Types of Atheists (Psychology of Atheism Part 1)

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Psychology of Atheism Series:

Full PhD thesis:
(Book version has sold out)

Peer-Reviewed Journal Article:
Baker, Matthew J. (2015) Psychological type differences between churchgoers and church-leavers, Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 18:7, 622-634

International Personality Item Pool:

CREDITS:
Charts & Narration by Matt Baker
Animation by Syawish Rehman
Audio editing by Ali Shahwaiz

[Tiglath-Pileser]

I cannot overstate how refreshing this is. I applaud you for taking the time to actually understand atheists, without any negativity. The points you make here seem so basic to me, but they are things I've had to repeat and explain countless times when having discussions with, or more often defending myself from, theists. I hope that another worldview of mine is shared among atheists, and comes out in the second or third section: I do not hate your deity or any other. I am not angry. I have no desire to prevent anyone from believing as they choose, or practicing their religions. My objections only arise when the theist claims moral superiority, or when they attempt to impose their beliefs or practices on me.

As for the point you raise around minute 17, I will state: Any scripture or belief based worldview that is good, must also be good in absence of the supernatural. "Thou shalt not kill" is no more or less moral than "The LORD sayeth Thou shalt not kill." I cannot accept "The Bible says so" as the sole justification for law, policy, or practice that I will be required to follow, but the fact that the proposed item exists in scripture does not immediately negate its potential worth.

Oh, and thank you for not marching out the tired, old, and immensely insulting idea that an atheist cannot be moral. I worry for those who insist that morality is impossible without faith.

[mxlexrd]

I'm sure you have already considered this, but a potential problem I notice is the issue of how representative your survey is. If your survey went viral on atheism discussion forums, responses will overrepresent the kind of atheist who is really interested in the atheism/theism debate, whereas the vast majority of atheists (even if they have considered the issue in the past), go about their day without giving the subject a second thought.

[scottbutler]

Speaking as an atheist, this is one of the most correct descriptions of what atheism is and what it isn't that I've seen. Thank you for that.

[kc]

Being able to say “the book version of my phd thesis is sold out” is incredible

[talcono]

This analysis aligns pretty closely with my own experiences being an atheist during my adult life and my interactions with other atheists online and in real life. Really refreshing and clarifying, especially from someone who (as I understand it) identifies as a theist! Yet another great video

[margottago]

Me, doing a PhD, currently writing the ethics application for my first survey study: "We are aiming for 100 - 300 respondents"

Matt, PhD chad: "I received 23, 697 responses"
😂

My internal crying aside, I always love hearing other PhD students and recipients talk passionately about their own research, this was a fantastic video Matt! Such an interesting research question to base your thesis on. I look forward to the next videos in this series!

[MrIinford]

What an awesome and sober disambiguation. This is a difficult topic which rarely receives this level of unbiased analysis. Great job. This is a video I will save and show many times in the future just to make sure people understand the underlying concept when using a particular term. Thanks

[buzkill]

The way I remember it, the worldview preceded the atheism and led me to atheism. I can still remember driving home one night after listening to others discussing their beliefs in a higher power, and I thought to myself "Maybe there is no God" and I accepted in my heart, for lack of a better phase, that I had no reason to believe any of that. It's been over 20 years and I haven't had to reconsider it, it was quite a relief actually.

[direct.skc.]

I come from a Hindu Brahmin family. For the uninitiated, Brahmins are the group of people within Hindus, who perform worships and religious rituals. They are the authority on religious guidance.
I became a priest (not a professional one, but know my hymns and prayers and stuffs) at an early age of 13 years and did my fair share of rituals for a good 10-12 years.
During this period I also happen to study science and graduate as a Mechanical Engineer.
When I started my career in Data Science 10-12 years back from now, I had to get on internet to figure out things required for my work.
The internet access was a game changer.
I started getting drawn into studying other cultures, histories, religion, art, science, technology, etc. Since this topic is on Atheism, I will focus my comment only on the "religion" aspect of my internet usage.
I started to study other religions, their philosophy, their goals, their creation story, their take on Eschatology, the evolution of faith system, animism etc etc. Then I figured, all the Abrahamic religions doesn't make any sense. Why would someone get away after committing a sin just because they surrendered to God, doesn't he need to pay for the sins? Anyway, when I started believing that Abrahamic religions doesn't work, I looked into other Non-Abrahamic religions, and gradually into my own religion Hinduism. I started comparing, why would one religion make no sense and other would? They all come from the same idea of having a supernatural entity in the first place. Then I concluded, may be all of them got it wrong, there 'is' a supernatural entity that governs the universe but we are not even capable to imagine the magnitude of that power. We all imagined our own versions of divinity and created a religion out of those, so there are a variety of religions but the theme remains same, almost.
So, at this point, I started calling myself non-religious but "spiritual".
It stayed for some couple of years.

