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Lumping ‘always’ with ‘sometimes’ is cooking your results to meet your objective.
That was the most infuriating thing about this whole post to me. Elon’s braindead take is on brand and expected at this point, but that chart (or worse, the reaserch behind it) is the true crime here.
I like how they count “Nothing”, “No response”, and “Other” as being separate religions so that the chart looks nore intimidating.
It’s by a right-wing / libertarian think tank. Spinning whatever bs they want.
Study is done by “TheFire.org,” which is described as a competitor to the ACLU.
I know… why do we need a competitor to the ACLU?
Well, per Wikipedia: “FIRE has been described as a competitor of the ACLU. In 2021, the organization had an annual revenue of $16.1 million. FIRE has received major funding from groups which primarily support conservative and libertarian causes, including the Bradley Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the Charles Koch Institute.”
Oh Charles Koch, you scoundrel.
They have unmatched methods. Is there any other place on the internet with 2024 college free speech rankings?
Fwiw, they do explain:
This year’s survey includes 55,102 student respondents from 254 colleges and universities.[1] Students who were enrolled in four-year degree programs were surveyed via the College Pulse mobile app and web portal from January 13 to June 30, 2023
Kinda like being able to buy a 2024 Kiacarnival since July.
If this graph isn’t just made up bs in the first place, one thought I recall from every major college campus I’ve been to is random religious preachers camped out every day telling everyone they’re evil, subhuman, and going to hell. Guessing the atheists find that a little more annoying and worthy of shouting back at than some of the religiously inclined.
Nazi: “white power!” Normal people: “hey, stfu!” Cristian Conservatives: “hey I don’t agree with it but let’s hear him out. Some people might agree, his ideas deserve to be discussed and given a platform”
Alternatively:
Reasoned person: “We should help poor people”
Christian Conservatives: “STFU you woke liberal piece of shit, I hope you die! Go suck Biden’s dick, loser”
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Ahh yes a graph without citation of research, lovely
Let’s go a step further and analyze exactly what this graph is saying:
There’s only about a 20% distribution difference in the “never” sections between Christians and atheists. So on average, 4/5 atheists would answer the exact same as Christians. All this graph says is that Christians are barely more tolerant than people who identify as atheist. Barely is the key word. If anything, this graph proves that tolerance levels don’t fluctuate that much for the individual between differing religions.
But Bible thumpers need any win they can get, so they don’t read the data for what it is, they just see one bar longer than the other and declare victory.
I made a comment below, this is from a conservative research group funded by the remaining Koch brother, among other conservatives.
What does it mean to “Shout down a speaker”? What are they speaking about and what is the purpose of shouting at them?
When the hate preachers show up on campus with a bullhorn and try to tell everyone that they deserve to burn in hell, they don’t want the rest of the world to tell them to STFU.
I see. If someone is yelling obscenities at you then its probably ok to yell at them too although I wouldn’t bother personally. I don’t think this poll can mean anything though as I imagine everyone has different understandings of what a “speaker” is and is doing.
I don’t think this poll can mean anything
Given the obvious motivation of the person who posted it, I’d want to see some independent source before attributing any importance to it.
These open questions are always kinda crap to draw conclusions from because we don’t know how the question was interpreted by the people answering. In this case we also don’t know the sample size of the groups. Could also be a multitude of other variables at play like location because there are few places where you can find all these religions while getting a good sample size and controlling for other variables like income, education, age etc.
And does it apply only to verbal, podium speech, or also to written books and speech by people in [drag] costume.
They go to the lecture and just scream so that that person can’t present. They don’t allow the person to make their case or offer them any respect.
Bro these people stand in common areas shouting about how everyone is going to hell. They dont have a case and dont deserve any respect. If anything they deserve some counseling from a medical professional.
There seems to be an innate need for religion.
For whom? Because I sure as shit don’t have any need to believe in fairy tales.
I think the biggest issue is religious people that can only view things through the lense of their own perspective equate any belief system with religion. And since we, as humans, categorize everything, everyone has a “belief system,” even if you believe in absolutely nothing (nihilism).
