You are part of the U.S.A.’s most despised religious minority; although Atheists are overrepresented in the U.S. armed forces, and underrepresented in U.S. prisons, and have not shown a tendency to fly planes into skyscrapers.
I prefer my own source, it clearly states its methods and subject group, and it accurately reflects my own experiences. I knew plenty of University level and Professional Scientists, and around 2/3rds (or more)are people of faith (as the study suggested); I have never met (AFAIK) a member of the National Academy of Sciences (the group polled that showed that very few of “elite” Scientists are believers).
I am in agreement that there is nothing as perplexing as an “evangelical” atheist.
It’s more than that, I think. I find the attitude in many atheist today toward Christians akin to the attiude in Germany toward Jews before the war. I think it’s a bit frightening.
I’m an atheist but the last thing I want to see happen in this country is its secularization like that of Europe. I think it is dangerous to take all of a person’s values away, even if the source of them is mistaken. You can at least reason with a person who believes in something, the people of Europe believe in nothing, and what you get is a society of subjectivist hedonists with no values and nothing to live for but the next immediate pleasure.
“prefer my own source”
The other is not “my source” because I distrust most statistics. Personally I don’t care about the numbers and the original point was that for most very serious scientisits, their religious position, whatever it might be, in my experience at least, is a separate issue from their science.
Thanks for interesting and reasonable comments, by the way.
Hank