The God Disproving Industry

A.K. Willard




There is a huge Industry based upon seeking to disprove Christianity,. It's a subset of valid academic research. No it's not a conspiracy but it's atheistic academics taking advantage of the scholarly publication industry to manufacture atheist propaganda. That would be fine except the studies they produce are marked by bad methodology. On Monday we saw a couple of  examples of these bad studies; the methodology of the study by Amitai Shenhav was putrid  ( the one about belief in God is magical thinking). [1]  Another study mentioned in the article  was done by A.K. Willard and A. Norenzayan, I'll be examining that study here along with another one by the same team.Those two are associated with a large body of badly done studies. They themselves specialized in this sort of ideological attempt to disprove the validity of religious belief. For example their study that supposedly finds that a feeling of God;s presence is reducible to a natural psychological survival mechanism.



Some studies have explored questions about brain function and the texture or mechanics of mystical experience. Van Elk et al find that the sensation of supernatural presence is an adaptation from the need to over-detect presences of predictors in the jungle.[2] In other words if one sets out on a jungle trail, and there is darkness, sensing a predictor and turning back from the trek would be helpful. If the sensation was wrong and there was no predictor the mistake of being wrong would be less graven that of being right but ignoring the sense. Thus, the sensation of presence is selected for. This might be used by a skeptic to answer the argument from mystical experience. Elk has five experiments that that seek to explore weather processing concepts about supernatural agents enhances detection in the environment.


Participants were presented with point light stimuli representing kinds of biological motion, or with pictures of faces embedded in a noise mask. Participants were asked to indicate if the stimuli represented a human agent or not. In each case they used three “primes,” one for supernatural, one for human, one for animal. They found that supernatural primes facilitated better agent detection.[3] The argument is that the perceived presence of agents in threatening situations and tendencies to anthropomorphizing leads stronger belief in ghosts, demons, angels, gods and other “supernatural” agency.[4] They point to a body of work consisting of several studies showing that particular paranormal beliefs are a reliable predictor of illusory perceptions of faces and agency detection. These studies include Willard and Norenzayan (2013), Reikki et. al. (2013), and Petrican and Burris (2012).[5] “[Al]...though these studies provide tentative support for the relation between agency detection and supernatural beliefs, the notion that reigious beliefs are a byproduct of perceptual biases to detect patterns and agency has been challenge by several authors...” (Bulbulia, 2004, Lisdorf 2007, and McKay and Efferson, 2010).[6]


While it may be true that some aspects of mystical experience are genetically related, and may be related to agent detection, that is no proof that mystical experience originates wholly within a naturalistic and genetic framework. First, because these studies only demonstrate a correlation between supernatural beliefs and agency detection. There is no attempt to establish the direction of a causal relationship. If there is a connection between supernatural and agent detection it could as easily be that awareness of supernatural concepts makes one more sensitive to agent detection. Secondly, of course just being genetically related doesn't reduce the phenomenon wholly to genetic endowments. Thirdly, there is a lot more to mystical experience than agent detection. Both involve sensing a presence beyond that point the differences are immense. I am not even sure that facial recognition and sensing a predator are similar enough to count for anything. In sensing being observed one is not usually aware of visual ques as one would be in facial recognition. There's no guarantee that the quality of the sensing is the same. Feeling the divine presence is much more august and involves levels and textures. Such an experience is, overall, positive, life changing, transformational (even noetic) but merely feeling one is being observed could be creepy, negative, or even trivial.


Every study I have seen by Ara Norenzayan appears to be an attempt to disprove the validity or Religious belief. He did one called, "Cognitive biases explain religious belief, paranormal belief, and belief in life’s purpose," [7] in which he uses many of the same approaches used in the magical thinking study:

Cognitive theories of religion have postulated several cognitive biases that predispose human minds towards religious belief. However, to date, these hypotheses have not been tested simultaneously and in relation to each other, using an individual difference approach. We used a path model to assess the extent to which several interacting cognitive tendencies, namely mentalizing, mind body dualism, teleological thinking, and anthropomorphism, as well as cultural exposure to religion, predict belief in God, paranormal beliefs and belief in life’s purpose. Our model, based on two independent samples (N = 492 and N = 920) found that the previously known relationship between mentalizing and belief is mediated by individual differences in dualism, and to a lesser extent by teleological thinking. Anthropomorphism was unrelated to religious belief, but was related to paranormal belief. Cultural exposure to religion (mostly Christianity) was negatively related to anthropomorphism, and was unrelated to any of the other cognitive tendencies. These patterns were robust for both men and women, and across at least two ethnic identifications. The data were most consistent with a path model suggesting that mentalizing comes first, which leads to dualism and teleology, which in turn lead to religious, paranormal, and life’s-purpose beliefs. [8]

Intent of disproof seen here:

Religion is an important part of the lives of billions of people around the world, and a cross culturally recurrent aspect of minds and cultures. Over the past decade, several theories have emphasized the natural basis of religious belief and experience, found in cognitive biases that are byproducts of brain functions (Atran & Norenzayan, 2004; Barrett, 2000, 2004; Bloom, 2007; Boyer, 2001, 2008; Kelemen, 2004). These theories converge on suggesting that belief in supernatural agents such as gods and spirits, and related phenomena, emerge from a set of interrelated cognitive biases, such as perceptions of agency and mentalizing, mind-body dualism, and teleological intuitions. Equipped with these cognitive biases, human minds gravitate towards religious and religious-like beliefs and intuitions.[9]

He is treating conceptual philosophical ideas as though they are determined by brain functions with the implication they are glitches. It's not a philosophical idea to be reasoned about but a mistake a misfire a primitive cognitive ability that has grown obsolete. This is just the ideological reaction to counter ideas. Here is the proof. Dualism is a philosophical idea."In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the theory that the mental and the physical – or mind and body or mind and brain – are, in some sense, radically different kinds of thing."[10] Here he treats it like primitive cognitive ability:

1.2.2. Dualism Another hypothesized cognitive foundation of religious belief is mind-body dualism, which refers to the intuition that minds are separate from bodies (Bloom, 2005; Damasio, 1994). According to this theory, minds are seen as a non-physical substance that can be related to bodies, but not reliant on bodies, opening up the 380 A.K. Willard, A. Norenzayan / Cognition 129 (2013) 379–391 possibility of minds existing without bodies. In a sense, the ability to think dualistically is a necessary condition for understanding concepts such as ghosts and spirits or any other disembodied supernatural agent (Bloom, 2007). [11]

Here he implies that mind itself is just such a primitive cognitive function."Consistent with this, neuro-imaging studies found that among Christian believers in the US (Kapogiannis et al., 2009) and in Denmark (Schjoedt et al., 2009), thinking about or praying to God, activates brain regions associated with Theory of Mind." Here he is still harping on teleogy as he did in the magical study:

1.2.3. Teleology A third cognitive hypothesis is that religious beliefs are rooted in teleology. Teleology is the tendency to see things in the world as having a purpose and having been made for that purpose (Kelemen, 1999; Kelemen & DiYanni, 2005)." Teleology is a philosophical concept but it is indicative of a belief in higher order. He is against higher order since he's an atheist, this is his ideological bias.[12]

His methodology is based upon students answering surveys. two samples test for replicability, robustness, and generalizability. Sample 1: 492 undergraduate psychology students. Sample 2 "consisted of 920 adult Americans collected though Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.;" Surveys completed online. For several concepts such as teleology they had no standardized scale and had to makeup their own. Of course if we suspect bias we can't trust their scales.

