Atheists increasingly uneducated...

[Iridescence]

"Less-educated Americans turning their backs on religion
LAS VEGAS — While religious service attendance has decreased for all white Americans since the early 1970s, the rate of decline has been more than twice as high for those without college degrees compared to those who graduated from college, according to new research to be presented at the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

"Our study suggests that the less educated are dropping out of the American religious sector, similarly to the way in which they have dropped out of the American labor market," said lead researcher W. Bradford Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia.

The study focuses on whites because black and Latino religiosity is less divided by education and income. Most whites who report a religious affiliation are Catholics, evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, Mormons, or Jews."

.....

""The least educated have been consistently less religiously engaged than even the moderately educated, meaning the gap between the least educated and most educated is even larger than the one between the moderately educated and most educated," Wilcox said."

This is not surprising. The country's founders were well versed in the Bible. Many of them knew Hebrew. I "heard on the rest of the story" by Paul Harvey that a story was written by an intellectual to help him understand the Bible better. The name of the story was Ben Hur! I have done some leadership studies, and one of the things I noticed about the "self-help" books were that there were a lot of stories directly from the Bible. I chose to skip the middle man and go to the Book.

There are so many depths to biblical concepts... for those who only understand it as 'religion' really seem to misunderstand it the most. It is a scientific book... very spiritual and it's precepts are to prepare us as individuals... There is just so much given freely through it... yet things that we cannot pass on or give to one another. It does matter, but only accordingly to what an individual chooses to make of it for one's self.

 

[Truthmatters]

well at least they are better than most del

 

[InDoctriNation]

that's why they call them *opinion pieces*

Oh wow, you got me good there. Doesn't change the fact that the author's opinion is worth shit when the actual study is considered. The author should probably keep his opinion to himself until he can demonstrate an elementary understanding of english grammar and some basic reading comprehension skills.

Like you?

"E"nglish.

Snicker.

This is a message board, so I'm not too concerned about following capitalization rules. Besides, my little capitalization error is far less egregious than the bumbling buffoonery contained within the article you linked. The author tries to argue that uneducated fools are becoming atheist at higher rate than educated people, and comes off as an inarticulate halfwit in the process. Sorry, but that's just an epic fail.

 

[nitroz]

Not surprised.

People think Atheism is to attack religion and that it is a religion itself.
Like my thread. I don't go out attacking people. I made that thread to share why it is bad. If you don't want to read it, then don't. Nobody is forcing you.

 

[manifold]

Faith and intelligence are about as related as shoe size and favorite color.

Anybody that tries to link the two are obviously insecure in their on 'beliefs' and/or intellect.

But whatcha gonna do?

 

[Dr.Drock]

Not surprised.

People think Atheism is to attack religion and that it is a religion itself.
Like my thread. I don't go out attacking people. I made that thread to share why it is bad. If you don't want to read it, then don't. Nobody is forcing you.

You cry about atheists attacking your religion, right after you say you're "not surprised" atheists are increasingly uneducated (which of course is wrong).


The old "I'll attack everyone but not one is allowed to attack me" mindset.

 

[manifold]

Not surprised.

People think Atheism is to attack religion and that it is a religion itself.
Like my thread. I don't go out attacking people. I made that thread to share why it is bad. If you don't want to read it, then don't. Nobody is forcing you.

You cry about atheists attacking your religion, right after you say you're "not surprised" atheists are increasingly uneducated (which of course is wrong).


The old "I'll attack everyone but not one is allowed to attack me" mindset.

Comprehension FAIL.

 

[Dr.Drock]

Not surprised.

People think Atheism is to attack religion and that it is a religion itself.
Like my thread. I don't go out attacking people. I made that thread to share why it is bad. If you don't want to read it, then don't. Nobody is forcing you.

You cry about atheists attacking your religion, right after you say you're "not surprised" atheists are increasingly uneducated (which of course is wrong).


The old "I'll attack everyone but not one is allowed to attack me" mindset.

Comprehension FAIL.

Please enlighten me

 

[manifold]

You cry about atheists attacking your religion, right after you say you're "not surprised" atheists are increasingly uneducated (which of course is wrong).


The old "I'll attack everyone but not one is allowed to attack me" mindset.

Comprehension FAIL.

