Using the General Social Science Survey and the GOD and POLVIEWS variables….
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Meta
That’s a very curious graph, DH. It seems to show that intensity of belief peaks in the middle of the range, i.e. at maximum political wishy-washiness. The passionately liberal and the passionately conservative alike seem to have only feeble religious convictions.
Perhaps there is some sort of conservation principle at work — you can’t hold passionate convictions about more than one thing. Yet that doesn’t seem right …
Mr. Bradlaugh,
Excuse the formatting, but here are raw data:
Extremeley Liberal 7.5 5.4 5 3.1 2.1 2.2
Liberal 28.5 18.3 19.5 14.5 13.3 8.6
Slightly Liberal 11.6 20.6 18.4 10.3 14.9 11.1
Moderate 29 32.2 35 41.4 37.9 38.6
Slightly Conservative 10.6 13.4 13.4 17.7 18.8 15.7
Conservative 10.8 8.5 6.3 12.1 11.1 19.5
Extremeley Conservative 1.9 1.6 2.4 1 1.9 4.3
The header for values left to right are:
Don’t Believe
No Way To Find Out
Some Higher Power
Believe Sometimes
Believe But Doubts
Know God Exists
The GOD and POLVIEWS variabes can be taken ordinally. If I do so, and limit from the middle of the spectrum (moderate) to each extreme, here are the correlations between God existence confidence and POLVIEWS
Extrem Lib – Moderate = 0.17
Moderate – Extreme Conserv = 0.09
This implies that there is some correlation between belief in existence of God (1-6( scale for the aforementioned categories and moderation. And, there is some correlation between belief in God and conservatism, as the political scale is 1-7, from liberal to conservative.
Yours,
DH
I love the Corner and am thrilled you’ve started this blog. I think ‘Religious Based Values’ will lose the party more elections. However, please note, one can be a secularist and still believe in God. Religion/belief/faith should be private. Personal religious beliefs simply make bad Public Policy.
Blargh, Bradlaugh, it doesn’t say that at all. It says *nothing* about intensity of belief besides the distribution of intense believers (the dark blue “disbeliever” and the light blue “confident believer” lines). The peak in the middle of *all* the lines implies “most people are politically wishy-washy, regardless of their religious beliefs”. This is not surprising. The leftwards peak in the disbeliever line implies “disbelief in God and left-wing politics is a more common combination than others”. The rightwards peak in the “confident believer” line implies “confident belief in God and right-wing politics is a more common combination than others”. The slumps on the extremes of politics imply “few people of any religious belief are political ideologues”.
The only interesting thing I read off that graph is that the left-wing politics are somewhat more pronounced among outright disbelievers than right-wing politics are among committed believers.
Interesting data, but what do you want to do with it?
Seems to me that what the secular right want is some respect and acceptance by the religious right. But is that possible? And will the secular right or the non believing right ever accept the non believers?
I believe gays make their situtation worse by being so confrontational, and non believers are doing ok because they don’t make an issue of it. Better to be part of the moderate majority who may or may not believe but agree that this country should preserve its historic, if not its Constitutional, separation of church and state. As long as the non believers don’t put the moderate believers in a position of being unwilling to associate themselves with nonbelievers, those of us who want to respect the views of all with out having the views of any imposed on all of us will do ok.
I hope.
I am no scholar, but the graph seems to me to reveal that middle of the road types believe in neither Politic nor Religion. It also appears that a ‘lack of passionate convictions’ runs rampant in the middle. Maybe “wishy-washiness” translates into “tired of it all-iness”. Just saying…
I am no scholar, but the graph seems to me to reveal that middle of the road types believe in neither Politic nor Religion. It also appears that a ‘lack of passionate convictions’ runs rampant in the middle. Maybe “wishy-washiness” translates into “tired of it all-iness”. Just saying…
GL
That’s about what I would have guessed. People who identify as moderates/independents are much likelier than any other group to have given very little thought to politics. I don’t think it’s a stretch to suppose that such people are not very inclined to do any kind of deep religious thinking, and so they’ll tend to believe the things they were told to believe as children. That’ll kill atheism and pull the others toward “Know God Exists”
That’s a very curious graph, DH. It seems to show that intensity of belief peaks in the middle of the range, i.e. at maximum political wishy-washiness. The passionately liberal and the passionately conservative alike seem to have only feeble religious convictions.
