winning paper reaches over 150,000 educated, involved and affluent readers each week. Subscribe here.

© Copyright 2012 Tribe Media Corp.
All rights reserved. JewishJournal.com is hosted by Nexcess.net. Homepage design by Koret Communications.
Widgets by Mijits. Site construction by Hop Studios.

counter fake hit page