......The Conclusion:

Although our cognitive biases remain predictors of purpose above and beyond the variance predicted by belief in God, belief in God remains the strongest predictor. Further, the model no longer passed the test of fit when we reversed this relationship to have belief in purpose lead to belief in God. This suggests that much of the variance in belief in life’s purpose, is coming from belief in God. The remaining relationships with our cognitive biases could be seen as an intuition towards purpose above and beyond what is encouraged by belief in God, or it could be something left over from growing up in a largely Protestant Christian culture. This interesting question could be answered by going beyond a Christian sample. Regardless, it does not seem to be the case that purpose is another sort of intuition that leads to belief in a supernatural power. Rather, belief in God appears to lead to a greater sense that there is a purpose to life[13]

They have made the astounding discovery that belief in God gives one a motivation to believe in a purpose in life. The non belief in God while laden with a sense of purpose is not necessarily transmute into belief by that sense. This is hardly an anti-religious finding. The problem is they way they treat belief and other aspects of reason that support belief. They even include "1.2.4. Mentalizing All of the above cognitive tendencies have a clear common feature: they require some mentalizing ability. There has been some speculation about the relationship between metalizing and religious belief." "mentalizing means imagining, which is necessary for science as well as religion, and for math and any kind of reasoning. They are treating all uses of the mind as though they are some obsolete function developed for life on savanna. The implication being that belief in God just a throw back to primitive brain function: "Regardless, it does not seem to be the case that purpose is another sort of intuition that leads to belief in a supernatural power. Rather, belief in God appears to lead to a greater sense that there is a purpose to life." In other words purpose does not lead to God, but God to a sense of purpose. The sense of purpose is an illusion based upon the primitive nonsense of belief in God.

Williard and A., Norenzayan are valid academics. they have the credentials, their works are published and they work with good people. Norenzayan has published with R.A.McNamara for whom I have the utmost respect.[14] Do not think I'm attacking his credentials. I am attacking his bias. There has come to be a whole industry fueled this this ideological atheism in science. Nor am I advocating policing science. I am totally for academic freedom. The only thing we can do is get more Christians to study social science.


Sources


[1] magical thinking study: Willard is Post doctoral fellow at UT Austin, psychology, received her Ph.D. in Psychology university of British Columbia. She primarily works with Hindu and Muslims. Norenzayan is a graduate student, he is at University British Columbia.

[2] Michiel Elk, Bastiaan T. Rutjens, Joop van der Pligt,& Frenk van Harrveled (2016) Priming of Supernatural agent concepts and agency detection, Religion, Brain and Behavior, 6:1, 4-33, DOL: 10.1080/2153599X.2014.93344.

[3] Ibid., 4.

[4] Ibid., 5.

[5] Ibid., 5. A.K. Willard and A. Norenzayan, “Cognative Biases Explain Religious Belief and belief in life's purpose,” Cognition 129 (2013), 379-391. T. Reikki, M.Litterman, et. al. “Paranormal and religious believers are more prone to illusary face perception than skeptics and none believers.” applied cognitive psychology 27 (2013) 150-155, and R. Petrican and C.T. Burris, “Am I a Stone? Over attribution of agency and Religious Orientation,” Religion and Spirituality 4 (2012), 312-323.

[6] Ibid., 6. J. Bulbulia, “The Cognitive and Evolutionary Psychology of Religion,” Biology and Philosophy 19, (2004) 655-686, A. Lisdorf, “What's HIDD'n in the HADD,” Journal of Cognition and Culture 7, (2007), 341-353, and R. McKay and C. Efferson, “Subtitles of Error Management,” Evolution and Human Behavior, 31 (5)(2010) 309-319.


[7] Aiyana K. Willard Ara Norenzayan , "Cognitive biases explain religious belief, paranormal belief, and belief in life’s purpose."   Cognition, published by Science dorect, 1 article info Article history: Received 4 March 2013 Revised 25 July 2013 Accepted 27 July 2013 Online PDF format, URL:
http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~ara/Manuscripts/Willard_Norenzayan_Cognitive_Biases.pdf

[8]Ibid.

[9]Ibid.

[10]Robinson, Howard, "Dualism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .

[11]Norenzayan,"Cognitive biases...," op cit.

[12]Ibid.

[13]Ibid.

[14] McNamara, R. A., Norenzayan, A., & Henrich, J. (2016). Supernatural punishment, in-group biases, and material insecurity: Experiments and ethnography from Yasawa, Fiji. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 6, 34-55.

Atheist Social Science Menu

Atheist Social Sciences




Atheism not increasing in America: nov 2015New

The God Disproving Industry*NEW!*
A huge amount of studies done to disprove God they almost
always have crappie methodology

Who is actually self actualized, Atheists or Theists?New

Philosophy and History of Science Disprove Atheism New
Various articles on philosphy and history of scinece and how
they disproves or elucidate atheist ideology.


Is Belief in God Magical Thinking?
a clear exampe of the atheist illusion of technique applied
to "religious thought" and the falsehood of that appraoch.


Are Atheists Their Brother's Keepers?New
Saslow study indicates atheists give more and more motivated
by compassion than religious people. The study has problems.

Are Religious People at Risk for Depression?New
New study form Europe idicates Religous people there are
at higher risk for depression than in U.S. A huge body of
work shows not true.

Atheist Propaganda and Religious Experience
Con Man Darren Brown Fakes Religious Experience
arguing that if he can induce them they are not real.


 Atheist Inflation: Atheists Infalte Numbers
to Look More Popular
 constant refernce to atheism increasing are exaggerated

Zuckerman (Phil) and Paul an Introduction
the idea that increased education increases atheism and causes religious decline

(Phil) Zuckerman File parts 1-3.Includes new paper on history welfare state in Sweden


Nigel Barber's Study: Part 1 cross national test
of uncertainty hypothesis (the Cross Cultural Research Article)
the notion that religion is based upon fear of uncertainty and
declines with increase in income.

Barber part 2: Psychology Today Article
"The Human Beast."
Summarizing his Cross cultural article.


Are Christians More Likely to Go To Prison?
Some atheists argue Christians are 40x more likley but
I have proved their stats are fabricated. Page 2
page 3 A discussion about the question "did Swift fabricate
the Data. (Christians more likely to go to Prison)

Switching faiths in Prison is common according to Pew Sutdy

Study among Chaplains shows that people switch faiths,
Thus the no way to prove that the percentage of Chrsitians in
prison reflects the fate of Christians in society. In other words
many of them became Chrsitians in prison.
Religious Belief and IQ File (Atheist IQ scam)
Includes New Major IQ Study, (by Zuckerman)  
 Part 2 Zuckerman IQ study

Are Natural Scientists Smarter Than Believers? 


Religious belief of Professors Reflects that of General Population.
Taken across the board n all fields, the majority of professors are religious.

Atheist Propaganda On Prayer: Controlled Studies vs. Empirical Miracles
Not studies done by atheists, but atheist spin on prayer studies vs. Lourdes
miracles.

