New Study Supports Public Distrust of Atheists

A new study just came out about public perception of atheists. It's certainly worth your time and thought. PZ Myers commented on it here. The breakdown is that people distrust atheists because they don't identify them as sharing a common "core", in the researchers' findings. The researchers also found that more educated citizens, and those who live on the East and West Coasts, tended to sympathize more strongly with us godless heathens. One thing I find suspect is her assessmen that only 3% of the US population are atheists. I think the number is probably at least around 5-8%, and then another 5% consider themselves "agnostic, irreligious, no religion", etc. Indeed, in the largest religious self-identification survey ever undertaken, 14% of those surveyed reported "no religion":

Another interesting trend is the disproportionate number of young people in this category, relative to the scarcity of those over 65 in this category (35%/8%):

The first three paragraphs follow:

Atheists identified as America's most distrusted minority, according to new U of M study
What: U of M study reveals America's distrust of atheism
Who: Penny Edgell, associate professor of sociology
Contact: Nina Shepherd, sociology media relations, (612) 599-1148
Mark Cassutt University News Service, (612) 624-8038

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (3/20/2006) -- American's increasing acceptance of religious diversity doesn't extend to those who don't believe in a god, according to a national survey by researchers in the University of Minnesota's department of sociology.

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in "sharing their vision of American society." Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. "Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years," says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study's lead researcher.

I personally think that aversion to the word "atheist" is reflected by the study here and comparing it to the confidential self-identification of "no religion". It should also be noted that the percentage growth from 1990 to 2001 in "no religion" as the self-identification was from 8% to over 14%, a trend that is reflected in Europe as well.