Please enlighten me

I suppose the comprehension fail could be on me and not you, but I took that post to mean almost the exact opposite to how you interpreted it.

 

[Dr.Drock]

Comprehension FAIL.

Please enlighten me

I suppose the comprehension fail could be on me and not you, but I took that post to mean almost the exact opposite to how you interpreted it.

Atheists increasingly uneducated........................"not surprised."



I'm not sure how anyone could take it any differently than I did. He stated he doesn't go out attacking people right after he did exactly that.

 

[manifold]

We'll see.

I inferred that he's not surprised that the OP doucher is attacking atheists.

 

[Lokiate]

That has nothing to do with anything. That group are atheists...that doesn't change the fact that atheists are increasingly uneducated and ignorant.

Way to purposefully misinterpret your own article to fit your own preconceived belief. First off, it says nothing of ignorance, just that there's a correlation that people who don't attend religious services have a lower education level. That's it, that's all it says. There are a lot of religious people who don't attend religious services, and there's a lot of intelligent people who haven't gone to college.

The correlation, however, is flimsy at best. The methods used to extract this information are not fully demonstrated, and it only focuses on one specific group of people. It also omits any other underlying factors that would contribute to a lack of education, such as abuse, financial circumstance, living conditions, family life, health, or overall well-being, which, of course would probably also prevent them from attending religious services as well. Flawed study is flawed.

I see it online all the time. Drop outs, jobless, mentally ill losers with no education to speak of who strut around crowing about how stupid religion is and how ignorant believers are.

I see the same of theists, speaking of denominations and other religions. It means human beings are social animals that cling to, and favor their own kind. It's a deeply rooted survival mechanism that none of us are exempt from.

 

[Skull Pilot]

To call someone without a college degree uneducated is arrogance of the worst sort.

I know many people without college degrees and I'll put my money on them against any yahoo with a liberal arts degree.

 

[Dr.Drock]

To call someone without a college degree uneducated is arrogance of the worst sort.

I know many people without college degrees and I'll put my money on them against any yahoo with a liberal arts degree.

Uhhh no it isn't arrogance, if someone is uneducated they're uneducated.

Uneducated doesn't mean stupid though.

 

[Skull Pilot]

To call someone without a college degree uneducated is arrogance of the worst sort.

I know many people without college degrees and I'll put my money on them against any yahoo with a liberal arts degree.

Uhhh no it isn't arrogance, if someone is uneducated they're uneducated.

Uneducated doesn't mean stupid though.

I know people who have singly read more books than 10 college pukes combined. They are better educated than any modern college student I have ever met.

 

[Dr.Drock]

To call someone without a college degree uneducated is arrogance of the worst sort.

I know many people without college degrees and I'll put my money on them against any yahoo with a liberal arts degree.

Uhhh no it isn't arrogance, if someone is uneducated they're uneducated.

Uneducated doesn't mean stupid though.

I know people who have singly read more books than 10 college pukes combined. They are better educated than any modern college student I have ever met.

Lol okie dokie, are you another one of these "colleges are full of nothing but liberal professors and that makes all the students of them tainted and stupid" types?

 

[Lokiate]

I suppose this brings up another point, what colleges, and what types of degrees are being looked at, as well? We already know the study exclusively singles out white people, so are any colleges being omitted? What about trade schools, or smaller community colleges? We'll never know, because the method isn't presented, which is a guarantee in any study that the findings are illegitimate.

 

[catzmeow]

...that doesn't change the fact that atheists are increasingly uneducated and ignorant.

It's not very intelligent to post an opinion piece as "fact."

Several psychological studies (2008, 2009) have determined that there is a negative correlation between religiousity and IQ.

The present study examined whether IQ relates systematically to denomination and income within the framework of the g nexus, using representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY97). Atheists score 1.95 IQ points higher than Agnostics, 3.82 points higher than Liberal persuasions, and 5.89 IQ points higher than Dogmatic persuasions. Denominations differ significantly in IQ and income. Religiosity declines between ages 12 to 17. It is suggested that IQ makes an individual likely to gravitate toward a denomination and level of achievement that best fit his or hers particular level of cognitive complexity. Ontogenetically speaking this means that contemporary denominations are rank ordered by largely hereditary variations in brain efficiency (i.e. IQ). In terms of evolution, modern Atheists are reacting rationally to cognitive and emotional challenges, whereas Liberals and, in particular Dogmatics, still rely on ancient, pre-rational, supernatural and wishful thinking.

