So athiests may be the most distrusted minority in the states.
While the title of the report says "distrusted" that is not what the article says they actually measured, despite some over the top commentary by Edgell. Lets look again...
From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.”
First off the bat I'd like to know more about how this study was conducted. A telephone sampling of 2000 households is hardly the basis for drawing conclusions about America at large. It would be interesting to know the geographic-demographic groups that were involved.
Second that religious people would not view atheists as "sharing their vision of American society" is not synonymous with active distrust. I can name many people that would not share my vision for america, but that does not mean I distrust them. It simply means they don't see them as sharing the same goals... and that makes sense doesn't it?
Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.
That would also make sense and not have anything to do with distrust, but rather common understanding and goals. It would be nicer to have your children marry people you have something in common with, right? I am sort of surprised that race would not have been a factor, but then again maybe that is disguised by the fact that they interviewed people of different races. I wonder if they asked if they would be willing to allow their children to marry a person of a different race, rather than any specified race.
I also wonder at their list of minority groups. I'm not saying they weren't broad enough, but I do wonder. Did it include satanists. pagans, polygamists, swingers, hippies, gang members, pedophiles, the poor, drug addicts, native americans, transgendered, handicapped?
There are a lot of minority groups out there, and it could be that the researcher's own biases played into the creation of a list.
And that atheists were rated lower does not suggest others would have been given some better treatment, especially if the test forced one to choose a ranking system, rather than allowing for there to be ties. I really need to see more to speak on this point.
offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years
Cough cough cough... Say what? What increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years? There has been growing division, intolerance, and bigotry over the last 30 years. Some limited and tenuous freedoms have been won for gays, but that is it. Actual sexual and communicative freedoms have been lost, and divisions along lines secular and religious in nature have deepened. I'd like to see the evidence for her assertion that things have become more tolerant since the beginning of the "culture war".
The researchers also found acceptance or rejection of atheists is related not only to personal religiosity, but also to one’s exposure to diversity, education and political orientation”with more educated, East and West Coast Americans more accepting of atheists than their Midwestern counterparts.
That makes sense.
To my mind this is just another shot in the "culture war", which is better defused than engaged in. I totally get that atheism is in the minority. I get that there is bigotry (covert and overt) against atheists. But that is not the same as our being the "last" or the "most" distrusted minority. We certainly aren't the most riled against in the media, nor the most oppressed via legislation.
And we aren't free from discrimination either. I'd be interested in seeing what atheists chose as the least "sharing in their vision of america" and "willing to allow their children to marry". This article and the researchers' commentary create the illusion that atheists don't play the same game as others and might not have hardened any of their (our) stances.
Melatonin, you've always been good at scrounging up data, so if you can find the original study that would be supercool.
Thought this may be a place for holmes and crash to continue their discussion.
I don't know if this would be the best place. Even if we were the most distrusted minority, that is not the same as "last" which is the only thing I had disputed with crash, and he has ultimately admitted as having been an hyperbolic statement.
His own citation showed atheism among a vast array of other belief systems which can and have been oppressed (even today) regarding parental rights. My own citations backed that up, and showed a case outside of parental rights as well. The fact is that, preferences aside, atheists are probably the least oppressed minority in this nation with regard to personal freedom and communication. Atheism (or lack of religion) has been an issue from before this nation started, and will likely always remain an issue of some kind for some group.
I'm just glad it is not hampered the way other groups are.
This message has been edited by holmes, 03-31-2006 11:14 AM
holmes
"Some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." (Lovecraft)
™ Version 4.2