I think it’s showing that almost all people — whether they believe in god or not — tend to be centrists, politically. It’s not necessarily showing that there aren’t passionately religious (or atheistic) extremists, just that there aren’t many of them so the raw numbers are small as you move to the extremes.
Sorry, by “many of them,” I meant “many extremists.”
You have charted the data improperly. The numbers on the y-axis need to add to 100% for each of the points on the x-axis, but they don’t. The data is telling us how the political affiliation breaks down within each belief category, not how belief breaks down based on political affiliation.
The way to interpret the data, based on your table in the comment above, is as follows:
Among people who don’t believe, 47.6% are liberals of some kind, 29% are moderate, and 23.3% are conservatives of some kind. At the other extreme, among people who know God exists, 21.9% are liberal, 38.6% are moderate, and 39.5% are conservative.
It’s interesting that for “No Way to Find Out” and “Some Higher Power,” the splits are not that different from the data for “Don’t Believe”. They are 44.3/32.2/23.5 and 42.9/35/22.1, respectively. Meanwhile, among those who “Believe Sometimes” or “Believe but [have] Doubts” there is a slight tilt toward being conservative, but only slight: 27.9/41.4/30.8 and 30.3/37.9/31.8.
I’m a liberal, a neuroscientist, and an atheist. It is refreshing to see not all conservatives are bass-ackwards stupid. Please do us a favor and take over the Republican Party.
Though I find your position on homosexuality disturbing and, since you guys are apparently not religious, I don’t know why you’re anti-gay marriage at all. I don’t think, from the data we have and what we know, that, for example, children with two fathers or two mothers are in any way significantly different from children with a father and a mother. (Certainly, Massachusetts has not disappeared in the stormy holocaust that the religionists want to inflict on them.)
Srsly, the slippery slope argument falls through, there is no data connecting homosexuality to pedophilia (one of the more prominent sexologists in the world says pedophiles really aren’t either heterosexual OR homosexual, actually; they actually have slightly more rigid models of what they prefer – and the ones that have adult relationships at all seem to get into ones with the opposite sex), and frankly, the homophobes’ argument falls flat. Besides which, hate is not good. And it’s already legal in plenty of countries in the world and they haven’t disappeared into oblivion – it has no impact on the economy and, in fact, actually might stimulate the economy (California was anticipated to gain several hundred million dollars from same sex marriages) – it’s free enterprise, bitches! And I hear you guys love free enterprise. (I’m neither a capitalist nor a socialist.)
Though I find your position on homosexuality disturbing and, since you guys are apparently not religious, I don’t know why you’re anti-gay marriage at all.
Ms.
We don’t march in lockstep! Please do no presuppose uniformity of opinion!
Secondly, irreligiosity entails nothing but irreligiosity, just as religiosity entails nothing but religiosity. What does not believing in god have to do with social policy positions? Secularity does not entail unified presuppositions on issues not related secularity.
You have charted the data improperly. The numbers on the y-axis need to add to 100% for each of the points on the x-axis, but they don’t. The data is telling us how the political affiliation breaks down within each belief category, not how belief breaks down based on political affiliation.
Sir,
Each line represents a belief category. Ergo, x1 … xn ~ 100. the GSS presumably has rounding errors and “Do Not Know.”
David –
I got the notion from an earlier post on the blog, and I am aware that not all secular conservatives hold that position. In fact, I have no idea of what the general makeup of opinions among secular conservatives is.
I’d say secularism does predispose one to certain beliefs about certain issues. Many people who have certain beliefs about certain issues seem to be driven to those beliefs by their religiosity. As a whole, I’d say atheists tend to be far more liberal about non-fiscal things than religionists.
My experience has been that most athiests are super liberal or libertarians. They don’t want to be associated with God in any way, and that scares them from the Republican party. They “know” God doesn’t exist, and therefore Republican credibility is shot, and they don’t even give them a chance on any other issues.
Many of them are whacked out conspiracy theorists though, which I think is a result of the deep seeded mistrust that they have of authority, probably from their parents shoving God down their throats.