Prayer Study and Atheist Echo Chamber
atheists try to cast suspicion on Lourdes medical committee
their suspicions are disproved.

Center for Inquiry: Atheist Propaganda Machine
Propaganda Machine tries to pass itself off as a valid
research institute does bogus studies inflating the percentage
of atheists in America.

Half Scientists Believe in God.

Is Higher Religious Higher Self Esteem only a Measure of Cultural Norm?
Studies show that religious people have higher self esteem than non religious, but
new study implies this is only in countries where religion is valued.

More Improper Use of Survey Results by Atheists:

New Pew Study: Atheism not Increasing in World Population
every other month a new article comes out saying atheism is increaseing.
Now they make a big thing of the rise of the "nons" but atheism is not 
increasing. 

Are atheists increasing in world population?
Earlier from the one above, the one above is in asnwer to this.
This one warns of the bogus Gallup international.


No Rise In Atheism in America
Atheist claim atheism goes up to 19% but follow the data the truth is
they speaking of 19% of 5% of U.S. Media Hype in USA Today exaggerates
increase in unaffiliated and references old survey that puts atheism at 1.6% real 


American Belief in God in Decline? Half Don't believe with Certainty.
1/6/14. a new Harris poll is bothering people with this new scare that
atheism is increasing.

Social Science that supports validity
of Religious Belief.

 300 studies support Value of Religion


 

Zuckerman and Paul: Introduction

Overview:Zuckerman and Paul's Alleged "Studies."


Zuckerman


I've seen over half a dozen attempts to do sociological studies that supposedly prove that religion is bad for society. The two major one's are Zuckerman and Paul. These two studies are linked as Zuckerman acknowledges Paul's "study" as foundational for his own.

Zukerman is a Skeptical Enquirer article that someone has tired to use against me and my religious experience studies, but it didn't apply. This trend is making me very angry because it has spawned many of the lies and half truths that are fueling the new Atheism. I see these links to these articles popping up all the time. They make me especially angry because

(1) I was a sociology major, that was my BA. So I do know something about social science research methods.

(2) I was publisher of an academic journal geared to social criticism and a political activist in the CISPES for many years. (committee in Solidarity with People of El Salvador) and a Marxist. So social criticism has been a major part of my life. Seeing that used to lie about Christ and give false information and stupid half truths that hood wink people into disbelief makes my blood boil.

These so called "studies" all make the same basic mistakes. They all feed off each other and footnote each other so they are just making the same one's over and over and creating a self referential kabal of atheist assumptions.


(1) they trade on ignorance and cultural illiteracy

(2) argument from sign

(3) shallow analysis designed to mine the data and bury any deep analysis that would divert blame from religious blame and create a false association.

(4) the false association is that high religious belief is correlated with poverty, illiteracy, low education level, violence.

(5) counter studies vastly outweigh

*2000 studies this is all totally at odds with the findings of real social sciences. Dr. Larsen did a literature search of social science abstracts in the 90's and found that there were 2000 articles, these are in social science journals, real academics who find religion as a positive force in people's lives and in society.

* Cities on a Hill foundation found 300 studies that show religion good for society, contradicting the very things these atheist studies are talking about.

* wurthnow's study of Religious experince found that RE people are better educated, more socially conscious, more sensative to the needs of others, less violent, less depressed, more outgoing, more able to help others.

(6) these are not real studies, Zuckerman and Paul that is.. They are nothing more than people totally up the countries they think are less religious, based upon mainly sterio types but also church attendance, then showing that their education level is higher or their poverty level or violence level lower than deeply religious American south.

What is so monstrously stupid about this is they don't screen out factors like the long history of poverty in a region, or the higher level of education Europe as a hold over form the Christian era in Europe vs the frontier time in America.

they don't consider factors such as America's frontier heritage, only one hundred years or so hence (Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas). Europe was a frontier a thousand years ago. Even then it was mostly civilized, it was really a Frontier in places like France and Germany closer to 2000 years ago. For most of that time education was the work of Christians and Europe was well educated relatively speaking.

Europe was well Christianized and devout less than one hundred years ago, and in that time it was well understood that education was a must. It is so deceptive for these people to try and give credit for the social welfare state and all it has accomplished to atheism when it was basically Christian thinkers who built the welfare state. The first peasant revolts in Italy and Germany were Christian inspired.

All major gains of education in America an Europe were the result of labor battle and unionists who fought for public education, and the Catholic church (mostly in Europe). these unionists were led to a large degree by Christians and Christian women such as Pheobie Palmer and the abolition/sufferage movement who also influenced the drive for public education.


Focus on Zuckerman's data:


Adherents.com

Demonstrates that Zuckerman's data cannot be used to make the sort of inferences atheists make in claiming huge percentages (20%) for atheist world population, or even the counties Zuckerman claims. Just to take lists of memberships and affiliations for countries doesn't distinguish enough between differences such as actual belief in God vs organizational membership.

Pitzer College sociologist Phil Zuckerman compiled country-by-country survey, polling and census numbers relating to atheism, agnosticism, disbelief in God and people who state they are non-religious or have no religious preference. These data were published in the chapter titled "Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns" in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK (2005). Different type of data collection methodologies using different types of questions showed a consistent pattern: In most countries only a tiny number of people (zero to a fraction of 1 percent) will answer "atheism" or "atheist" when asked an open-ended question about what their religious preference. A slightly larger number of people will answer "yes" if asked pointedly if they are an atheist. A slightly larger number than that will answer "no" when asked if they believe in any type of God, deities, or Higher Power. A slightly larger number answer "no" when asked simply if they "believe in God" (omitting wording indicating more nebulous, less anthropomorphic conceptions of divinity). Finally, a larger number of people answer "none" or "non-religious" when asked asked an open-ended question about what their religious preference is. Although figures vary for each country, average numbers indicate that roughly half of the people who self-identify as "nonreligious" also answer "yes" when asked if they believe in God or a Higher Power.

One portion of this broad grouping includes those who are best described as "nonreligious," i.e., those who are essentially passive with regards to organized religion, generally affirming neither belief nor disbelief. They may be neither contemplative about philosophy and spirituality nor involved in a religious/faith/philosophical community. Although a certain percentage of people in many countries classify themselves as nonreligious in surveys, there are few data indicating how many of these fit the passive "nonreligious" criteria described above, versus those who actually do contemplate such matters, but simply have their own personal philosophy and no stated affiliation with an organized religion.

For the purposes of this list, this grouping also includes more proactive or well-defined philosophies such as secular humanism, atheism, agnosticism, deism, pantheism, freethought, etc., most of which can be classified as religions in the sociological sense, albeit secular religions. A minority among atheists are quite fervent in their beliefs and actively endeavor to proselytize atheism.

The "Secular/Nonreligious/etc." category is probably the most speculative estimate in this list, as this segment of society is difficult to count. The vast majority in this grouping are not aligned with any kind of membership organization. Most figures come from census and survey data, which most countries conduct only infrequently.

