Many people were wondering the reason why I want to use the word "Theist Atheist" to describe this 21% sub-group when the commonly accepted definition of atheism and theism makes it a contradiction. The reason is Steven Waldman.
Steven Waldman is the co-founder of
Beliefnet, "a multi-faith spirituality website" that is best known for spamming my email account with junk. Steven Waldman became very influential, and in fact
has currently landed himself a job in the federal government, advising the FCC.
When Steven Waldman encountered the Pew Survey,
this was his response:
21% of Atheists believe in god. What this means is that Atheism has become a cultural designation, rather than a theological statement. Some are likely declaring themselves atheists as a statement of hostility to organized religion, rather than to God. This might help explain polls showing rising numbers of Atheists.
Dome, the Theist Atheist I quoted earlier, also seemed to support Steven Waldman's hypothesis, arguing that the common definition of atheism is just wrong: "Atheism is the rejection not of God, but of theism–or, to put it another way, the rejection of the God of theism."
Because of this "cultural atheism" designation hypothesis raised Mr. Waldman, I did not wish to use words that would describe this subgroup without getting rid of the 'atheist' part, lest this becomes true.
But now that I have the hard data, I can test this hypothesis. If "theist atheists" are declaring themselves as hostile to organized religion, then their views on organized religions should stay relatively similar to that of "atheist atheists". There are four questions in this survey that could help to determine hostility to organized religion. My goal is to determine the correlation between belief in god and views on religion. If there is no correlation between the two, then Mr. Waldman's hypothesis has been supported by the data.
There was one problem though...the Rē value for each experiment is very, VERY low, indicating that the correlations that I find are invalid. I'll put in the correlations anyway though, relating belief in god to pro-religious sentiment (I excluded "don't know" for all correlations except for Q10D).
Q.5a. Now I’m going to read you a few pairs of statements. For each pair, tell me whether the FIRST statement or the SECOND statement comes closer to your own views — even if neither is exactly right. The first pair is... (READ AND RANDOMIZE ITEMS)
1 - The government should do more to protect morality in society
OR
2 - I worry the government is getting too involved in the issue of morality
Rē = 0.0102
Correlation = 0.0625
Q9:
In your opinion, should churches and other houses of worship keep out of political matters - or should they express their views on day-to-day social and political questions?
Rē = 0.0009
Correlation = 0.0238
Q.10d When it comes to questions of right and wrong, which of the following do you look to most for guidance? Would you say (READ AND RANDOMIZE)
1 Religious teachings and beliefs
2 Philosophy and reason
3 Practical experience and common sense (or)
4 Scientific information
9 Don’t know/refused (VOL)
Rē = 0.0497
Correlation = 0.085
Q39C:
Here are a few statements. For each one, please tell me if you completely agree with it, mostly agree with it, mostly disagree with it, or completely disagree with it. The first/next one is [INSERT ITEM; RANDOMIZE].
Religion causes more problems in society than it solves.
Do you completely agree, mostly agree, mostly disagree, or completely disagree?
(I combined completely agree/mostly agree as "agree" and mostly disagree/completly disagree as "disagree. If you feel you would rather have the breakdown in opinion, I'll create a separate graph.)
Rē = 0.0371
Correlation = = 0.1835
If you look only at the graphs, Q5A, Q10D, and Q39C
appears as though theist atheists are more pro-religious than atheist atheists, with varying degrees of effect (Q10D showing the least effect). If you look at Q9 though, theist atheists appear as if their views are very similar to that of atheist atheists.
If you look at correlation, you find that the correlation between belief in God and views towards religion is very, very small, with the highest correlation being seen in Q39C and the lowest correlation being seen in Q9.
Rē is so low though that you cannot trust the correlation coexistent that I was able to come up with, however, in IRC:
<Blacken> if r!=0, then you cannot definitively say there is no correlation
...
<Blacken> there is a low probability of correlative effect
<Blacken> but that's getting a bit fancy, "it's not strongly correlated" is probably enough
...
<Warrigal> Corporation: a correlation coefficient can tell you that a correlation exists; it cannot tell you that no correlation exists.
...
<Warrigal> Corporation: if you have a low R^2, that means there's no significant effect.
...
<Warrigal> Corporation: a correlation coefficient can tell you that a correlation exists; it cannot tell you that no correlation exists.
Knowing what IRC said (and that correlation does not imply causation), I am going to make the conclusion that the lack of a significant correlation or of Rē suggests that there is no correlation between theistic beliefs and religious views, but does not actually prove that no correlation exist. Therefore, I'm going to side with Steven Waldman's hypothesis: atheism has likely became a "cultural designation".
----
Turn the question around the other way. Ask how many theists don't believe in God. If you play your methodologies and spin it right, you'd probably get like 21% of Christians, Muslims, etc not believing in a God (or at least unsure and admitting that there's not enough evidence).
Here's the data for all people who said that they believe in God and a universal spirit, and a breakdown of their "unsureness". (Chart came from
this PDF.)
(I was planning on examining the theists who do disbelieve in God, however, I decided that focusing on Theist Atheists first would help me give a better understanding for theists who do disbelieve in God.)
And since people are going to wonder what was the question that was asked in the Poll:
Now we have some questions about people’s religious beliefs. First…
Q.30 Do you believe in God or a universal spirit?
1 Yes
2 No
3 Other (VOL)
9 Don’t know/refused (VOL.)
IF BELIEVE IN GOD/UNIVERSAL SPIRIT (Q.30=1), ASK:
Q.31 How certain are you about this belief? Are you absolutely certain, fairly certain, not too certain, or not at all certain?
1 Absolutely certain
2 Fairly certain
3 Not too certain
4 Not at all certain
9 Don’t know/refused (VOL.)
IF BELIEVE IN GOD/UNIVERSAL SPIRIT (Q.30=1), ASK:
Q.32 Which comes closest to your view of God? God is a person with whom people can have a relationship or God is an impersonal force?
1 God is a person
2 God is an impersonal force
3 Both/Neither/Other (VOL.)
9 Don’t know/refused (VOL.)
