Wowza. Just in case you needed an eye-opener this morning. (I double-checked these, and unfortunately, the diagram doesn’t lie). Via blameitonthevoices:
As a footnote, when one googles, “why are atheists so” the results are: stupid, angry, awesome, intolerant, smart, mean, hateful, arrogant, annoying and rude.
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33 responses to “You Shall Know Them By Their Google Searches: A Venn Diagram”
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Ooooof. Shocking to see, but sadly unsurprising…
Try "why are black people so" and see what you get. When it is not censored by Google, the search suggestion feature does nothing but mirror the most popular prejudices of the last 5 minutes.
I love the fact that Buddhists are the only ones perceived by the general (Googling) public as being "happy". Next time someone tries to argue with me that all world religions are essentially the same, I'm going to point out that if that's the case, then I strongly suggest we all consider Buddhism! Apparently they're the only happy ones…
But sadly, if we're not perceived as happy then there's obviously something wrong with our message. This is called "good news" after all, and doesn't good news usually make people happy?
So, if Christians are to blame for their Google search suggestions, are black people to blame as well? Are Jews to blame for their Google list? Are Muslims to blame for their list? The implied conclusion we are to draw from this post, unless I am totally mistaken, is shocking and, I am sad to say, reflects its own prejudice.
MC – "Why are lawyers so" yields "expensive, unhappy, and arrogant."
Yeah, I don't know if this graph reveals the realities of how the public perceives various religious groups, or how judgmental the public is being toward said religious groups.
The irony is of course, that if enough people feel the need to google the question: why are Muslims terrorists, then is the googler him/herself a believer that all Muslims are terrorists and needs to question why.
So I guess I don't see this as a condemnation of western religion as much as, like M.C. said earlier, an unnuanced frustrated prejudiced view of world religions based upon popular misconceptions of said the said faith.
That said… I do wish we could pull off less mean and less hateful. But hey, when you get a religion together made up of self-identifying sinners, what do you expect?
Michael, I acknowledge that these are all prejudicial stereotypes (including Buddhists…just ask Tiger how "happy" he's been lately).
What confronted me in this post is the fact that there are such horrible stereotypes about Christians as well. And what is different (at least in my way of thinking) is that unlike the other groups, we choose to be Christians. Though we may be raised in it, at some point we make a conscious decision to stay or go. With the exception of perhaps the Greek Orthodox, Christianity isn't a strong part of our national or cultural identity.
Which means to a large extent, we choose what the image of Christianity is going to be, and we choose to be a part of that image.
For my part, I'd like to see how we can get "happy" over into our circle.
Ron– and the answers to those queries, in corresponding order:
(1) because they are worth it (2) because they are paid be, and (3) because they know more 😉
Jeff, Whether these prejudices that are expressed in these search suggestions are against a group of people who are identified based on a collective "choice" or on their birth makes absolutely no difference. To suggest otherwise is to concede that the characteristics that are brought up by the Google search suggestions have some legitimacy, but that people can be "excused" for being tagged with those queries who, like black people, are part of that group by birth, not by choice.
MC, Never mind what I said in the previous deleted comment.
Beth mentioned you're coming to the conference, so we can revisit this at that time over a cold draft beer.
Jeff–I never read your deleted comment–damn legal work got in the way 🙂 My point in this is not to take this Google search suggestion stuff, or the general impressions non-Christians may have of Christians, too seriously. Sure, we can be pricks, but what group doesn't have their share, and who at times has not been one? I certainly have, as I'm sure many would agree. If we had been able to Google "Jesus of Nazareth" on Good Friday, imagine what would have popped up. Jesus said if you follow me, the world will hate you. Of course being hated is not proof of actually following Jesus, but it's not proof that we deserve to be hated, either. I can be as dismissive of certain brands of evangelical Christianity as anyone, but I do think we run the risk of falling into a snobbish disdain for other Christians we label as "Pharisaical" or what not, and setting ourselves up, by implication, as examples of those who are in touch with their own "brokenness" who are virtually the only ones who really understand God's grace. That is never explicitly stated, of course, but still… The cure can sometimes be worse than the disease.
