Religious and Atheist.

I really can't tell, but I'm not very interested in a person's religious or lack of religious beliefs.

It does make sense.

Actually, seeing that you have a recent membership (4 days ago) according to your profile, how would you know the popular trends of anyone here (much less what the beliefs are of any groups)?

Furthermore, as a long time member, I don't believe that is true. You might have a skewed perception as your focus may be on that issue and you've found some debate on the subject. Perhaps some members on A2K who follow atheistic views are more vocal than others? The subject of atheism on many forums/fora seems to be a point of lively debate.

Furthermore, as for my personal views as a non-religionist (probably an agnostic), I can find the logic of atheism far more defendable or logical than Theism or religiosity. Although as a point of logic, I do not see the opposite of religion to be atheism. I would call it secularism or non-religionism.

Furthermore, I could not commit to Atheism as there are no holidays. There is, however, Festivus for the rest of us.

What? We get national holidays.

Also, I have been reading old threads and religious threads as well. They usually tend to turn in favor of the, "doubters".

I'm am not an atheist, Log.

I never said you were. I'm just saying that many arguments seem to be directed towards the opposite of theism.

I was answering the op.

Ah. Then it seems my hypothesis about this forum is false, and needs to be revised.

Nor do I give credence to deities.

My non-scientific guess, based on 10 years of discussions on A2K, is that it's about 50:50 between atheists and theists. And I know a lot of theists who refrain from arguing the theist side of a disagreement because they perceive the controversy as hostile. (Which it often, but not always, is.)

Valid point. I guess it does get hostile when beliefs are being undermined.

Well... maybe...... I'm more of a agnostic since you can't prove or disprove the existence of a divine being

There have been a number of discussions of this subject on A2k over the years. I think that one pre-requisite to any meaningful discussion is to define our terms. What is an atheist? If one says, "I do not believe in god," is that the same as someone else saying, "I believe that there is no god"? The two statements are not identical. What about someone who says, "I don't believe a single word of the malarkey in the Bible (or Talmud or Koran or whatever)." but makes no comment his/her beliefs or lack of beliefs in a Higher Power of some sort? Has that person confessed to atheism or just to a distrust of the literature of the believers?

In other words, what do you mean when you say 'atheist'?

So what was it you really wanted to ask me?

I thought from the title that this might be interesting--of course, it's not. However, taking the title religious and atheist literally, there has been an interesting trend in polling by major organizations in English-speaking North America. Pew Research in the United States and Ipsos-Reid in Canada have begun asking people reporting a religious affiliation whether or not they believe in a god. The surprising and very interesting result has been that about 9% to 10% of those self-identifying as christians, whether Catholic or one of the Protestant denominations, report that they don't believe in god. Those people are truly religious and atheist.

It seems that i badly under-reported the number of those reporting religious affiliation while not believing in any god, at least in Canada. From a National Post article about an Ipsos-Reid poll:

"53% of respondents said they believe in God. (Interestingly, 28% of those identified as Protestants, 33% of Catholics, and 23% of those who attend weekly religious services do not.)"

Do the researchers make any attempt to follow up with those people to understand why they answered the question that way? I'm wondering if these respondents define "God" differently than most Christians do, such that they still believe in God in some form, but not in the traditional Christian form, and thus feel compelled to answer the poll the way they do.

Or do they not believe in any God at all and just claim to be Christians for social or habitual reasons.