Is being pubicly atheist a recent thing, especially re. collective worship?

[wanderings]

Firstly, I'm taking no sides - I had strong atheist views when I was younger, but gradually changed my mind.

There are many threads on MN about this, especially annoyance by atheist parents about collective worship in schools, and I have been wondering if it's recent that people have felt so strongly about it. I find it hard to imagine buses in the 1980s and 90s saying "there probably is no God", or parents taking their children out of assembly, or people muttering and sneering in the back row when attending baptisms (under duress): if it happened I was blissfully ignorant.

Speaking for myself, I rebelled with my heart and soul when my parents suddenly dragged me to catholic church every Sunday when I was 9. I saw the whole thing as utter nonsense, and a waste of valuable weekend time. However, I gradually changed my mind as an adult, but went CofE rather than catholic. I took the view that you did not have to take a literal view of the Bible and the church's teachings; as a child I was very literal-minded. I also love the sense of community in church.

Does anyone think it is because a generation of young adults are remembering being forced to obediently sing hymns, hear prayers from their school days, had to learn "impossibilities" such as the great flood, and are now making sure their children won't have to do the same, now that they have the right to say something which they didn't as a child?

Well that got weird.
I can't get worked up about people's beliefs as their personal business. I love a good hymn as much as I like certain 80s pop songs. I'm an atheist as is my 75 year old father. My mum has the cultural 'god' belief. Religion is fine. I have no issue unless you tell me I'm wrong. Live and let live.

If religion was purely personal that would be fine.
It's not though and that's th eissue.

Eighty percent of NAS physicists and astronomers disbelieve in God

That's in response to gogo thinking that there's a surprising number of cosmologists believing in God.

She may be surprised there are 20%. :)

Huh?

Yes 1 in 5 is a lot! I'd have expected a whole lot less. What is Nas though is it American? They are a much more religious country including culturally so would be interesting to see how it compares to the uk.

I suppose there's that as well, that we don't tend to talk about it over here. So meeting astrophysicists and cosmologists who were open about their belief in god, in what was a context where religion isn't normally mentioned, that was unusual too, so a real double whammy.

I don't really understand though, 1 in 5 does seem like a lot, does that poster think that is a low number?

I did also mention that it was in my very small experience of people I met, ie not many! I didn't carry out a study or anything

At the time I would have expected the answer to be zero (I was young). Now I think like I said earlier that spirituality, or not, is a part of our make up so I'm less surprised if people like this believe in God.

I'm not really sure what that poster was getting at, some expansion would be good.

I'd certainly like a source for that 20%........

I have studied science at University, worked in research for 15 years. Known many 100s of scientists personally.
Never met any who were religious. Not one.
I am sure they exist, but I doubt the 20% figure.

I also suggest they were "nominal " christians.

When I was growing up I remember my parents filling out a census form.
In the religion box they ticked "christian". As did most of our neighbours and friends.

As a family we never attended church- not once. We didn't own a bible, god and jesus were never discussed. We didn't pray, I didn't go to Sunday school, religion was never mentioned.

Yet my family decided they were christian from a historical and cultural view.

I still know families who think that way- as a default if you wish.

Yet that sitting on the fence/couldn't give a shit attitude skews figures and allows the church to hold power politically.

And this is why the church loves the fact that christianity is still pushed at a low level in state schools.
Not that it produces hoards of church goers, but it produces millions of nominal christians.

Never met any who were religious. Not one.

I find that surprising, actually.

It may depend on the field, but it's not something that is often discussed at work in a scientific context, anyway.

Even this week in my country we celebrated a renowned (locally) geneticist who was also a priest.

I explained I have known many scientists personally. 100s.

Due to the nature of my expertise I have worked in a broad range of disciplines from genetics to electronics/material science.

"ven this week in my country we celebrated a renowned (locally) geneticist who was also a priest."
Interested to know when.....

You didn't say about the area, though. :)

Anyway, it's not something that religious scientists tend to advertise or talk about in the context of work.
I'd probably agree it's less than 20%.

I think we have a spot of violent agreement going on here

The two can be kept separate I think? The "I'm a spiritual person and have a feeling there must be more to it than just this" and the "I am interested in the world around and everything and trying to understand how it works and maybe make it better or make new things" parts?