But there is quite a bit of hard evidence that these opinions are held fairly widely. Here's an article that quotes "the executive Director of Alpha USA" (hardly a "liberal," IOW!) as saying that "A whole generation of 16- to 29-year-olds hold a negative view of Christians. Only 16 percent have a positive view of the church. That’s a whole generation being lost unless we do something about it."
Another article, this time quoting an editor at Christianity Today, has some interesting things to say about why young people are leaving the church, via the book Generation Ex-Christian: Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Faith….and How to Bring Them Back.
Then there's this: "Majorities of young people in America describe modern-day Christianity as judgmental, hypocritical and anti-gay. What's more, many Christians don't even want to call themselves "Christian" because of the baggage that accompanies the label. A new book based on research by the California-based research firm The Barna Group found that church attitudes about people in general and gays in particular are driving a negative image of the Christian faith among people ages 16-29." And Barna is fairly moderate, too, I think.
So even if Google Searches aren't exactly scientific, there are some numbers out there on this topic.
The point is not whether a negative view of Christians is or is not a widely held opinion. All prejudices are, or at least have at one time been, by definition, widely held opinions.
OK – but I don't think prejudice ("pre-judging") is really at issue here.
Most of the kids in these surveys come, the articles say, from religious families themselves….
bls– I have heard the same sort of "personal experience" defense used as a preface to prejudicial comments about black people, as in, "I have a lot of black friends, and the school I went to was 50% black, and I'm not prejudiced but, let me tell you… 'they….' " Personal experience many times cements prejudice in place, because the prejudice acts as a filter to the personal experience. Even those who grow up in Christian home environments are immersed in a popular culture that more and more sees it as a given that any traditional teaching by the church on sexuality issues, etc., is by its very nature repressive, judgmental, "anti-gay", etc. This type of knee-jerk prejudice is so engrained in the popular culture that it is no longer possible to be considered a legitimate member of civilized society and oppose gay marriage, to give one concrete example. I don't want to "go there" with any discussion, by the way, but I do think it is such a powerful illustration that it can't be ignored. And I am not claiming that Christians should not be criticized, just that some of it has to be taken for the persecution that it is, even when it comes from within.
Always good to see you on here, BLS!
I am oddly enough sympathetic with what you and MC are both saying. On the one hand, it's always worth understanding how Christians are perceived by those outside the faith if you are trying to reach them. Definitely with you here.
On the other hand it's not by any means easy to take the Google results, or even the sources you mention, and tease out real perceptions, much less issues of causality — and I say that as a guy who does survey methodology for a living. For example, in the sources you cite, we find people in the 16-29 range finding reasons to excuse them getting up early on Sunday and going to church. Shocker! I certainly did that at that age. People in that age are trying to define themselves over and against Mom and Dad, and they are notorious late risers.
And the Google results are far less valid. They tell you only what people think who are the sort to do a computer search like:
WHY ARE BLACK PEOPLE SO ______
WHY ARE JEWS SO _______
It's like going to a local Klan rally to get your perception of racial attitudes in the US.
As usual, Stampdawg has cut to the logical heart of the matter 😉 I'm just glad I don't have to practice law with Stampdawg on the other side of the courtroom!!!
Hi Stampdawg. It seems to me that "only 16 percent have a positive view of the church" is a fairly straightforward statement – and once again, this comes from the Executive Director of Alpha, who is concerned about this. But there's "more from Barna here. Quote: "Based on past studies of those who avoid Christian churches, one of the driving forces behind such behavior is the painful experiences endured within the local church context. In fact, one Barna study among unchurched adults shows that nearly four out of every ten non-churchgoing Americans (37%) said they avoid churches because of negative past experiences in churches or with church people." There's really lots of stuff like this showing up around these days.
