Creating a Godless Community: The Collective Identity Work of Contemporary American Atheists

Smith, Jesse M.

doi:10.1111/jssr.12009

Cited by 155 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 16 publications

(31 reference statements)

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“…A/As tend to emphasize rationality and evidence-based thinking (Smith, 2013), and the four A/A PSTs in this study seemed to match that assertion. They frequently mentioned how they would like to employ critical thinking tasks in their future classrooms.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

“…Nearly half of Americans approve of requiring the Lord's Prayer or Bible verses in public schools (ARDA, 2013). Americans put belief in God at the heart of a good, moral society (Cragun, Kosmin, Keyser, Hammer, & Nielson, 2012;Smith, 2013). Because they reject what the vast majority of their fellow citizens hold to be true, Atheists/Agnostics (A/As) are marginalized at best, and at worst are discriminated against and distrusted outright.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Defining non-religion is tricky (Smith, 2013). The terms Atheist and Agnostic are generally used interchangeably (Galen, 2009), which we do in this paper, even though their constructs differ.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Ignored Religious Other: Atheist/Agnostic Pre-Service Teachers

Anderson¹,

Mathys²,

Cook³

2014

JESR

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Ignored Religious Other: Atheist/Agnostic Pre-Service Teachers

Anderson¹,

Mathys²,

Cook³

2014

JESR

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show abstract

“…race or class barriers), and develop new ways of relating to each other (Pelak, 2005). Many also invoke social media to negotiate the meaning of their identity with each other as well as with the public (Smith, 2013).…”

Section: : Framing Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnicity, popular democratic movements and labour in Malaysia

Croucher

Miles

2016

Economic and Industrial Democracy

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We use framing theory to examine how activists and trade unions have framed labour's political agenda in Malaysia. A polity grounded in ethnicity continues to hinder the formation of cross-ethnic collective worker identities and labour politics. However, inclusive popular democratising movements have strengthened in recent years, providing a favourable context for greater emphasis on non-ethnic political action by trade unions. The latter have shifted in this direction, adopting elements of the popular movement's 'human rights' internationalism. Thus, the democratic movement's frame 2 | P a g e influenced that of the trade unions, with implications for framing theory.

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“…It is well established that certain people define atheism and theism in relation to each other (Borer 2010;Cimino and Smith 2007;Taira 2012). For many, the conflict over how to teach evolutionary theory presents an opportunity to mitigate stigma by associating atheism with the prestige of science (e.g., Borer 2010;Guenther, Mulligan, and Papp 2013;Guenther 2014;Kettell 2013;Smith 2013;Taira 2012). Wuthnow (2012) has shown how religious Americans validate their faith as they negotiate potential conflicts with science.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Stigmatization and Validation of Atheism, Literalism, and Non-Literalism in the Discourse over Evolutionary Theory

Silva

2018

Secularism and Nonreligion

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This article explores how atheism, literalism, and non-literalism are validated and stigmatized in public discourse over evolutionary theory. Through an ethnographic content analysis of 1,028 letters to the editor, I examine how authors frame the relationship between acceptance of evolutionary theory and religious faith. I find there are four ways of doing so: 1) implicit polarization, obliquely denies any compatibility between religion and evolution; 2) distancing, separates one's position from that of another; 3) articulation, weaves evolution and faith together; and 4) combinations of polarization, distancing, and articulation. Each framing results in some mixture of stigmatization and validation of atheism, literalism, and non-literalism. Implicit polarization stigmatizes and validates atheism and literalism. Implicit polarization stigmatizes non-literalism through unacknowledgment. Distancing can validate and stigmatize literalism and non-literalism, while it also results in literalism and atheism being stigmatized by putative allies. Articulation validates non-literalism by representing it in the public sphere and it stigmatizes atheism and literalism through unacknowledgment. IntroductionMuch scholarship demonstrates the stigma experienced by unbelievers (Cragun et al. 2012;Edgell, Gerteis, and Hartmann 2006; Hammer et al. 2012). The American conflict over how to teach biological evolution is one place where this stigma is constructed and contested. The discourse on evolution serves to, perhaps inadvertently, define the relationship between science and religion. For example, Elsdon-Baker (2015) has demonstrated how the wording of survey questionnaires elides the diversity of perspectives and, thus, unintentionally categorizes certain respondents as opponents of evolutionary theory. This study will show how pro-evolution and anti-evolution statements 1 support and undermine atheism, literalism, and non-literalism.2 Analyzing the controversy over evolution allows us to pick up on the implicit and oblique framings of faith and faithlessness that occur when the existence of God is not the only topic of conversation.In what follows, I contextualize the conflict over teaching evolution and argue that examining it can uncover stigmatization processes. I then outline how I drew on the concept of framing to analyze 1,028 letters to the editor before presenting the results of this analysis. I find that there are four processes for framing the compatibility between faith and evolution. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of specific ways that atheism, literalism, and non-literalism are both stigmatized and validated by the discourse on evolutionary theory.

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Creating a Godless Community: The Collective Identity Work of Contemporary American Atheists

Cited by 155 publications

References 16 publications

The Ignored Religious Other: Atheist/Agnostic Pre-Service Teachers

The Ignored Religious Other: Atheist/Agnostic Pre-Service Teachers

Ethnicity, popular democratic movements and labour in Malaysia

Stigmatization and Validation of Atheism, Literalism, and Non-Literalism in the Discourse over Evolutionary Theory

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