Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

godfree — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:16:16 -0000

Have you read 'the' bible in its entirety ? Have you read extensively on the pagan origins of Christianity & the first 3--4 centuries of Christianity ?
Are you aware that divinity was conferred on JC by emperor Constantine ?

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

Kate — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:56:18 -0000

That very well may be because your cat is, well... a cat.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

E.H. Munro — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:16:18 -0000

Can we similarly then discount American suicide rates due to the fact that a large swath of the US (namely the northeast and upper midwest) also suffers from seasonal affective disorder? And we do it without sun-spectrum lamps (at least in any coffee shop up here that I've been in), meaning that our suicide rates would, in theory, be higher.

As for the rest of it, cultural homogeneity would seem to be a bigger factor than anything else. If the Scandinavian countries had anything close to the Muslim immigrant population that Britain and France do (and let's note that the immigrant populations of Britain and France are far below what they are in the US) that they would have as many social problems as Britain and France do. (In fact, European attitudes towards Middle Eastern and Indic immigrants in general make stereotypical southern redneck attitudes seem positively enlightened by comparison, so any study of their happiness had to be carefully tailored to produce the result the researchers were looking for.)

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

Kristin — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:13:38 -0000

"I would suffer and die before I became an atheist again, at least I think I would, for a great amount of what you call happiness." - Wesley

At least you think you would? So what if you didn't die? And you did find a never ending happiness because Christ wasn't always bringin ya down and telling you you're always wrong, and that you need to cleanse your sins for your mistakes, instead of thinking about them in a way to learn from your mistakes?

It's like if you see a kid seeing or watching something they shouldn't be watching for their age. If you just punish them, send them to their room crying, telling them they need to cleanse themselves and that they are sinful, they won't understand anything about what was wrong about seeing it in the first place. They will just be sad that they are now considered less of a human. If you just talk to them and ask questions to figure out why or how they were able to see it then you can explain to them WHY they shouldn't be seeing it in the first place, and they don't bear all this filth and guilt and disgust and uncomfortableness of their own being for just being curious.

I don't think its right that people live feeling like at the end of their life they will be judged by someone they've never physically met. I'm much more content dealing with what I would think of myself if I were to do something that would hurt or disturb someone's life in a bad way. And that judgment is consistently there in my own mind, and I don't have to rely on someone/ something else to do that for me. This is why people are happier in secular states. They have to deal with their sins right THEN, not at the end of their life.

Also - Don't you think atheists would value life more than someone who thinks that they will just have an eternal life of paradise AFTER they die? I cherish every second of every day, I cherish the words I type right now, because I am expressing myself. I just started reading "The Ancestor's Tale" by Dawkins himself, which is a very big book for me, but it made me want to see where Dawkins is right now. I wanted to know if it would be possible in my lifetime to meet the man, and if possible take a class under him or something and I stumbled onto this site. Of course, if I were religious, I would think that everything is planned out for me already. How boring. No, I can make my own choices, and nothing is laid out for me yet. I can change my life at any given moment.

This is an extremely touchy subject for me personally, as my mother's side, every one of them, is religious. My father's side, is all atheist. Me and my only sibling, my sister, were raised under no specific belief, and my mother decided NOT to indoctrinate us and let us literally choose if we wanted to be religious when we got into our teen years. How amazing. I love my parents for this. Letting me choose my own life, and not getting in the way of my own personal realizations. My mother's side is uptight, and I cannot voice my own opinions around them without creating a hostile feeling environment, which is not enjoyable to them. I love to debate, but it makes them feel insecure and act as if I am attacking them personally. And I'm not. I just really want to understand their point of view, but they would never let me. I don't even think that they know I am an atheist. This is how much of a lack of communication there is. My cousin, stationed in Hawaii, was not visited by his own grandparents when they happened to vacation there because he decided to become a Muslim in his years oversea. this is rejection of their own blood because of a different prophet. Sad. I would have LOVED to visit my cousin, I have not seen him in years since he enlisted. But I can't. Sad. My dad's side is very laid back. They mostly went to college or joined a union. No one on my mother's side has done either. Of course this is just my family, and by no means represents any other family with the same views in any way. I am just merely sharing my own personal experiences in being in the middle of both sides of my family, and being in the middle of this insane debate that will take many a lifetime for human beings to actually figure out for sure.