As a whole, I’d say atheists tend to be far more liberal about non-fiscal things than religionists.
Ms.,
In the United States, yes. Not so in South Korea, where the social Left is often Christian, because *they* are the radicals. The point being that cultural context and historical contingency matter.
Best
Ryan K. . . do you believe the Left doesn’t use their “beliefs” to make bad Public Policy, irrespective of it’s lack of religion?
The Left believes that blacks and hispanics are inferior; hence, affirmative action policies that put minority students into universities they are unqualified for, resulting in higher drop out rates than if they’d entered less rigorous schools.
The Left believe in man-made global cooling, no, warming, no, climate change. . . so we need to ban SUV’s, hair spray, and Freon.
Incidentally, I believe in climate change too. . . it’s called Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall.
The Left believes in rights that do not exists (i.e. gay marriage, abortion, universal health care), and do not affirm that ones that do exist (i.e. 2nd Amendment).
Private beliefs lead to public positions, but it should not be the only argument. If a religious idea is good for society, one should be able to make a secular reason for it.
I understand exactly how the graph is set up. What I’m saying is that it lends itself to being misinterpreted quite easily, such as Mr. Derbyshire’s comments that:
That’s a very curious graph, DH. It seems to show that intensity of belief peaks in the middle of the range, i.e. at maximum political wishy-washiness. The passionately liberal and the passionately conservative alike seem to have only feeble religious convictions.
It doesn’t tell us that at all. As I said, the data does not tell us about the religious convictions of people based on their political views. It tells us about the political views of people based on their religious convictions. And what it says is that within every single belief category, more people describe themselves as “moderate” than as anything else (although among the “don’t believe” group, “liberal” comes very close to matching “moderate”).
On Homosexuality, especially the comment:”I believe gays make their situation worse by being so confrontational. . .”
You’re kidding, right? You are advising people to meekly take the trampling of their Natural Rights. How well would it go over if you told an African American to be quiet and get in place until the right time. It’s an outrageous and ignorant opinion. Just because we’re gay doesn’t mean we’re going to take it, buddy. People need to realize that there is a HUMAN cost here, that this affects peoples lives, and not just a tiny fraction. You can only stomp on us so much before we get pissed, believe me.
Furthermore, as to a uniformity of opinion, I agree there isn’t any. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any logic or reason regarding your positions on the GLBT Community either! Most of the incoherent anti-gay rambling that comes from the Right seems to be reactionary or emotionally based. There are no logical arguments here–and for God’s sake please recognize that your beliefs do not limit another person’s freedom. I would encourage you to read the following and think about it: http://restorationrevolution.blogspot.com/2008/11/for-stuart-and-john.html
We need to have the freedom to disagree or disapprove of and yet still live differently. Your view of freedom should not be binding on others. As for the arguments against Equal Marriage Rights–none of them even remotely make sense. (1. It’s just plan wrong, and. . . .so what? That’s just your thought. 2. It will lead to bad social effect. You’re kidding me, right? ) How would allowing others equality under the laws of a secular nation affect your relationships? Do you really want to use Constitutions to take away freedoms and enshrine one religious position? Sounds like Iran might be your kind of place after all.
–A Gay Republican who has HAD IT with the discontinuity on the Right regarding GLBT issues. The philosophy of the movement is coherent until it gets to this issue, and then it just flips out for no reason.
Jared –
Oh, dang. Let me explain to you why you’re wrong:
– Global warming: Science, let me show you it. If you have not seen the staggering die-off rates of many species whose presence is necessary to keep certain ecosystems alive or the sea level rise which is currently threatening the citizens of the Maldives (they’re looking into buying land in Australia), you should probably read about it. There is no question that humans are impacting global warming; there may be differences between people on degree. A policy of MINIMIZING impact on climate (live WITH the environment, not against it!) is necessary.
– Gay marriage: Honestly, there is no good reason to be against it other than being an idiot traditionalist or a religidiot.
