Love thy Neighbour… or not: Christians, but not Atheists, Show High In-Group Favoritism

[ChristineM]

Yeah. Some subjects are really hard. For example, to be nice sometimes I try to say that atheists would be just as worthy of heaven as Christians if it existed, something I truly believe, yet with the different worldview of atheists sometimes, it comes off as, I think, a little insulting.

The concept of heaven makes no sense to an atheist so i guess it would sound insulting to some. But most would probably think 'how sad' .

What is happening is that in most cases a theist just cannot think in terms of no god, no heaven etc and so attempts to mould the atheist into their faith.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Considering people your enemies just because they lack belief is part of the problem, not the solution.

In my opinion.

Not if you love them anyway.

 

[Wildswanderer]

How do you feel about Romans 1.18 can you see how that would get to an atheist, the idea we really believe in a god and do not know our own minds.

It doesn't say you really believe. But it does say all the evidence is there for you to believe. Basically it's saying belief is a choice, and if you make the wrong choice that's on you.

 

[Wildswanderer]

If I were in some other group beside atheist, say Hindu or Druid, would you have quoted scripture advising you on the treatment of enemies?

Of course. False religion is worse than none because it misleads people. There are probably more warnings in scripture about false teachers and about non-believers.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Why wouldn't I have a bias against those teachings? It's a perfectly rational bias based on evidence, like a bias against driving drunk or wife beating, also evidence based and not irrational.

What not a rational bias is the bigotry they teach about atheists.

So you didn't have anything to say about the argument I made apart from it being biased? Do you think it's incorrect? If so, feel free to rebut it. My argument was that hatred of atheists in the West is principally the doing of the Christian church. Maybe you could suggest a second significant source. Islam is just as atheophobic, but it doesn't have much influence in the West and is therefore not the source of bigotry against atheists there. Who else is teaching North Americans and Europeans that atheists are to be disesteemed just for being atheists?

I'm curious why you chose love thy enemy over love one another and love thy neighbor. Why are we enemies? Because we object to being demeaned by a religion's holy book? Maybe it's this: "Whoever is not with me is against me" - Luke 11:23 Do you see the subliminal effect of that teaching? We're enemies according to that scripture just for not supporting them. If I were in some other group beside atheist, say Hindu or Druid, would you have quoted scripture advising you on the treatment of enemies?

Why are atheists distrusted? Who propagated that message? From In Atheists We Distrust

"Atheists are one of the most disliked groups in America. Only 45 percent of Americans say they would vote for a qualified atheist presidential candidate, and atheists are rated as the least desirable group for a potential son-in-law or daughter-in-law to belong to. Will Gervais at the University of British Columbia recently published a set of studies looking at why atheists are so disliked. His conclusion: It comes down to trust.

Gervais and his colleagues presented participants with a story about a person who accidentally hits a parked car and then fails to leave behind valid insurance information for the other driver. Participants were asked to choose the probability that the person in question was a Christian, a Muslim, a rapist, or an atheist. They thought it equally probable the culprit was an atheist or a rapist, and unlikely the person was a Muslim or Christian. In a different study, Gervais looked at how atheism influences people’s hiring decisions. People were asked to choose between an atheist or a religious candidate for a job requiring either a high or low degree of trust. For the high-trust job of daycare worker, people were more likely to prefer the religious candidate. For the job of waitress, which requires less trust, the atheists fared much better.
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Well the majority of people in general, believe in God, but that doesn't make them Christian. And they are suspicious of people who don't. It would be nice to think belief in God in this country could be the result of Christian influence but I'm not so sure that's the truth anymore.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

This is a baseless assertion to me. A in-group favoritism can be caused by simple segregation. It's **** easy for Christians to live basically exclusively amongst themselves and thus develop codes of conducts, specific social references and the like. Atheists, being much less numerous and heavily concentrated in urban areas, are likely to interact with people of a variety of religion which forces a certain tolerance and knowledge of the other's codes of conducts and specific references. There is nothing in the study you quote that implies that atheism causes people to me more open-minded or Christianity to be less so. It only states that atheists are generally more tolerant and have less in-group bias and Christians less so on average. It doesn't explain why or how nor does it isolate for other factors like urbanity vs rurality, level of education, wealth, travels, if they speak fluently more than one languages, etc. which could all play a part with this.

Those Bible thumping Christians in Indiana (its overrun with them) can make life unpleasant when you don't fit in. And they'll let you know you don't, and that they disapprove. It's also pretty easy to not fot in.
And the study adds weight to many ither studies that reveal while Christians donate more money overall, they give more overall to their own, whereas atheists give more causes where they will not see what comes of their donations.
It has also been suggested that even the children of religious parents are less generous than the children of secular parents.
Religious children are meaner than their secular counterparts, study finds

 

[Shadow Wolf]

It's probably due to athiests who try to get Christmas scenes taken down. Even nominal Christians and even people from other religions like Christmas.