ScienceDirect - Intelligence : The intelligence–religiosity nexus: A representative study of white adolescent Americans

Evidence is reviewed pointing to a negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief in the United States and Europe. It is shown that intelligence measured as psychometric g is negatively related to religious belief. We also examine whether this negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief is present between nations. We find that in a sample of 137 countries the correlation between national IQ and disbelief in God is 0.60.

ScienceDirect - Intelligence : Average intelligence predicts atheism rates across 137 nations

If you'd like me to explain this post, please feel free to ask for help.

 

[catzmeow]

From your OP's linked study:

Religiousity is dropping among all educational levels, but it is dropping fastest among the least educated.

Relying on nationally representative data from the General Social Survey and the National Survey of Family Growth, the study finds that moderately educated whites—those who have a high school degree but who did not graduate from a 4-year college—attended religious services in the 1970s at about the same rate as the most educated whites—those who at a minimum graduated from a 4-year college—but they attended at much lower frequencies in the 2000s.

The least educated white Americans—those who did not graduate from high school—attended religious services less frequently than both the moderately educated and most educated in the 1970s and that remained the case in the 2000s. "The least educated have been consistently less religiously engaged than even the moderately educated, meaning the gap between the least educated and most educated is even larger than the one between the moderately educated and most educated," Wilcox said.

In the 1970s, among those aged 25-44, 51 percent of college-educated whites attended religious services monthly or more, compared to 50 percent of moderately educated whites, and 38 percent of the least educated whites. In the 2000s, among those aged 25-44, 46 percent of college-educated whites attended monthly or more, compared to 37 percent of moderately educated whites, and 23 percent of the least educated whites.

In other words, your opinion piece didn't accurately report the findings of the study. Shockers.

 

[tonystewart1]

Evangelical Protestants:
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s[1] and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.

Its key commitments are:

The need for personal conversion (or being "born again")
Actively expressing and sharing the gospel
A high regard for biblical authority, especially biblical inerrancy
An emphasis on teachings that proclaim the saving death and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.[2]
David Bebbington has termed these four distinctive aspects conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism, noting, "Together they form a quadrilateral of priorities that is the basis of Evangelicalism."[3]

Evangelicalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mainline Protestantism:
"Mainline Protestant (also sometimes called mainstream[1]) denominations are those Protestant churches that comprised the vast majority of American Christians from the colonial era until the early 20th century. Most of these denominations were brought to America by their respective historic immigrant groups.[2] Many of these immigrants quickly became affluent and settled, by the time the term "mainline" became attributed to them, in the wealthier suburbs of large Northeastern and Midwestern urban areas. The origins of the term "mainline" lie in this fact, the term is itself borrowed from the "Philadelphia Main Line", a group of affluent inner suburbs of Philadelphia, settled along the Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line. A large portion of the inhabitants of this area belonged to what are now considered "mainline" denominations.[3] Today, most mainline protestants remain rooted in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States.

As a group they have maintained theologies that stress social justice concerns together with personal salvation and evangelism.[4] They have been credited with leading the fight for social causes such as racial justice and civil rights, equality for women, rights for the disabled and other key issues. Many of the issues that such groups have advocated for have been embraced by American law and society, but at the same time mainline denominations have been somewhat marginalized.[5] In addition, mainline churches and laity founded most of the leading educational institutes in the US.[6]

Mainline denominations peaked in membership in the 1950s and have declined steadily in the last half century. From 1960 to 1988, mainline church membership declined from 31 million to 25 million, then fell to 21 million in 2005.[7][8] Today, they are a minority among American Protestants, claiming approximately 15 percent of American adults among their adherents.[9]

In typical usage, the term mainline is contrasted with evangelical. Mainline churches tend to be more liberal in terms of theology and political issues.[10] This places them to the ideological left of the evangelical and fundamentalist churches."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainline_(Protestant)

Evangelicals are sort of right wing....
Mainline Protestants are sort of liberal...."social justice" is the giveaway. There's no social justice preached by Evangelical preachers. Social justice is code for socialism.

Thank you for the info. I never knew I was an evangelical protestant. I always thought I was just a protestant.