{"id":3172,"date":"2015-11-07T12:47:31","date_gmt":"2015-11-07T18:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=3172"},"modified":"2015-11-07T12:47:31","modified_gmt":"2015-11-07T18:47:31","slug":"it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-atheist-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/11\/it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-atheist-is.html","title":{"rendered":". . . it depends on what the meaning of “atheist” is"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Atheists who believe in God. . . people who don\u2019t believe in God who don\u2019t call themselves \u201catheist\u201d: \u00a0what\u2019s up with that?<\/p>\n

Atheism seems to have an image problem.<\/p>\n

How many times have we heard laments that women who believe in equal rights don\u2019t call themselves \u201cfeminists\u201d \u2014 because they think of feminists as rabidly anti-male? \u00a0(Never mind that these same lamenters then claim that you\u2019re not a proper feminist unless you believe in abortion, free daycare, etc., so you just can\u2019t win with them.)<\/p>\n

Recently I\u2019ve seen a couple tables that lead me to think that \u201catheist\u201d is likewise being defined, in public opinion, as not just nonreligious, but anti-religious, so that plenty of people who meet the definition of \u201cbelieving there is no God\u201d reject the label \u201catheist.\u201d \u00a0(Certainly the \u201cAtheist Channel\u201d wouldn\u2019t seem to have much reason for existence if its writers and audience weren\u2019t interested in criticizing religion.)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a table from the recent Pew study<\/a>, showing, among all who identified themselves as \u201cnothing in particular,\u201d the split in beliefs in God:<\/p>\n

\"nones<\/a><\/p>\n

In other words, 20% of those who label themselves as \u201cnothing in particular\u201d \u2014 which comprise 15.8% of the population in total \u2014 are atheist, but reject that label.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the same table, for those who identify as \u201catheist\u201d<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"atheists<\/a><\/p>\n

which means that, oddly enough, 8% of self-defined atheists (who comprise 3.1% of the population) are not actually atheist according to the standard definition, \u201cknow for sure there is no God.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also interesting that there have been some significant changes \u2014 in atheists who believe in God, and \u201cnones\u201d who don\u2019t, since 2007, so let\u2019s look at the overall table with changes in affiliation since then<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"overall<\/a><\/p>\n

What does this all mean? \u00a0I\u2019m not sure I can take the changes from 2007 to 2014 and interpret them without creating meaning that isn\u2019t there, due to margin-of-error issues, so I\u2019ll just leave this as \u201cinteresting\u201d and let you take it from there in the comments.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atheists who believe in God. . . people who don\u2019t believe in God who don\u2019t call themselves \u201catheist\u201d: \u00a0what\u2019s up with that? Atheism seems to have an image problem. How many times have we heard laments that women who believe in equal rights don\u2019t call themselves \u201cfeminists\u201d \u2014 because they think of feminists as rabidly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":3174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n. . . it depends on what the meaning of "atheist" is<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Atheists who believe in God. . . people who don't believe in God who don't call themselves "atheist": \u00a0what's up with that? 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