The measurement of religious belief has some social desirability concerns that make the development of an implicit measure of religiosity advantageous. Currently, there are few options for implicitly measuring religious belief. This study attempted to add to this literature by analyzing the automatic judgements of religious belief through the use of an implicit measure known as the MouseTrack task, allowing for the measurement of latency in the expression of these beliefs as well as the certainty of these beliefs by tracking the path taken during the decision process. A sample of 121 undergraduates was recruited from the UK SONA subject pool. Desired religious variance was not achieved in the sample, making interpretation of results difficult. Detailed breakdowns of these path analyses are given. Key trends in findings are discussed.

This study focuses upon the experiences and perceptions of women Atheists in the Southern U.S., a region which is highly religious and, therefore, has comparatively low numbers of Atheists. Taking a Symbolic Interactionist approach, I examine how these Southern Atheists understood what it means to be an “Atheist,” how they became Atheist, their strategies to manage their stigmatized identity as Atheists, and finally the role gender has in managing this stigma. I utilize a Feminist methodology to investigate and foreground women’s experiences. I conducted participant observation at 23 Atheist and Humanist meetings in two southern cities in two different states; I also interviewed 51 Atheists, 40 female and 11 male. I found a variety of definitions for Atheism, though all participants agreed that they do not believe in god. This identity is also informed by political ideologies and philosophies that cultivate pro-social behavior. Participants also discussed what they perceived to be the best things about what it means to be an Atheist. I also examined the stages by which Atheists come to this identification especially as this relates to the importance of place and their experiences in educational, religious and family institutions and how these affected their decisions to self-identify as Atheist. Additionally, I investigated how Atheists undergo stigma management (and negative interactions) by selectively concealing their identity, which they based on what they believed others assumed about Atheists. Many strategies were used to assuage feelings of being uncomfortable. As a stigmatized group, they discuss the importance of community and social support. In addition, Atheists saw several parallels between their experiences and the LGBT community such as similar language and face prejudice and discrimination, even though they said that the Atheists can more easily “pass.” Atheist women manage their stigma by utilizing various tactics to avoid hurting the feelings of others. Female Atheists walk a fine line between being masculine and assertive when they identify as masculine and caring about the feelings of others. Participants also discussed the role gender plays in self-identifying as Atheist. Lastly, they explained that it is harder to be woman and an Atheist.

In the wake of the death of a prominent atheist figure in 2011, an especially unsavory side of anti-atheist prejudice became evident as many celebrated the death of a prominent atheist, rejoicing that he would be in hell. The current study explores how these attitudes reveal a sense of schadenfreude in anti-atheist prejudice previously unexplored in the literature. Potential origins of this schadenfreude are discussed, and a study to experimentally explore this phenomenon was carried out. Using the repeated taste-test paradigm, this study gave participants atheist primes and hell primes between identical drinks and measure perceived taste after these manipulations, intending for the hell primes to induce schadenfreude after atheist primes as a result from participants thinking about the atheists going to hell for their lack of faith. All predicted main effects and interactions were non-significant. Exploratory analyses were carried out to explain these null results. Implications and future directions are discussed.

abstract: National surveys indicate that Americans hold greater prejudice toward atheists than many other historically stigmatized groups. The religious prosociality perspective posits that people will demonstrate prejudice toward anyone who does not believe in a monitoring and punishing god, including atheists, because of the perception that those who lack belief in a monitoring and punishing god cannot be trusted to act in a prosocial manner. The sociofunctional perspective posits that people will demonstrate distinct forms of prejudice toward individuals who present certain types of threats to the group, and previous research suggests that atheists are perceived as posing a threat to group values. In the current study, participants rated targets whose values largely matched their own values more favorably than targets whose values did not largely match their own values. Also, participants rated both targets who believed in a monitoring and punishing god and targets who believed in a god who does not monitor nor punish more favorably than atheist targets. These judgments spanned a variety of measures, including emotional reactions to the target, judgments of target traits, and preferred social distance from the target. Results were consistent with the sociofunctional perspective but did not support the religious prosociality perspective. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Psychology 2013