The highest figure we have for "Nonreligious" is 20% of the world population, or about 1.2 billion: "Over 20 percent of the world's population does not claim any allegiance to a religion. Most are agnostics. Others are atheists, who deny the existence of God." (O'Brien, Joanne & Martin Palmer. The State of Religion Atlas. Simon & Schuster: New York (1993). Pg 41.) But such a high figure is difficult to support with current country-by-country statistics, and perhaps reflects Communist-era official government statistics. Most current estimates of the world number of secular/nonreligious/agnostic/atheist/etc. are between 800 and 1 billion.

Estimates for atheism alone (as a primary religious preference) range from 200 to 240 million. But these come primarily from China and former Soviet Union nations (especially Russia). Prior to Communist takeovers of these regions and government attempts to eradicate religion, both places had very high levels of affiliation with organized religions (especially Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Taoism), as well as high levels of participation in and belief in traditional local traditions such as shamanism, ancestor ceremonies, spiritism, etc. Since the fall of Communism in former Soviet nations and the relaxation of anti-religious policies in China, observed religious affiliation and activity has increased dramatically, especially in Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam.

China probably does have the largest number of actual atheists of any country in the world and many Russians clearly remain atheists. But at this point, it is difficult to accurately determine how many of those classified as atheists or nonreligious during Communist-era USSR and by the current Chinese government are actually atheists according to their personal beliefs, and how many are unregistered religious adherents or participants in less-organized traditional systems that are oriented around ancestors, animism, shamanism, etc. Many people are unaware, for instance, that China has one of the largest, most active Christian communities in the world, and that in many former Soviet nations religions such as shamanism, Islam and Russian Orthodoxy remained even while official government reports announced the elimination of religion in these regions.

In the Western world, Europe is by far the place with the most self-avowed nonreligious, atheists and agnostics, with the nonreligious proportion of the population particularly high in Scandinavia. The Encyclopedia Britannica reports approximately 41 million atheists in Europe. The self-described nonreligious segment of society in Australia and New Zealand is also high, at around 15%. In Australia less than a tenth of one percent described themselves as atheists in the latest national census (1996). In the U.S. about 13.2% of the population describe themselves as nonreligious, 0.5% describe themselves as agnostic, and a smaller number describe themselves as atheist (Kosmin, ARIS/American Religious Identification Survey, City University of New York, 2001).

Zuckerman (2005) compiled numbers of people who don't believe in God, based primarily on polling and survey data, for every country in the world. He totaled the survey-based and poll-based estimates of non-believers from the top 50 countries with the highest proportion of people who do not believe in God, and added to this number the non-believers from highly populous countries (Mexico, Poland, Moldova Romania, Georgia, Uzbekistan, India, Ireland, and Chile). The remaining countries had proportionately miniscule populations of atheists/agnostics/non-believers. Zuckerman concluded, "the grand total worldwide number of atheists, agnostics, and non-believers in God is somewhere between 504,962,830 and 749,247,571. These minimum/maximum numbers are conservative estimates; were one to factor in a mere .25% of such highly populated countries as Egypt, Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, Burma, Tanzania, and Iran, as non-believers in God, estimates would be significantly larger. Also, these numbers are only for non-believers of God, specifically. Were one to include all 'non-religious' people in general, the numbers would nearly double... nonbelievers in God as a group come in fourth place after Christianity (2 billion), Islam (1.2 billion), and Hinduism (900 million) in terms of global ranking of commonly-held belief systems."

Zuckerman states that adding the "non-religious" segment of the world population would to his calculated maximum of 749,247,571 (about 750 million) atheists, agnostic and non-believers in God would yield a number nearly twice as large -- just under 1.5 billion. This number is not, however, the number of people who should be classified in the "Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist" category, because half of this larger number is based solely on belief in a single theological proposition (belief/non-belief in God), rather than on a person's religious affiliation/religious preference. A large proportion of people in the surveys Zuckerman combined to arrive at this total expressly are adherents of named religions (such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Chinese traditional religion, Unitarianism and Christianity). Many of these people who do not believe in God, deities, or a Higher Power are nevertheless devout adherents of their various faiths, or even clergy. They are enumerated in the list above as adherents of those faiths, and not counted among nonreligious, atheists or agnostics because their primary religious identity is not atheism or agnosticism. It should be remembered that not all strains of all religions entail belief in God, a Higher Power or deities.



It can not be said based on Zuckerman's analysis that "1.5 billion people do not believe in God."
A large proportion of the people classified as "non-religious" expressly do believe in God or a Higher Power. The 750 million figure is already an attempt to estimate the total population of people who do not believe in God.

Adherents.com puts world atheist population at
2%



Page 2

Zuckerman Part 1

Zuckerman


Simplistic Analysis

Swedish Social History




It's pretty obvious that Zuckerman argues that the society absent of religion is a better society (more progressive, better educated, more socially conscious concerning its needy) than are societies in which people are religious. We can knit pick over weather he used the phrase "atheist nation" or not, but the fact of the matter is the subtitle of his books is "what the least religious states tell us about contentment." (see his new book Society Without God: What the least religous states can tell us about contentment. That makes it pretty what he is arguing. But my argument, my major argument is basically that this is clearly wrong since none of the states he talks about God the way they are by being without God. Most of them had and still have strong religious populations, the European states emerge out of a context of Christianized society. Many people feel that Sweden is the least religious state. This is actually false, the part of the German republic that was the East German side has the most hard core atheists. That is according to the study on Religious Demand that I link to in part 2. Nevertheless,Sweden is a good test case. Let us examine the situation with Sweden.


We find that the Swedes were Vikings prior to the middle ages. They were pagan, they swooped down upon the brits and killed and took what they had. They were bloodthirsty barbarians. Well actually, that's the myth of the Viking. the truth of it is I've seen historians who now say there weren't that many raids, most Swedes were farmers, not vikings. The Viks didn't do that much, other than play football. Be that as it may, they were Christianized in the middle ages and by the reformation they settled into a state church centered around the Lutheran faith. What rading and so forth that did go on as abandoned when the Christianization came along. But out of the Lutheran inspired culture they raised up a modern society and through Christianity taught the core values that became the modern Swedish welfare state. It is true that the formal Church did not have much to do with building the welfare state, which mostly came about after world war II. But the core values planed in the culture by Christianity culminated in the cultural background that made the state possible.

A Political and Social History of Modern Eruope by Carlton J.H.Hayes

Prof of history Columbia University

Vol II, MacMillion 1916

Three Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Denmark, Norway were officially tied to the Lutheran Church. "Popular education was fostered under ecclesiastical supervision; all three people's developed native literature and a lively sense of nationalism. In all three social and Political democracy made steady progress. McMillian 1916




Religion has always played a role in Swedish culture. What Zuckerman pretends is not there, and what he hides in the data, the role played by religion in planting the core values that build the welfare state. He hides this by refusing to draw the distinction between Church attendance and real actual belief. Though attendence is low the role of religion in Swedish society is old, historical, complex and important:

Welfare and Values in Europe:Transitions Related to Religion, Minorities and Gender;

Sweden:
Overview of the national situation
by

Ninna Edgardh Beckman

Page 1

Welfare and Values in Europe:
Transitions related to Religion, Minorities and Gender
(WaVE)
Sweden:
Overview of the national situation
by Ninna Edgardh Beckman
Page 2