So “atheism” is considered a religion, believing in the scientific method is a religion, and believing in the inherent and equal rights of people is a religion.
So much this.
My little brother is religious AF and I’m an atheist, and that whole tidbit was one of the more frustrating things to argue against.
He’d INSIST that if I didn’t have faith in God, I must have faith in something, because it’s human nature to believe.
It’s like, naw bro, maybe that’s just YOUR nature, but it’s like he just couldn’t think outside that type of thing.
it’s human nature to believe
This is why children never ask questions like “why”. Not ever, not even a little bit. They just believe they understand and never even inquire.
For whom?
Generally the uneducated or low-iq who simply can’t be educated. They don’t understand science so to them it might as well be another religion. In that case why not pick the religion that gives them a nice afterlife? Something they can fall back on and blame when they make poor decision after poor decision.
I make my own up. There’s a giant space crab coming to devour us all WORSHIP THEM
Thats just what people say when people want to categorize some idea as a religion. “wokeness” or even atheism itself is called a “religion” because it makes the religious feel better about believing in their own beliefs for which there is no basis.
On the most fundamental level: For everyone. That’s because every world-view bogs down to a logical system and all logical systems are grounded in circular reasoning, paradox, or assumptions not provable in that system.
People believe in all kinds of things, e.g. that the judge who’s sentencing you to prison is more than a human in fancy clothes. Or that the social reality that gives them that power doesn’t exist. Both stances are, ultimately, insane, and so are we all.
EDIT: ITT: Cargo cultists not understanding what science is (a process) and isn’t (proof of anything).
all logical systems are grounded in circular reasoning, paradox, or assumptions not provable in that system.
That’s a hell of an assertion you have there. We have mathematical papers that prove 1+1=2. What logical system are you saying is grounded in circular reasoning, paradox, or assumptions? Because modern peer reviewed science sure isn’t.
We have mathematical papers that prove 1+1=2
They postulate systems in which that is entailed. Generally, as we’re speaking about maths, with assumptions (axioms) not provable in that system, mathematicians don’t like basing things on circular or paradox stuff but ultimately that’s a matter of taste, not what the system can express.
What logical system are you saying is grounded in circular reasoning, paradox, or assumptions?
All. Show me a proof of implication without using either, I’m waiting.
Because modern peer reviewed science sure isn’t.
It is based on the scientific method which can be understood as an algorithm which via Curry-Howard and Church is a logic which, well, see above. The universe might just as well be a Holtzmann brain and in exactly 15 seconds after you read this it’s going to switch to a different dream, and you’ll never know.
Now you may not like that we ultimately have nothing to stand on but that’s your problem, not that of the universe. Or science. Don’t shoot the messenger.
Is science a process or a world-view? That fact you apparently can’t tell the difference is the problem here.
It’s a process. Belief in it from a practical purpose is a world-view and also very sensible as that process being useful matches experience; it is a healthy adaptation of oneself to the surrounding circumstances. Belief in it from a “science knows truth and is the only source of truth” is, first of all, unscientific, secondly, a cargo cult. Science doesn’t tell you shit about whether you should stick your dick in crazy and if it did it wouldn’t tell you the same as your genes which is what you’re going to listen to anyway, and find some rationalisation to dismiss that particular piece of science. And that’s fine. We’re all human.
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The questioning is stupid. There is no nuance on the categorisation of frequency because “always” and “sometimes” are put together. They do not mean the same thing! “Always” means “all the time”, “sometimes” means “on occasions”. I am an advocate for free speech as much as the next person, but there is limit to that right because history has shown what can happen if free speech is absolute-- which led us the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Therefore, “sometimes” you COULD shout down someone depending on the content being spouted. So, on a case by case basis, “on occasions” you could shout down someone.
As another poster pointed out, the company who made the survey is conducted by conservative group, FIRE, which is Koch-funded so obviously there is clear bias and dishonesty in the framing of the survey.
You freedome ends where someone elses starts, otherwhise noone except you will be free, I don’t get why Americans often have such a hard time with that!