– Affirmative action: You seem to have a very deep misunderstanding of the issues. I am personally not supportive of affirmative action myself, but the left does not think blacks and hispanics are inferior. The problem is a misunderstanding of the data that has come out on these groups and also a misunderstanding of where the support needs to go. The onus should be put on these communities, with adequate assistance from the government, to change the way they raise people, and the government needs to crack down on any instance of inequality (profiling, unequal punishments in convictions, et cetera) they inflict on them. (I find it disgusting that some white people get off more scot free on some crimes than black people who commit the same crimes.)
Wow, Jared, you’re really off base on most of your rant. You do the rest of us a disservice by calling yourself a conservative. What you are is an irrational bigot.
@Ryan K.
love the Corner and am thrilled you’ve started this blog. I think ‘Religious Based Values’ will lose the party more elections. However, please note, one can be a secularist and still believe in God. Religion/belief/faith should be private. Personal religious beliefs simply make bad Public Policy.
Faith should be private? Fine. Would that you felt the same way about sexual orientation. How is it that we already know yours?? Good grief.
Gay marriage: Honestly, there is no good reason to be against it other than being an idiot traditionalist or a religidiot.
Katherine,
Can you please hold the insults? As a point of fact, there are *some* non-religious people who oppose gay marriage (I know of them myself!). They often make naturalistic arguments, not supernaturalistic ones. Just as there are *some* evangelicals (I know of them myself!) who support gay marriage on supernaturaistic grounds.
General trends may be true, but let’s be cautious about dividing the light from the dark, shall we?
Best
DH
Also –
Science works. Please listen to it. We in science are utterly fed up with people who don’t have the background spewing complete and utter bullshit. If you want to know what’s going on and what general opinion is, consult American scientific organizations such as the SfN, the AMA, the APA, SEforA, etc. for positions developed by we who know our shit.
Regarding changing the definition of marriage, I quote Dennis Prager with the following:
“. . . no religious or secular moral system ever advocated same-sex marriage. Whereas advocating interracial marriage was advocating something approved of by every religious and secular moral tradition of America and the West, advocating same-sex marriage does the very opposite — it advocates something that defies every religious and secular moral tradition.
Those who advocate redefining marriage are saying that every religious and secular tradition is immoral. They have no problem doing this because they believe they are wiser and finer people than all the greatest Jewish, Christian and humanist thinkers who ever lived.
But as objectionable as hubris is, false comparisons are worse.
Males and females are inherently different from one another. We now know that even their brains differ. And those differences are significant. Thus, to oppose interracial marriage is indeed to engage in bigotry, but to oppose same-sex marriage is not. It simply shares the wisdom of every moral system that preceded us — society is predicated on men and women bonding with one another in a unique way called “marriage.”
Comparing the prohibition of same-sex marriage to prohibiting interracial marriage is ultimately a way of declaring the moral superiority of proponents of same-sex marriage to proponents of keeping marriage defined as man-woman.
And it is a way of avoiding hard issues such as whether we really want all children to grow up thinking it doesn’t matter if they marry a boy or a girl and whether we really want to abolish forever the ideal of husband-wife based family.”
Full article here: http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0708/prager071508.php3
David –
The ‘naturalistic’ arguments they have generally are not supported by evidence.
Well Ivan, the moment my Religious freedom becomes the object of public bashing and discriminatory government practices I’ll be sure to speak up about it.
This has become a very public issue, mentioned several times on this blog, and I get to stand up for my people as representative of them. As soon as this is no longer a societal issue I’ll shut up.
You need to be exposed to identified GLBT people so that you can know who they are. As an AA to shut up about being black, please.
Also, the assertion that faith should be private is just that, my assertion. Unlike you, I don’t expect my personal beliefs or opinions to be binding on the rest of the world.
Bradlaugh:
Dennis Prager has observed that leftism (and environmentalism and other “isms” of the left) seems to serve as a surrogate religion to a population that has abandoned traditional religion. Perhaps there are right-wing “isms” that substitute for religion on the right, as well.
Mr. Hume, I apologize for using the word bigot, in advance. As for Mr. Riggs–he continually fails to see the point that personal opinions are not entitled to define basic freedoms. Maybe I think it’s a terrible thing for you to be white, or obnoxious, but my belief don’t dictate your rights. Forcing conformity to a narrowly defined set of acceptable practices is called totalitarianism. . .
