The English anthropologist Edward Dutton indicates that using right-wing politics as a proxy for religiosity, there is evidence that atheists are less attractive and he pointed out that right-wing politicians are more likely to have symmetrical faces according to a study.[2]
The American contrarian blog Half Sigma declared about atheism and social outcasts:
“ | ...atheists are most likely to live alone.
This is not surprising. Atheists are less desirable...partners. I observed this once when I was living in Washington, DC, and I wandered by an atheist convention happening on the mall. The atheist were predominately male, and significantly uglier than average. This is because ugly people become social outcasts, and social outcasts are more likely to be attracted to outcast movements like atheism, libertarianism, communism, etc. Jay Fink writes: If you are attractive and have a good social life you will generally not be interested in out of the mainstream groups or ideas. Why buck the status quo when it's working in your interests?[3] |
” |
In the Western World, atheists have lower marriage rates (see: Atheism and marriage). In addition, compared to deeply religious cultures where an extended family and a sense of community often exists, secular countries are often lonelier societies (See: Atheism and loneliness).
The Audacious Epigone blog, which specializes in collecting data relative to stereotypes, writes about atheists having an above average propensity to live in single person households:
“ | The low rates of multiple person households is part of the explanation, but the high number of lone wolves among their ranks illustrates their social marginality in another way relative to the cognitive endowments they enjoy. This does little to dispel stereotype I hold of atheists as cynical, single white guys who live in apartments downtown, work at used record stores, love George Carlin, and watch Adult Swim.[4] | ” |
The atheist PZ Myers, quoting fellow leftist Alex Nichols, said that jibes associating outspoken atheists with neckbeards (among other things) caused many liberals/leftists to leave the atheist tent and those who remained for the most part lacked in social skills and self-awareness.[5] See also: Atheism and social outcasts
See also: Lesbianism and obesity and Atheism and obesity and Atheism and the fat acceptance movement
Politically atheists tend to skew to the left and feminism is part of leftist ideology (see: Atheism and politics).
A majority of world's atheists are men (see: Atheism and women).
Starting with the Atheism plus movement and becoming more pronounced post the Elevatorgate controversy, atheist feminism has become more influential within the atheist movement. At the same time, increased divisions within the atheist movement caused a decline of the atheist movement.
Milo Yiannopoulos wrote in his article Does Feminism Make Women Ugly?:
“ | Everyone knows that becoming a feminist makes a woman less marriageable, more crass and generally just unpleasant to be around. But does it also make them uglier? Readers have been asking, so I delved into the science to find out.
Certainly, feminists in the public sphere have acquired a reputation for being brazen about their unconventional looks. The cult of “body positivity” has encouraged many young women to embrace excess weight. Feminist writers like Lindy West celebrate their fatness, while Lena Dunham has made a career out of looking wobbly and horrible. While the sisterhood might not condemn women for piling on the pounds, men definitely do. But the weight gain, bizarre hair colour, piercings and “genderqueer” fashion trends in feminism aren’t, it seems to me, enough on their own to explain why women who strongly identify as feminists are so often either physically unappealing or mistaken for men. There’s a persuasive line of reasoning that suggests women who are physically unattractive are more likely to have progressive politics, give up on blokes and retreat into feminism in the first place. (The rule doesn’t hold for men.) Even liberal bloggers like West admit that conservative girls are hotter, and, crucially, that liberal women tend to have more masculine features... This may explain why so many angry, lesbianic placard-wavers look like they’ve been hit by a bus. As West puts it: “I can imagine that liberalism actively attracts people who are shut out of that old-timey paradigm… The women who can’t ‘pass’ for hot are forced to consider why.” We still haven’t answered the question, though, as to whether a particular philosophical or political position can change how sexually attractive you are, if, say, you come to it later in life. So here goes. What you probably don’t know is that under certain circumstances behaviour can affect your hormonal levels. Hormones are powerful substances: they are the chemicals which tell our bodies how to express gender, and which gender to express. It turns out that adopting aggressive, masculine postures and developing combative psychological reflexes can boost testosterone levels by significant percentages. In many cases, women with a predilection for activism have high testosterone levels in the first place: consider the “high-T jawline” so many feminist journalists, newsreaders and actresses share. Radical feminist blogger Amanda Marcotte has a classic example of this. Increased testosterone also makes you leaner, so jaws can appear more defined. And of course the male hormone increases acne and promotes baldness, while estrogen clears the skin, adds collagen and generally makes a person look fresher and more youthful.[7] |
” |
See also: Global atheism and aging populations
Retaining a youthful appearance is often associated with beauty - especially among women.[9]
The atheist population is facing significant challenges in terms of aging populations and atheism is expected to shrink in terms of its market share of the world's population (see: Global atheism and aging populations and Desecularization).
