Atheism Increases Trust

[darkstar3]

Two Swedish researchers (Niclas Berggren and Christian Bjørnskov of the Ratio Institute in Stockholm) have looked at what role religion has in explaining different levels of trust in countries around the world, and in different States of the USA (Working paper only, available here).

The first thing they show is that non-religion and trust are correlated. In countries with more religious people, and in states with more religious people, fewer people are will to answer "yes" to the question "In general, do you think most people can be trusted or can't you be too careful?"

Have a look:
http://bhascience.blogspot.com/2009/12/atheism-increases-trust.html

[KT2000]

1. Just had this demonstrated to me

Had two fundamentalist Christian couples treat me like I was going to steal their stuff when I actually was there to assist during an emergency. Weird. Sure glad my brain does not operate that way. They live in a dark and scary world.

[LuvNewcastle]

2. A lot of religious people believe

that the devil is very real and he uses people to further his ends. Some people believe in this so strongly that Satan's power seems to rival that of God. When people entertain such beliefs, it's no wonder that they find it difficult to trust others.

[Silent3]

3. Puts the slogan "In God We Trust" in a whole new light.

Not a very favorable light, just a new one. :)

[darkstar3]

4. +1

[Gregorian]

5. I consider myself a Christian. And I would trust an athiest over a Christian any day.

William S. Burroughs - Words of Advice For Young People

People often ask me if I have any words of advice for young people.
Well here are a few simple admonitions for young and old.
Never intefere in a boy-and-girl fight.
Beware of whores who say they don't want money.
The hell they don't.
What they mean is they want more money. Much more.
If you're doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch,
Get it in writing.
His word isn't worth shit.
Not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.

[unblock]

6. yup. just about the only people who didn't trust me growing up were the very religious people.

i have one of those faces and demeanors that nearly everyone trusts, and i do consider myself to be a very trustworthy and honest person.

yet i had many very religious people insist that there was absolutely nothing to stop me from murdering them on a whim because i didn't believe in their god, and all morality derived from their god. they couldn't fathom a moral being who believed in a different god, or who didn't believe at all.



one though about the conclusions of the study, it's not clear to me that religion causes distrust or if distrust causes greater religiosity. religion provide comforting refuge from a number of disturbing emotions. the causation might work the other way around.

[iris27]

10. Ding ding ding!

yet i had many very religious people insist that there was absolutely nothing to stop me from murdering them on a whim because i didn't believe in their god, and all morality derived from their god. they couldn't fathom a moral being who believed in a different god, or who didn't believe at all.

I think this gets to the heart of the matter. If religious person A holds the opinion that his faith in God is the only thing keeping him (and by extension all other believers) from raping, thieving, and murdering, what reason would he ever have to trust anyone?

[B3Nut]

14. And to extend the argument further

if religious person A holds the opinion that his faith in God is the only thing keeping him from raping, thieving, and murdering, what reason would any of the rest of us have to trust *him*? It seems to reveal a bit more than person A may intend on the surface...

I guess the best retort when encountering people like that would be to ask them if, say, irrefutable evidence surfaced proving unavoidably that God did not in any way exist, would they still try to be a good person? That might get interesting...

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

[Silent3]

7. I don't believe you.

Or that shifty looking penguin of yours.

[brendan120678]

8. "In general, do you think most people can be trusted or can't you be too careful?"

Not exactly a yes - or - no question, is it?
More of an "A" or "B".

[darkstar3]

9. True,

but keep in mind that this entire thing is translated, so I'm not entirely sure they got the question (or a lot of sentence structure in the article for that matter) entirely correct in English.

Still, though, an interesting read.

[daleo]

11. Generalized trust correlates positively with IQ

Lack of belief in organized religion also correlates positively with IQ. Therefore, it may be that the correlation between trust and atheism is a spurious correlation.

By the way, there are a fair number of social science papers supporting both claims that I made about IQ and trust and IQ and religion. These relationships hold at the individual level (based on survey and experimental data). I don't know about the national level - that's another thing entirely.

[Christa]

12. I agree

I have been screwed by Christians more than once, many times while they swore on Jesus or God.

[DeSwiss]

13. Which puts the below response that I saw.....

...relating to an article on Mike Huckabee and the people he'd released from prison, in a context that should also give one pause:

Fundamentalists have an inherent vulnerability: As soon as one invokes God, their ability to reason shuts down and they go into "believe" mode. Anyone who realizes this can easily manipulate them. http://letters.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/12/02/huckabee_and_god_and_clemmons/permalink/72d7d75ac3422497997207aa90e7daf2.html">—Alkaline

- So it works both ways for religionists. Neither of them good. It would appear that they won't trust anyone until they "claim" to be another Christian like them. Which, along with the more common modes of superstition that are practiced by most humans the world over and have been for millenia, may explain why so many religious folks populate our prisons.....

[rd_kent]

15. Kick