Ungodless Nation

Ungodless Nation

Americans are tolerant of most religious groups, but that openness does not extend to atheists.

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The source:“Atheists as ‘Other’: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society” by Penny Edgell, Joseph Gerteis, and Douglas Hartmann, in American Sociological Review (April 2006).

In an era of increasing religious tolerance, only one group of Americans approaches some­thing like pariah status: atheists.

In a survey of more than 2,000 people, nearly 40 percent said that atheists, much more so than Muslims and homosexuals, did not agree “at all” with their vision of American society, report Penny Edgell, Joseph Gerteis, and Douglas Hartmann, all sociologists at the University of Minnesota. Just under half of those polled said that they would disapprove if one of their children wanted to marry an atheist. A third said they would disapprove of a Muslim ­spouse.

Churchgoers, conservative Protestants, and people who say that religion is highly salient to their lives are less likely to approve of intermarriage with nonbelievers and more likely to say that atheists do not share their vision of American society. White Americans, males, and college graduates are somewhat more accepting of atheists than are nonwhites, females, and people without college degrees. Not surprisingly, the lowest rate of rejection of atheists is among those who do not go to church or claim a religious identity, and who report that religion is “not at all” salient to them. Yet even 17 percent of these survey respondents say that atheists do not at all share their vision of America, and ­one-­tenth indicate that they would disapprove of their child marrying an ­atheist.

It may come as a surprise that nonbelievers are actually hard to find. Only about one percent of Americans ­self-­identify as atheists, though the real number may be up to three percent. And the members of this small band would be hard to identify, since there are no visible signs of ­nonbelief.

The attitude toward these godless few is telling, write the authors. “If we are correct, then the boundary between the religious and the nonreligious is not about religious affiliation per se. It is about the historic place of religion in American civic culture and the understanding that religion provides the ‘habits of the heart’ that form the basis of the good society. It is about an understanding that Americans share something more than rules and procedures, but rather that our understandings of right and wrong and good citizenship are also shared.”

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