The US never, in its history, had a collective trauma of unstifled free speech that led to any mass hate speech which then led to genocide. That’s why many Americans are absolutists. But considering the Jan 6 capitol attack two years ago, being instigated by the words of Donald Trump, I think sooner or later a worse incident will come eventually. And the country will come reckoning with their absolutist approach to free speech.
never led to genocide?? how about indigenous people?
I’m not trying to dismiss or diminish the oppression that happened to Native Americans, blacks and other minorities in the US, but abuse of free speech hasn’t really been a factor into it-- not that I could think of. There have still been people who voiced out against the oppression and those people weren’t silenced or killed for doing so (aside from those who suffered from mob justice, which is different to government-sanctioned killings like the Holocaust).
I think the issue comes down to collective trauma and lack of free speech by the oppressed.
The massacre of the native peoples, horrors of slavery and resulting civil war, Jim Crow era in the south, the war on drugs, and the war on terror are all genocides in their own right, but the voices of the oppressed have been silenced in history books and mass media under the guise of ‘keeping the peace’ or promoting unity, while the people who facilitate(d) these things continue(d) to play a role in shaping national discourse.
(Say nothing of ‘lesser’ national traumas, such as prohibition, the race riots of the 50’s and 60’s, the intentional lack of healthcare for the gay community during the height of the AIDS epidemic, and the ongoing class war that’s being executed through education access and cuts to social programs.)The U.S. has never looked inward, or if it has, it has largely chosen to ignore the lessons that could be learned.
I think that even if there were a nationally traumatizing event of the sort that transformed Germany, the U.S. would gleefully skip past it to repeat the same mistakes.
I believe the issue is not lack of opportunity to learn, but a resistance to learning and a refusal to, as it were, e pluribus unum.
Hear hear!
No one has a freedom from someone saying something mean about them
The Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide didn’t happen because of absolute free speech. Quite on the contrary: freedom of speech was heavily suppressed
Hatred had been allowed to flourish in the run up to both genocides and eventual stifling of free speech, precisely because the undemocratic forces took advantage of freedom of speech to gain power themselves and then stifle any dissent.
The Rwandan genocide in relation to media and free speech is slightly different. It is the government affiliated radio station that encouraged to hate the Tutsis by constantly calling them cockroaches. Interestingly, there was a debate in the US government at the time to block radio signals from the radio station, but decided not to for “commitment to freedom of speech”.
The paradox of tolerance: The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually ceased or destroyed by the intolerant.
Hatred didn’t flourish because of freedom of speech, hatred flourished because of normalized violence and censorship of opposition. Even the German communist party attacked Jews for some time.
Good point.
Yeah this is an example of “lying with graphs 101”.
The data probably didn’t fit the narrative when they separate “always” and “sometimes”
Basically, “every opinion I don’t like is a religion.”
even if it is a religion. So what? does that degrades it’s value? what happened to them preaching about christian’s tollerence?
if it was ever there.
I think calling Atheism a religion does degrade its value. It brings atheism into the same category as religion, it promotes the idea that atheists need just as much faith as religious people, it basically turns science into a religion.
Just to be clear, I define Atheism as “without belief in a God”, that would include anyone saying they are agnostic.
How you define it is irrelevant. How is it defined in society? We can only trust to established dictionaries to track the usage and meaning of words.
The OED defines ‘atheist’ as ‘a person who does not believe that God or gods exist’.
At least among most Atheists it’s defined as lack of belief. It’s also arguably the most correct definition based on the parts of the word itself.
Theist is usually defined as “with belief”, so it makes sense that A-theist means without belief. Adding that A to another word usually means without, like asymptomatic (without symptoms) or amoral (without morals).
The same thing can be said with Agnostic, Gnostic is with knowledge, A-gnostic is without knowledge.
Agnostic/Gnostic answers the question of “do you have knowledge that a God exists”. Atheist/Theist answers the question of “do you have belief that a God exists”.
That’s a great explanation of the terms. Thanks for that.
Given this, can you think of a word that would describe those who are hostile to the concept of a deity? Antitheist, perhaps?
