How do atheists/agnostics split along political lines in the USA?

[banned from Kos]

Anyone know of a good survey/poll?

Thanks.

ETA -

We are the silent people. No one polls us. Few care what we think yet we are 15% of the US - larger than other minority groups.

[pnwmom]

1. The Ayn Rand atheists are Republicans and Libertarians. n/t

[longship]

2. No data. But I highly suspect...

that non-theists, and liberal theists, are generally united for the Democratic party, and specifically, for Obama.

This is a very simple calculation since the Republicans are the ones who spew their overt religiosity. They are the ones with the This is a Christian country platform. Consider the bills that they have put forth in state legislatures across the nation, nearly all with fundementalist Christian arguments.

How could any non-believer, or liberal believer, suffer with these douche bags' arguments, let alone their bills. That's to say nothing about the women in those states.

Enough said?


How could it be any different?

[banned from Kos]

3. Pew Research said that only 6% of scientists identify with the right

which supports your view.

I have NEVER seen a poll on how we (atheists or rationalists) identify with party.

[longship]

11. These are difficult questions

Especially if the surveys include self-report questions. I have been a life-long atheist. But it is only the past 15 years or so that I have voluntarily identified myself as such. It is only since 2001 that I have openly advocated as a militant atheist. (Thank you, 9/11 and Bush's and Republican overt religiosity.)

Self-report data always has these problems. The only way to do it right is to have multiple questions which can triangulate on the answers in the public such that the self-report bias is factored out.

I am not a psychological researcher, so I have no expertease in the vagaries of this stuff.

If you want a source, I invite you to tune into the Reasonable Doubts podcast, which has a regular segment entitled, God thinks like you which delves into precisely these questions from a analytical viewpoint, Done by a PhD psychologist who specializes in just these questions. You will learn loads and loads from "Doctor, Professor Luke", as the call him.

Sorry that I cannot help further, but if you haven't listened to Reasonable Doubts before, you may be in for a real surprise. It's my favorite non-believer podcast because all it talks about is religion. And a non-believer has to be educated about religion if he/she is to make a difference. BTW, all the RD hosts are non-believers.

Another of my favorites is The Bible Geek, Robert M. Price. He's a bit of a curmudgeon and more than a bit controversial. But he is has a compendious memory for the bible and is also a non-believing former evangelical. Fun stuff because he doesn't take himself too seriously. But the discussions are very, very deep.

Just thought I'd help. I know you'll like Reasonable Doubts. (The Bible Geek is even interviewed on one of the RD podcasts.)

Relax and enjoy, as Douglas Adams might have wrote.

[struggle4progress]

5. Bushbot Edwina Rogers directs the Secular Coalition for America

[SidDithers]

13. ...

Sid

[struggle4progress]

6. National Atheist Party seems to be a third party fringe group

[SidDithers]

14. ...

Sid

[joshcryer]

23. NAP? Haha, that's hilarious.

[struggle4progress]

7. Obama’s atheist problem

By Mark S. Mellman
06/26/12 06:41 PM ET

Fresh Gallup data make it clear that President Obama is hemorrhaging support among white atheists. The president’s vote is down 10 points since 2008 among whites who profess no religion—more than among any segment of non-Hispanic white voters, except single white men and non-Christian whites.

Atheists and non-Christian whites constitute some 13 percent of the overall electorate. Almost one in five white voters fell into this category in 2008. Put differently, this vital segment was as large as the African-American vote in 2008, and larger than the Latino vote. Consider another data point revealing the growth of this movement: A few years ago, Publishers Weekly reported that sales of atheist books were outstripping those of religious books. If any more confirmation of the trend were needed, Wiley & Sons will soon be publishing Atheism for Dummies ...

OK. STOP RIGHT THERE. All the facts in the first two paragraphs are true. Obama’s support among whites with no religion is down more than in all but a couple of subgroups of whites, and there are more of these folks than Latinos ...

Mellman is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982. Current clients include the Majority Leader of the Senate and the Democratic Whip in the House.

http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/mark-mellman/234909-obamas-atheist-problem

[SidDithers]

15. ...

