Atheists put their faith in ethical behavior
By MELISSA FLETCHER STOELTJE
San Antonio Express-News
Today we get to Fisk some key sections of Melissa's article. And we are going to fisk them because its well utterly ignorant and pre-tarded.
Atheists, they lament, are the last minority in this nation that is fair game for bigotry. Experts who study religion in public life concur.
"Atheists are not very well-thought-of in America," says John Green, a senior fellow with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. "It's still acceptable to criticize atheists in a way that's not polite. People may harbor negative views about Jews, Catholics, Muslims and evangelicals, but they know they're not supposed to voice those views, so they don't. But it's still OK to say anything bad you want about atheists."
I hear as many negative comments in the public spaces about Atheists as I do about all those groups. Now in private spaces how many people curse about bible thumping christians to friends and family.
How a "Objective" journalist could right this is funny.
And yet at the same time a compelling undercurrent is at work. A study done by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York found that the percentage of the population that describes itself as "nonreligious" more than doubled from 1990 to 2001, from 14.3 million to 29.4 million people. The only other group to show growth was Muslims.
Lets take that first part.
What is Non-Religous in a poll/Study? Its not told here. Now for example people who may identify as non-religous may still attend high holy days. Well.... then that sure as heck doesn't make them non religous now does it. Is that Atheists? Agnostics? Non Practicing? so with the same sloppy claim that atheists get a bumb rap we see embracing some data which is confusing and unclear to show atheists are growing.
Now of course we go over an 11 year period of non-religousness. thats less then 10% growth in members. which when compaired to muslims whose growth is largely fueled by immigration is questionable.
Also how they sampled those numbers is another dubious question
"Right now, the fastest-growing religious identity in America is the nonreligious," says Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a Madison, Wis.-based group that champions church-state separation and works to educate the public on nontheism.
hmmm might he have a bias since he is from a pro-atheist group....noooooooo no bias there.
A study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 16 percent of Americans (about 35 million) consider themselves "unaffiliated" -- a category that includes "unaffiliated believers," "secularists" and atheists/agnostics.
Ok so lets look at these numbers. if the pew study is to believed Unaffiliated believers and secularists are no more then 6 million people -if- the other number is to be believed to be solely atheists
so in her own story she doesn't even tie the elements togther.
they in the pew study define atheist and agnostic in such a way that many atheists and agnostics fit outside their home category
The latter terms -- atheists and agnostics -- are lumped together, says Green, because they share so many similarities. But there is a subtle difference: Atheists forthrightly affirm that there is no God; agnostics simply say as humans we can never know. Together, they constitute about 3 percent of the American population.
So a blow back on "values voters" shows a sloppy and incoherent way to try to say "us to" about atheists.
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