Wow. That’s some serious anger there Kat. I’m speaking from personal experience, so I don’t feel compelled to provide you with any evidence nor to I feel the need to “shut the fuck up”.
As an atheist myself, I don’t know where you’re getting the godbot thing, but your warm and sweet attitude is sure to attract others to your cause, whatever it may be.
Katharine may be working from a caricature of religious people, which I find depressingly common on the left. According to many on the left, the religious — especially evangelical Christians, undergo an operation in childhood wherein their brains are extracted and replaced with the King James Bible. In this theory, the only reason anyone would oppose same-sex marriage is that he has undergone this operation, and as soon as the subject comes up, the “Do Not Lie With A Man As A Woman” tape plays.
Can anyone give a non-religious argument in opposition to Equal Marriage Rights for GLBT people? That’s why she equates it.
@Ryan K.
Also, the assertion that faith should be private is just that, my assertion. Unlike you, I don’t expect my personal beliefs or opinions to be binding on the rest of the world.
Touchy, aren’t we! And rash, it seems. I clearly expressed the opinion that I wished YOU kept your sexual orientation to yourself. I said nothing about it being “binding on the rest of the world”. You have a huge chip on your shoulder, it seems. I recommend some quiet self-reflection, before you get the vapors.
Ryan, your use of the word bigot is reactionary at best. You do not like my position (personal or public) and hence refer to me as bigoted.
Your beliefs don’t dictate my rights, but you do believe I’m both white AND obnoxious(funny how that dig is thrown in there, where my parents are immigrants from both Central America and Europe, somehow my race just became part of your argument).
Forcing conformity to a narrowly defined set of acceptable practices is called society. You cannot murder. You cannot steal. Those are both narrowly defined (they are absolutes, in fact).
No society, not even the Greeks, had a concept of gay marriage. In fact, the Greeks had wives for making babies and keeping their households, and then they had male friends for “sport”.
Natural law doesn’t give me the right to marry my sister. Nor does it give me the right to marry three women, though polygamy has a much longer historical background through many societies until very recently. Why not argue for the legalization of polygamy, if it is simply discrimatory?
And you’re condescension is clearly as bad as mine. Forgive me for being worked up after a bad election session and rampant GLBT demonizing going on within the party I love so dearly. I get to be preachy–no one else is defending the cause.
“Why not argue for the legalization of polygamy, if it is simply discriminatory?”
Sure go for it. Why is it any of my business?
Does it really matter is any previous society had a concept of SSM? Not really–previous societies had well ingrained concepts of slavery and yet that has changed. We cannot cling to irrational tradition merely for its own sake.
Your comparison of my statement to murder/theft is hyperbole in its grandest incarnation.
There is no universal consensus regarding SSM–I am merely making the Natural Rights argument because it’s the strongest in terms of human freedom.
Can you distinguish gay relationships from straight ones? The only distinction seems to be that in one of them the sexes are opposite, everything else, EVERYTHING (iterations, social unit, family, property ownership) is the same withing a gay relationship.
What we are taking about here is not a social or religious institution, but a government sanctioned contract that should be open to all people. If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get one, but who are you to stop us from signing on the dotted line?
interactions*
@Ryan K.
I’ll let the readers of the forum judge my condescension.
But there’s nothing wrong with defending your cause.
I’d cite the patron saint of lost causes for you, but I’m Baptist (no Saints, and we dunk) so I have no idea who it may be; besides, it might make some of the others on the site turn into a pillar of salt.
The condescension comment was for Ivan.
Mr. Riggs, I do not believe you’re white–I was using it as an example. You have, however, proven yourself obnoxious, in my humble opinion.
Really baseless and inflammatory Mr. Riggs–and I seriously doubt the cause of freedom is hopeless. GLBT issues are natural rights issue and I believe they will prevail. Freedom always should.
Regarding opposition to gay marriage.
There can be no clear-cut, non-question-begging argument as to why one should oppose it.
Marriage is a social institution. We can define it however we want.
Whatever society agrees is “marriage” is, in fact “marriage.”
However, a secular conservative might wonder whether or not its a good idea to define a universal and ancient social institution.
He might wonder whether or not such a redifinition might simply be the beginning of a process that ends with marriage being, for all practical purposes, meaningless.