It's when (so many!) religious types want to push back on scientific endeavour (and progress more generally eg human rights) that there's a problem and it's really worrying how common it is.

And then you look at other parts of the world - Boko Haram means "Western Education is a sin" and while I'm not quite sure what exactly they mean by that, I'm assuming from the rest of their behaviour that it's unlikely to be benign.

Ironic really given the history of maths in areas where now particularly reactionary forms of Islam are in charge.

The homaged person has died a while ago, :) but Wikipedia lists a few priest scientists, mostly jesuits. I'm sure there are a few more, less well known.

I'll have to agree with you Disco.

For some reason I tend to get into disagreements with both extremes of the religious spectre. It's hard to be somewhere in the middle. :)

Of course there were lots of priest scientists. As you say, especially Jesuits- they were committed to education. But not this century. And not many in the last.

lol Lweji

Not a comfy place to be but an interesting one!

Still this century
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jesuit_scientists

Uncle Google says:

In 2009, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press polled members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on belief in a higher power. The study found that 51 percent of members polled expressed such a faith, compared to 95 percent of the American public. Additionally, the National Academy of Science charted belief in God as low as 5.5 percent among biologists and 7.5 percent among physicist and astronomers in a 1998 study.

On a personal note, I’ve worked alongside a number of scientists who were religious, including a nun who was a gifted mathematical physicist.

I’m a befuddled atheist/agnostic trying to keep my mind open!

In some ways it would not surprise me if cosmologists were more receptive to the idea of some sort of entity out there that could be given the God label. There is a mystery in the cosmos that has not as yet been satisfactorily resolved by Science – the provenance of the fundamental laws and physical constants. Were these just a happy accident allowing for a long-lived stable-in-parts universe in which human beings could arise? The value of the cosmological constant, in particular, seemingly exquisitely fine-tuned for life, is hard to rationalize.

At the moment the best idea in the scientific arena is of a multiverse of universes, each of which is created at random with its own ‘DNA’ (set of physical constants/laws) that determine its evolution. Most universes would be unstable and not allow for the possibility of life.

None of these countless extra universes can however ever be observed by us so the theory doesn’t appear to be falsifiable, anymore than the God hypothesis is falsifiable.

An impasse?

www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/chronicle/v12/n13/opeil.html

www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/fathers-of-science

I actually didn't know a Catholic priest had actually preceded Hubble's theories and was the first proponent of the Big Bang.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître

It's certainly a small sample, but there aren't many priests, let alone scientists as well. And any recent ones won't be recognised for a few decades. Just that the two are not necessarily exclusive.

The other 20% is comprised of agnostics and other faiths.

Of course, Alan. :)

Checking out for priests was just a very limited proxy, as most religious scientists won't be so obvious, and to show that yes there are actual religious scientists.

It would be interesting to know how many of the 20% identified as Jewish or Muslim. There are plenty of people from both these groups who do not believe but still call themselves Jews and Muslims for cultural reasons. I know a few people who do not believe but regard themselves as "cultural Catholics".

Late to this thread.

outwith it's sad that your experience at school was that of being told you were not good or moral enough if you weren't christian. Sadly, this did seem to be the case in many schools, it was entrenched in some thinking at the time. The reality of Christian faith couldn't be more different - it's about realising we are no better at all than others, facing up to flaws in us and accepting God's grace and forgiveness. No room in that for putting others down for their behaviour; jesus scored pharisees who did just that.

Am a bit at some posts on this thread - ermmmm - ok!

Re scientists and faith, I know many, many scientists in varying fields who are deeply religious. Including a cosmologist and a geneticist. Many say their study only reinforces their faith rather than breaking them away from it - they don't see science and faith as mutually exclusive at all - but as complimentary.

I'm no scientist but I've been trying to expand my knowledge lately on universe origins, multiverse theory etc from all sides of the debate, if nothing else I find it fascinating. I find the cosmological arguments incredibly compelling - the fine tuning of the universe is just so astonishingly unlikely to have risen from chance.

"the fine tuning of the universe is just so astonishingly unlikely to have risen from chance."

I really don't get this. If you believe in "survival of the fittest" evolution then it doesn't make sense. It's like Douglas Adam's puddle analogy- it is far more likely that life evolved to fit the prevailing conditions, not the other way round. Particularly considering how long it took for life to appear at all........If everything was fine tuned and prepared in advance then why did it take so long?