258:, 67(2)165-190. It is true that there is more complexity to non-belief than a clean split between explicit atheism and agnosticism (which is where sociologists tend to stop at present). But there is also a great deal of complexity in the religious beliefs of various types of theists that never gets teased out as well. We do the best we can with what we have. That said, I want to repeat that atheists and agnostics do not simply get lumped together all the time when survey data is reported. That is a misconception. In today's surveys, self-identification questions are separate from belief questions. So for instance in the 1998 and 2000 GSS around 4% of those who identify with a religious tradition also answered the belief questions as if they were agnostics or atheists. However, 68% of those who said "no religion" professed some belief in a god or higher power (see Hout and Fischer). This large swath of unaffiliated Americans who also believe, are what others have called "unchurched believers" (Baker 2009). Now, this group tends to have less definitive beliefs. If we look at the GSS again, somewhere around 20% of the respondents from 1988-2000 who have no preference are certain about belief in God (compared to over 60% in the total sample). Other large surveys have tried similar approaches by the way. After making reference to Hout and Fischer's findings Baker uses the Baylor Religion Survey. I have to say that I'm no fan of the Baylor survey. If you ask me the Baylor Survey was designed with decreasing the % of atheists in mind. Asking respondents to state which one best suites them, they use some standard sounding phrases from “I have no doubts that God exists,” to “I don’t know and there is no way to find out,” but then when it comes to the atheist statement they jump to self-identification oddly - “I am an atheist.” It is almost as if they are using the stigma to decrease positive answers to a more normal statement like the one in the GSS - "I don't believe in God." Anyway the 15% figure isn't directly related to belief, but to self-identification.
249:(not surprisingly limited to the United States) lumped atheists and agnostics together in the 1990 round, incidentally, and for most of their cited statistics in the following surveys continue to do so. Only in the raw data can you see that atheist/agnostic ratio is not so uneven. What they don't do is break down the different forms of atheism, so that survey really is of no use to this discussion. Though, considering that 15% of respondents stated "none" we are left to ponder whether the tone of the questions left a number of people defensive about giving any response, or whether people are just specifically reluctant to tell anyone else about the nature of their unbelief. Either way, a lack of information leaves us with an inability to make inferences about what is common practice. As far as the General Social Survey is concerned, the data is in a form that seems only to be able to be read with statistical packages, so I will have a look at it when I get to work tomorrow (I'm not that much of a nerd to have spss on my personal computer (though I am approaching it)). I've read one of Bullivant's articles, though it mostly related to his response to what he described as the "godless jamboree" of an atheists convention. I suppose objectivity is not something we can expect from any academic these days.Ninahexan (talk) 11:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
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only aim is for all the
Knowledge dyslexia articles to reflect the current international research. I am able to research all of these issues, provide links etc to all of the research papers, and understand the content of the research papers. What my dyslexia will not let me do is paraphrase the research papers very well, or copy edit an articles content. For that I have to rely on others. Such is the nature of my auditory processing disorder which causes me to be dyslexic. what causes me to be dyslexic is immaterial to the articles, but other Knowledge editors need to be aware of my dyslexic issues so that they understand my contributions to Knowledge. Not to is a form of disability discrimination. So from my perspective merely to delete content without prior discussion on the discussion page is a form of disability discrimination. I am willing to discuss any changes you want to make etc.
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have pdfs of quite a few of the recent peer reviewed articles in sociology dealing with religious "nones" and with non-believers. I would be happy to share any of them with you if you ask. You don't have to actually get down and dirty with the GSS data in SPSS as most of the results relevant to our conversation have been reported. See for instance, Hout, Michael and
Fischer, Claude S. 2002, "Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Politics and Generations",
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Excuse me if my commenting on your edits was inappropriate, I tend to immediately click on the discussion history so as to see the recent additions, and yours appeared to give an insight into your views. I apologise for making reference to your redactions. The
American religious Identification Survey
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May be instead of deleting parts of article you did not contribute to intially you should try to improve the wording and try to understand what was being said. As you probably have no understanding of the issues which cause me to be dyslexic, then I consider your actions to be vandalism, if you want
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Nina I moved the conversation here, only out of deference to others on the talk page who might not be benefiting from our long replies. However, I am more than happy to move it back should you want me to. Just ask. By the way having SPSS at home is perfectly normal :). I also want to say that I
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Ninahexan I created the content for the page you are editing. I have a very poor paraphrasing and copy editing skills due to the nature of my own dyslexia. I am deeply aware that all of the4 series of dyslexia articles I created last summer require copy editing and further additional material. My
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If the page I had edited was about you and your own personal experience with dyslexia then perhaps you might have a point, but the page was about research in dyslexia, and has been poorly written. If it needs to be reworded then please don't take it personally, this is the essence of wikipedia.
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please use the discussion page instead of deleting article content. if you do not understand something ask, and help in the editing process waht you are doing could be considered to be vandalism
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If people perceive the removal of specific portions of extraneous content from a developing page as vandalism, then I would direct them to this page:
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to help edit the article please do so but do not just delete bits because it does suit your person way of understanding issues.
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