No problem, It’s interesting how differently the terms are used within and outside of the atheist community. I think it’s also important to realize that most Atheists are going to have more certainty when it comes to a specific God not existing, compared to the general concept of a God. It’s much more likely that some kind of God exists than the specific one of a given religion exists. Like I would personally put the general idea of a God existing at maybe 50% (like a God who created the universe and let nature take its course), but the specific God of a given religion that listens to your prayers at near 0%.
Antitheist is one term, I think the more common one in the same area would be Gnostic Atheist, which given my definitions from before would claim knowledge that gods don’t exist.
As with anything there are always more sub categories, some go as far as to say knowledge of God is unknowable, or that no form of a God exists, but most seem to stick with Agnostic Atheist, or just Atheist.
I do know many Christians who are all about love and tolerance, the problem is, they aren’t the ones going onto Fox News to declare they’ll be shouting how much “Jesus loves you, but only if you’re straight!” at your local university…
They’re the ones quietly living their lives according to Jesus’ teachings…
A few of these friends have taken to calling the kind of Christians the Alt-Right claims to be 'Xtians", for they have taken the “Christ” out of “Christians”
Heh… Xtians I like that.
Though technically X was Greek shorthand for Christ so Xtians means Christians just as Xmas means Christmas.
But I doubt any Xtians would know that so I think I’m going to start using it.
Well these are the same crowd that likes to chant keep Christ in christmas, because they are offended by Xmas and for some reason Santa claus, even though Saint Nicholas was a real person canonized by the Catholic Church
Yup. These people just want something to be angry about, so they aren’t going to let facts get in the way of that.
Crosstians? They sure like to carry them and seem to be quite cross with the rest of society, fits for me.
Many of today’s hard right xtians now complain that the things Jesus said sound overly “woke”.
There were literally cases of Preachers being asked to stop teaching the Sermon on the Mount for being too “leftist”
True. I was raised in a religiously leftist household, and even as a child, when I first came across right wing xtians, I was legitimately confused by how they even exist. Our instruction was pointedly about reading the words of the character of Jesus (or for those too young to read, having it read to you) and boy is there a lot of stuff in there that I have no idea how the hard right xtians explain away.
Of course, there are the later writings from someone who never even MET the character of Jesus, which seem to be more problematic. I think it was RAW that said the people that seem to want to follow Paul more so than Jesus should really be called “Paulian”, not xtians.
Of course, the OT and NT taken as a whole, and then trying to treat it as a cohesive message is a fool’s errand and it quickly falls apart, but…
My dad converted from Christianity to Wicca, but he more or less had the same problem, you saw all of the relatives on his side of the family seemingly refusing to stand by everything they ever taught him.
As for the old and new testament, it really is a fruitless Endeavor to try to make sense of it without the proper background there’s a lot of it requires a historical context or knowledge of alternate translations in order to make much sense. This is why theology is considered a science in and of itself, the science of studying religious texts.
Yeah, I have some extended family that was raised in the more liberal/red letter type of xtianity, only to later “rebel” by veering toward more authoritarian/right wing style of interpretations of “the” bible. Most of them are full maga now and don’t resemble anything I was taught as the core of xtianity.
When it comes to trying to square the “old” and the “new”, I think it’s mostly in the eye of the beholder. A lot of xtians declare they have a “new covenant”, so therefore, they can selectively decide what is not law and what isn’t, especially when it comes to things like dietary laws being rejected. But there is that “not one jot or tittle” portion, and the position that the OT validates the claims made in the NT, so…not sure how they select what they will and will not follow. I think that’s how absurdist things like voting on what is and what is not canon came about…
I watch all of that with a bit of amusement, I must say, much like I watch right wing Americans claim they want this country to follow xtianity and the Constitution, when right off the bat, the First Amendment and first commandment are in obvious conflict with one another…the First Amendment clearly lays out a secular country and the first commandment demonstrates that the god of “the” bible is a jealous god that won’t tolerate anything else but complete devotion. No real way to square that circle without changing this country to something other than its intent, which means they will not be following the Constitution…
Or, another way of looking at it is, they’re embrace of deceit and delusion means they periodically have to fabricate new imaginary dragons to slay. The problem with turning victimhood and grievance into a cult is that you need persecution for it to work. Hence, fabricating opposition. Wokeness is just a way for the elder elite to heap hate on the youth that will inevitably replace them. Constantly reminding everyone that you are a patriotic Christian is just a means to try to seize the higher ground for cultural warfare.