PDF
Introduction

Based on its very low figures of religious attendance and traditional religious faith, Sweden has a reputation of being one of the most secularised countries in the world. True as this might be, what the image conceals is the strong and complicated role that religion still plays in Sweden, not least through history and culture. The modern history of Sweden has its foundation in national homogeneity, grounded in the principle of one people and one faith. This principle is closely connected to the Lutheran majority church, to which nearly 80% of the Swedish population still belongs, even though formally state and church were separated in 2000. The recent presence of other world religions and official policies tending towards multiculturalism adds new religious aspects to Swedish culture. Religion thus continues to play an interesting role in Sweden, behind the seemingly straightforward image of a country on its way towards complete secularisation

The Swedish welfare state was built after the Second World War, based on the idea of ‘the home of the people’ (folkhemsidén). The basic principle of the model is that the state and local authorities guarantee the basic needs of all citizens. This principle is based on strong values of solidarity and shared responsibility. Decades of success for the system have since the 1990s been replaced by growing problems with keeping up the high level of benefits and services, a development, which is increasingly questioning also the values underpinning the whole welfare structure. Immigration is one factor, among many, challenging the system and immigrants have also been among those most affected by emerging new forms of poverty

Nothing about atheism or being an atheist involved there


Historians Find Religion Always Played a Role In European Social Democracy


Through Europe the role of religion in the rise of modern secular liberal states is coming to be re-evaluated. Many historians are finding now that religion always played a more vital role than previously thought. Here is a quote from a new ground breaking book:

Religion, Class Coalitions, and Welfare States


Series: Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics
Edited by Kees van Kersbergen
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Philip Manow
Review
Universität Konstanz, Germany


This book radically revises established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies and introduces a new perspective on how religion shaped modern social protection systems. The interplay of societal cleavage structures and electoral rules produced the different political class coalitions sustaining the three welfare regimes of the Western world. In countries with proportional electoral systems the absence or presence of state–church conflicts decided whether class remained the dominant source of coalition building or whether a political logic not exclusively based on socio-economic interests (e.g. religion) was introduced into politics, particularly social policy. The political class-coalitions in countries with majoritarian systems, on the other hand, allowed only for the residual-liberal welfare state to emerge, as in the US or the UK. This book also reconsiders the role of Protestantism. Reformed Protestantism substantially delayed and restricted modern social policy. The Lutheran state churches positively contributed to the introduction of social protection programs.

• Radical revision of established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies based on a combination of country case studies and comparative accounts • Introduces a new perspective on why and how religion shaped modern social protection systems and gives a new comparative account of the formation of different welfare state regimes • Systematic inquiry into the role of the state–church conflict for social policy in advanced industrial societies

Contents

1. Religion and the Western welfare state: the theoretical context Philip Manow and Kees van Kersbergen;

2. Western European party systems and the religious cleavage Thomas Ertman;

3. The religious foundations of work-family policies in Western Europe Kimberly J. Morgan;

4. Italy: a Christian democratic or clientist welfare state? Julia Lynch;

5. Religion and the welfare state in the Netherlands Kees van Kersbergen;

6. A conservative welfare state regime without Christian Democracy? The French Etat-providence, 1880–1960 Philip Manow and Bruno Palier;

7. Religion and the consolidation of the Swiss welfare state, 1848–1945 Herbert Obinger;

8. The church as nation? The role of religion in the development of the Swedish welfare state Karen M. Anderson;

9. The religious factor in US welfare state politics Jill Quadagno and Deanna Rohlinger;

10. Religious social doctrines and poor relief: a different causal pathway Sigrun Kahl. Contributors


(contributors include:Philip Manow, Kees van Kersbergen, Thomas Ertman, Kimberly J. Morgan, Julia Lynch, Bruno Palier, Herbert Obinger, Karen M. Anderson, Jill Quadagno, Deanna Rohlinger, Sigrun Kahl).




Modern Swedish life no longer includes church attendance as a strong element. This is the only measurement Zuckerman uses to determine the extent to which Sweden, or any country, is "secularized." But there are other measure that are more important. There is a new role emerging for religion in Northern Europe. The fact of secularization in terms of church attendance does not mean that people are not seeking spiritual reality.

The traditional relationship between swedes and the church has changed. Swedes are no longer as connected to conventional church fucntions. But this does not mean that they don't beileve. There is a new string for alternatives to convention, but the embers of belief are still smoldering.


Article:
Sweden.SE the official gateway to Sweden.

Sep 1, 2006
Are Swedes losing their religion?
by: Charlotte Celsing, freelance writer


Annika Gustafsson is a theology student whose studies have included work experience in congregations and at confirmation camps. She says that almost all of the young people she meets are open to questions relating to religious and spiritual matters, even though they may have objections to ecclesiastical matters.

The role of religion has changed

Religion has not become less important in Swedish society but it has changed color, according to a report from Åbo Academy (Finland). In the secularized Nordic area the Protestant Lutheran church has to be liberal and open to a modern interpretation of the Christian message. Otherwise the church feels too authoritarian – an attitude that most Swedes do not accept....Yet many Swedes express a longing for a spiritual dimension and a deeper meaning. Modern society has left a void that neither science nor a high material standard can fill....Those who the Church of Sweden fails to attract look for alternatives. Non-conformist churches – of which the Pentecostal Movement is the largest with around 87,000 members – is one example. Others are varieties of eastern religions, such as Buddhism or Hinduism.


Due to immigration to Sweden, Islam is now the country’s second largest religion after Christianity. A number of mosques have already been built in different parts of Sweden and more are planned.


Within Christianity the Catholic Church in Sweden is also large. Today it has a total of 80,500 registered members.

* Almost 8 out of 10 Swedes are members of the Church of Sweden - 7 million.
* Only 1 in 10 Swedes thinks religion is important in daily life.
* Around 7 out of 10 children are christened in the Church of Sweden.
* Just over 5 out of 10 weddings take place in church.
* Almost 9 out of 10 Swedes have Christian burials.
* Islam has around 130,000 adherents in Sweden (more according to Muslim
sources).(Ibid)




Zukerman's simplistic formulation would have us believe that Christianity = conservative and atheist = social consciousness and only atheists could ever support progress social institutions.


Modern Church in Europe plays role in social services and culture


2. The second thing is that the church is seen as an emergency exit. The welfare state of Western Europe is the best attempt so far in world history to guarantee safety and security. But life is complicated. In national catastrophes, the churches get filled with people. Catastrophes happen also on a personal basis, and the church has an open backdoor: You are not left alone; you have a backup.

3. The third point is the fact that the churches are seen as embassies of solidarity and mercy. All over Europe, illegal immigrants are hidden by parishes. Anti-racism demonstrations are normally organized by parishes. The protests against reductions in childcare or hospitals and for Jubilee 2000 are signs of solidarity.

From the beginning of Christianity in Northern Europe, the church can be described as a part of the state. Church and state were the same. Probably in the year 1008, King Olof Sk^tkonung of Sweden was baptized by St. Sigfrid, Bishop of Vïxj^. Out of Christianity grew the state. Through baptism you became a Swede. The faith of the king united the nation, confirmed the royal house, and incorporated this northern part of the world into the international community under the pope of Rome.

