It is a truth universally acknowledged that the differences between men and women are bigger than their variations in biological plumbing, and that the differences between Britain and America are more substantial than the lack of harmony between their common languages. I was reminded of this latter point this week on hearing a statement about god from the newly elected leader of the UK Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg.
When asked on BBC Radio Live 5, Nick Clegg declared last Wednesday that he did not believe in god but refused to say whether he had taken drugs, neither of which dented his sudden popularity.
Such a statement from an American politician would be career suicide, whereas over here, I suspect it was slightly endearing to a significant proportion of the population. As Adam Rutherford pointed out in a recent posting:
Mercifully, although many of our [UK] politicians may be openly religious, Britain’s political landscape is such that candidates do not have to be overtly religious to even stand a chance of election. There is even a cross-party Humanist Group. Compare that to the US, where in 2006 atheists were not represented in Congress at all. Perversely, the US has secularity protected by the constitution, whereas we Brits are subjects of the Defender of the Faith.
One of the parts of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion that has remained with me months after my initial reading of it was his observation that it is much more difficult to admit to being an atheist in America than in Britain. A 2006 study by Penny Edgell, Joseph Gerteis, and Doug Hartmann from the University of Minnesota identified atheists as America’s most distrusted minority. From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.
Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized, and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. Edgell also argues that today’s atheists play the role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past—they offer a symbolic moral boundary to membership in American society. “It seems most Americans believe that diversity is fine, as long as every one shares a common ‘core’ of values that make them trustworthy—and in America, that ‘core’ has historically been religious,” says Edgell. Many of the study’s respondents associated atheism with an array of moral indiscretions ranging from criminal behavior to rampant materialism and cultural elitism.
It could be argued that in Britain, there is some evidence that atheism is moving into the mainstream. In the past week atheism has featured in a storyline in the BBC Radio soap opera The Archers (Shula is worried because Alistair’s dad, Jim, is trying to indoctrinate his grandson Daniel into the atheistic dark arts. She consults Alan, Ambridge’s kindly liberal vicar, who thinks it’s all rather amusing, and nothing to fret about); in a discussion about god with Richard Dawkins on BBC Radio 2; and in a question in the BBC TV Quiz Show, University Challenge, where the answer was Sam Harris, A.C. Grayling, and Christopher Hitchens.
In some senses Britain keeps up a veneer of faith, though it is very thin, and certainly not as deeply rooted as in the US. Many British people will still nominally profess a belief in the divine and occasionally attend traditional cultural happenings associated with that. Marriages outside of church are increasingly common, but many still want to ‘tie to knot’ in a church, not least because of the photo opportunities. Most funerals are still conducted by a religious officiant, though the content of most is becoming increasing secular, and trained humanist officiants are becoming more available. Overall church attendance is in decline, though blips of growth are being experienced by evangelical charismatics and Roman Catholics (the latter possibly largely due to a higher birth rate and to an influx of Polish immigrants). Atheism and secularism are not clearly defined, popular, conscious philosophies being embraced in Britain, but behind the scenes, they are being tolerated and adopted by a large and increasing number of people.
I am not sure why these differences in tolerance of atheism exist between the two nations. Doubtless several factors are involved. The vague possibilities that I could think of (please don’t be offended, I am just thinking aloud on paper) include:
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Britain has a longer history and a longer awareness of the dangers of religious intolerance.
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Parts of America were founded by tightly-knit religious communities who saw it as their duty to promote the faith, and this has remained as a subconscious part of American culture.
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A fronteer mentality means that you have to define the enemy and protect and defend. Perhaps this is more recently present in the American psyche than in the British.
If you have any thoughts on the matter, please do let me know.
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Update 21/12/07: Civil Rights’ Group recognizes American atheists’ struggle.
I think your 3 concluding points are pretty much on the spot. Have come to the same conclusion myself after spending some time on a predominantly american forum where religion is one of the most active topics (aside from the politics section perhaps).
What you concluded on the British fits very well with most of the north and western Europe. Secularism is not a minority though i suspect that agnostisism is more dominant than atheism. Still religion is a minority. In the US it seems to be quite the oposite. In my experience (on forums) religion is not questioned in general, just accepted. People seem quite surprised when being challenged to defend their views and often (to my amusement) fall in the trap of reasoning themselves into a corner.
Th US has higher infant mortality, homicide rates, worse access to healthcare, shorter life expectancy, greater income inequality, and worse job and social security. Hence life in the US brings with it greater ‘existential stress’, which is a major cause of the higher levels of religiosity.
Presumably Tom the causality of the correlations could be argued in the other direction - that the greater religiosity causes some of the greater existential stress?
