Atheists: A Groundbreaking Study of America's Nonbelievers by Bruce E. Hunsberger, Bob Altemeyer

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(Paperback)

  • Pub. Date: June 2006
  • 159pp
  • Sales Rank: 366,167

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    Product Details

    • Pub. Date: June 2006
    • Publisher: Prometheus Books
    • Format: Paperback, 159pp
    • Sales Rank: 366,167

    Synopsis

    According to polls, almost all Americans believe in God. So atheists naturally stand out as dissident naysayers, especially when challenging the use of "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, or the display of religious symbols in public places. Such protests make many Americans wonder about the motivations and character of militant unbelievers.

    But disbelief is spreading. After reviewing the mounting evidence that organized religion is declining in many countries, this accessible book provides the first scientific study of active atheists. The authors surveyed nearly 300 members of atheist organizations in the United States. Besides soliciting these nonbelievers' level of education, political leanings, etc., the researchers sought to understand how each respondent had become an atheist. Had they ever believed in God, or had they never? Had they paid a price for their atheism?

    Three chapters describe the levels of dogmatism, zealotry, and religious prejudice found among the active atheists. These results, compared with others obtained from more ordinary samples of atheists (and strong fundamentalists), often surprised the authors.

    Uniquely, the book features a chapter in which the atheists give their reaction to the study and its often-surprising findings.

    Another chapter breaks down the answers a large Canadian sample gave to the measures used in the American study, according to how religious the respondent was-from atheist to agnostic to four different levels of theistic intensity. A clear finding emerged: the more religious a group was, the more their personalities, prejudices and beliefs separated them from everyone else.

    Publishers Weekly

    This slender, conversational, but methodologically sound treatise on the inner world of atheists will pleasantly surprise readers accustomed to the soporific "academese" of most sociological studies. Altemeyer and (the late) Hunsberger have conducted some of the first surveys of atheists, a decided minority within a very religious United States. The book is based primarily on surveys of "active" atheists (i.e., members of atheist clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area, Alabama and Idaho), as well as on a comparison group of Canadian parents (who happened to have children in the authors' psychology classes at the University of Manitoba). In previous studies, atheists have been lumped together with "the nonreligious" who might include unaffiliated or "non-church-attending" theists. Here, self-described atheists finally get their day, as perhaps they should since one of the growing religious categories in the General Social Survey of Americans is "None." The study is limited in scope, but the flaws are so forthrightly acknowledged and the writing is so fresh, honest, compelling and entertaining that it is bound to become an important launching point for more studies of what makes atheists tick. (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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    Biography

    Bruce E. Hunsberger (1946-2003) was professor of psychology at Wilfred Laurier University and the winner of the William James Award from the American Psychological Association for outstanding research in religion.

    Bob Altemeyer (Winnipeg, Canada) is associate professor of psychology at the University of Manitoba and the recipient of the Prize in Behavioral Science Research from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Altemeyer and Hunsberger are the coauthors of Amazing Conversion: Why Some Turn to Faith and Others Abandon Religion.

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