Universities have traditionally been thought of as “secular enclaves” (Bryant, 2006: 2) that have the capacity to liberalise or even eradicate personal religious beliefs. Despite this assumption, religious activity on university campuses shows no sign of declining, due in part to the failings of the secularisation thesis and the rise of religious pluralism. In the media more recently, there have been frequent references to religious organisations on campus, in particular to clashes between Christian societies and Student Unions, and between Islamic and atheist societies. The management of religion on university campuses has also become a political issue with the Prime Minister David Cameron intervening on recent guidelines (proposed by Universities U.K.) advising that external religious speakers be allowed to segregate student audiences based on gender. As a direct result of Cameron’s intervention the advisory comment was removed. In light of the above, the aim of this thesis is to explore how Christian, Jewish and Muslim students navigate the terrain of the university and whether such an environment is challenging or conducive to their faith in terms of degree content, interactions with peers and involvement in relevant societies and/or chaplaincies. This thesis also explores student reactions to the New Atheism, a label attributed to a group of provocative authors – Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens – all of whom are united in their belief that religion is irrational, false and evil. Often described as the chief proponent of the New Atheism, Richard Dawkins has also recently shown his support for UCL’s atheist society in their disagreement with the Student Union over the uploading of a satirical religious cartoon to their Facebook page. The research which forms the basis of this thesis was carried out between 2011-2013 and features the use of qualitative semi-structured interviews and the presentation of New Atheist extracts from Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and Harris. Over 30 participants were included in the project with a minimum of 10 students from each (Islamic, Christian and Jewish) faith group. The multi-faith angle of this project offers a unique insight into how different faith groups navigate the university, with some common issues emerging across all faith groups as well as faith-specific issues. Sociological research in this area has tended to focus on Christian students and this has meant that certain concerns (such as dietary provisions and prayer space) have tended to be overlooked by researchers. The findings of this research project are multi-layered and complex. Religious students differed in terms of their expectations of higher education institutions: some students viewed the university in purely educational terms (and as having no religious function), while others saw the university as a place for both educational and spiritual development and where personal faith could be integrated with their academic studies and social life. The experience of religious students in using chaplaincies and societies was also mixed, with some students reporting fears of being “judged” by other members of the same faith group. There also appeared to be intra-religious tension across all faith groups but this was more prevalent among the Christian and Islamic societies due to denominational differences. Inter-religious (as opposed to intra-religious) tension emerged particularly in the students’ responses to the New Atheism. Rather than seeing New Atheist literature as a direct challenge to their own faith, the participants recognised that “other” religious believers might be guilty of the New Atheist’s accusations – therefore highlighting a surprising degree of convergence between religious participants and New Atheist arguments.

Many Twain scholars believe that his skepticism was based on personal tragedies of later years. Others find skepticism in Twain's work as early as The Innocents Abroad. This study determines that Twain's atheism is evident in his earliest writings. Chapter One examines what critics have determined Twain's religious sense to be. These contentions are discussed in light of recent publications and older, often ignored, evidence of Twain' s atheism. Chapter Two is a biographical look at Twain's literary, family, and community influences, and at events in Twain's life to show that his religious antipathy began when he was quite young. Chapter Three examines Twain's early sketches and journalistic squibs to prove that his voice, storytelling techniques, subject matter, and antipathy towards the church and other institutions are clearly manifested in his early writings.

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Book Summary: When White people of faith act in a particular way, their motivations are almost always attributed to their religious orientation. Yet when religious people of color act in a particular way, their motivations are usually attributed to their racial positioning. Religion Is Raced makes the case that religion in America has generally been understood in ways that center White Christian experiences of religion, and argues that all religion must be acknowledged as a raced phenomenon. When we overlook the role race plays in religious belief and action, and how religion in turn spurs public and political action, we lose sight of a key way in which race influences religiously-based claims-making in the public sphere. With contributions exploring a variety of religious traditions, from Buddhism and Islam to Judaism and Protestantism, as well as pieces on atheists and humanists, Religion Is Raced brings discussions about the racialized nature of religion from the margins of scholarly and religious debate to the center. The volume offers a new model for thinking about religion that emphasizes how racial dynamics interact with religious identity, and how we can in turn better understand the roles religion—and Whiteness—play in politics and public life, especially in the United States. It includes clear recommendations for researchers, including pollsters, on how to better recognize moving forward that religion is a raced phenomenon.

Much research focuses on religious bias and in particular the marginalization of Muslims in America. What initially surprised post 9-11 researchers is that participants typically rank atheists lower than Muslims in the areas of private and public trust. Further research is needed to continue to understand the nature and extent of religious-based bias. The present study explores whether a job candidate's religion impacts perception of the candidate's "hireability" and source credibility, including elements of trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness. Participants were randomly assigned to review an identical version of a resume in which only the implied religion of the candidate was manipulated. One line of the candidate's resume suggested that the candidate was Christian, Muslim, Scientologist, Atheist or no religion was indicated. Participants then rated the candidate using a 3-question Hireability Index (Rudman & Glick, 2001) and the Source-Credibility Scale (SCS: Ohanian, 1990). The SCS contains 3 subscales measuring Attractiveness, Expertise and Trustworthiness. In this study, attractiveness emerged as a variable influenced by the religion of the candidate. Trends in the data also suggest that the candidate's religion may influence the candidate's overall Hireability Index score as well. The results suggest that religion may influence variables related to hireability but seem to more strongly influence personal variables such as ratings of attractiveness when the ratings are made by participants who are young and educated.

In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas developed two models for how humans may speak of God - either by the analogy of proportion or by the analogy of proportionality. Aquinas's doctrines initiated a theological debate concerning analogy that spanned several centuries. In the 18th century, there appeared two closely related arguments for atheism which both utilized analogy for their own purposes. In this thesis, I show that one argument, articulated by the French materialist Paul-Henri Thiry Baron d'Holbach, is successful in showing that God-talk, as conceived of using the analogy of proportion, is unintelligible non-sense. In addition, I show that another argument, articulated by Anthony Collins (Vindication of Divine Attributes), George Berkeley (chapter IV of Alciphron), and David Hume (chapter XII of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion) can be restructured into an argument for the position that the analogy of proportionality makes the distinction between atheism and theism merely verbal. Since both of these are undesirable consequences for the theist, I conclude that Aquinas's doctrine of analogy does not withstand the assault of 18th century atheists. / Master of Arts