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Americans overestimate the size of minority groups and underestimate the size of most majority groups (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Wulri@lemmy.world to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

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Source: https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/41556-americans-misestimate-small-subgroups-population

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[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Sounds about right, there's a difference between atheism and agnosticism, which is what the 2nd question is asking.

[–] Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

This isn't the difference. Agnosticism postulates that knowing if any god exist is categorically unanswerable. The matter of your personal believe is a parallel question entirely. "We cannot be sure, but I personally don't believe any gods" makes an atheist, but so does "There is absolutely no evidence for any gods so I don't believe any". "We cannot be sure, but I personally believe in Sobek, may his sperm be neverending" makes a theist.

[–] kayohtie@pawb.social 7 points 5 hours ago

I think the bigger difference is "I don't believe but I also don't think others are wrong" is a kind of mentality often. I think that and people are used to seeing self-proclaimed atheists being assholes loudly and go "well I'm not that". Atheism got fucked over by people who just want to be dicks to religious folks.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Here's how I'm reading the questions:

"are you an atheist". 4%

4% of respondents have a firm belief that gods do not exist. (atheist)

"do you believe in any god" 20%

20% of respondents do not believe in a god, but do not necessarily think they don't exist either. They don't have enough knowledge to form a belief, i.e. they don't know. (agnostic)

[–] Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Agnosticism is the separate category in that questioneer. Pew is weird about it, they just list every major religion and sect, then "other" then "agnostic", "atheist", and "nothing", and you need to chose one, which might be the source of confusion, and I can't see any good explanation on why do they do it like that. LIke I said, bullshit number. "Don't believe in any gods, don't follow any religion, not an agnostic" is an atheist, by definition. Separating it into "atheist" and "atheist but different word" can only serve one purpose, to dilute the numbers so christians don't feel threatened by all the evil heathens.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago

Mmm, in that case just sounds like unreliable data.