This can't, BTW, be considered "persecution," I don't really think, Michael Cooper. "Disagreeing with" or "disliking" is not the same thing as "persecuting." What I'm seeing seems much more along the lines of "dislike and distrust" to me. I'd be interested in knowing about even one example of actual persecution, in fact.
According to M-W.com, "persecute" means:
1: to harass or punish in a manner designed to injure, grieve, or afflict; specifically : to cause to suffer because of belief
2: to annoy with persistent or urgent approaches (as attacks, pleas, or importunities)
Where, exactly, is the "persecution" anywhere on this post, in these comments, or in these studies?
Check out what typing in "why are humans so" yields, though! Clearly, people don't generally go to Google to find out why other people (of whatever sort) are so great.
And doesn't that make sense? Condemned under the law, we all fumble around (on Google like anywhere) looking for some grounds on which we can at least see other people as "more condemned" than WE are. That's what predjudice is, at bottom, all about, isn't it? the desperate thought that, messed up as I am, I can (sort of) justify myself if I can show I'm not as messed up as THOSE people?
As for the Buddhist thing: I may be on more speculative ground here, but I imagine there's a lot of wishful thinking going on there. (Jeff's point about Tiger is well taken!) Buddhism may be just as badly understood by the culture at large as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are, but it's still exotic to Westerners, and enjoys certain romantic privileges.
Buddhism, as I understand it (someone feel free to correct me), attempts to deal with the condemnation problem by simply denying that there's a Law. –For my part, I can see how that WOULD tend to make you happy. (I think, though again I could be wrong, that a lot of contemporary agnostics are motivated by the same thing.) And if happiness were enough, Buddhism would be the way to go. But it's not enough; and Buddhism throws out Law only by throwing out the whole universe with it. It has to. The universe is a gift of the Love Who Is Father, Son, Spirit; love of that Love is the all-important cardinal virtue, the thing that makes or breaks the whole cosmos and gives us our only access to it. Love makes the Law; only Love can fulfill it. (The gospel is that Love HAS done that!) To set happiness in the place of love is, finally, to count everything as absolutely meaningless, including oneself (and one's own happiness). Any happiness one might happen to feel en route can't matter, and can't last. (Wouldn't a Buddhist admit as much?)
More here.
Quote:
Most Americans believe that the Christian faith has made positive contributions to American society during the past few years. A new nationwide survey from The Barna Group reveals that most of those contributions fall into one of three categories. Surprisingly, the survey also discovered that Americans are even more likely to identify negative contributions to society by Christianity in recent years.
In response to an open-ended question – meaning that survey respondents were not prompted with a list of possibilities but were asked to provide answers off the top of their head – one out of every five adults (19%) mentioned how Christians in the United States have helped poor or underprivileged people to have a better life. Adults under the age of 25 were especially likely to cite such service (34%). Others who were more likely than average to point out how Christians have helped those in need included blacks (28%) and those who describe themselves as “mostly liberal” on social and political matters (29%). Interestingly, evangelicals (11%) and those who say they are “mostly conservative” on socio-political matters (11%) were among the people least likely to list this as the greatest contribution of American Christianity.
And:
The most frequent response, however, was the inability to think of a single positive contribution made by Christians in recent years. One out of every four respondents (25%) said they could not recall anything of this nature. Skeptics (34%), unchurched adults (33%), and Independent voters (29%) were more likely than other people to fall into this response category.
When asked to identify what they thought were the negative contributions of Christians to American society in recent years, the most frequent response was violence or hatred incited in the name of Jesus Christ. One out of five Americans mentioned such vitriolic attitudes. This was most likely to be mentioned by people associated with non-Christian faiths (35%) and by evangelicals (31%).
Three other responses generated similar levels of support. Thirteen percent said the opposition of Christians to gay marriage was the largest negative contribution. People 25 or younger were twice as likely as other Americans to mention this. Blacks (20%) and Skeptics (20%) also registered above-average levels of concern about that position.
