Why Do Atheists Return to Theism? (page 10)

FlyingHighNow

Cog, the numbers will be more credible if you find unbiased sources that back up the book for atheists written by an atheist.

You said it was flawed. I didn't say it was flawed. I am telling you that you need unbiased sources with the same numbers to back up the statistics in the link. Otherwise they are not a credibe, unbiased source.

cognizant dissident

It is aparent in the most remote societies, such as the Bushman of southern Africa, that humans tend to be spiritual in nature and to make reference to god or gods and goddesses.

The Bushman of southern Africa may live in remote areas but they have certainly been in contact with other societies for many hundreds of years. However, their remoteness or lack thereof is of no consequence to the point I was making, which is they themselves are instilling the belief in gods and goddesses into their children from infanthood. Children who were raised as JW's had stories about God read to them since birth before speech or memory had fully formed, as did children from almost every society down through the ages. The fact that this "programming" of children to believe in a deity begins in utero in some societies (think of JW's reading Bible stories to thier pregnant wives) and in other societies such as Sweden and Vietnam where this programming of babies does not occur on such a widespread basis and the resultant rates of atheism in both societies, strongly support my hypothesis that belief in a God is not "inherent".

The fact that Muslim children grow up believing in Allah, Jewish children in Yaweh, Christian children in Jesus, native children in the Great Spirit, and JW children in Jehovah, futher testify to the fact that they their beliefs in deity and the nature of deity are being taught to them by their culture of origin. You don't see African Bushman children bowing to Buddha do you?

FlyingHighNow

Just to give you an example of how skewed your source: Zuckerman, Phil. "Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns", chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK (2005). is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodoxy_in_Sweden

Here's some additional information to your source, Cog:

According to the most recent Eurobarometer Poll 2005, [6]
23% of Swedish citizens responded that "they believe there is a God".
53% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force".
23% answered that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force".
Phil Zuckerman, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College writes of several academic sources who have in recent years placed atheism rates in Sweden between 46% and 85%, with one source reporting that only 17% of respondents self-identifed as "atheist". [7]
Sweden ranks aside with France and Russia on having a large minority of its citizens who have no religion. Independent of these statistics, it is generally known that Swedish society, collectively, is comparatively secular and non-religious. [8]

cognizant dissident

You said it was flawed. I didn't say it was flawed. I am telling you that you need unbiased sources with the same numbers to back up the statistics in the link. Otherwise they are not a credibe, unbiased source.

You implied that the study was flawed in some way when you said the source was unreliable. When a statistical study is conducted, the only way the information is unreliable is if the methodology used to conduct the study was flawed in some way. So I asked you to point out the flaw that would render the statistics and hence the source unreliable. You stated that the source was unreliable simply because of the belief system of the author of the study. That statement alone shows an incredible bias. If you are claiming that a source is unreliable, then the burden is upon you to show how so. Cog

FlyingHighNow

I just showed you how it is unreliable. I am telling you that when you are trying to prove a point, you need to use back up sources if you use a biased source. You need more than just one biased source, or the source isn't reliable to prove your point.

FlyingHighNow

Your source for statistics was Phil Zuckerman, an atheist, who published a book on the subject.

I will post again other sources up against Phil Zuckerman.

According to the most recent Eurobarometer Poll 2005, [6]
23% of Swedish citizens responded that "they believe there is a God".
53% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force".
23% answered that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force".
Phil Zuckerman, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College writes of several academic sources who have in recent years placed atheism rates in Sweden between 46% and 85%, with one source reporting that only 17% of respondents self-identifed as "atheist". [7]
Sweden ranks aside with France and Russia on having a large minority of its citizens who have no religion. Independent of these statistics, it is generally known that Swedish society, collectively, is comparatively secular and non-religious. [8]

cognizant dissident

23% of Swedish citizens responded that "they believe there is a God".
53% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force".
23% answered that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force".
Phil Zuckerman, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Pitzer College writes of several academic sources who have in recent years placed atheism rates in Sweden between 46% and 85%, with one source reporting that only 17% of respondents self-identifed as "atheist". [7]
I fail to see how your additional source proves my source was skewed. It actually agrees with it. If only 23% of Swedish citizens believe in God and the other 77% do not claim a belief in God then by definition of "atheist" which is lack of belief in God, then 77% of Swedes are atheists. Just because 53% claim to believe in some sort of life force, doesn't negate the fact that they don't believe that life force is a God.

For example, I am an atheist, but I acknowledge many forces in the universe some of which contribute to that which we call life as we know it. Energy is one of those forces, but I in no way equate this with God.

The study I quoted was properly referenced by an academically acceptable source as universities have an established criteria and methodology for studies carried out by professors with tenure at them and to which their names are attached. However the source you provided quoted unnamed and unreferenced sources second hand making no claims about their accuracy or not. I believe the source I quoted was more credible for the point I was trying to make using currently accepted academic standards.

Cog

cognizant dissident

FHN, you have yet to demonstrate how simply being an atheist makes the study conducted by such atheist biased in and of itself.

You have yet to show how your "Eurobarometer poll" is a more reliable and unbiased source than mine. Perhaps it was set up and conducted by a Christian thereby making it horribly biased itself according to your own logic. To prove the source was unreliable and yours was reliable you would have to first show how the data collection process itself was unreliable and you would have to demonstrate how the author drew conclusions from the raw data that were obviously biased by his atheist beliefs. You have done neither.

Gopher

FHN --

You said this:

Humans are set apart from the animal kingdom in their inherent need for spirituality. Exept of course for those atheists who remain athiests throughout their lives.

I reacted to the second part, because it isn't clear what you meant by "need for spirituality... except for atheists....". It seems you are limiting the definition of spirituality here to "contact with the spirit world". To me spirituality is an important dimension of humans where they go beyond being satisfied by mere material things. Humans have hopes, dreams, emotions, higher aspirations, brainpower, connections to other people, etc. (Just using the definition I gave earlier of spiritual - equated to non-material things.) Atheists have and appreciate these things as much as believers do.

So I'm objecting to your limitation of the word "spiritual" to a merely religious context. Without the non-material things I mentioned, there would be little to separate us from animals.

And no I didn't learn any of the above from Minnesota Atheists. I've learned to reason things out since leaving the JW's. While I consider various input, I don't need others to tell me what to think. And I trust you don't either. Two reasonable people can look at the same data and reach different conclusions, and that's what we've done.

Why Do Atheists Return to Theism?

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