The Victorious Opposition

I think you are reading way, way, way too much into this. Occam’s Razor time.

Atheists and agnostics tend to be socially liberal (abortion, gay rights, separation of church & state, etc). When given a choice between Obama and McCain, which candidate is more socially liberal? Obama, obviously. Look at McCain’s record on these topics (which is actually pretty right-wing, cloaking is libertarian rhetoric when needed). There’s no doubt about which way these folk are gonna go if they prioritize social issues above economic & foreign-policy issues.

Evangelicals and Catholics are socially conservative and they aren’t choosing one candidate over the other candidate with the same single-mindedness that the atheists/agnostics are.  It’s even more stunning when you consider just how extreme Obama is on abortion.

This just deflates the old myth that Evangelicals are simple minded morons who the GOP reaches out to because they are easily controlled.  If bloc voting is symbolic of being easily manipulated, we see that the atheists and agnostics are the biggest perpetrators.  55% to 17%?

Not only that, they are betting on the candidate with the far, far slimmer track record.  I call that a leap of faith.  My post is dead-on.

Within the sampling error (3%), “atheists and agnostics” are barely separated from “faiths other than Chistianity”, and not even that far away from “notional Christians”. I just don’t see what the big deal is here; the far, far bigger story is:

evangelicals were the only segment to throw its support to Sen. McCain

which strongly reinforces your point:

they are betting on the candidate with the far, far slimmer track record

which is the actual story, and it applies to many segments. You are cherry-picking, trying to make a story out of a single segment, which isn’t even a very big outlyer.

I’m not sure what you mean by the “actual story”.  I happen to think that the dogmatic lemming behavior of the atheists/agnostics is very interesting and so I chose that as my editorial focus.

By definition the atheist should be more invested on the goings of their earthly existence, this is all there is for them so it might seem natural to imply more faith on their part. But if you break down party affiliations ( I don’t have the numbers in front of me) but I would bet that atheists tend to vote Democrat anyway (for some of the reasons dwex mentioned) so regardless of who the nominee is, the atheists would be supporting him. The same argument applies to say Jews or blacks, they tend to vote a certain way so the fact that this time they are supporting the party that they tend to support anyway isn’t particularly revealing.

So the fact that this time they are supporting the party that they tend to support anyway isn’t particularly revealing.

Except that only the Christians block is seen as dogmatic in the voting preference, which this clearly shows they are not.

From above, the group that shows the least tendency to vote one way (Christians to republican - remember the rants that the Christians control the republican party) and the atheists show the greatest tendency to vote in a bloc.

That is interesting to me.

Thank you, blameme.  I was starting to wonder if I failed to make one of my points. 

Evangelicals are routinely criticized for voting their opinions on, um, abortion, gay rights, separation of church and state, etc.  Yet we see that the atheists/agnostics are no different when it comes to voting on social issues.

You totally seem to be missing the point of the quote you based your own argument on. Let me spell it out. The following blocks are for McCain:

- Evangelical Christians

The following blocks are for Obama

- Atheists and agnostics
- people aligned with faiths other than Christianity
- notional Christians
- non-evangelical born again Christians
- Catholics
- Protestants

The first two by an almost statistically irrelevant difference in margin, and the third by significant margin.

When you have two semi-related groups lumped into one ranking (atheists and agnostics are not the same thing, in terms of faith), and another, dramatically larger group split into multiple rankings (followers of various religions and sub-denominations of those religions), it is completely bogus to point at that one ranking and go “see? see? I told you so”.

Look at the data this way. Pretend this data is displayed on a pie chart. There’s a slice for each of these groups. How big is the atheist and agnostic slice? 5% would probably be generous. You are pointing at that one tiny slice and going “see? the vast majority of that little tiny slice falls in this bucket”, while ignoring the 40-60% of the rest of the pie that falls into the same bucket.

It’s totally disingenuous.

Especially since the argument about Christians isn’t about all Christians, and never has been. It’s about Fundamentalists. Who are massively behind McCain. So what have you proven? That Fundamentalists do Fundamentalist things at both ends of the spectrum? Shocking, I tell you. Absolutely shocking!

Evangelicals are routinely criticized for voting their opinions on, um, abortion, gay rights, separation of church and state, etc.  Yet we see that the atheists/agnostics are no different when it comes to voting on social issues.