And to Paul Sand and webgrrl, this is true. I live in Alaska and it is much the same situation. Unless you keep your mind busy learning or with other activities, you can become depressed in the winter in a snap! We have those sunlight lamps here, too, but I don't think I've seen them in public places, only in homes. Along with the natives here being more susceptible to becoming alcoholics, you have a recipe for a lot of sad people, and depression. And this is all chemically, not because of beliefs or moral differences among people.

I would not want you to change your own beliefs. If you were to change beliefs, I would hope it would be because of yourself, your own learnings, and not because of anyone telling you what to do. The same as if you yourself chose to be a Christian.

What I do not agree on is the indoctrination of children into organized religion. I think children should be allowed to choose for themselves when they find the time is right to accept whatever god/gods and prophets to believe in, according to what kind of person they grew up as. For all I know, I may become a Buddist or a Janeist after a few years. I see myself as continually maturing, continually become ripe with knowledge and I accept any differences that I may find with what I believe in my life and combine all these experiences into my own personal knowledge. We will all have different histories when our final days come, why should any of them be even remotely the same? Okay I really have to stop, Thanks to anyone who reads this :D
Kristin

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

reason — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:50:51 -0000

Why do you think this?

So, this is a puzzle. If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person.

Do you have evidence for this? (And what do you mean by "better" exactly?)

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

webgrrl — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:51:01 -0000

Nordic folk are well aware that seasonal affective disorder (SAD) can lead to depression and suicide. That's why sun-spectrum lamps are common there, esp. in cafes in the winter. See here. This is the standard cause for the higher rate of self-destruction there.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

muirgeo — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:02:34 -0000

I see the lack of trust more one sided.

A person of religion threatens me not at all as I'd love for them to be right on some level and I encourage my children to explore all sides of the issue and will even attend church with them. The person of relgion is generally deeply commited to having their children believe as they do and threatened by views like mine. My discomfort being around people of faiths is the need to walk on pins and needles not to offend them while I gladly share in grace or head bowing ect when they might request.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

Paul Sand — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:01:10 -0000

The WHO says that suicide rates in Denmark (19.5 Male/7.1 Female)
and Sweden (19.2 Male/8.1 Female) are higher than in the US (17.7 Male/4.5 Female).

http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/sui...

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

muirgeo — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:51:29 -0000

Nuance is a deterrent to happiness. If I thought all the poor were to inherit the Earth and all justices were righted after we died I'd be happy as a lark. Then again my cat is an atheist who suffers no nuance (except something about crossing the door jam coming and going into the house) and is the happiest being I know. Anyway I see nothing happy about ignorance and self deception. If I needed that kind of happiness I'd start smoking pot again.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

mk — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:59:51 -0000

There is a mutual lack of trust on the part of many atheists and many believers.

Religious people who see increasing secularism as a sign of moral decay make some pretty offensive allegations against atheists.

In return, many atheists look down upon believers as ignorant rubes.

The most important thing to realize is that there is a "vast middle" in society, of believers and nonbelievers who have better things to do than try to tear each other down.

There is an inherent tension between the two worldviews, but coexistence is obviously possible. Unfortunately, high-profile conflicts will go on for some time because of the political implications.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

Wesley — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:54:47 -0000

Will,

Granted that you won't want to include the trade-off in your own calculations (I never meant to argue this *for you*, just *for me*). My view is merely that it'd be question-begging to use this as any kind of argument against persons of faith, particularly Christians. I recognize you never explicitly said that it was.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

willwilkinson — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:52:37 -0000

"American atheism" has a "stance"? Most American atheists are nice people who never mention it. If you have a beef against Sam Harris or somebody you take to be the "public face" of atheism then come right out and say it. I don't find him either hateful or sneering. PZ Myers, maybe?

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

Freddie — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:43:20 -0000

I wish bright atheists like yourself would admit that the fundamental stance of American atheism is contempt and hatred, and not pretend like the public face of atheism isn't in a perpetual sneer against the idiots who believe in god.

