American Atheism and Why it Exists Essay - 1060 Words

American Atheism and Why it Exists Atheism is disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods, they reject religion as apart of not only a rejection of ignorance, but also a rejection of their religious family and association of religion itself, says Catherine L. and Caldwell-Harris who are published in the Department of Psychology for Boston University, Lesley College,University of Haifa, and Trinity College. This is a stark contrast to theism, which is the belief in god and is the case for many Americans. This demographic is about 83% of America’s population, according to the most recent census. About 16% of the population, or about 34,169,000 people are of an unaffiliated position, which would include Atheists,†¦show more content†¦29% said they came from an unspecified Christian family, 27% said Catholic, 26% were Protestant, 9% said none and a small 6% said they were atheists and their parents were atheists. They asked when they decided to stop their belief and 13% said they never bel ieved, 29% said they did when they were less than fifteen-years-old, 37% said they decided to become atheist between the ages of 15 and 24 and 21% said they did past the age of 25. Finally they asked why they did become atheist. Almost half, 47%, said that it didn’t make logical sense to them, 12% said that it didn’t comply with conventional science, 9% said it was because of a negative experience when they were young, 15% said it was because of the hypocrisy of religion and the church, 3% said that God didn’t meet an expectation they had, and a surprising 6% said they couldn’t remember. Finally 21% gave very specific reasons why, saying that college opened their eyes or that there was a person in the sky watching them but also how patriarchal the church is and its obsession with obedience and punishment. This shows a trend in why most left religion. One is that it didn’t make sense nor does it work with science, or they did liked how the church fe lt or worked which pushed them away to soon become atheists. Catherine L. and Caldwell-Harris’s research was to find the personality differences between the religious and the nonreligious and howShow MoreRelatedAtheism Essay1443 Words   |  6 PagesAtheism People in our society today who have the atheist point of view on religion, which is the belief that there is no god, are going against the so-called norms of society, and therefor are seen as deviant. Deviance is just an idea. Society determines what is deviant by the ideas they hold of what should be the norm. Atheism is seen as a negative deviance, or below the norm. They have a status that is placed on them in society. 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