Atheists are more respectful of believers than the other way around

Research shows how our beliefs, or lack thereof, separate us.

Rousseau said that there are several types of religion, including a "private" and individual version of belief in the transcendent and the divine, and another that is collective in nature, based on public rituals and shared dogmas and symbols. In practice, said this philosopher, the first variant is undesirable, because it does not act to unite societies.

Time has passed and so have societies; now, unlike three centuries ago, we must satisfy a need that did not exist before. This new need is to create an inclusive culture in which no one is left out because of issues related to their beliefs or lack thereof. And, although the history of religions is full of violent conflicts between confessions, the relationship between them and atheism has not been much better, the relationship they have with atheism has not been much better..

Today, in fact, a study shows that in a world where freedom of thought and belief is increasingly defended, atheism continues to be stigmatized.

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Atheists' respect for believers is not reciprocated

A team of researchers at Ohio University has shown that atheists are more respectful of believers than vice versa, something to which they offer several explanations.

The team of researchers, led by Colleen Cowgill, used a game based on economics to find out how one's personal beliefs influence the way we identify with others, or conversely whether they distance us from others. or conversely whether we distance ourselves from them. Specifically, we wanted to see whether the fact of being a believer or an atheist makes us act giving high priority to those who share these beliefs or whether this priority tends not to exist.

To do this, a simple exercise known as the dictator game was chosen, in which a person must decide whether he or she wants to share his or her money, and how much he or she should give up. Thus, pairs are created in which one person is an atheist and the other is a believer, and one of them is assigned a dominance role to decide whether he or she wants to share an amount of money.

The result showed that, knowing each other's beliefs, Christians distributed more money to the other Christians than to atheists, while atheists did not give favorable treatment to either group, giving on average the same amount to both believers and non-believers.. This ceased to occur at the moment when each person's religious beliefs, or lack thereof, ceased to be revealed.

Stigma could be behind it

Colleen and his team propose an explanation to explain why atheists tend to show more kindness to believers than they receive in return from believers, at least according to this study. What could be behind this phenomenon is a compensation strategy on the part of atheists, to avoid receiving negative consequences related to prejudice and stigma about atheism in general. about atheism in general.

For a long time, religion and morality have been practically synonymous: ethics arose from a belief in a higher order that tells us what we should do. that tells us what we should do. The absence of belief in the divine, according to this logic, is a threat, because there is nothing to guarantee that an atheist will not commit the most atrocious acts if we think that the only thing that prevents us from behaving badly is our union with one or more gods.

On the other hand, even today there is still little contact with atheism (as of today there is no country in which the majority of the population is atheist), so it is reasonable that whoever does not believe in any religion is afraid of receiving unfavorable treatment if he offers the slightest opportunity to be seen as the enemy.

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Full integration has not yet been achieved

This study shows that the most private beliefs are still something that divides society, to the point that a simple label is capable of causing us to treat each other differently.. The tendency to give privileged treatment to those who are more similar to oneself is nothing more than a way of creating an unnecessary division without there being any real reason for conflict.

Thus, atheists, being aware of the stereotypes that still persist, do their best to "compensate" the rest, since they start from a disadvantageous situation. In this sense, it would still be necessary to carry out research similar to this one to see if something similar happens with religious minorities. similar to this research would still be necessary to see if something similar happens with religious minorities in countries where there is a high level of religious minorities. in countries where there is a high degree of fanaticism.