Are Atheists "Fools?"

In answer to the charge that atheists are the least trusted group in America by one study, you will like this video. I know the Christian response is that Psalms 14:1 is speaking of the unbeliever's morality, and not his or her intellectual or educational qualities. Still this video is impressive, and it does address that issue.

6 comments:

Mark Plus said...

Developed countries with high percentages of atheists and nonbelievers, like much of Western Europe, Japan and Australia, tend to have fewer social pathologies than the Jesus-loving U.S. So we have plenty of empirical evidence that people can run decent societies without much belief in god. Hell, American christians readily travel to those countries on vacation.

Baconeater said...

The fact that Atheists are under represented in prisons really kicks the "you need God to be moral" argument.

Or maybe us Atheists are just too smart to get caught.

Mark Plus said...

Another way to look at the incidence of atheism: The number of atheists alive now (somewhere in the ballpark of 800 million) approximately equals the nearly 100 percent religious population of the entire world alive 200 years ago, during, say, Thomas Jefferson's presidency. By the demographic standards of the early 19th Century, we have a planet's worth of atheists at large today. BTW, this fact seems to throw into question the claim that humans have "god genes" and the like.

nsfl said...

The number of atheists alive now (somewhere in the ballpark of 800 million) approximately equals the nearly 100 percent religious population of the entire world alive 200 years ago, during, say, Thomas Jefferson's presidency.

Kind of puts a dent in the idea that God wants more souls saved than damned, eh? The delay in Jesus' return flight has cost God a few billion souls since the middle ages, when Christendom was at its height.

Mark Plus said...

Gregory S. Paul in "The Secular Revolution of the West" (Free Inquiry, Summer 2002) points out that the implications of the explosive growth of nonbelief over the past 100 years have gone largely unnoticed or ignored, probably because this awkward trend conflicts with the agendas of people who claim that the sheep (but not necessarily their shepherds!) need religion to keep them in line -- a view apparently advocated by neoconservative guru Leo Strauss. (For some reason Strauss's followers in the Bush Administration haven't figured out how to use religion to get Iraq under control, however.)

At least we can test this cynical expediency argument for religion, but even there the empirical evidence does't seem to support it.

Chairman Bill said...

That article you quoted is full of inaccuracies and plain bad science. It assumes humans sprang from nothing overnight.