See also: Asian atheism and East Asia and global desecularization
Razib Khan points out in Discover Magazine, "most secular nations in the world are those of East Asia, in particular what are often termed “Confucian societies.” It is likely therefore that the majority of the world’s atheists are actually East Asian."[10]
At the same time, Christianity is experiencing explosive growth in China (see: Growth of Christianity in China).
The atheist population has a sub-replacement level of fertility (see: Atheism and fertility rates),
CNBC reported in 2015 about East Asia, its low fertility rates and its aging population:
“ | If stock market volatility, slowing economies, and low commodity prices were not enough of a problem for East Asia, many countries in the region now have to worry about losing as much as 15 percent of their working-age population by 2040, according to the World Bank.
In a report released Wednesday, the World Bank said aging population and low fertility rates are to blame as 36 percent of the world's population over 65 currently live in East Asia. That's 211 million people and it is projected to rise over time.[11] |
” |
As noted above, maintaining a youthful appearance is often associated with beauty - especially among women.[12]
In 2011, only 2 of the 50 Miss USA contestants thought evolution should be taught in schools.[13] Since World War II a majority of the most prominent and vocal defenders of the theory of evolution which employs methodological naturalism have been atheists or agnostics.[14]
See also: Religious Philippines winning streak in the major international beauty pageants
According to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia founded by an atheist and agnostic, "Irreligion in the Philippines is particularly rare among Filipinos...".[15]
Beauty pageants are very popular in the Philippines and they have had a winning streak in major international beauty pageants.[16]
Katrina Escalona wrote in her article Why The Philippines Dominates World Beauty Pageants
“ | The Philippines has, rather consistently, held an exemplary track record in the world of pageants, always making it to the top 10, at the very least. Since the commencement of the Miss Earth pageants in 2001 for example, only thrice did the country fail to make it to the top 10. And in the Miss Universe pageants, held to be the most prestigious of the Big Four, the Philippines has placed without fail since 2010. Venus Raj (2010), Shamcey Supsup (2011), Janine Tugonon (2012), and Arielle Arida (2013) in particular, made a proud nation when they were crowned runners up year after year. And to the thrill of millions of Filipinos, in 2015, the country finally took home the crown.[17] | ” |
In 2015/2017, the Philippines had the most wins in the Big Four International Beauty Pageants.[18][19] The Big Four consists of the four major international beauty pageants for women – Miss World, Miss Universe, Miss International and Miss Earth. The group was first described by the China Daily newspaper in 2004 as "the world's four major beauty contests".[20]
Furthermore, according the CIA's World Factbook, the Philippines was ranked in 169 out of 192 in terms of its obesity rate in 2016 and its obesity rate was merely 6.20% which is low compared to many countries.[21]
ABS CBN News reported in the article How PH became the top beauty pageant country in the world: "In 2016, Philippines garnered 106.02 points from the five major beauty pageants worldwide. This after the Philippines won Miss International, was first runner-up at Miss Grand International, finalists at Miss World and Miss Universe, and a quarter-finalist at Miss Supranational. Venezuela came in at second with 100.00 points."[22]
In 2013, the Philippines was the first country to win all the top 5 international beauty pageants.[23]
Wikipedia also has articles entitled List of Filipino beauty pageant winners and Philippines at major beauty pageants.[24][25]
See: Atheism and physical fitness
See also: Sports performance: Religious faith vs. atheism and Atheism and social skills
Numerous studies report athletes to be more religious than nonathletes (see: Sports performance: Religious faith vs. atheism).
