Comments on: “Atheist” Academics

By: Cliff Grammich

Cliff Grammich — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:23:55 +0000

ProjectMAPS.com has some analyses of the Muslim vote, particularly its sharp shift toward the Democrats in recent years. I’m looking forward to reading Peter Skerry’s forthcoming research on this topic as well.

By: Bo

Bo — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 07:43:27 +0000

What do muslims in the US vote? Does this faith fall naturally somewhere on the R-D “!continuum”?

By: Cliff Grammich

Cliff Grammich — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 10:57:06 +0000

Good question on the connection between religion and politics. Yes, there is one. Gross and Simmons promise further analysis of the topic, but note that, “Whereas 36.5 percent of professors who are not born-again Christians can be classified as strong Democrats, this is true of only 13.2 percent of born-again Christians. Likewise, whereas only 13.3 percent of non-born-again Christians in the professoriate are Republicans of any stripe, this is true of 57.6 percent of born-again Christians. While some liberal born-again Christians can be found in the professoriate, the vast majority appear to be conservatives, at least as measured by party affiliation. Looking at religious belief more generally, we find that 90.1 percent of Republican professors say they believe in God, as compared to 42.6 percent of non-Republicans. This suggests that what conservative political presence there is in academe is very often bound up with religion.”

I’ve never quite understood why the connection between “conservative” religion and modern Republicanism exists (or why it exists for some times and places but not others, contravening examples arguably including William Jennings Bryan or, more recently, that of religious African Americans in the United States), but that’s another topic for another time, I suppose . . .

By: Allen

Allen — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 23:46:55 +0000

To sum it all up, and to enlighten those who just dont get it, just remember this: Greater is he that is in me, than he that is in the WORLD.

By: Peter Klein

Peter Klein — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 23:32:47 +0000

To what extent is religious belief part of a bundle of characteristics, i.e., a larger belief system or world view? Based on the information in your third bullet point above, the most devout disciplines are accounting, elementary education, finance, marketing, art, criminal justice, and nursing. Curiously, in the survey of academics’ political affiliations we reported on earlier finance, accounting, marketing, and nursing (but not education or art) are among the disciplines with the lowest Democrat-to-Republican ratio. Psychology and biology, the least devout, are high on the D-to-R scale. Do you suppose there’s a connection?

By: Cliff Grammich

Cliff Grammich — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 23:01:08 +0000

There are at least two broad competing theories used to explain differences in religiosity between the United States and the rest of (?) the modern world. One, as mentioned in an earlier post, is the market hypothesis (e.g., Finke and Stark). This suggests U.S. religion thrives more because there is a more free market for it here, and with no single state-preferred options, as in many European nations. The other (e.g., Inglehart and Norris) suggests higher inequality in the United States and a corresponding need for an institution to deal with the effects of this lead to higher religiosity. Some day I’d like to test these at the county level in the United States. Do counties with more vibrant religious “markets” or greater inequality have more religiosity? I’ve yet to think through how, if at all, either theory would affect religiosity of the professoriate. Anyway, I think proponents of the “inequality” thesis would agree with you that the United States hasn’t joined the “modern world” on these issues.

I’m not broadly familiar with the literature on the effects of religiosity on health, but I’m not sure that I can agree that there is “no apparent evidence of attending church leading to better (or longer) life.” For example, work by Chris Ellison and his colleagues at UT-Austin has explored connections between religious involvement and risks of mortality in the United States, with particular focus on racial and ethnic minorities. They found a difference in life expectancy of seven to eight years between those who reported attending religious services more than once weekly and those who said they never attend, with even greater differences for African Americans. (See, for example, Research in Aging, 22(6):630-667). I suppose the result for African Americans may provide some support for a theory of religion as a compensation for inequality. I should add, however, that Ellison, with whom I’m pleased to be working on some projects, is skeptical about the “inequality leads to religiosity” hypothesis.

I agree that decreases in worship service attendance or affiliation with a given religious body does not necessarily mean decreases in religiosity or spirituality. This is one of the points Mike Hout and Claude Fischer make in their analysis of the rise of the “nones,” claiming the rising proportion of persons claiming affiliation with no formal religious tradition has more to do with politics than piety (but see also remarks in an earlier post on how churches whose politics are seemingly opposed to their host counties haven’t necessarily suffered in recent decades).

By: Bo

Bo — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 21:21:04 +0000

Interesting discussion indeed. I think the implied correlation between church attendance and religious beliefs is somewhat problematic in the modern, fast-paced IT addicted world. While I offer no claim to know why marketing professors in the US believe in God yet do not find it worthwhile to attend church (although one could speculate that marketing professors are not really religious but rather intriqued by the great marketing stunt that christianity has pulled off over the past 2000+ years without any solid evidence), I do think that for Denmark at least, most people do not attend church because the institution as such has lost its meaning - people will go for special occasions only but select against church-going among choices due to a time constraint and no apparent evidence of attending church leading to better (or longer) life. But does this mean that they do not believe in God? Perhaps not, perhaps the church as an institution has lost its appeal and religion has become more individual and less attached to a building or a priest etc. I know many Danish people who believe in some kind of divine force, yet they do not formulate this in the sense of the bible literally and certainly do not see any connection between their beliefs and an old building - why would a church offer you more spirituality than other places etc? Some people, of course, also turn to online churces etc..

My sense is that - at least in Denmark - the church as an institution has lost its appeal and relevance to most people. The void that the church filled in people´s lifes in the past can no longer be filled by the church - the value-added of spending time and effort going to church is less than the cost and so in a society driven by efficiency and time-constraints - people simply select against the church. BUT I am not sure this is equal to not being religious (or at least spiritual) - only people define and live out this spirituality differently in the modern world. (and yes I am saying implicitly that the US is not the modern world when it comes to spirituality and religion but this is a different discussion grounded in anthropology, history and political science, among other thins)..