I absolutely agree with this but my point was that evangelicals routinely vote Republican and atheists routinely vote Democrat, to read something nefarious this go around, when these two groups are acting pretty much like they always act could be over reaching. Atheists generally support the Democratic nominee and they are acting true to form this time around. I don’t think it speaks particularly to Obama’s influence on them as it does their usual track record.

I think that what Thrill is pointing out is that while yes, atheists in general vote Dem and evangelicals in general vote republican, only one of those groups is called out for doing so.

Yet, we see above that a larger percentage of Christians are willing to consider a democrat (oh my God - they do have a brain and can think for themselves), atheists (considered to be much more open minded) vote in a bloc at a higher degree than the Christian segment.

It seems pretty straight forward to me, but then again I am a Christian and can think for myself….I keeed, I keeed.

Man, it feels good to have some time to post. I miss my daily dose of Dwex, Rich, Thrill and Manwhore - the resident freak.

Okay, apparently I’m going to have to try one more time:

Atheists/agnostics would like for us to believe that they are the most rational and enlightened among us because they require levels of proof in place of faith.  Understand?

Far from being especially independent thinkers, they vote as a bloc for the Democrat candidate by a margin of 1/2 to 1/5.  They actually voted by something like 80% to 20% for Kerry in 2004.  Understand?

Rather than focusing on “actual” issues (war, economy, health care), they seem to be following a particular social agenda—which you yourself said they are doing—which is something that Evangelicals are routinely criticized for doing.  Understand?

Therefore, atheist/agnostics are nothing more than “anti-Evangelicals”.  Understand? 

This indicates, to me anyway, that they are not as “rational” as they would like for us to believe, but are actually every bit as dogmatic as the Evangelicals to whom they place themselves in opposition.  Understand?

Rather than being as rational as they would have us believe, they are putting FAITH into a candidate who is constantly being likened to some sort of Messiah.  The whole point of the post is that they claim to be so sophisticated that they have no need for belief in a deity, because they have found a candidate for office to put their faith into, despite his complete lack of qualification and history.  Get it?

Yes, I am focusing on a very small proportion of voters, who also happen to be a very noisy and bitchy demographic and are absolutely ripe for having their hypocrisy laid bare.

I thought I spelled it out clearly in the post, but thank you for giving me the chance to clarify further.

I feel a rumble coming on…..yeehaw!

I feel a rumble coming on…..yeehaw!

There shouldn’t have to be one.  My post was perfectly straightforward.  The thing is that dwex believes that the Evangelicals are a terrible menace because they actually have the nerve to vote on social issues that they feel very strongly about and thinks that the post should have been about that instead of pointing out that atheists/agnostics are not the more evolved uber-humans that they would have us believe they are.

No, Thrill. You simply do not understand your own point.

You are pointing out the fact that people at dire opposites of the spectrum do what people at the dire opposites of the spectrum do. Atheists are at one end, evangelicals are at the other end. These blocks tend to vote for the party that matches their general social worldview.

Evangelics - 61-17 for McCain.
Atheists & agnostics - 55-17 for Obama
Everyone else - still split with a vast majority for Obama

Where, exactly, is the news here?

I think rich and I are saying the same thing - you’ve made a story out of obviousness.

I think you’re trying to make a story out of exposure to a group of atheist fundietards who you’ve interacted with on another blog, who are either not voting or voting for McCain. They’re in that 17% that’s not voting for McCain, or in the 28% that’s not voting for either.

Atheists are at one end, evangelicals are at the other end.

We’re getting closer to the point.  Just a little bit further:

Why should atheists simply be defined as the opposite of Evangelicals?

Why should atheists simply be defined as the opposite of Evangelicals?

Umm, because they are?

You also missed an important point in your cited article:

Another quirk within many election surveys is the reporting of candidate preference based upon the views of registered voters rather than those of likely voters. In the past three presidential elections, just two-thirds of all voting-age citizens were registered to vote, and 85% of them did so. Tracking the opinions of all registered voters rather than just those of people who are likely to vote distorts the public’s perception of the race as it progresses.

In other words, they are not tabulating the opinions of those who have decided not to vote. Almost everyone I know who defines themselves as an atheist has said they’re not voting; a few are voting Libertarian. This weakens your point even further. What percentage of registered-voter atheists are excluded from this tabulation? This blows up your whole

Those who consider themselves too “enlightened” and “sophisticated” to be troubled with Faith in an entity that they cannot see or hear are often the most easily conned into placing their hopes in men and causes that are themselves unproven, uncertain, and sometimes dangerous

premise, because for all you know, a significant percentage of these “enlighted” and “sophisticated” people you want to harangue told the pollsters “none of the above” and hence were dropped from the analysis completely.