Twelve percent cited churches being too involved in politics as a major negative. Another 12% named the sexual abuse scandals involving Catholic priests as the biggest black-eye for the Christian faith. Those revelations were particularly disturbing to young adults and Hispanics.
(I somehow didn't see StampDawg's comments before posting mine–sorry for any redundancy there!)
More, from Julia Duin, a reporter at the Washington Times, from her book "Why the Faithful are Fleeing and What to Do About It." (In my best debate style, I'm giving you all sorts of very culturally-conservative sources here, BTW.)
Although many Americans believe evangelical Christians form a monolithic socio-political movement, statistics show that evangelicals are increasingly fleeing from Sunday worship to “house churches” in their living rooms, creating what Time magazine described in a March 2006 article as a flight by disgruntled evangelicals from megachurches to “minichurches.” While American Christians do change their churches and denominations, they often find themselves unsatisfied by all of them, dropping out of church entirely.
Is it really so surprising that evangelicals tend to break away from their own institutions and form more personal ones?
What are the reasons for this exodus? According to Duin, part of it has to do with the inability of pastors to cope with emerging sociological trends.
For example, although the number of singles over 35 is growing throughout America due to the rise of divorce and single motherhood, most evangelical churches ignore this demographic altogether, or at most serve up stale sermons on sexual purity which imply that singles have not been blessed by God in the way married people are blessed. The strong bias toward nuclear families excludes many people, perhaps the majority nowadays, whose lives have fallen short of the old ideals. Needs are not being met.
Many evangelicals report that they no longer find the same countercultural fire in charismatic circles that once nourished them. Even Pentecostal churches are shunning spontaneity and messiness, embracing business models and mission statements over prophesy and tongues. Duin asserts that the charismatic renewal movement, which affected Protestant and Catholic circles alike, peaked at a Kansas City conference in 1977 and has been declining ever since.
….
Duin’s book is filled with anecdotes and interviews with pastors and laity who have experienced the flight from institutional religion.
“The Christian world puts everyone in a little box and has no time for people who step outside it,” she quotes one friend as saying to her over lunch.
In general, people report that their spiritual needs are not being met at church. One problem is the marginalization of an increasingly educated laity by pastors who feel threatened by intelligent feedback. Duin herself earned an M.A. in religion from Trinity School of Ministry, an Episcopalian seminary in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.
“My research suggested that people are simply not being pastored,” Duin writes of preparing the book. “Often ministers are out of touch with what’s happening on the ground, as they are surrounded by a wall of secretaries and voice mail.”
American men and women of all ages are among those who increasingly feel alienated in some way from institutional religion. Men often feel like they are dying from an “estrogen overdose” in bookstores full of pink figurines, while women feel excluded from leadership roles unless they are married with babies, in which case they are simply asked to teach religious education classes.
Other problems cited include the abundance of superficial sermons and a general lack of coherent teaching from the pulpit, both of which marginalize people who bring real problems to church and end up sitting in quietly in the back while the preacher delivers canned sentiments.
Really, I'm not making this stuff up for fun or culture-war points; it's really happening.
(BTW, I'm asking for examples of "persecution" against Christians in the United States, not anywhere else; I am aware that in some parts of the world, actual cases of such persecution.)
cocktail parties 😉
I am in a men's bible study and last night we were discussing II Timothy and how Paul told Timothy to prepare and expect persecution. Paul also described we the people then and now. Short book worth a read– very timely. Anyway, our Priest shared an example of how one very rich man in our small Southern town studies theology (Spong, etc, in particular). This man also goes out of his way to goad the Priest at cocktail parties and other functions. The Priest asked him what exactly he hated about him and the church and the response was "I hate everything about your church, its members, and what it teaches . . ." Paul was onto something, of course.
Now, if I weren't concerned about the way people perceive Christians then I wouldn't be working so hard to get the message out; however, I am still not surprised that people have these perceptions and use them to reject Christianity—this is nothing new–,but it would be nice for people to reject it for the right reasons.
