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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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Mildly Interesting
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33% have a college degree yet only 3% are atheist. That's batshit crazy. I can't imagine having the critical thinking skills needed for a degree and not using those skills to figure out that god is a fairy tale.
Yes I know lots of educated people are religious - I had several christian professors when I was studying mathematics / computer science. That doesn't make it any less crazy to me.
I think you are overestimating the intelligence required to get a degree in this country, also lots of intelligent people have religious beliefs of some level.
And most people who don't necessarily believe in god or practice any religion still respond to such questions with whatever religion they were born into because it's not important enough to them to take a hard stance like calling themselves atheist, or maybe they choose to be agnostic so they might not pick the atheist option.
My point is lots of factors go into surveys like these, they don't necessarily paint a super accurate picture, since any type of survey will have some external and internal biases and sampling issues baked into them
What's not represented in the graph.. I think you'll find a large portion of agnostics and "cultural Christians". I.e. people who go to church because they're raised that way in their community expects it.
Even if you don't go to church if you were raised going to church and then stopped, you still might call yourself a [cultural] Christian.
Also being atheist has a bad reputation attached to it for some people, so someone who meets the definition might not self identify as one.
Similarly I expect that's also why there are a fewer percentage of Democrats than there are Republicans. I may have voted down ballot for only Democrats, but am I a DNC supporting Democrat? Not really.
Mt wife consider herself catholic but never goes to the church and live her life exactly like mine as an Atheist (doing drugs on techno parties). For the majority of people is just something they don't really think about and just consider themselves wharever religion just because they grow up in it.
Because you don't need critical thinking skills for a degree.
This is the correct answer....tons of degrees are worth less than the paper they're printed on. College has become a grown up playground for many people. Probably 50% of the people who go, probably shouldn't and should have went to trade schools to learn something that's useful vs getting a degree in management.
Being part of a Religion has social benefits, so don't be surprised if a lot of those non-Atheists don't trully believe it but participate in it because it's good for them or because of social pressure.
Certainly, and speaking in terms of Christians which is the ones I'm more familiar with, considering the number of people who actual strictly even just try to follow ALL the teachings of Jesus or even all of the 10 commandments, almost all "Religious" people pick and chose which parts they believe and which they don't.
(In modern society Greed and Envy by themselves are probably regularly broken by 99% of Christians).
I get this one. Many years ago a former wife tried to convert me. I started going to chruch, bible studies etc. and after a while I realised that none of the people I was with actually believed anything - they were just going through the motions doing the stuff you need to do to stay in the club.
Others are bringing up good points, but one of the biggest reasons is many people are idiot savants. Smart in one or two areas and complete fucking morons in everything else.
Einstein believed in god.
That depends on your definition of the word "god". Einstein certainly wasn't an Abrahamist, he was a pantheist. He believed the entire universe was comprised by a divine whole.
You shouldn't use "god" as a proper noun. No one being owns the concept of being a god. You're just legitimising Abrahamism, you're not helping the atheist cause. Helping Abrahamists erase polytheism doesn't lead to more atheism, it leads to more Abrahamists.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. I have god, not God. I know because I was typing on my phone and it autocorrected to God three times and I had to go back and fix it.
It should say "gods are a fairy tale". "god is a fairy tale" is misleading grammar if you don't mean there's one. You wouldn't say "gremlin is a fairy tale", you'd say "gremlins are a fairy tale".