Atheists Are More Respectful Of Believers Than The Other Way Around.

Rousseau said that there are several types of religion, among which is a “private” and individual version of the belief in the transcendent and the divine, and another that is collective in nature, based on public rituals and shared dogmas and symbols. In practice, this philosopher said, the first variant is undesirable, because it does not act to make societies united.

Time has passed and with it societies too; Now, unlike three centuries ago, we must satisfy a need that did not exist before. This new need is to create an inclusive culture in which no one is left out due to issues related to their beliefs or lack thereof. And, although the history of religions is full of violent conflicts between confessions, The relationship that these have with atheism has not been much better

Today, in fact, a study shows that in a world in which freedom of thought and belief is increasingly defended, atheism continues to be stigmatized.

The respect of atheists for believers is not reciprocated

A team of researchers from Ohio University has shown that atheists are more respectful towards believers than vice versa, something for which they offer several explanations.

The team of researchers, led by Colleen Cowgill, used an economics-based game to find out How each person’s personal beliefs influence the way we identify with others or on the contrary if it distances us from them. Specifically, we wanted to see if being a believer or atheist makes us act giving a lot of priority to those who share these beliefs or if this priority tends to not exist.

To do this, a simple exercise known as the dictator game was chosen, in which a person must decide if they want to share their money, and how much they should give up. In this way, couples are created in which one person is an atheist and the other is a believer, and a dominant role is assigned to one of them so that they can decide if they want to distribute an amount of money.

The result showed that, knowing each other’s beliefs, the Christians distributed more money to the rest of the Christians than to the atheists, while the atheists did not give favored treatment to any of the groups. giving on average the same amount to believers and non-believers This stopped happening the moment each person’s religious beliefs, or lack thereof, stopped being revealed.

Stigma could be behind it

Colleen and her team propose an explanation for why atheists tend to be nicer to believers than they receive in return from believers, at least according to this study. What could be behind this phenomenon is a compensation strategy on the part of atheists, to avoid receiving negative consequences related to prejudice and stigma about atheism in general.

And we must keep in mind that for a long time religion and morality have been practically synonymous: ethics arose from the belief in a higher order that tells us what we should do. The absence of belief in the divine, according to this logic, is a threat, because there is nothing that guarantees that an atheist will not commit the most atrocious acts if we think that the only thing that prevents us from behaving badly is our union with one. or several gods.

On the other hand, even today there is still little contact with atheism (to date there is no country in which the majority of the population is atheist), so it is reasonable that those who do not believe in any religion fear receiving unfavorable treatment if it offers even the slightest opportunity to be seen as the enemy.

Full integration has not yet been achieved

This study shows that the most private beliefs continue to be something that divides society, to the point where a simple label is capable of making us treat ourselves differently Tending to give privileged treatment to those who are most similar to oneself is still a way of creating an unnecessary division without there being a real reason for conflict.

Thus, atheists, being aware of the stereotypes that still exist, do everything possible to “compensate” the rest, since they start from a disadvantaged situation. In this sense, it would still be necessary to carry out research similar to these to see if Something similar happens with religious minorities in countries where there is a high degree of fanaticism.