It is interesting to see that this negative opinion is still growing even when there has been a concerted move among the US church to present a "kinder, gentler, Christianity." Our parents were hippies for goodness sake! Walk into any mainline church, or one where the pastor is wearing an Ed Hardy T-shirt, and you'll be hard-pressed to find ANY condemnation of anything!
In fact, many "churches" do nothing but—like the Pharisees—-spend all of their energy pointing towards "those people" with unbridled contempt and disdain. And yet. . .
We can do what we can to "put roses on the Cross," but at the end of the day there stands–"on a hill, far away"– a giant NO at the entrance to Christianity that has to be navigated through, not around or over.
That this has been heard as either selectively pointed towards specific people/groups OR used to support the status quo is terrible (and something we're trying to address!), but it does not take away the central claim of the cross against which people instinctively flee.
Look, I watched Sesame Street too, my mom said there was nothing I couldn't do if I put my mind to it and there was nothing wrong with me, but the Gospel taught me otherwise.
I spent years in and out of churches that were trying to be Glee w/Jesus, and this kept me from hearing the message that the Gospel was not for rehabilitation and/or affirmation, but redemption.
We're doing the best we can to make this as clear and non-politicized as possible, but at the end of the day we've got something to say that very few people want to hear, unless, of course, it is by that word that they being saved.
1 Cor. 1:18
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
And, I do confess/realize that the accusation of falling into being overly critical of "those Christians," can easily be levied at me– mea culpa
But, we are trying to define ourselves independently, that is, we are trying to be defined by something other than "we're not like them. . . "
Success in this area, of course, is fleeting—
Amazing, shattering words from JDK!
"cocktail parties 😉"
Well, you've probably got a point, there, Michael Cooper. Never touch the stuff myself, so couldn't say from first-hand experience….
😉
The thing is, though, JDK: the criticism doesn't seem to be aimed at the message at all. That would be a different kind of rejection, I'd think. (Which you do see, I admit – but that's mostly coming from the so-called "militant atheist" side of things, and I'm not really talking about that group.)
In fact, the majority of Christians who've left the church seem still to define themselves as Christian – and apparently many continue to try to meet in house groups, as in the last post, or continue to pray at home. I've met, in fact, and talked to a lot of "refugees from Evangelicalism" (or, in other cases, "recovering Catholics"), who still talk about religion and religious ideas in a sort of wistful way sometimes. (It's true that nobody rebels against the Episcopal Church, though! The only way to do it, really, would be to go Pentecostal or something…. 😉 )
There seems to me to have been a sort of (religiously-based?) backlash against cultural/political conditions after the 60s, and a lot of people got caught in the undertow of this. And because the original reaction was based in culture and politics, and not really in religion – that's how the backlash ended up working itself out, too.
I'm really not trying to be disruptive here; I keep up with this sort of thing, though, and have been watching this whole thing widen and deepen over the past 20 years or so. Evangelicals themselves have started to be concerned about it. Anecdotally, I know that a lot of people who feel burned by their past experiences, and who took themselves out of the church – so that no doubt influences how I see this, too. I can say this: people who feel themselves burned, frustrated, or derailed in their efforts to find God do take it seriously, and do react in some large (and in fact sometimes self-destructive) way.
And that is where I'm coming from, mostly. You can't deny people God; that's a disaster.
bls. . . you're not causing a disruption at all—your observations are wholeheartedly welcomed!
It seems that you're referencing two different groups. On one hand, there are those "16-25" "A whole generation of 16- to 29-year-olds hold a negative view of Christians", and on the other, there are those who "continue to call themselves Christian but have left the church."
As a good protestant, I have no problem with Christian people rejecting the church, but I do think that there are some theological reasons underlying said rejection that can reveal a complete misunderstanding of the Gospel.
During the reformation, people left the church because it was not preaching the Gospel, is that what is happening today? I'm not so sure.
Some thoughts. . . .
The reasons people give for leaving the church is that it is "judgmental and hypocritical," this is not surprising. Fundamental to the Church's proclamation is some sense that the Law accuses everyone—regardless of race, color or creed—equally, and affirmation of that is necessarily judgmental.