Five hundred years later the Reformation supported the idea of a nation state. The king of Sweden - as well as the king of Denmark and the king of England - took the place of the pope. They became heads of their national churches. The Swedish king had no liturgical or confessional interests, so the clergy could marry officially but still use the medieval chasubles and hymns and keep the apostolic succession. The king needed the land owned by the monasteries, and in the church he got an obedient instrument for creating conformity in his country: one people, one faith, one king, one church. (Ibid)




In his ground breaking work The Secular City Theologian Harvey Cox Argued that secularization was a good thing. Secularization had created a neutral playing field necessary to stop the religious wars of the seventeenth century. For that very reason secularization has actually been very good religion. It was ironically secularization that allowed the proliferation of religions in America. That's because when there was no state imposed Church Tax, as in much of Europe, and not one organization or Church favored by the state, as in much of Europe and in England, everyone was free to worship as he saw fit and to start new churches, and so they did stat new ones in profusion. Secularization in itself is no threat to religion. But Zuckerman is obviously saying that Society is better off without religion. Now does that mean without church or without any kind of belief? I'm sure he would say the latter, but the only data he presents only backs the former. Yet the conclusions he draws are screwed precisely becasue without taking into account belief in all aspects he's just creating a false data base by equating low church attendance with a less religious society.

Zuckerman reduces the complexity of the development of history int he modern world from the early modern to contemporary, with its sweeping changes in economics, sociology, psychology, technology, the means of production, political theory and so forth, burying all under the rug and reducing it all to a simplistic formula about church attendance. From this kind fo superficial bs atheist mold and shape their morose of lies and propaganda to destroy civilization.


Here's a quotation I found on a blog comment section by a Dane about Zuckerman's book:

This a person claiming to be an Anthropologist on a blog called "the squre."

From the Square (blog)

Comment from karen Schousboe
Time November 25, 2008 at 4:24 am


To readers who were duped by zuckerman’s book it might accordingly be of interest to know, that Denmark is in no way a society without God. 82% of the Danish population are members of the Danish national Church and have a fond relationship with their local church. It is true that the church is considered a different entity and plays a different role in the local community than what is common in US. This has to do with the fact that the churches are not so much old institutions, than old buildings framing the idea of Danishness - Danes don’t talk about God directly; they talk about their family, their history, their traditions. The preferred location chosen for this “conversation” is however their local church, which means that people do not seek the church sunday mornings to celebrate God; but they take part in year-long and life-long celebrations whenever there is a special occasion in the life of our families or communities. Does this mean that “God is absent”? Not at all: it just means that we encounter God under other circumstances than the traditional American way on sunday mornings. We encounter God instead at family occasions on an average of 4 to 5 times a year. Yes, our “God” does not “live” in an American temple or church. It does not mean, however, that “God” in general is absent from the livess of Danes. It just means that the American God is absent. It also follows that the Danish church is an extremely important factor in the construction of what Zuckerman thought was a society “without God”.




"It might be important to know that most academic reviews in the National papers in Denmark noted that Zuckermans book represented a classical example of an anthropologist or sociologist falling short, while being duped by the natives."

Karen Schousboe
MA, Anthropologist, http://www.kirkenikobenhavn.dk

Zuckerman 2

Zuckerman and Paul both trade on the idea of "atheist countries." they use countries in which chruch affiliation is weak and define those as "atheist." There is no such ting as an "atheist country." The only atheist countries that ever existed were the USSR adn its satellites and Communist China. China is moving toward religious freedom. USSR no longer exits, and the new Russian and it's neighbors are now countries in which freedom of religion is practiced.



Europe and Japan are not nearly as weak on belief in God as they are on affiliation with Christian churches. They are not atheist countries.



A study or literary search by Greely and Jagodzinski demonstrate this ponit:



The Demand for Religion:

Hard Core Atheism and "Supply Side" Theory




Wolfgang Jagodzinski

University of Cologne




Andrew Greeley

University of Chicago

University of Arizona





The title "dmeand for religion" does not refur to the idea that religion is in big demand in those coutnires but it's an analysis of the "supply side" theory of religious origins that has become poular among anthropologists.





Nevertheless in the process of critique the authors prove that there is much more demand in most countries than Zuckerman would have us believe.

In this essay we mainly address ourselves to those variants of Secularization theories which predict a general decline in the demand for religion or at least in the demand for large transcendental systems. If this demand does not decline in the more advanced societies and if it correlates neither with age nor education nor time the core assumptions of Secularization theories are dis-confirmed. Since Communism may have accelerated this process of secularization we will pay particular attention to the development in former socialist countries. If the demand for religion should be high in all these societies this clearly would support the new economic approach.




Opponents (Blau, Land, and Redding 1992, Breault 1989; Bruce 1992; Demerath 1996; Land and Blau 1991) of the economic model of religion have been quick to respond. They have taken issue with some of the individual studies the "supply siders" have reported and also (Demerath 1996) have ridiculed the notion that religion can be the subject of "rational choice." The basic thrust of the criticism, however, implicit it might be, is doubt that there is no relatively consistent demand for religious "compensation..."

In this essay we address ourselves first to the question of that group in which a demand for religious services must be presumed to be non-existent – "hard core" atheists, those who are convinced both that God does not exist and that there is no possibility of life after death. If the proportion of populations in different countries which fall into this category are relatively small and if they correlate neither with age nor education nor time, then the "Supply Side" theory cannot be rejected: the proportion of the population which might have a latent demand for religion may still be substantial, even in supposedly secularized countries.

Then we turn to Norway, one of the allegedly "secularized" countries to determine whether it might be a religious market place that has been neglected by a "lazy monopoly." Next we consider data from Ireland to determine whether the open religious marketplace of Northern Ireland has produced a more "zealous" manifestation of Catholicism than that which can be found in the South where Catholicism has a de facto if not de jure monopoly; finally we ask whether Socialism in East Germany has been able to reduce the demand for religion, something which the supply side theory would implicitly think unlikely.

The authors used a questioniare asking respondents about thier beleifs to assertain weather they were "hard core, soft core" atheists, believers, involved in reilgion.



Their measure of "hard" and "soft" core atheisms includes:



Hard = convenced there is no God



soft type 1 = probably not a God but may be aferlife and spiruitality



soft type 2 = Agnostics; may or may not be a God, don't know.

Northern Europe not hard core atheist.





1. The proportion of Hard Core atheists is relatively small in all the countries except East Germany (42.7%)



2. The proportion is above 10% only in former socialist countries (12.4% in Russia, 13.9% in Slovenia, and 11.3% in Hungary) and in the Netherlands (11.4%) and in Israel (12.1%).



3. In the other eleven countries, the highest rates of Hard Core atheism are in Norway (6.7%) and Britain (6.3%). Thus if latent demand for religion is excluded only from the Hard Core atheists, there is still the possibility of a large clientele for those firms which might venture into the religious market place in such supposedly "secularized" countries as Norway and Britain.



4. There are not all that many Hard Core atheists in the countries studied, nor indeed all that many soft core atheists either.



5. The "Softest Core" Atheists are less than a third of the population in every country except East Germany. They are more than a fifth of the population only in four former Socialist countries – East German Russia, Hungary and Slovenia. With the exception than of East Germany more than two thirds of the population of the countries studied are willing to admit the existence in some fashion of God and the likelihood of life after death. Devout many of them may not be but on the two central issues they are more religious than not. They then may be considered as part of the religious market place if not always enthusiastic consumers.