It is common for high school athletes, college athletes and professional athletes to date beautiful women. For example, in 1933 Ben Bernie's popular song You Gotta Be A Football Hero declared "You gotta be A football hero to get along with the beautiful girls".[26]
Atheists have a reputation for being socially ackward nerds (see: Atheist nerds and Atheism and social skills).
“ | If we're going to expand our base and we're going to draw in more people to recognize the virtues of living in a secular world, we need to appeal to more than just that geek and nerd subset of the population. We need to have a wider base. ...I seriously believe that we're on the cusp of a crisis. We're not there yet but it's looming in front of us. Will we adapt and thrive and change the world? Or will we remain an avocation for a prosperous and largely irrelevant subset of the population? Will we become something more than a scattered society of internet nerds? That's what we have to do.[27] | ” |
See also: Prominent, militant atheists and short men
Women prefer to marry men who are somewhat taller than them.[28]
Dictionary.com defines Napoleon complex (often called short man's syndrome) as "the condition of being small in stature but aggressively ambitious and seeking absolute control".[29]
In 2008, The Telegragh reported concerning short men:
“ | It is said they are prone to bouts of aggression, showing off and keeping a close eye on their wives or girlfriends at parties.
Vertically challenged men may argue that the notion of a "short man syndrome" is an unfair, inaccurate stereotype. However, scientists have now proved small men do make more jealous husbands and lovers than their taller, more relaxed counterparts.[30] |
” |
Below are various militant atheists who were/are small in stature.
According to the University of Cambridge, historically, the "most notable spread of atheism was achieved through the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution, which brought the Marxist-Leninists to power."[31]
The American journalist John Reed wrote concerning Vladimir Lenin: "A short, stocky figure, with a big head set down in his shoulders, bald and bulging. Little eyes, a snubbish nose, wide, generous mouth, and heavy chin; clean-shaven now, but already beginning to bristle with the well-known beard of his past and future. Dressed in shabby clothes, his trousers much too long for him.""[32]
The militant atheist Joseph Stalin was 5ft. 4" tall (1.63 m).[33] President Harry S. Truman, who stood 5ft 9" tall (1.75 m), described Stalin as "a little squirt".[34] Stalin wore platform shoes to make himself look taller.[35]
The militant atheist the Marquis de Sade was 5' 3" [1.60 m] in height and he was a very militant atheist.[36] De Sade was a very aggressive and perverse man who wanted to inflict pain on others. The word sadism is derived from his name.
In a 2014 lecture, the atheist PZ Myers said he is known for being a "weird," "loud," "radicalized" and "firebrand" type of "New Atheist."[37]
Subsequent to the decline of the New Atheism movement, Myers wrote, "History will not remember me...".[38] In July of 2017, Myers renounced the New Atheism movement.[39]
In 2010, Myers took a picture with a man and in the picture he looks considerably shorter than the other man.[40]
A picture of militant atheist Dan Barker is featured here: Dan Barker and Imam Karim Abuzaid - Google image search (In the picture which features five men, Dan Barker is the short man on the furthermost left).
In the picture, Dan Barker is significantly than Imam Karim Abuzaid of the Colorado Muslim Society.
In 2006, the new atheist Sam Harris took a picture with Patrick McKenna and and Harris appears to be short in stature in the picture.[41]
New Atheism is a form of militant atheism.
When the physicist and new atheist Lawrence Krauss took a picture with the Society of Physics Students chapter in University of Alaska, Fairbanks, he was clearly shorter than all (or nearly all) of the other men.[42]
In his work entitled Mussolini Denis Mack Smith wrote about Benito Mussolini:
“ | From his father he [Mussolini] had learnt to be a thoroughgoing anti-clerical. He proclaimed himself to be an atheist and several times tried to shock an audience by calling on God to strike him dead. He forcibly denounced those socialists who thought religion a matter for individual conscience or had their children baptised. [In Mussolini's opinion] Science had proved that God did not exist and the Jesus of history was an ignorant Jew whose family thought him mad, and who was a pigmy compared to the Buddha. Religion, he said, was a disease of the psyche, an epidemic to be cured by psychiatrists, and Christianity in particular was vitiated by preaching the senseless virtues of resignation and cowardice, whereas the new socialist morality should celebrate violence and rebellion."[43] | ” |
Mussolini was short of stature and is often cited as a man with Napolean complex which is commonly referred to as short man's syndrome.[44]
Business Insider indicates concerning the North Korean, atheist, dictator Kim Jong Un:
“ | North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reportedly wears special shoes to make himself look taller...