Wokeness is the new “politically correct” - just pure unadulterated nonsense to rile up the conspiracy theorists and Republicans (but I repeat myself). And they use it much like people were using “thanks Obama”. If one of the cult stubs their toe, they can blame it on “wokeness” and also probably yell “thanks Obama!” now probably also followed up by “Let’s Go Brandon!”.
Wait what’s the difference between Atheist, No response, and Nothing?
Also why is there a generic Christian but then also Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox? But then they just Muslim and not it’s different denominations? Why even have different denominations when you have the generic catch all and the Other category?
This graph categorization makes no sense!
Atheism are people who are activly against religion. Nothing are Irreligious people I assume. No Response are those who’s religious identity are unknown. Could be any of the others or none of them.
Generally: atheists are those that say there are no gods and no goddesses. Agnostics tend to be more on the fence about it, making no claim either way.
But, as a rule, neither requires that someone is “against religion”.
Gnosticism and theism are two different concepts and it infuriates me that every semi educated loser conflates them.
Just so you’re aware, agnosticism and gnosticism are not the same. Wouldn’t go calling anyone semi-educated and then use the wrong term, if I were you.
Agnosticism is the opposite of gnosticism. It’s “not knowing” vs “knowing”. Theism and atheism is “belief” or “not believing”. Take me for instance, I’m an Agnostic Thiest. I believe there is a God, but I don’t claim to know.
In the late 00s there was a New Atheism movement which was more than just not being religious, sometimes called “capital-A atheism.” People conflate that with normal atheism sometimes. That movement split in the 2010s as culture war became more of a thing.
I’ve always thought that atheists are actively non theistic. Nothing would suggest there is no opinion formed to any conclusion.
I think you thought wrong lol. As an atheist I can assure you I don’t give a shit what anyone else believes haha
Is there a difference between nontheism and atheism? If there is it’s probably subtle.
Am atheist. Am not actively against religion. If it makes your life better and is also benefiting others (or at least its not a negative), have at it. I do not give a shit.
Yeah, I don’t find any religion I’ve ever run across appealing, but I have no beef with those who do good under the umbrella of their religion and don’t try to beat on others with it.
Atheist is literally “not theist” which would include nothing, none, agnostic (the belief that it’s impossible to determine the existence or absence of, in this context, God). It could even be argued that people who believe in God but do not participate in theistic practices (eg lapsed Catholics) are atheists. It does not require or even imply some position against religion.
This isn’t accurate though. In the most semantic, etymological sense perhaps. But atheism is widely understood to be the disbelief in deities. Agnosticism and atheism are very different. One is a position of belief (I cannot prove god doesn’t exist, but I don’t believe it to be so) and one is a position of ignorance (I cannot prove god does exist or doesn’t exist). Words, meanings and definitions are defined by who is interpreting them. This therefore means that the definition is whatever the majority believes it to be. You may as well be looking at a field of flowers and describing them as gay. It may have been the appropriate term once, but it is not now. And we live now. The etymology of the term is not the same as the meaning of the term. Sitting there and prescribing that your interpretation of the term is the correct interpretation reminds me a lot of the tale of King cnut.
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Atheism and Agonistism are under the umbrella of Irreligion or Non-Religious. They are seperate identies.
You can be atheist agnostic - you don’t actively participate in religion or worship but believe it is fundamentally unknowable if there is or is not a god, you can also be theistic agnostic (though this is rare in the modern lexicon) which would be where you do participate in religion (or religious practices) but still believe it to be unanswerable. To be gnostic is to believe it is knowable (and perhaps that one does know), it too can be either theist or atheist in nature.
Also unfair in the questioning. From my own experience im going to assume the person speaking at the campus is someone yelling how all are damned and calling women whores. Sadly, very few people other than atheists speak up.
Also why is there a generic Christian but then also Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox? But then they just Muslim and not it’s different denominations? Why even have different denominations when you have the generic catch all and the Other category?