(Sadly, it's necessary for me to be taken seriously to point out that I am myself an atheist.)

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

Jesse — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:26:10 -0000

I think the theism vs. atheism dichotomy is probably far too simplistic when discussing something like happiness or crime correlation. We have to remember that there are thousands of very different theologies among religious believers, and thousands of different philosophies among atheists.

Say you believe, for example, that an omnibenevolent God loves you, wants you to be happy, forgives your shortcomings and will reunite you with your loved ones after death. I see no way this wouldn't raise your happiness and kindness towards others a considerable amount. For how wonderful the world would seem if such a scenario were true.

On the other hand, many believe in a God who demands a life of great worship, servitude and contrition, free from most earthly pleasures. And should you fall short of leading such a life, you stand a great chance of being tormented ETERNALLY in a lake of fire, along with 95% of humanity. This type of belief isn't likely to lead to anything you could call happiness.

So I guess what I'm getting at is, whether or not someone believes in God really doesn't say much about them at all. You'd have to dig deeper into their worldview in order to get at a fruitful discussion about how that worldview affects their lives. Secular Humanism vs. Christian fundamentalism, for instance, might be worth looking at.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

pedro — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 23:56:34 -0000

Surely you also need to look at cultural homegenity as an explanatory factor. It is hard to imagine how an increase in faith would lead to an increase in abortions unless you posit that there will be an increase in unexpected and unprotected sex. There are too many factors at work in society to make such a correlation anything more than a dinner table argument starter.

Some of the smartest people I know have faith, even though I completely agree it does not make sense. But plently of apparently smart people also believe in socialism without having Dawkins or Hitchens sneer at them.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

adina — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 23:39:01 -0000

Those countries have large social welfare systems, but have very low rate of voluntary charitable contributions. Religious people in the United States donate a disproportionate amount of their money to charity, even if you exclude donations to churches, and account for differences in income.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

Aaron — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 23:20:15 -0000

I remember Richard Dawkins once making the point that (paraphrasing) "to be in high public office in America you either need to be stupid or dishonest" (after sharing the facts that 1] atheists have higher IQs in general, and 2] the non-religious are excluded from high public office).

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

Ostrich — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:46:57 -0000

If the argument is "atheism helps", I don't buy it on most counts, except re acceptance of science. If the argument is "atheism doesn't hurt", sure, I buy that. The Paul study says, as far as I can tell, that there is a strong correlation between levels of religious belief and acceptance of evolution. Duh. There is no correlation with murder, teen suicide, gonorrhea, syphilis. I'd say "no" on life expectancy. There is a correlation with teen pregnancies, teen abortions (which may be the same correlation) and with infant mortality (which may be in large part the same thing, since mortality correlates with low birth weight, which is more common among teenagers. You can look it up.) I'd be interested in why religion correlates this way with teen sex.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

mk — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:34:23 -0000

Aye, tis true.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

willwilkinson — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:24:38 -0000

Hi Wesley, I understand where you're coming from. But I also believe the case for the existence of God, and for the truth of the key tenets of Christianity, is incredibly shaky. Because we live in a very religious society, atheist intellectuals tend to be circumspect about this, but insofar as we're evaluating these questions on the basis of empirical evidence and the best standards of reasoning, there is surpassingly little grounds to include your imagined tradeoff in the schema. I know you think that's a huge mistake, but it's difficult to see why I'm supposed to take that any more seriously than you would probably take the claims of Muslims, Mormons, and Scientologists that you're making a huge mistake.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

Wesley — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:09:58 -0000

Will,

I love your blog, but I always disagree with you when you talk about faith. I'm a Protestant Christian and am always struck by how impressed and pleased atheists are to discover that the link between crime, happiness, etc. and religious belief are pretty loose.

It is true, of course, that many secular nations have less crime, violence, etc. and that they also rate themselves highly on various happiness measures. Atheist friends of mine often cite this as a problem for us. For if religion doesn't make a society better and happier, what good is it?

My problem is that our conception of what makes a 'better' society is relative to whether you're religious or not. Let me share my perspective as a Christian believer.

