A survey by the Pew Research Center published last week revealed that Americans express increasingly warm feelings toward religious groups (other than theirs), meaning that overall Americans are becoming more tolerant.
A considerable amelioration in attitudes has been witnessed in only two and a half year from June 2014 to January 2017. Positive feelings increased by 3 to 9 percentage points towards all religious groups except Evangelical Christians, who are stable at 61% of positive opinions. The most dramatic increase in positive feelings was towards Atheists, toward whom the postive feelings jumped from 41% to 50%. This shows that Americans are finally getting more aligned with other Western countries, although there is still a long way to go (e.g. in the UK, over 50% of the population call themselves atheists/agnostics, and only a tiny fraction of the population harbours negative feelings towards Atheists).
As expected, this increasing tolerance comes from the younger generations. The trend in the US i very clear. Older people are the most intolerant toward non-Christians, and especially towards Muslims and Atheists (two groups that couldn't be more different from one another). In fact the Pew Survey is skewed in that they list Buddhists and Atheists separately, while Buddhism is by definition an Atheist philosophy/religion. Most Atheists are philosophically minded, and Buddhism is only one way of expressing it. In average 13.5% of Americans over 50 years old have considerably warmer feelings towards Buddhists than Atheists, without realising that they are both Atheists. If anything it shows that older Americans are more prone to bigotry and to jumping to conclusions based on labels, without understanding those labels.
The most interesting part of the survey, IMO, is how each religious group feels toward one another within the US. Here we see that the only two groups that hold mostly negative feelings towards one another are Atheists toward Evangelical Christians and vice versa. Unsurprisingly Atheists have only warm views of other Atheists and of Buddhists. It is understandable that some Atheists have a poorer image of Buddhists, as some schools of Buddhism are more prone to superstitions and irrationality (including many Mahayana schools like Pure Land). In all Christians groups, over half of the people surveyed had poor views of Atheists, and vice versa.
A considerable amelioration in attitudes has been witnessed in only two and a half year from June 2014 to January 2017. Positive feelings increased by 3 to 9 percentage points towards all religious groups except Evangelical Christians, who are stable at 61% of positive opinions. The most dramatic increase in positive feelings was towards Atheists, toward whom the postive feelings jumped from 41% to 50%. This shows that Americans are finally getting more aligned with other Western countries, although there is still a long way to go (e.g. in the UK, over 50% of the population call themselves atheists/agnostics, and only a tiny fraction of the population harbours negative feelings towards Atheists).
As expected, this increasing tolerance comes from the younger generations. The trend in the US i very clear. Older people are the most intolerant toward non-Christians, and especially towards Muslims and Atheists (two groups that couldn't be more different from one another). In fact the Pew Survey is skewed in that they list Buddhists and Atheists separately, while Buddhism is by definition an Atheist philosophy/religion. Most Atheists are philosophically minded, and Buddhism is only one way of expressing it. In average 13.5% of Americans over 50 years old have considerably warmer feelings towards Buddhists than Atheists, without realising that they are both Atheists. If anything it shows that older Americans are more prone to bigotry and to jumping to conclusions based on labels, without understanding those labels.
The most interesting part of the survey, IMO, is how each religious group feels toward one another within the US. Here we see that the only two groups that hold mostly negative feelings towards one another are Atheists toward Evangelical Christians and vice versa. Unsurprisingly Atheists have only warm views of other Atheists and of Buddhists. It is understandable that some Atheists have a poorer image of Buddhists, as some schools of Buddhism are more prone to superstitions and irrationality (including many Mahayana schools like Pure Land). In all Christians groups, over half of the people surveyed had poor views of Atheists, and vice versa.
