At least 9 million of them live in the United States, mostly trying to avoid the wrath of neighbors, colleagues and relatives. But they do not pray for help, for they are America\u2019s atheists \u2013 the most hated people in the country.<\/p>\n
In a new study by University of Minnesota sociologists, more than 2,000 people were asked which of their fellow citizens lacked the proper \u201cvision of American society.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than blacks or gays or immigrants or lesbians or even Muslims, atheists are viewed as the least American, according to the survey. And those without a god are the last people most folks would want their children to marry.<\/p>\n
\u201cAtheists, who account for about 3% of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,\u201d says Penny Edgell, the study’s lead researcher.<\/p>\n
Most studies combine atheists and agnostics for a total of 12%, meaning some 36 million Americans \u2013 more than one in 10 \u2013 either don’t believe in a god or couldn\u2019t care less about the whole subject. A survey of 50,000 adults in 2001 showed that 14% of Americans \u201cidentify with no religion,\u201d nearly doubling from just 8% in 1990. At this rate, by the year 2030 Christians and other religious people will be a minority and the last American god-worshippers will be buried by 2050 … just 44 years from today!<\/p>\n
But for the time being, atheists are weak in number and openly despised.<\/p>\n
Atheists don’t demand anything, they don’t preach or riot, they have no real organization and they are completely unelectable. Nonetheless, Americans don’t trust them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems most Americans believe that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common \u2018core\u2019 of values that make them trustworthy \u2013 and in America, that \u2018core\u2019 has historically been religious,\u201d says Edgell.<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, people who haven\u2019t had much of a life \u2013 the majority of Americans \u2013 were the most likely to fear atheists. But those who live on the coasts, have a decent education and know a wide variety of people were the ones who didn\u2019t stay up nights worrying about the godless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least 9 million of them live in the United States, mostly trying to avoid the wrath of neighbors, colleagues and relatives. But they do not pray for help, for they are America\u2019s atheists \u2013 the most hated people in the country. In a new study by University of Minnesota sociologists, more than 2,000 people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58,2325,811,235,4203],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}