Furthermore in the sample as a whole, Hard Core atheism correlates only with gender (women less likely to be atheists) and not with education or age (those favorite measures of the more naïve of the "secularization theorists.") 83% of the Hard Core Atheists say they never believed in God, 61% say they never attended church services when they were eleven or twelve years old and 9% more say they only rarely attended. The choice of Hard Core atheism as a philosophy of life was apparently made at a very young age in life and is sustained through the life course.




Age correlates significantly with Hard Core atheism only in Britain (r=-.08), East Germany (r=-.18), the Netherlands (r=-.05) and Israel (r=+.08), Hungary (-.14). Education correlates significantly with Hard Core Atheism only in Hungary (r=.11), Slovenia (r=.18), and Norway (r=.10) West Germany (r=.08), Israel (r=.10). In these countries as in the whole sample, there is an inverted U curve in the relationship between age and atheism, the very young and the very old being somewhat less likely to be atheists. In the middle years of life, however, the line representing atheism is flat. Only in Slovenia and Hungary is education still a significant correlate of Hard Core Atheism in a regression equation which includes age and gender.

Note that in their findings hard core atheism is not related to education or parental influence but to socialization





Zuckrman claims that the superior educational system in northern European, made possible by atheism, also breeds more atheism as people grow up being trained to be "rational" and "scientific." But this study shows that the real reason is not realted to education at all but to socialization. While atheists might try to argue "that's what we are saying" its' really not. They are actually arguing that education is waht produces it, but socialization means they just haven't been exposed to religious thinking enough. The upshot of this is that if they were so exposed they would probably see the value in religion so it is not 'enlightened thinking' but merely custum and lack of exposure, which is exactly what the atheist say causes people to be religious. So this is significant that the very same reasons they attribute religion to are actually behind atheism.

Furthermore in the sample as a whole, Hard Core atheism correlates only with gender (women less likely to be atheists) and not with education or age (those favorite measures of the more naïve of the "secularization theorists.") 83% of the Hard Core Atheists say they never believed in God, 61% say they never attended church services when they were eleven or twelve years old and 9% more say they only rarely attended. The choice of Hard Core atheism as a philosophy of life was apparently made at a very young age in life and is sustained through the life course.

No trend toward growth of atheism

The data in Table 3 provide little evidence of short run change in atheism rates. There is no significant relationship between time and Hard Core Atheism in the EVA study. With the possible exception of East Germany and Slovenia, the findings of the second EVS and the first ISSP studies are similar enough that it can be said that they replicate one another despite the different wording of the questions,. One can conclude that there is little support for the notion that atheism increased between 1981 and 1991. There are not many Hard Core atheists in the countries studied and their numbers did not increase during the nineteen eighties.

Data from the Norwegian version of 1991 International Social Survey program study of religion (which asked more questions than the standard ISSP module) provide an opportunity to replicate the Stark and Iannaccone findings (1995)that the so called "secularized" countries of Europe were not in fact secularized. Is Norway a country in which religion is moribund or is it perhaps a potential market place for religious competition? Might there be a potential demand for religion to which industrious "firms" might respond?



45% believe in God--ony 10% firmly do not

Forty five percent of Norwegians believe in God and only 10% firmly believe that God does not exist. 60% say that life after death is certain or probable and 58% say that in some fashion Jesus is their savior (a question asked only in the Norwegian version of the ISSP). It is difficult to dismiss a country with those rates as totally "secularized," especially since there is evidence (Greeley 1995 p87 ) that Norwegian belief in life after death has not changed in the last five decades. Hence it seems appropriate to ask what the condition of the religious market place in Norway might be and whether an increase in the supply of religious firms might lead eventually to a resurgence of observable religious practice

typology of religous market shows possiblity of belief high

We devised a typology of possible Norwegian religious market places. At the low end were the Atheists and the Agnostics who either rejected God firmly or said that they did not know about God’s existence. 22% of the respondents fell into these categories, 9% in the former and 13% in the later. The next level consisted of the "Marginally" religious, those who did not attend church services but expressed some kind of belief in God. 33% of the respondents fell into this category. The fourth level – which we call "Private" was occupied by those who believed in God but did not attend church services often, a quarter of the Norwegians. Finally there was a group we call Devout which both believed in God and attended Church services regularly. This group included 20% of the respondents. Thus (Table 4) almost half of Norwegians are religious in some fashion and only a fifth are either firm atheists or agnostics.




Religious beliefs among Norwegians increases as one moves in Table 4 from the Atheists to the Devout. However a surprising proportion of those who are Atheists and Agnostics acknowledge that God is loving, believe (at least probably) an afterlife, and that in some fashion Jesus is their savior. While these two groups could hardly be considered as prime religious markets in Norway, they are not without some religious inclinations.




Those who are Marginally religious constitute a market place that might be more ready to listen to new religious entrepreneurs. Almost half of them believe in life after death, two fifths acknowledge Jesus as savior, and seven out of ten believe that God is loving. Large majorities in the "Private" market place endorse these convictions and believe in the existence of heaven.




Similar patterns exist for religious practices in Table 5. Some Atheists attend services occasionally and some engage in the ceremony of lighting a candle on the grave. More than 2/5 contribute money to church organizations which in Norway is more of a civic than a religious practice. The Agnostics have certainly not cut themselves off completely from religion. 43% attend church services at least some times and 37% light a candle for the dead. The majority of the Marginals (58%) attend church services and light a candle for the dead (62%) and 21% of them have said prayers with a child at bed time. Thirty percent of the Private group pray at least once a week, 77% attend church services regularly and 30% have prayed with a child at night. In the Private and Devout groups the custom of lighting a candle for the dead is reported less frequently than in the Marginal group, perhaps because it is considered a folk custom.

More than Half Scientists Beleive In God

pie charts from Pew study

In the late 90s atheists began making the argument that less than a majority of scientists believe in God. In addition to this they argued that National Academy of Sciences had only about 5% members who believed in God. All of this was due to the publication of a 1998 an article "Leading Scientists Still reject God." In that article got hold of a survey done in 1914 by a guy named James Henry Luba and Nature Magazine noticed that the stats had not changed. So the conclusion that scientists are such great priests of knowledge, if they don't bleieve in God there must not be one.

Research on this topic began with the eminent US psychologist James H. Leuba and his landmark survey of 1914. He found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected US scientists expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of God, and that this figure rose to near 70% among the 400 "greater" scientists within his sample ^[1]. Leuba repeated his survey in somewhat different form 20 years later, and found that these percentages had increased to 67 and 85, respectively ^[2].
In 1996, we repeated Leuba's 1914 survey and reported our results in Nature ^[3]. We found little change from 1914 for American scientists generally, with 60.7% expressing disbelief or doubt. This year, we closely imitated the second phase of Leuba's 1914 survey to gauge belief among "greater" scientists, and find the rate of belief lower than ever — a mere 7% of respondents. (Nature,ibid)

Atheists made the most of this since Luba echoed the fallacious conclusions they themselves drew from the data. "Leuba attributed the higher level of disbelief and doubt among "greater" scientists to their "superior knowledge, understanding, and experience" (ibid). Of course this is fallacious, scientists don't have any special knowledge that would tell them God doesn't exist, or that he does. It was Nature that polled the NAS. One of the things that I argued at the time was that the questions were rigged to slant the discussion toward the fundamentalist concept of God portrayed in a literal understanding of the Bible. I argued that if you factored in a more liberal concept of God belief among scientists would go way up.

