Profiling Atheist World Views in Different Cultural Contexts: Developmental Trajectories and Accounts

Abstract

In the current study, we look at atheist or secular identities in different religious landscapes: In the U.S., the majority of the population indicates a belief in God. In West Germany, one third of the population reports no religious affiliation and a quarter identifies as "not religious," and in East Germany, most of the population explicitly identifies as atheist. Drawing on atheist worldview and identity literature from multiple disciplines, and using quantitative and qualitative data obtained in the U.S. and Germany during the "Bielefeld-based Cross-Cultural Study on the Semantics and Psychology of Spirituality," we examine self-identified atheists. First, self-identified atheist participants are portrayed quantitatively based on constructs expected to highlight differences between atheists and other "nones" and religious or spiritual persons: openness, a personality trait (NEO-FFI) documented to be higher in nonbelievers, positive relations, a dimension of eudaimonic well-being as indicator of social integration, generativity, concern for the welfare of future generations, and experiences of transcendence or "mysticism." Second, four case studies are presented that illustrate the wide range of distinct atheist beliefs, biographical experiences, and ideological positions by examining individuals' subjective definitions of "religion" and "spirituality" and personal interviews. The semistructured Faith Development Interview (FDI; Fowler, 1981) examines vertical and horizontal transcendence. By drawing on examples from our interviews, we show different descriptions of one's atheist worldview or "faith" in autobiographical remembering and reasoning. Thus, we work from a nomothetic toward an idiographic comparative perspective.

Worldview Under Stress: Preliminary Findings on Cardiovascular and Cortisol Stress Responses Predicted by Secularity, Religiosity, Spirituality, and Existential Search

“…More recent studies suggested that different degrees of atheism and agnosticism can be held and that these are consistently linked to various beliefs and attitudes (Schnell 2015 ). Furthermore, individuals who share the conviction that no god or higher power exists may still hold very different worldviews, as has been shown with regard to meaning in life (Schnell and Keenan 2011 ), spirituality (Schnell and Keenan 2013 ), and several other characteristics (Keller et al 2018 ).…”

Mapping Religion's Other: A Review of the Study of Nonreligion and Secularity

“…Though still in early stages, some scholars are now focusing on the substantive and positive beliefs of atheists and nonreligious people (as opposed only to what they do not believe) as they construct meaning around “big questions” by examining the social contexts in which they develop their views (Baker and Smith ; Lee ), the ways in which identity, disposition, and sets of beliefs across cultures become constitutive of worldview (Coleman, Hood, and Streib ; Keller et al. ), as well as the relationship of nontheism and nonreligion to other worldview systems including humanism, existentialism, and even analytic philosophy (see Bullivant and Ruse ). Research has already shown the centrality of science, critical thinking, and skepticism to atheists and other nonreligious individuals (Hunsberger and Altemeyer ; Smith ) and how their religious counterparts tend to have less confidence in science (Sherkat ).…”