Umm, because they are?

Thank you!  You have reached “The Point”.  They should be analytical, informed, and rational.  They clearly are not. 

a significant percentage of these “enlighted” and “sophisticated” people you want to harangue told the pollsters “none of the above” and hence were dropped from the analysis completely.

If they follow traditional atheist/agnostic herd mentality of previous elections, approximately 8 out of 10 will vote for the Living Messiah on Earth.

If they follow traditional atheist/agnostic herd mentality of previous elections, approximately 8 out of 10 will vote for the Living Messiah on Earth.

You have utterly nothing to base that statement on. Certainly not the reference you cited, since it explicitly excludes a non-trivial chunk of the people you are trying to make a point about.

You have utterly nothing to base that statement on.

Sure I do.  Behold:

The Kerry Constituencies. Five religious groups gave Kerry about three-quarters or more
of their votes: Black Protestants (83 percent), Atheists/Agnostics (82 percent), Modernist
Mainline Protestants (78 percent), Other Faiths (77 percent), and Jews (73 percent).
Turnout varied considerably among these groups, from a low of one-half to a high of
nearly nine of ten.

Again, what is your point? Look at the turnout sentence in that quote. Where is your data that shows that a huge chunk of atheists/agnostics didn’t vote for “none of the above”? You are also assuming that the decisions of those who did vote weren’t based on active anti-war votes (the primary issue for voters in 2004), or reasoned decisions about social issues, at a time when gas was “relatively” cheap, etc, etc?

You’re proving nothing with this stat, absolutely nothing.

Uh, I just backed up my statement that 8 out of 10 atheists would vote for the Democrat like the cattle that they are, for which you said I had no basis.  Also, there was not 80% opposition to the Iraq War in 2004.  Atheists were out of proportion on that because they were too busy trying to define themselves as anti-Evangelicals.

No, you didn’t. You showed that 8 of 10 atheists THAT VOTED voted for Kerry. You have no data whatsoever on the percentage of atheists that voted for “none of the above”. So to generalize from that stat to what atheists do is bogus.

Let’s carefully analyze what I said:

If they follow traditional atheist/agnostic herd mentality of previous elections, approximately 8 out of 10 will vote for the Living Messiah on Earth.

IF THEY FOLLOW…

I then provided the basis for my reasoning.

Now apologize.

Nope. If you had said 8 out of 10 who vote then maybe you’d have a reason to ask for an apology for that last post.

But you still haven’t addressed the fact that your primary premise is completely unsupported by the data you presented because it excludes atheists who abstain. You want to claim that they are just single-issue/faith-driven as evangelicals, but you cannot back up that claim without analyzing how many abstain from the process because they don’t like either answer. You can’t claim they’re lemmings if you can’t show a majority of that population is actually acting like a lemming.

Nope. If you had said 8 out of 10 who vote then maybe you’d have a reason to ask for an apology for that last post.

READ the sentence; that is what it says.

But you still haven’t addressed the fact that your primary premise is completely unsupported by the data you presented because it excludes atheists who abstain.

Okay, then.  Let’s say the uncounted don’t vote and we’ll just go from those who did claim they support a candidate.

72% will vote for a candidate.

55% for Obama
17% for McCain

That means that 76% of the ones that will actually vote for a candidate according to this poll are going to vote for Obama.  I was off by a whopping 4%.  Now will you apologize?

Of course, 76% can be rounded up to 8 out of 10, so try and tell me again that my statement was baseless.

That’s not what your source says. It says it’s excluding non-voters. 72% of the atheists/agnostics who plan to vote will vote for Obama or McCain (the others will vote for a 3rd candidate, it would seem). Not 72% of all available atheist/agnostic voters. They made that point very clearly in the paragraph I quoted from your source.

If 80% of atheists/agnostics are planning to vote, then you might have a point. If 20% of atheists/agnostics are planning to abstain, then your point is completely irrelevent statistically.

Either way, you are implying that the decision is faith-based and irrational, and the data doesn’t back that up either. It might show that their priorities are screwed up, but it doesn’t in any way show that the decision is faith-based.

Stop asking for apologies. Your data doesn’t support your conclusions. Not even close. You’re not going to get an apology.

Either way, 76% of atheists who vote for McCain or Obama will vote for Obama.  That was my point.  They sheerly and undeniably are voting for the GodManChild out of proportion to the general population.

The End.