The major shift happened when I started watching discussions and debates by Richard Dawkins, Bill Nye, Sam Harris and likes. It started dawning on me that all the evidences that we have so far, doesn't add up to support the theory of existence of any "Supernatural Entity" anymore. It became more clear to me. The world we live in, the universe and everything, just happen to be there, 'not for us' but just there, it's a cosmic phenomenon, that's all, there's no need to make anything out of it. That is the point, when I gave up my idea of existence of any supernatural entity or God and experience the world as it comes by.
Now, I am pretty convinced that there's no one out there, watching over us, (like a God, aliens may exist though) judging us on our lame acts and we are not going anywhere after we are done here, we came from star dust and that is where we shall return. I don't care if someone believes in some form of faith or not, I don't judge them, I don't preach my lack of faith to them, I don't follow anything that they say I should, just because it's a practice, I do things when I feel like, even if it is to observe a certain religious festival or gathering. I now focus more on just the well being part, to live life to my best abilities, to help others to my best abilities and to die with minimum resentment.
Feels so peaceful!
😇
🙏

[mamaieshaspeaks]

Another Christian here. Thank you so much for this Matt! I hope a lot of Theist folks will take the time to watch this series as well! Just because one may not hold or understand a belief set, I think it's so important to learn about it and have healthy dialog, instead of being defensive, angry, judgemental. etc etc.

This video is so helpful already~ 🤗

[MichaelJohnson-vieh]

This is a great study. My earlier life as an agnostic has definitely colored my desire for a separation of church and state. If I choose to have a religious belief it does not give me a right to enforce that belief on someone who does not share it. In fact, if it is my ultimate goal to inspire and convert, being a tyrant and shaming people into making empty statements or hiding their private lives from view is not going to win converts unless they too want to manipulate.

[oremfrien]

As a Dualist Atheist, it's really nice to see someone who acknowledges (1) that Atheism is not a Worldview, BUT most Atheists share a worldview and (2) that this worldview can and should be critiqued.

[philippebrehier]

MORALITY is doing what is right regardless of what you are told.
OBEDIENCE is doing what you are told regardless of what is right!

[mullac]

As an atheist, I'm very interested in this series! Many "theories of Atheism" are either by people trying to "disprove" Atheism, or Atheists themselves who are just self-important. I trust you to be able to explore this subject with respect and empiricism!

[elleeeish]

As an atheist, this is great to see. One of the biggest issues I run up against as an atheist is theists arguing that atheist's have no moral code (as they derive their own from their religion or religious texts). Secular humanist is where I derive my moral code from. Thank you for introducing the concept of worldview here, hopefully it will reach some people who struggle with understanding us "heathens".

[enzoaraya]

It just makes me so happy to see a religious person such as yourself actually attempt to understand us, nowadays it feels like no one wants to.

[ReadtoRise]

Great job on this video, and congratulations on finishing your PhD thesis! I hope this helps bridge the gap between those who believe and those who don't. We're all on the same team people!

[ethans]

As a Christian, I find this data and terminology very interesting. Thanks for shedding some light on the subject

[invictus]

Atheism is a default state of mind. Religion as the author of the video correctly noted is a product of upbringing. So the right question is why people believe in supernatural phenomena rather than why they don't.

[anthonyburke]

I was staying in a hotel in Istanbul (love that city). I’m an elderly Caucasian male. At breakfast I met these 2 little boys and their sister, they were nice kids, polite and well mannered. I later met their Mother who explained her Husband had passed and They lived in the US, but the Mother was originally Syrian and was in Istanbul trying to get into contact with her family in the middle of the war in Syria. After meeting at breakfast for some days, bumping into each other at the pool and meeting at the roof top restaurant, the Mother and I drifted into talking about religion after I visited the Blue Mosque, she was a Moslem, she assumed I was a Christian, I told her I wasn’t, she then inquired what my religion was, I told her I had no religion and no belief in any Supreme Being or God. The Mother was nonplussed, she couldn’t comprehend a person without religion. I remained in the hotel for another 10 days, I was visiting museums and sites as well as shopping, the Mother was trying to contact family. Each day the Mother would approach me to discuss the question of the existence of God, she literally could not comprehend a world without a God. The good thing is I taught the children to swim and gained a bit of fitness, while the Mother seemed almost intrigued (she didn’t swim and didn’t even paddle her feet) in the ongoing discussion and kept coming up with “proofs” of the existence of God and “demanded” I refute (which I did). We exchanged contact details, but as she never contacted me I never contacted her after I left. I sometimes wonder how those children are going.