Are atheists welcome in Texas (Dallas: move, baptists, teach)

[austinnetx]

Originally Posted by stargazer

Where I live is the bible belt so from my own view I think you would have a difficult time. I don't think I know a person who is unchurched and I have aquaintances from all different back grounds. I never realized what the bible belt really met until I moved to Florida and experienced living somewhere where it was not considered this.

Most of the people I know do not go to church.

[catman]

I'm an atheist and I don't have problems. I don't tell everyone I know either, though. My local Unitarian Universalist church is at least half atheist.

[padcrasher]

Atheists are the most discriminated group in the US. Surveys of US public opinions show this*. Try running for a major political office in Texas and come out as an atheist. You will go nowhere.


*
A 2006 study at the University of Minnesota showed atheists to be the most distrusted minority among Americans. Sociologists Penny Edgell, Joseph Gerties and Douglas Hartmann conducted a survey of American public opinion on attitudes towards different groups. 40% of respondents characterized atheists as a group that "does not at all agree with my vision of American society." The next highest results were Muslims (26%) and then homosexuals (23%). When participants were asked whether they agreed with the statement, "I would disapprove if my child wanted to marry a member of this group," Atheists again led minorities, with 48% disapproval, followed by Muslims (34%) and African-Americans (27%). [

[catman]

I'm not going to run for office, so that doesn't matter. I think it's appalling that atheists are so reviled, but it's true. I've heard of the survey before. That's all I'm going to say about it here.

[love roses]

I'm not an atheist, but I'd much rather have an atheist in office than a muslim and although I'd rather my daughter date someone with similar religious views, I'd rather her be with an athiest instead of a muslim. I'm a christian, but I'm not married to one so it would be hypocritical of me to forbid her to date someone who wasn't.

[TexasHorseLady]

I'd be very interested to see the entire study, including the exact wording of all the questions and the methodology used and how the test subjects were chosen. Having watched people trying their very best to write unbiased studies, and knowing how very, very hard it is to avoid putting your own bias into the study (even with peer review, all too often your peers share your biases, especially in the soft sciences), I'd be disinclined to swallow whole a newspaper or magazine article regarding the results of such a study and what they mean.

So, is there a cite to where you got that snippet?

[padcrasher]

Well of course you doubt the survey! It conflicts with your ideology.

I'll bet the PHD's a the U of Minnesota not only lied about the survey but hate America too.

Here's your snipppet. Just to be up front. It is from a "newspaper" and we all know how biased "newspapers" are. It's not up to Fox standards.

Survey: U.S. trust lowest for atheists - Minnesota Daily (http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2006/03/24/67686 - broken link)

[TexasHorseLady]

For the record, I don't watch Fox news. That's an assumption on your part, as is that I have an "ideology". (Remember the peril of making assumptions.) But if I listened to the news media that agrees with you, would that make me any less biased because it doesn't conflict with your ideology? (That cuts both ways, you do realize, I hope?)

Actually, most newspapers, most media, do carry a bias. (The Christian Science Monitor used to be the best of unbiased newspapers, oddly enough, but I haven't read it in quite a while so I don't know if they have maintained that standard.) They can't help it.

As I said, I've worked with people who were trying their dead level best to write unbiased studies, and it is NOT an easy thing to do, because the one thing that you're least likely to be able to see is your own biases. That's why there's peer review (although, as noted above, it can be problematical when your peers share your bias). If you can get an independent third party to read the study before it's conducted, sometimes the bias will jump right out at them when it is, to all intents and purposes, invisible to you and those who think as you do.

I didn't say, by the way, that I don't "believe" the study, merely that I'd like more information on it than is generally carried in a newspaper or magazine or online news feature (though the latter generally at least have links to more information).

Thanks for the link, by the way. It allows me to see the size of the study (telephone surveys of 2000 households and in depth interviews of 140 people, though it doesn't say how those households and individuals were selected), and who financed it (always important): the American Mosaic Project. (That latter allows me to research the group funding the study and see what bias they might have.)

Again, it's not a matter of believing or disbelieving - it's a matter of getting the rest of the story, the real meat of it, the iceberg itself, not the tip.

[**NoodLes**]

I have met some very closed minded Baptists here in Dallas. IMO they are the worst and are very judgemental, something there religion tries to teach and they are the biggest hypocrites. I don't get them at all.

[padcrasher]

There was a poll done on Mitt Romney's Mormonism back when the primaries were going on. The more "religious" you said you were, the more his Mormonism was a factor in not voting for him. Evangelicals were the most bigoted group. Non-religious voters were the least likely to care about his religion.