Christianity is NOT about being happy. In fact, I am certain that after I became a Christian I would have rated lower on most of the measures of happiness you talk about. My life became more difficult and conflicted as the Lord began to work sin out of my life. Atheists can be content because the Holy Spirit is not at work in their hearts. I regard the Christian life as the spiritual equivalent of chemotherapy - the working out of the cancer of sin. We don't get the 'happiness' you're after. We're after joy and communion with God, and to have that, you must go through a long struggle with God that may include a great deal of suffering.

I think most Americans who call themselves Christians don't actually understand this. They are nominal Christians, even if they go to Church regularly. Having a genuine relationship with God is fairly rare. Most Christians, I believe, have intimations of such a relationship. To meet Christians who have walked with God for a long time, or who are at least deeply committed, well, that is a rarity. You have no idea how weak we really are. Yet even among these Christians, my mentors, friends, and teachers, happiness is far from ubiquitous. These people face struggles and challenges that no secular person faces and usually do not even understand.

To simply look at crime rates and happiness ratings of secular nations is impressive. I am struck myself. But I am not threatened. Christ told us that life in this world would not be easy and would not always be a happy one. That is because the world is in a state of war between sin and love, a battle that rages within every human soul.

I know that many Christians have claimed that a society without God will be full of crime, etc. I think they got it wrong. A society without God is very different. I think it loses transcendent values, a sense of connection with God, Christian joy, and a proper grounding for its commitment to fairness and equality (on the last point, I agree with Waldron). This loss is incalculable to my mind, but to yours it is no loss at all.

I would suffer and die before I became an atheist again, at least I think I would, for a great amount of what you call happiness. The moments of joy and communion with the Lord that I have experienced give my life meaning even without the happiness you speak of. Of course, I think happiness, in your terms, is valuable. But I would trade it off to know the Lord forever. And that's a trade-off that isn't in your schema.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

strangedoctrines — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:01:20 -0000

In re the dangers of cross-cultural comparison (which are real enough), yes, it is risky to draw inferences about the comparative happiness-in-Sweden-versus-U.S. from data on happiness in Sweden and the U.S. (Plausible third variables and all that.)

But it's pretty obviously far riskier to draw inferences about supposedly universal features of happiness from data on happiness in the U.S.

Lower risk is better.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

Kolya — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:12:15 -0000

"... For all I know, this is good. It may keep many of our best and brightest focused on productive endeavors, ... But it might also lead to a selection effect where political power is left to those with exceptional powers of self-deception, or to those who are willing to simply lie about things that are profoundly important to the people they are supposed to represent. That might not be good."

From your own words, I think it's clear that on balance it's not such a good thing at all.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

mk — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:51:08 -0000

Provocative hypothesis, but I agree with the commenters on this and the previous linked post that there are too many uncontrolled variables to call this anything more than a hypothesis.

To take a different argument of the same form:

There is greater economic growth under Democratic presidents than under Republicans, therefore higher taxes are:

1) Not detrimental to growth?
2) Not inconsistent with growth?
3) Causative of higher growth?

1 and 3 are tenuous conclusions at best. 2 is certainly "true", but not strong enough to have policy implications at the margin.

Mapping back to the original argument, can we conclude that secularism is:
1) Not detrimental to national happiness?
2) Not inconsistent with happiness?
3) Causative of higher happiness?

1 and 3 are pretty clearly stretches absent deeper analysis (we don't have the relevant counterfactual of a modern Swedish society with religion). 2 is again "true" but neither is high pollution inconsistent with happiness.

IMO the only thing we can conclude at this point is that secularism doesn't cause everything to crash and burn (like O'Reilly et. al would perhaps have us believe). That's useful but we can probably all agree there is a lot more data gathering/analysis to be done.

Re: Why Are American Atheists Less Happy and Cooperative?

Jayson_Virissimo — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:24:43 -0000

I would be careful when making cross-country comparisons like that. You would get a much more accurate picture if you compare poverty and suicide rates of Swedes and Americans of Swedish descent than simply comparing the macro stats between the countries. There are just too many uncontrolled variables.