Where?

 

[Wildswanderer]

Where?

Where do people like Christmas?
I suspect most people in the United States do.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

Where do people like Christmas?
I suspect most people in the United States do.

I think she wanted proof of the statement. Like a link to an article to discuss regarding the matter.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Well it isn't like most of us know any athiests, so it's pretty hard to get a accurate picture.

Come to Australia. You'll see atheists and Christmas decorations in good supply.

 

[pearl]

Christians on average appear less tolerant of atheists than atheists are of Christians, why is this?

Jesus said 'love your enemy', never said you have to like him.

 

[Justanatheist]

Jesus said 'love your enemy', never said you have to like him.

Oh where did Jesus say that.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Oh where did Jesus say that.

On The Mount of Beatitudes (Hebrew: הר האושר‎, Har HaOsher) a hill in northern Israel, in the Korazim Plateau.

 

[Wildswanderer]

I think she wanted proof of the statement. Like a link to an article to discuss regarding the matter.

Too much work. It was just a random observation.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Where do people like Christmas?
I suspect most people in the United States do.

Where is this war atheists have on? Where are they demanding signs and symbols and such being taken down?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I think she wanted proof of the statement. Like a link to an article to discuss regarding the matter.

I suspect it's like my mom who is angry that you dont see merry Christmas anymore and no one uses it, even though factually they are still everywhere.
It reminds me when Jon Stewart mocked the idea of the "war on Christmas," and warned Halloween to be on alert because took over Thanksgiving.

 

[InChrist]

Abstract
Atheists are among the most disliked groups in America, which has been explained in a variety of ways, one of which is that atheists are hostile towards religion and that anti-atheist prejudice is therefore reactive. We tested this hypothesis by using the 2018 American General Social Survey by investigating attitudes towards atheists, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, and Muslims. We initially used a general sample of Americans, but then identified and isolated individuals who were atheists, theists, nonreligious atheists, religious theists, and/or theistic Christians. Logically, if atheists were inordinately hostile towards religion, we would expect to see a greater degree of in-group favouritism in the atheist group and a greater degree of out-group dislike. Results indicated several notable findings: 1). Atheists were significantly more disliked than any other religious group. 2). Atheists rated Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Hindus as favourably as they rated their own atheist in-group, but rated Muslims less positively (although this effect was small). 3). Christian theists showed pronounced in-group favouritism and a strong dislike towards atheists. No evidence could be found to support the contention that atheists are hostile towards religious groups in general, and towards Christians specifically, although this may have been a Type II error. If atheist groups do dislike religious groups, then this hypothetical dislike would be significantly smaller in magnitude than the dislike directed toward atheists by Christians.
Secularism and Nonreligion

This is an interesting report it actually confirms what I thought was my possibly biased perception that many Christians see atheist as the bogeyman.

Of course this is only for the US it would be interesting to see if results were different in other countries, especially less monotheist based.ones

So what is it that some Christians find so upsetting about atheists
Edit, on further reading and discussion, this is not a fair representation of the report.

Christians on average appear less tolerant of atheists than atheists are of Christians, why is this?

I wasn’t aware Christians were less tolerant of atheists. I thought it was the other way around. I’ve never felt hostility toward atheists, though I have seen their disdain and mockery toward those who believe in God.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I wasn’t aware Christians were less tolerant of atheists. I thought it was the other way around. I’ve never felt hostility toward atheists, though I have seen their disdain and mockery toward those who believe in God.

Atheists are of the least trusted groups in America, with wodely unacknowledged discrimination against them, people not wanting their kid to marry one, and not many people wanting to vote for one for office.

 

[InChrist]

Atheists are of the least trusted groups in America, with wodely unacknowledged discrimination against them, people not wanting their kid to marry one, and not many people wanting to vote for one for office.

Thanks for the info. I really wasn’t aware of such discrimination, but then again don’t most people normally usually judge a person one on one rather than as a general group like “ atheists “? It makes sense that someone who believes in God wouldn’t tend to marry an atheist, but also that an atheist wouldn’t marry a theist, don’t you think?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Thanks for the info. I really wasn’t aware of such discrimination, but then again don’t most people normally usually judge a person one on one rather than as a general group like “ atheists “? It makes sense that someone who believes in God wouldn’t tend to marry an atheist, but also that an atheist wouldn’t marry a theist, don’t you think?

They do judge the group. Several states even prohibit them from running for and holding public office. And the Abrahamic texts do ridicule them a few times.
As for marriage, I suspect atheists would mostly be "not too picky" given their options may be limited, with pairing of someone of a liberal religion or denomination rather conservative ones. Especially since many atheists do still go to church for the community aspect.