Kim was thought to be about 5' 7", according to The Washington Post, but this new analysis of his shoes suggests he's actually closer to 5' 4".[45] |
” |
The North Korean dictator Kim Jung-il, a staunch atheist and adherent to Communism, was known to wear platform shoes and wear his hair in a manner that made him appear taller. Madeleine Albright, then-Secretary of State, mentioned that when he wasn't in his shoes, she stood "eye-to-eye" with him, meaning both were 5'3".[46]
Sartre, the founder of the atheistic, existentialism philosophy, was noted to be diminutive (being about 5' 0")[47].
Adam Kirsch wrote in The Daily Beast about Sartre:
“ | Subversively, Sartre turns his piece into a rejection of precisely that type of human being, in favor of what he calls “the militant”—that is, the militant Communist, the party member. When he writes, “Rather than taking your ego from you, the Party gives it to you,” he means this as high praise: the militant extinguishes his individual personality and becomes a pure function of the class struggle. “He is never alone because he discovers himself through the others. He possesses neither depth nor secrets.” At the end of this hymn to soullessness, even Sartre himself seems to recoil: “Yet a socialist society in which future Lawrences would be radically impossible would strike me as sterile,” he confesses.
This tension between the demands of the revolution and the demands of the free individual continued to toss Sartre to and fro, politically speaking. After the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, he writes The Ghost of Stalin, in which he condemns Stalinist crimes while still trying to extenuate them as the necessary birth pangs of socialism: “Must one give the name of socialism to this bloody monster that tears itself apart? I answer frankly: yes … we had to have that one or none at all.” By 1968, the Soviet crackdown on Czechoslovakia left Sartre with no choice but to abandon his illusions about the U.S.S.R. “The Socialism That Came In From the Cold,” his essay on Czech culture under communism, is as clear-eyed an analysis as any dissident could offer. Yet even then, he condemns this socialism in the name of a potentially better one. By then, he has transferred his illusions about liberation to the Third World. In his famous introduction to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, he writes with unconcealed glee about the prospect of Algerians killing their former masters, which happen to be the French. At the bottom of much of Sartre’s politics, in fact, there lies a frank enjoyment of hatred, which also expresses itself in some of his polemics against enemies and former friends. That is why We Have Only this Life to Live ends up seeming less like an inspiration than an existential warning: a great intellect alone, it shows, does not make a great man.[48] |
” |
See also: Atheism and obesity
The current atheist population mostly resides in East Asia (particularly China) and in secular Europe/Australia primarily among whites.[51] Most atheists are East Asians (see: Asian atheism). See: Global atheism and Western atheism and race
Secular Europe and communist China have significant problems with obesity (see: Secular Europe and obesity and China and obesity). In addition, Australia has a significant problem with obesity (see: Australia, irreligion and obesity).
In the United States at the present time, the greater the degree of irreligiosity in a generation, the higher their obesity rate is.
According to the Gallup Inc., "Very religious Americans are more likely to practice healthy behaviors than those who are moderately religious or nonreligious."[52]
Gallup declared concerning the study which measured the degree to which religiosity affects health practices: "Generalized linear model analysis was used to estimate marginal scores all five reported metrics after controlling for age (in years), gender, race/ethnicity, marital status, education (number of years), log of income, and region of the country... Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index survey Jan. 2-July 28, 2010, with a random sample of 554,066 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using random-digit-dial sampling.[53]
For more information, please see: Atheism and obesity
See also: Argument from beauty
The argument from beauty argues the existence of beauty in the natural world testifies to the existence of God who both designed natural beauty and who possesses a divine beauty. Objective beauty exists and beauty is not merely subjective in nature.[54]
See: Atheism and a lack of appreciation for the beauty of the human body
Essays:
Categories: [Atheism] [Beauty] [Health]