815
Americans overestimate the size of minority groups and underestimate the size of most majority groups (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
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Source: https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/41556-americans-misestimate-small-subgroups-population

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[–] 25 points 1 year ago (12 children)

3% Atheists is such a bullshit number. There is a famous Pew poll, where they asked people two questions side by side, "are you an atheist" and "do you believe in any god", and 4% answered no to the first one and something like 20% answered no to the second one.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I think "atheist" carries the connotations of being irreligeous, not just not believing in any gods. So some people may not believe in any gods, but maybe they do have some kind of spirituality, or believe in ghosts or something. Buddhism as a religion doesn't mandate God-belief, though some schools do interact with devas. I'm unsure if any other religions don't require gods to work, but even if they exist, I imagine they and Buddhists, despite not believing in any gods, will be very hesitant to describe themselves as "atheist."

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    i'd say you can be atheist and believe in ghosts/spirits, that's pretty different from divine beings

    the core thing about divinity is power, power to do things or power to have done things in the past or future. spirits and ghosts generally have power comparable to living people, so the lack of obvious evidence for their existence isn't anywhere near as big of an issue as with deities capable of altering the fabric of reality.

    it's not that incongrous that we'd fail to notice things that can barely interact with us, but an explicitly omnipotent and omniscient god? they can damn well write "hey ho here i am!" in the clouds.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I don't disagree; that was never my point. My point is the term "atheist" carries a lot of baggage, that might make people not want to associate with it for many reasons that are unrelated to what the word actually means. Especially in the West where the term is severely maligned.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    According to the same research, 1% of US adults are Buddhist, and they fall in a separate cathegory.
    All the polls are weird, and very much depending on how you ask the question and how you slice the data.
    But you're right, the word atheist carries some baggage in a christian nationalist country, but that was kind of almost my point. So many people are afraid of the word atheist, but are "not religious, don't believe in any gods, don't follow any practices", which is, actual textbook definition of the word.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Sounds about right, there's a difference between atheism and agnosticism, which is what the 2nd question is asking.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    This isn't the difference. Agnosticism postulates that knowing if any god exist is categorically unanswerable. The matter of your personal believe is a parallel question entirely. "We cannot be sure, but I personally don't believe any gods" makes an atheist, but so does "There is absolutely no evidence for any gods so I don't believe any". "We cannot be sure, but I personally believe in Sobek, may his sperm be neverending" makes a theist.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    I think the bigger difference is "I don't believe but I also don't think others are wrong" is a kind of mentality often. I think that and people are used to seeing self-proclaimed atheists being assholes loudly and go "well I'm not that". Atheism got fucked over by people who just want to be dicks to religious folks.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Here's how I'm reading the questions:

    "are you an atheist". 4%

    4% of respondents have a firm belief that gods do not exist. (atheist)

    "do you believe in any god" 20%

    20% of respondents do not believe in a god, but do not necessarily think they don't exist either. They don't have enough knowledge to form a belief, i.e. they don't know. (agnostic)

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Agnosticism is the separate category in that questioneer. Pew is weird about it, they just list every major religion and sect, then "other" then "agnostic", "atheist", and "nothing", and you need to chose one, which might be the source of confusion, and I can't see any good explanation on why do they do it like that. LIke I said, bullshit number. "Don't believe in any gods, don't follow any religion, not an agnostic" is an atheist, by definition. Separating it into "atheist" and "atheist but different word" can only serve one purpose, to dilute the numbers so christians don't feel threatened by all the evil heathens.

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