There are now several studies or surveys that reflect this assumption and anew set of findings changes the ball game. Several studies:

(1) Trow, Martin and Associates. 1969. 35% of scientists do not believe God exists. This is a lot more than the general population but a lot less than the over 50% promised by Luba and Nature. It also raises the question if the Luba and/or nature weren't confusing the issue by assuming that "un-churched" or "non-affiliated, no religious affiliation" means the same as don't believe in God. It does not. Over and over again that distinction is made clear in the better studies.

(Carnegie Commission National Survey of Higher Education: Faculty Study [computer file]. Berkeley: University of California at Berkeley, Survey Research Center [producer]. Ann Arbor, MI: University Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor].

(2)Elaine Ecklund, and Christopher Scheitle:disbelief in the existence of God was not correlated with any particular area of expertise:

Disbelief in God by Academics⁴

Discipline	%
Physics	40.8
Chemistry	26.6
Biology	41.0
Overall	37.6
Sociology	34.0
Economics	31.7
Political Science	27.0
Psychology	33.0
Overall	31.2

(tabel is from GodandScience.org article)

That contradicts the findings of nature which had most unbelief in hard scineces (physics and biology) and more belief in 'soft' or social sciences. Elaine Ecklund, and Christopher Scheitle" questioned 2,198 faculty members in the disciplines of physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, economics, political science, and psychology from 21 elite U.S. research universities.⁴ Overall, 75% of professors contacted completed the survey."

Euklund and associates also found that in a sample of 21 major universities only 15% of scientists found that Science that religion were always at odds. Euklund's findings show that factors which lead scientists to be unbelieving are not usually related to scinece but to personal aspects of their lives, such as being emigrants, or being raised in atheist households. It's a cultural thing. Think about it, if a kid is bright he wants to excel in the things to which he is exposed, he going to be more likely to go into a religious vacation if he's exposed to religion and less likely if he's form an unbelieving background. The odds are a bright kid will go into scinece rather than business if his temperament doesn't lead him/her into liberal arts.

"Instead, particular demographic factors, such as age, marital status, and presence of children in the household, seem to explain some of the religious differences among academic scientists... Most important, respondents who were raised in religious homes, especially those raised in homes where religion was important are most likely to be religious at present."

3) Pew Forum on religion in pubic life: (2009) 51% of scientists believe in some form of diety

According to the poll, just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. By contrast, 95% of Americans believe in some form of deity or higher power, according to a survey of the general public conducted by the Pew Research Center in July 2006. Specifically, more than eight-in-ten Americans (83%) say they believe in God and 12% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. Finally, the poll of scientists finds that four-in-ten scientists (41%) say they do not believe in God or a higher power, while the poll of the public finds that only 4% of Americans share this view.

The finding here totally contradicts Luba and the atheist argument. They would have it that more than half don't believe. It's much less than the general public but much more than Luba thought.

A surprising finding is that medical doctors tend to be very religious. A new study finds 76% believe in God and 59% believe in after life.

The first study of physician religious beliefs has found that 76 percent of doctors believe in God and 59 percent believe in some sort of afterlife. The survey, performed by researchers at the University and published in the July issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that 90 percent of doctors in the United States attend religious services at least occasionally, compared to 81 percent of all adults. Fifty-five percent of doctors say their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine.

These results were not anticipated. Religious belief tends to decrease as education and income levels increase, yet doctors are highly educated and, on average, well compensated. The finding also differs radically from 90 years of studies showing that only a minority of scientists (excluding physicians) believes in God or an afterlife.
“We did not think physicians were nearly this religious,” said study author Farr Curlin, Instructor in Medicine and a member of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University. “We suspect that people who combine an aptitude for science with an interest in religion and an affinity for public service are particularly attracted to medicine. The responsibility to care for those who are suffering and the rewards of helping those in need resonate throughout most religious traditions.”

In the general popularization belief my decline with increases in education but this is not so among the most educated. Professors across the board (all subjects) reflect belief in God similar to that of the General Population. My own explanation is that people who get degress and go into non acadmeic jobs know just enough to be dangerous, they don't continue the life of thought they know the old image of atheism was an intellectual image but they don't keep up with learning and thinking as professors do.

Tim Radford writes an article for the Guardian (sept 2003) on how science doesn't have all the answers, give several examples of scientists who have religious beliefs:

Colin Humphreys is a dyed-in-the-wool materialist. That is, he is professor of materials science at Cambridge. He believes in the power of science to explain the nature of matter. He believes that humans - like all other living things - evolved through the action of natural selection upon random mutation. He is also a Baptist. He believes in the story of Moses, as recounted in the biblical book of Exodus. He believes in it enough to have explored Egypt and the Holy Land in search of natural or scientific explanations for the story of the burning bush, the 10 plagues of Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea and the manna that fell in the wilderness -and then written a book about it.
"I believe that the scientific world view can explain almost anything," he says. "But I just think there is another world view as well."
Tom McLeish is professor of polymer physics at Leeds. Supermarket plastic bags are polymers, but so are spider's silk, sheep's wool, sinew and flesh and bone. His is the intricate world of what is, and how it works, down to the molecular level. He delights in the clarity and power of science, precisely because it is questioning rather than dogmatic. "But the questions that arise, and the methods we use to ask them, can be traced back to the religious tradition in which I find myself. Doing science is part of what it means in that tradition to be human. Because we find ourselves in this puzzling, extraordinary universe of pain and beauty, we will also find ourselves able to explore it, by adopting the very successful methods of science," he says.
Russell Stannard is now emeritus professor of physics at the Open University. He is one of the atom-smashers, picking apart the properties of matter, energy, space and time, and the author of a delightful series of children's books about tough concepts such as relativity theory. He believes in the power of science. He not only believes in God, he believes in the Church of England. He, like Tom McLeish, is a lay reader. He has con tributed Thoughts for the Day to Radio 4, those morning homilies on the mysteries of existence. Does it worry him that science - his science - could be about to explain the whole story of space, time matter and energy without any need for a Creator? "No, because a starting point you can have is: why is there something rather than nothing? Why is there a world? Now I cannot see how science could ever provide an answer," he says.

Radford expresses surprise that so many scientists believe in God, even with the old figures that gave atheists such solace. The figrue he uses is the outdated 4 in 10. We have to keep in mind atheism is not a rational choice made by thinking machines who feel nothing. It's an emotional choice made by people with low self esteem. They need to feel put themselves up by putting Christians down. They can't say they hate God, even though they hate themselves and thus they must hate at least the idea of a creator, so the next best thing is to hate those who believe in God. It's very important for them emotionally to believe that they are smarter and that all intelligent people validate their world view. The atheist ideology suggests that scinece is a priesthood of knowledge and scientists are the only people who know anything. These are not rational analysis based upon empirical data form studies, but articles of faith.