Interesting point acheron42 about US religious people not used to being challenged. I know they were not typical of American religious people, but the comments on a recent posting of mine about The End of the World Cult revealed that when faced with logic, some of the cult members could mostly only quote the bible at length, or get nasty. Clearly any questions were an affront.
Tigger and I have had the same experience, namely that some (not all) Americans are truly gobsmacked on being told we are atheists. “How can you be atheist?” they exclaim aghast. They cannot conceive of not believing.
On the positive side we had some engaging online conversations with a student at an evangelical seminary in the US who showed both intelligence and humour. He freely admitted he could not answer our objections and promised to get back to us. He told us he shouldn’t be having these conversations with us as he would get into trouble if it were known.
Whatever the reasons for the differences between the US and Britain (as part of Europe) in religious attitudes, I think that the US demonstrates how religion becomes part of the culture of a society and thus very hard to eradicate. Many Muslims living in Britain would dearly love to become part of secular British life but cannot because the cost in severed relationships and perhaps in wounds to their own emotional well-being is just too high.
One reason for the easy acceptance of non-belief in Britain may be the relaxed attitude of England’s main Church, the Church of England. It is difficult to find what that Church believes in, if anything at all. I suspect that there are many vicars (and perhaps higher echelons) in the Church of England who, like Athony Freeman, have lost their faith but soldier on in what is, after all, a pretty good job if you can hack the God-stuff.
When looking at America one must keep in mind a short phrase that colored and shaped the national psyche of most above the age of 40, “godless communists”. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall communists have dropped off as a threat to the nation. That said, the “godless” residue remains and will continue to remain for decades to come.
Functionally, a larger portion of Americans are atheists than the study showed. The results could well be different if the survey looked at the regularly of church attendance and adherence to a set of basic doctrines, even a loose set, rather than identifying themselves with a label. The Horace Mann study on religious life in England in the Victorian age would have similarities with religious life in America today, a surprising number of citizens never attending a place of worship, a significant number attending from time to time and giving lip service for various reasons ranging from family tradition and to satisfy someone in the family, and a strong core of sincere believers whose faith expression and views are all over the map.
The Deacon: Even the phrase godless communism is interesting. Unless my memory fails me (quite possible these days) we just had communism over here. Nevertheless, it does seem to go a long way to explaining some of the difference.
SilverTiger: I found myself smiling by being reminded of the good old Church of England’s attitude. When part of the evangelical faith camp, I used to deplore the wishy-washy liberalism tolerated by the C. of E. (I mean, if you are going to be religious you at least ought to do it properly and take things like the bible seriously). It amused me to think that I should now see it as something vaguely positive (in a strange sort of way). Thanks for the link. I feel reasonably confident that I shall be using it in some way in some future posting.
Hi athinkingman, direction of causality is difficult to determine. But it’s true that there is fairly solid evidence that the religious are less in favour of state social insurance because they have a kind ‘god’ insurance. e.g. see Scheve 2006 “Religion and Preferences for Social Insurance” http://www.yale.edu/leitner/religionpaper7b.pdf There is also evidence that religious people seem to prefer to help their fellow man by charity - but charity is a very poor way of redistributing wealth.
There is also evidence that violent homicide is encouraged by ‘dualistic’ religious beliefs - i.e. people who believe in both god and the devil.
As the Deacon noted, in the USA there is a big gap between the number of people who profess to “believe in God” and the number who go to church every week. I assure you, there are far fewer people driving to church on Sunday than there are driving to work on Monday.
Thanks Tom for the further elaboration.
Given what the chaplain and The Deacon have said about the lack of penetration of serious religious practice in America, the hardline attitude towards atheists does seem odd. The behaviour is ahead of the thinking.
I think the 3 points mentioned nail it for me also.
Bearing in mind G.W Bush is considered, as I understand-fellow Americans correct me if I am wrong, is from the right wing evangelical movement,it would be harder for any politician wanting carrer advancement to not have some Christian connections.
I read an Article in the times (20thDec) reporting the radio 5 live interview with Nick Clegg, who admits he does not believe in God but respects other faiths-his wife is a Catholic. Interestingly enough he is commited to bringing up his children as Cathoilcs. That may be to appease his wife.
A very good blog which highlights many interesting points about American society.
We had more churches first. You would think it would be us being more christian than them. Or are we getting bored with our faith as it has been around for so long? Shame it is this way. Churches here need to re-invent themselves to get noticed again.
[...] are clearly more problems in America about openly being an atheist than in the UK. Unlike in the UK, no presidential candidate could [...]