Atheism

Yesterday, representatives of the Secular Coalition for America met White House officials to discuss issues of concern to American atheists, humanists and secularists. Before the meeting, they said,

... it will be the latest indication that the secular movement is gaining significant momentum, and that secular Americans, numbering in the tens of millions, are a constituency that must be included.

Predictably, fundamentalist Christian right-wingers have reacted as though President Obama was making a pact with the devil (who doesn't exist, though try telling them that).

Not quite the outcome that Mr Blair had in mind when he agreed to invade Iraq, Iraqis disillusioned with a God that allows the chaos and carnage they've endured since 2003 are losing their faith. He must be so disappointed.

Andrew Brown of the Guardian made a lot of readers cross when he wrote that atheists are all middle-class, Aga-owning snobs. Now Theos, the public theology think tank, says that -

Although atheists have historically been drawn from upper social grades and higher education levels, the research shows that converts to atheism are disproportionately drawn from groups with no educational qualifications whereas converts to theism are disproportionately drawn from higher socio-economic grades and from people with a masters degree or higher.

The Guardian's Andrew Brown has written a piece about atheism, alleging that atheists are all middle-class, Aga-owning snobs. I've written a comment, Ariane Sherine has responded to Brown, and New Humanist has provided some history of the connection between class and atheism.

Via the NSS, 'A new survey by the Center for Inquiry entitled "Profiles of the Godless" (pdf), examines both the preferred labels that non-believers attach to themselves and the personality types that tend to be connected with those labels.'

It notes that 'non-religious people tend to be highly educated, unmarried males who are intellectually adventurous but personally "less agreeable".' Surely not!