Researchers at Oxford University have reported finding children who, when questioned, express their understanding that there is a Creator, without having had any such teaching from parents or teachers about this matter.[2]
According to Dr. Olivera Petrovich who lectures at Oxford University, there is now a “preponderance of scientific evidence” indicating that “children believe in God even when religious teachings are withheld from them”.[3]
In Japan, researchers found that Japanese children see the natural world as designed and purposeful and believe some kind of intelligent being is behind that purpose.[4]
Related quotes:
" “A slew of cognitive traits predisposes us to faith.” - Pascal Boyer, in the British science journal Nature [5]
“Atheism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think. … They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.” - Graham Lawton in the New Scientist science magazine [6]
See also:
See also: Atheism and its retention rate in individuals
In 2012, a Georgetown University study was published indicating that in the United States only about 30 percent of those who grow up in an atheist household remain atheists as adults.[8] According to Dr. Mark Gray, "of those raised as atheists, 30% are now affiliated with a Protestant denomination, 10% are Catholic, 2% are Jewish, 1% are Mormon, and 1% are Pagan."[9]
Theodore Beale wrote about the Pew Research Forum's examination data involving individuals raised as atheists:
“ | ...the example of various former atheists such as C.S. Lewis and Anthony Flew indicates that atheism is nothing more than a transitive state for many individuals...
The retention rate is even worse for the full blown atheist population. 60% of those raised atheist abandon atheism; 0.5% of the population was raised atheist and 0.3% of it left atheism. And while 1.4% of the population became atheist, the fact that nearly all of the nation is not atheist means that the non-atheist population has a retention rate of 98.6%, which is nearly 2.5 times better than the atheist retention rate of 40%. Therefore, the perceived rapid growth of atheism is nothing more than an artifact of the atheist population's statistical insignificance. Even the dying Episcopalian church has a better retention rate than atheism...[10] |
” |
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See also: Atheist indoctrination
Jewish columnist Dennis Prager has stated that a causal factor of atheism is the "secular indoctrination of a generation."[11] Prager stated that "From elementary school through graduate school, only one way of looking at the world – the secular – is presented. The typical individual in the Western world receives as secular an indoctrination as the typical European received a religious one in the Middle Ages."[12] See also: Atheism and critical thinking
Atheists have focused considerable efforts on the public schools in order to indoctrinate young people into atheistic beliefs.[13][14]
See also: Atheism and poor relationships with parents
In the United States, the ages 14–17 are very influential in terms of an individual adopting atheism.[15] Of those who do embrace unbelief in the United States, many do so in their high school years.[16]
In 2012, a study by the General Social Survey of the social science research organization NORC at the University of Chicago found that belief in God rises with age, even in atheistic nations [17] (For more information, please see: Atheism and immaturity).
Theodore Beale declared:
“ | ...the age at which most people become atheists indicates that it is almost never an intellectual decision, but an emotional one. (This is why most self-identified atheists are angry, bitter, and immature. The anger, bitterness, and immaturity are usually the cause of the atheism, they are not, as many Christians erroneously suppose, the effects.)[18] | ” |
The Christian apologist Ken Ammi concurs in his essay The Argument for Atheism from Immaturity and writes: "It is widely known that some atheists rejected God in their childhood, based on child like reasons, have not matured beyond these childish notions and thus, maintain childish-emotional reactions toward the idea of God."[19]
A notable example of a person raised in an atheistic household who later became a Christian is William J. Murray. Mr. Murray is the son of the late atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair who founded the organization American Atheists. In 1982, William J. Murray founded the Religious Freedom Coalition.
See also: Atheism and mental illness
Global News reported:
“ | Children who are raised with religious or spiritual beliefs tend to have better mental health into their adulthood, a new study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found.
According to the study’s findings, people who attended weekly religious services or prayed or meditated daily in their childhood reported greater life satisfaction in their 20s. People who grew up in a religious household also reported fewer symptoms of depression and lower rates of post-traumatic stress disorder.[20] |
” |
See also: Atheism and depression
See: Atheism and sub-replacement fertility rates
See also: Abortion and atheism and Atheist feminism
The father of medicine, Hippocrates, expressly prohibited abortion in his ethical Oath long before Christianity.
The Journal of Medical Ethics article declared concerning the atheist and sadist Marquis de Sade:
“ | In 1795 the Marquis de Sade published his La Philosophic dans le boudoir, in which he proposed the use of induced abortion for social reasons and as a means of population control. It is from this time that medical and social acceptance of abortion can be dated, although previously the subject had not been discussed in public in modern times. It is suggested that it was largely due to de Sade's writing that induced abortion received the impetus which resulted in its subsequent spread in western society.[22] | ” |
See also: Atheism and women
China has the largest atheist population in the world.[25] The current atheist population mostly resides in East Asia (particularly China) and in secular Europe/Australia primarily among whites.[26] See: Western atheism and race
Due to sex-selection abortion and female infantcide, there is a gender imbalance within the Chinese population.
According to 2012 figures from the National Bureau of Statistics of the People's Republic of China, China’s sex ratio at birth (the number of boys born for every 100 girls) was as high as 118, while the sex ratio amongst the total population was about 105.[27] The statistical data from China indicates that the gap between male and female at birth is far larger than the biologically benchmark ratio (a sex ratio at birth of around 105 males per 100 females).[28]
The Washington Post declares in an article entitled Horrors of one-child policy leave deep scars in Chinese society:
“ | In 2012, 6.7 million women in China were forced to have abortions under the one-child policy, according to official statistics. Rates in previous decades often topped 10 million a year. As a result, experts say, suicide rates among women in China are significantly higher than among men, in contrast to global norms.
Unimaginable numbers of girls are secretly aborted or killed in infancy every year by parents seeking boys, skewing the sex ratio dramatically. In the past four decades, hundreds of millions of men and women have been forcibly sterilized or had intrauterine devices inserted, per Chinese family-planning policies. The vast majority of people are still scared to speak out, but many, including some of the cadres involved in enforcing the policy, say they feel bitter to this day.[29] |
” |
See also: Atheism and infanticide
Infanticide is the practice of killing very young children. An infant has been medically defined as a child too young to speak.[31]
Below are articles on atheism and infanticide:
Since World War II a majority of the most prominent and vocal defenders of the evolutionary position which employs methodological naturalism have been atheists and agnostics.[32]
Below are articles on atheism, evolutionism and infanticide:
See: Atheism and child pornography
See: Atheism, pedophilia and NAMBLA
Weak atheism is an individual merely lacking a belief in God/gods. Using this broad definition of definition of atheism, there are atheists who argue that babies are atheists.[33]
Categories: [Atheism]