He might not be sure he likes that prospect very much, but being agnostic about it, and having a job, he won’t be dedicating long hours to preventing this redifinition thing from happening.
So, he will almost certainly watch it with a vague queasy feeling as the redefinition happens.
And his grandchildren will get to find out if his misgivings were well-founded.
Marriage is based on Love–Love will not cease to exist, nor will it ever be meaningless.
All right. Very funny guys.
Adding typos and grammatical scew-ups to my post after I submitted it.
Reeeel mature.
I disagree.
I believe there are good reasons to oppose same-sex marriage (SSM). (N.B.: I call it “same-sex marriage” because gays have just as much of a right to marry as “breeders” do. They just can’t violate the definition of marriage, which involves opposite-sex pairings.)
Most arguments against SSM start in the wrong place — “why not extend marriage to same-sex partners?” I think we really have to start with a more basic question: Why have marriage at all? Especially in our modern culture, do we need a special institution to track paternity, arrange for custodial care, and manage inheritance?
When I ask this question, people’s responses wind up drifting back to family structure, and particularly the raising of children. Same-sex pairings wind up at a disadvantage because they do not, by default, result in children.
Although same-sex couples can, at least in principle, adopt, there remains the question of whether either sex contributes anything to the environment in which childraising occurs that the other sex doesn’t. Are fathers really superfluous? Can two mothers provide everything a father won’t be around to provide? Can two fathers fill the void left by an absent mother? If you believe the sexes are identical, except for plumbing and socializing, you may make this case. I believe there are more profound differences than mere plumbing.
I also propose that marriage — in particular the nuclear family — forms the pattern around which society forms. And I suspect, though can’t prove, that we see opposite sex marriage as nearly exclusively as we do because it generates more stable societies. Various realms may relax the standards and allow SSM, and it may not have any noticeable effect that year, or even that decade. But I suspect that messing with the nucleus around which a society aggregates matters in the long run.
I’m an atheist. I think religion needs to stay FAR, FAR AWAY from government. I do not want, for example, a dominionist running the NIH, because frankly, their ideas, especially those of their ideas which they might apply to their direction of NIH, are unproven and utterly dangerous. We cannot have non-materialism or non-naturalism in government. (Regarding the NIH, we in neuroscience depend on them for our livelihood, so whoever runs it has to have a good knowledge of science and uphold scientific principles, including at the very least METHODOLOGICAL naturalism and materialism.)
Jared, you have NO grasp of ‘natural law’. The concept does not exist. Incest, for example, may be antithetical to genetic diversity and generally produce people whose mental and physical attributes leave much to be desired, but there is no codified ‘natural law’, just things which are evolutionarily advantageous or deleterious. I suspect your knowledge of evolution and what is evolutionarily advantageous or deleterious is quite lacking, though.
When I ask this question, people’s responses wind up drifting back to family structure, and particularly the raising of children. Same-sex pairings wind up at a disadvantage because they do not, by default, result in children.”
Here you have a point, but beyond the rearing of children, marriage conveys a set of particular Rights–advocacy for you spouse in times of danger, testimonial privileges, tax issues, property inheritance, medical authority, etc. Even though you may say Same-Sex couples can sign other documents to get those rights, it is simply not true. Over 1,100 Federal “Rights” are conveyed to married couples, and even in my state, Durable Medical Powers of Attorney are only recognized at the discretion of the hospital. Inheritance can be contested through probate. While marriage initially formed to rear children, it has taken on greater meaning, and denying it to Same-sex couples causes them severe difficulty in their pursuit of happiness.
Once again, the reason or social history does not matter. Natural Rights are Rights. I have a right to marry (SC), “the person of my own choosing” (CSC)–this is settled law. The point of Natural Rights is that Rights are inherent to the person–other’s opinions of your rights do not define them.
What’s really interesting is that the overall “lean” on that chart is definitely centre-left; could it be that America is not really the centre-right country we keep hearing about in the media?!
Mr. Lembke, one must also ask about marriage in terms of heterosexual couples who cannot or choose not to have children/adopt. What is the point of marriage between these two people then and why would they be allowed to enter into it? The entire purpose of marriage surely cannot be procreation, can it?