Intellectual prowess and educational achievement are often associated with self- identified Atheists. Altemeyer, Hunsberger and Brown (2006) surveyed 837 Australian first year university psychology majors in order to determine factors influencing nonbelief. Intellectual orientation was the best predictor of nonbelief among this population. They maintained that self-reports highlight enjoyment of intellectual discussions, debating
religious issues, and considering oneself intellectually oriented collectively proved to be the best predictors of apostate versus non-apostate status. Hunsberger and Altemeyer (2006, p. 40) surveyed active university Atheists and their parents. When questioned about their doubts regarding religion and religious beliefs, ‘the matters that weighed heaviest…involved ideas. Did religious teachings make sense? Did they correspond with scientific evidence? Could they stand up to examination and criticism? Religion, for these people, failed these
tests.’ The majority of those surveyed once believed in God but began to doubt during
adolescence (median age of 15-18) for various reasons (such as the bible, education, problem of evil, religious hypocrisy, moral and gender imperatives, pluralism, negative history of Christianity). In sum, (p. 54), belief ‘bled through multiple wounds but the letting typically flowed for intellectual, not emotional or personal reasons’. Bradley et al. (2017) confirmed intellectual reasons were the most highly endorsed reasons for nonbelief in God among possible intellectual, emotional, social, experiential, and intuitive reasons. Kanazawa (2010) investigated the hypothesis that more intelligent individuals are more likely to be Atheists than less intelligent individuals. Based upon two large representative samples from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and General Social Surveys, the data suggests intelligence predicts espousal of Atheism. More intelligent individuals have a significantly weaker belief in God and significantly less intense religiosity.
From a socio-demographic perspective, Atheists are reported to have higher education levels. Streib and Klein (2018) assert the link between higher education and Atheism as a classic finding within psychology of religion. Beit-Hallahmi (2006) affirms Atheists in the U.S. as younger, mostly male, with higher levels of education and income who tend to be politically liberal, and in Australia as better educated than the rest of the population. Globally, demographers Keysar and Navarro-Rivera (2013, p. 571) report Atheism is ‘especially common among people with advanced education’. Williamson and Yancey (2013, p. 39) argue with confidence [that] the typical Atheist in the United States is a highly educated, wealthy, older, white male. They also claim Atheists are often associated with higher intelligence, intellectual elites, academics (particularly in the human sciences), and eminent scientists. For Cragun et al. (2013), in North America, Atheists are likely young, male, single or married, employed full-time or students, highly educated but not necessarily wealthier, live in large cities, are politically liberal, and are irreligious. They think less about purpose and meaning in life and have a lightly lower satisfaction in life than theists.
In the West, this high level of education and may reflect the rational, scientific, cultural, social and/or educational emphases placed upon Atheistic ideology. According to Pew Research Center (2016), the average educational attainment for the ‘religiously unaffiliated’ averages 13.2 years in North America and 12.0 years in Europe. Average educational attainment for Christians in North America is 12.7 years and 10.8 years in Europe, slightly lower. Further, Pew (2016) reports Atheists as more likely to be white and highly educated with 43% Atheists holding a college degree as compared to 27% of the general public in the United States. Examining 1988-2000 General Social Surveys (GSS), Sherkat (2008) determined educational attainment decreases certainty in belief in God. Across North America, Cragun (2013) reports all three countries show a significant difference in educational attainment with Atheists 10-15% more likely to achieve upper levels of education than theists.62 Williamson and Yancey (2013) confirm advanced education as associated with Atheism. In their online study of Atheists, 40.2% held a graduate degree and among their interview respondents, 35.3% held a graduate degree. Zuckerman’s (2011) research interviewing 87 Atheists concurred with these findings regarding an increased level of education among Atheists: 5% completed high school only, 30% completed some college, 33% completed a bachelor’s degree, and 30% completed a graduate degree. According to the Pew Research Foundation study (2015), the educational norm among Atheists in North America (43% college degree) is higher than the general population (29% college degree). Higher education correlated with lower prayer frequency in Baker’s (2008) research.
