A recent study by University of Minnesota sociologists finds that Americans see atheists as less likely to share their vision of American society than Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups. Acceptance of atheists is also correlated to education, level of religiosity, and past exposure to diversity (i.e., it’s ok on the coasts but not in the cow states). The study also claims that the widespread distrust of atheists is an exception to the general trend of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years.
Before I start defending the atheists (full disclosure, if you haven’t figured out from this blog, I am one) one has to feel a little queasy about the design of the survey. There is an implicit rhetoric to the gradient of minorities, a tacit expectation that traditionally marginalized groups are somehow naturally not to be trusted. The implication of this sort of rating system is that even atheists are worse than already unsavory immigrants, Muslims, and homosexuals (it’s hard to tell to what extent this is a reflection of the survey or just how people responded, so I’ll leave it at that).
If this accurately reflects real public opinion in the United States, it is sad indictment of the supposedly long-lived tradition in this country of live-and-let-live tolerance and understanding. That people who deny the existence of god are somehow less inclined to ethical behavior is ridiculous. Indeed, most atheists would claim the opposite: not having a religiously based moral system to clearly define what is right and wrong makes them that much more sensitive to the ethical standards by which they live their life. Not having a standard book, deity, or tradition to fall back on, atheists must constantly seek out justifications for ethical behavior.
Moreover, living in a pluralist society with a number of competing ethical claims on citizens, someone’s degree of religiosity should have no bearing on their personal integrity. Many religious traditions give confliciting accounts of what is right and wrong: surely Hindus and Jews have just as much to argue about as Christians and atheists. We have resolved a large number of ethical problems in our political evolution through the slow sifting process of democracy. That is still an ongoing process. The demands of our secular polity are such that the standards for public ethics cannot be submitted to religious criteria—that would devolve into violent conflagrations of interpretation and my-book-is-better-than-yours chauvinism (vide the history of Western Europe).
The majority of the ethical principles on which we base our society are accessible to anyone, believer or not. That so many Americans would hold such prejudices against the atheist minority while having gradually overcome so many others casts a dim light on the supposed progress of the last few decades.