There are kinds of Christian that don’t fall under Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox by their own measure (which doesn’t care how the Big Three want to categorize them). Perhaps this was why? (Probably not.) Graph should have just lumped them all together as “Christian”.
Personally, I didn’t stop believing because of the intolerances. I stopped believing because it was an obvious ancient attempt to control people that worked to various degrees but still has the dumb shit people thought was plausible back when they didn’t understand much and didn’t think there was any way to disprove their claims.
I think that is most people, I just asked why is everyone automatically accepting this as true. But there are two groups of religious people that I understand moreso: people who feel they witnessed or directly saw a miracle and people who like the experience of a religious group and being around the people in it.
I have questions about this survey.
Me too, such as: why is there a separate category for “nothing”, that is literally athiesm…
Not believing in it without any evidence? Wow, I bet youre one of the atheist the graph is talking about.
Getting infuriated over this stupid prick’s bullshit, mildly or otherwise, just isn’t worth it.
I love that he did a 100% 180 on everything he “believed in”, from being pro science, atheist, and left leaning to anti science, christian, and conservative troll and none of his followers batted an eye. He does what he thinks is popular, what will keep him talked about. Nuts to that.
He’s a narcissist to the extreme. The only thing he believes in is himself. And how sad a god it is.
Conservatives give him the love his father never did.
They’re the same picture
you oddly misspelled ‘fascist’ as ‘conservative’.
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I suppose it’s real easy without any actual values or ethics whatsoever.
Good lord this man is stupid
Atheists: shout at people.
Religious disciples: shoot people.
To be fair this is fake af, agnostics might question the person, but shouting out of stage without making questions first seems very odd for that specific category.
Cuz when you got to the point in life where you know you don’t really know shit nothing you kinda are more tolerant to new ideas and new concepts I would guess
I don’t need to ask a neo Nazi on a stage any questions first.
Sure we do, “who’s your co conspirators?”
Oh yeah we’ve never had any problems with large atheist-run organized mass shootings 🙄
If you took an informed look on history, you’d realize that religious killings happen far more often and far more wide reaching than ones motivated by atheism.
Mother fucker up there acting like he ain’t ever heard of the crusades, Spanish inquisition, Salem witch trials, or the genocide of the Buddhist population in tiabet to name a few, though the Buddhist population genocide could be argued as atheist since it was perpetrated by CCP who don’t believe in most religions.
It’s not an atheist genocide when it’s not motivated by atheism. People can follow more than one doctrine. An ultra nationalist can go to church but an attack on foreigners would be a nationalist motive and not a Christian one.
It’s not an atheist genocide when it’s not motivated by atheism.
How would you define “motivated by atheism” here?
The desire to wipe out religious people in general and that was not a big thing in history. What’s more common is the desire to wipe out “heretics”.
And you’re acting like you never heard of the Holocaust, the GULAG, or the Great Leap Forward.
Oh no I quite have, no where did I say people wont find ways to kill each other. But religion isn’t the bloodless doctrine it portrays itself to be. But since you mentioned the Holocaust it is arguable that was a religious motivated event as people saw Hitler as a infallible god. Nazi ism was their religion and nazis even messed with the occult.
Ooh interesting. So if there’s an infallible god we can count it as religion?
Oh really? What numbers would you attribute to religious versus atheist mass killings?
Which atheist mass killings were there? Racist killings by someone who happened to be an atheist don’t count because the religion was not the driving force in those cases.
The word woke lost all meaning due to far-right wingers constantly using it as a catch-all term for everything they don’t like.
Also, I love how they made it so the top 3 bad guys are atheists, agnostics (which are pretty much the same thing) and the jewish. They’re not even trying to be covert with propaganda.
Atheist are not the same thing as agnostics…
They didn’t say they were
I mean they both don’t have a definitive belief there is a god, one is just more certain than the other. But for classification purposes I would say they are different.
They are, however, “pretty much” the same thing.
Most self-described atheists are also agnostic. That is, they don’t claim to KNOW that they are right not to believe.
Most self-described agnostics are also atheists. That is, they are not theists.
Both can generally be described as agnostic atheists, as can most rational non believers.