The consensus among researchers of high intellect and high education levels among Atheists bears consideration in investigating not only their reasons for Atheism, but also their motivations for conversion. LeDrew (2012) distinguishes between scientific Atheism often associated with the New Atheism (based in Darwinism and the Enlightenment) and
62 CRAGUN, R. T., HAMMER, J. H. & SMITH, J. M. Ibid.North America. In: RUSE, S. B. A. M. (ed.). Education level is higher among Atheists as compared to theists in North America at the ‘upper level’ with Canada: 38.6% (Atheists) vs 25.7% (theists), U.S. 59.8% (Atheists) vs 45.9% (theists), and Mexico 31.6% (Atheists) vs 16.6% (theists), pp. 604, 606-607.
humanistic Atheism (pioneered by Marx and Feuerbach) aligned with the rise of social sciences. Although the contemporary Atheist movements are primarily rooted in the
scientific tradition, the humanistic tradition still plays a role. Cragun (2015) asserts the rise of scientific Atheism came to prominence in the West in the early twenty-first century with the release of several books from prominent scientist considered the ‘New Atheists’. Sam Harris’s The End of Faith (2004), Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion (2006), and Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell (2007) initiated a movement in 2004 promoting Atheist and freethought activism. For LeDrew (2013), the New Atheists see Atheism as the end point of a gradual progression from religiously fueled ignorance to scientific enlightenment. They reject all elements of supernatural belief and religion and instead place their trust in science. However, Cragun is clear to point out not all Atheists have the distinctly irreligious
characteristics of the New Atheists as they may not reject all notions of the supernatural and may be less confident in science to provide meaningful answers to existential questions.
The majority of Atheists (between 70-80%) in the United States (approximately 13-16 million Americans) exhibit characteristics of New Atheists. According to Cragun (2015), 27% of ‘New Atheists’ have post-graduate degrees, twice the educational attainment of other Atheists (13%) non-religious (13%), and Mainline Protestants (14%), and more than three times post-graduate education of Evangelical Protestants (7%). In light of this research, investigating Atheists entails an understanding of them as generally more intelligent and highly educated than the general population. Although their Atheism may be motivated for intellectual and scientific reasons, other (humanistic, moral) motivations may contribute to their beliefs and should be considered in research. Their self-identification as an intellectual population may have bearing, particularly in religious conversion to a religious group that is not perceived to be intelligent or educated.
4.3. Atheism and Nonbelief in Academic Study
Researchers contend Atheism has been historically neglected by the human sciences in lieu of focus on religion and religious conversion (Bullivant, 2008; LeDrew, 2013, J.M.
Smith, 2013, Greksa, 2015, Coleman, et. al., 2018, Streib and Klein, 2018). Beit-Hallahmi (2006) proposes the neglect of Atheism within modern human sciences is primarily due to the dominant religiosity among the majority of humanity, and secondarily because of the lack of felt need for Atheistic researchers to explain themselves.63 However, increased interest of the nonbeliever (Atheist, agnostic, the ‘nones’) among researchers initiated a recent wave of academic study to better understand this growing population in the West (Silver, et al, 2014), Steib and Klein, 2018). Bullivant and Lee (2012, pp. 19, 21-22) report growing numbers of sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists, among others, have turned their attention in the twenty-first century towards non-religious phenomena as something to be ‘understood as positive and concrete subjects in their own right...[not motivated] by their allegedly
‘problematic’ nature but by the recognition that they are a significant, ‘normal’, and
potentially normative sector of society’.64 Streib and Klein (2018) maintain this new interest is due in part to considerable increase of religious non-affiliation in the United States. For Lee (2013, p. 588) social sciences have only recently begun to take serious interest in
Atheism and nonreligion, stating, ‘Hitherto, scholars have been interested in Atheism merely as a measure of the (declining) pervasiveness and popularity of theism, rather than whether and how being an Atheist directly shapes the individual’s experience of the world’. This turn towards directed study of Atheism prompts a more critical analysis of the beliefs informing naturalistic Atheism.