Sid

[longship]

17. Meh! All one has to do is listen to Republicans.

I am not talking about Rmoney, or anybody on the national stage. I am talking about the state legislatures where the Republicans are pushing legislation in the most insidiously overt religious sense.

In my home state of MI two legislators were silenced for using the word vagina on the floor. The bill they opposed was probably put forth in overtly religious rhetoric, as these things always are at the local level. The SOBs can't stop witnessing for their god.

No non-believer who cares about their freedoms would ever vote for these douche bags in the Republican party. Those of us who have been politically active for decades saw it happening decades ago.

The last Republican I voted for was Nancy Landon Kassebaum for US Senate (R-KS). I did so twice. And I was a county Democratic party officer. I would like to hear what she would say about today's lunatic Republicans.

I wouldn't vote for a Republican today to save my life.

[struggle4progress]

18. The human facility for self-deception is often in play, I think

I, of course, am not immune to that tendency myself, but neither am I alone in that. There has never been any shortage of people willing to overlook all the evidence against their interpretation of events

I noticed this in the Nixon era when, even after the matter was resolved, many people seemed unable to accept that Nixon really WAS a liar willing to engage in all manner of criminal activity to win. And the end of the Vietnam war spawned a stabbed-in-the-back mythology in the US quite analogous to the stabbed-in-the-back mythology of Weimar many decades earlier, driven in both cases by human inability to face facts

It is unlikely that atheists in America form a monolithic political block. But it is also unlikely that the political views of atheists necessarily reflect the actual dangers presented to church-state separation doctrine, by the current crop of Republicans. People often vote against their interests in some ways, sometimes because they are confused, other times because they to balance conflicting issues. So, although I personally agree with you -- that one need only listen to Republicans to know one ought not vote for them -- I don't expect other people to behave in ways that I would find consistent

[longship]

21. Yes, mea culpa! There is always the Ayn Rand cult

Atheists all (or mostly so). But they love Ron Paul -- after all, he named his evil spawn after that greedy, selfish woman -- will steer some of them to the theocratic Republicans, and their tea party ignoramuses.

Anybody who's had run ins with the Rand cult knows what I am talking about. Christopher Hitchens published a book of atheist writings. He tried to get an Ayn Rand essay included. The idiots in the Rand cult wouldn't allow it. Pissed Hitchens off, too.

Get a bowl and milk, because libertarians are coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs.

[noamnety]

4. Two to one democrat:republican in 2004

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

and much higher in 2008: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/04/exit-polls-the-religion-factor/

[banned from Kos]

8. thank you! 67 - 31 for "us"

good find

[RedCappedBandit]

9. I have not seen such a poll either

Majority of my friends are atheists, and liberals.

Don't know any who are strictly conservative.

However, like another posted pointed out up thread, some atheists do tend to be the libertarian type.. misguided.

[salvorhardin]

10. Politics and Atheists

Last edited Mon Jul 16, 2012, 04:20 PM - Edit history (4)

Data can be found here: http://religions.pewforum.org/comparisons#





Note: Charts reformatted per Sid's suggestion

[SidDithers]

12. Good data, but those graphs are a terrible representation...nt

Sid

[salvorhardin]

16. You're welcome

How would you have represented the data?

[SidDithers]

20. The bars show what percentage of each political affiliation is made up of religious traditions...

Last edited Sun Jul 15, 2012, 01:54 AM - Edit history (1)

the Republican bar shows that of the "non-religous" who are republicans, a bit less than 1/3 are atheist, a bit more than 1/3 are agnostic and approx 1/3 are secularly unaffiliated.

But the labels on the republican bar show what percentage of all atheists are republican (10%), what percentage of all agnostics are republican (12%) and what percentage of all secularly unaffiliated are republicans (12%).

The labels don't match the bar graph.

The graph should have been done like this:



so it's clear that the vast majority of atheists, agnostics and secularly unaffiliated identify as Democrats or lean Democratic.

Sid

[Orangepeel]

22. Excellent job with that graph

[longship]

19. If this is self-report data, it's worthless.

Just asking questions on the phone doesn't give a survey statistical significance. Self-report data is notoriously suspect. When you ask people whether they believe in god, a significant number of non-believers will say, "yes".

Self-report data is worthless.