However it is communicated, it is hard to hear something about how the death of Jesus was for your sins without getting a sense of judgment. However, it is only hypocrisy when that critique is levied at a particular group as opposed to another. When the law is understood to be speaking to every aspect of human existence—what the old theologians would have called (helpfully or unhelpfully) “Total Depravity,”—well, this is a message that is not hard to swallow, it is impossible.
Nevertheless, the affirmation of the just accusation of the law precludes anyone from being, technically, hypocritical. Not unlike the tenets of A.A, the first step is admitting you have a problem!
I think it goes without saying, but I do think that there are Christian expressions that are anything but, and I can completely understand why someone—e.g., Alx Rose—would run far from that type of Christianity. However, IMNSHO, much of the dissatisfaction with Christianity stems from the central claim that, at its core, it is not about affirmation or (even initially) love, but forgiveness.
People will (and should) run out of churches that do not proclaim this message of forgiveness, but these people who are refusing to call themselves “Christians” seem to be operating under a different assumption than those who are looking for a word of mercy. In my experience (limited, mind you) those people leveling such critiques at the church, while maybe reacting to some genuinely terrible iteration, nevertheless would react similarly to the audacious claim that forgiveness from God for who we are –not just what we do–is not merely ancillary to but constitutive of the entire Gospel message.
During the reformation, people left the church because it was not preaching the Gospel, is that what is happening today? I'm not so sure.
Yes, I think it is. As I said, I think the reaction is to the fact that in the U.S. at least, the church became (or was seen to be, at any rate) embroiled in the acquisition of political power, and in culture war. It seemed to say – some directly did say – that those people over there are causing catastrophe to "our country" and that "we" have to do something about it to make the country holy again.
There's no contradiction, either, between the fact that "only 16 percent have a positive view of the church" and that "most people continue to call themselves Christians." (These are two facts that have apparently come to light out of at least some research studies.) The point is that the church is, apparently, held in low esteem – but Christianity itself is, apparently, not. And people are making the distinction between the two. (This isn't the only study that says this, BTW. And there does seem to be some ambiguity in language, at least in the USAToday article, between "church" and "Christians" – so I'm going with the version that gives actual numbers.)
Of course, we can argue then about what constitutes "Christian faith" – but that's not my main point here. The original post is about "attitudes," after all. And while I don't think the Google searches necessarily say anything, I think the research studies probably do.
There is also a general "anti-institution" feeling around today, of course – but nobody talks about how little respect they have for, say, the Rotary Club. (Of course, perhaps the Rotary Club is also held in low esteem and nobody thinks to study this phenomenon!) And you're right that people don't like having to think of themselves as sinners, as well, so that is probably part of what's going on. I think, though, the church has probably fed that dislike as well, appearing to fixate on certain issues at the complete expense of others.
The worst of the results – as I'm sure you'll agree – is that "When asked to identify what they thought were the negative contributions of Christians to American society in recent years, the most frequent response was violence or hatred incited in the name of Jesus Christ." And that 20% of people who mentioned negative contributions said this, without being prompted. Lots of people feel this way, too.
I'm just talking about what it looks like out here for a lot of people. Remember, I come from completely outside the church environment, so I do know these kinds of things are accurate for at least a segment of the population. Most people aren't angry at religion; they're angry at the church itself. When I was growing up, this wasn't the case, BTW; the church was held in positive regard generally. Granted there are complex reasons for this – but there's lots of anger and disdain out there.
BTW, there actually is a sort of rebellion going on against liberal theology in TEC, at any rate. Younger people are much more conservative, theologically, than their hippie parents were in that regard at least. Even I am no hippie in that respect; frankly, I don't see the point of belonging to the church unless you believe its theological claims! I've got lots of better things to do….
it is interesting that Jews also have some positive attributes…
but actually I have been asked by non-Christians why I am so happy… The Good News CAN be REALLY Good!