International conference in Oxford asks 'what do atheists believe?'
2 December 2009
Who are 'atheists' and what do they believe? The study of religion may be an age-old scholarly tradition but now academics are moving towards discovering more about those who don't believe.
In the first conference of its kind for around 40 years, experts from around the world in all areas of atheism will be gathering at Oxford University on 11 December to discuss contemporary atheism. As well as discussion of what atheists believe, questions posed will include those such as asking how atheists are perceived by others in society.
With the Da Vinci Code being such a big hit, the topic is even more in the limelight, particularly given the popularity of Dan Brown's long awaited new novel this year. Dr Miguel Farias is a psychologist of religion at Oxford University who will speak at the conference to give the results of a project exploring naturalistic beliefs, based on reactions to the Da Vinci Code.
Dr Farias will discuss his findings that atheists have stronger beliefs in the ideas put forward by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code than religious people.
Cognitive anthropologists have had success in addressing the question of why religious beliefs and practices are so widespread in human populations. But this raises the question of how secularization and atheism then come about.
Dr Jonathan Lanman, from the Centre for Anthropology and Mind at Oxford University, will discuss this subject, presenting data from his research about how particular socio-economic environments lower levels of religious belief. His research centres on fieldwork carried out in the US, the UK and Denmark and a survey of non-theists from 50 countries.
Dr Lanman said: 'Environments which are well off and ethnically or culturally homogenous lead to a lowering of religious belief and participation. The reason for this is not because people in these environments have less need for the comfort of religion. Rather, it is more that in those societies there are lower commitments to in group ideologies, including nationalism and religion. With less commitment, people do not 'practice what they preach' regarding religion, and evidence from psychology and anthropology suggests that this makes the next generation much less likely to believe in religious claims.'
Dr Stephen Bullivant, a research fellow at Wolfson College and co-organiser of the conference, said: 'Atheism and related subjects have historically been neglected by social scientists. With only a handful of notable exceptions, serious studies of these topics have generally come from philosophers and theologians. This has left an unfortunate gap in research - not only for those interested in non-religion in its own right, but really for anyone who has a serious interest in the study of religion. Political scientists, for example, devote a great deal of attention to those sections of society who don't vote, or who take no interest in the electoral process - so why don't scholars of religion do the same?
'According to Dr Bullivant, researchers in different disciplines, and in different countries, have started to research these subjects more seriously due to the recent rise of the "so-called New Atheists", and the array of issues they've highlighted such as blasphemy legislation and faith schools.
He said: 'That's why the 'Non-religion and Secularity Research Network' (NSRN) was founded just over a year ago. The idea was to bring all these people together, and to see what interesting new data and theories were being thrown up. So this conference is the first time that a significant number of us - sociologists, psychologists, historians, anthropologists, religious studies scholars, political scientists - will all get together in the same room.
'For more information or contact Katie Samuel in The University of Oxford Press Office on press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk or 01865 280528. To attend the conference, contact Stephen Bullivant on stephen.bullivant@wolfson.ox.ac.uk