Atheism in Five Minutes - Teemu Taira
61. Do Atheists Value Some Religions More Than Other Religions?
Atheism in Five Minutes - Teemu Taira
Joel Thiessen [+]
Ambrose University
Joel Thiessen is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Flourishing Congregations Institute at Ambrose University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His research interests include religious nones, congregations, millennials, and religion in Canada. Along with nearly a
dozen peer-reviewed articles, he has published four books, including None of the Above:
Nonreligious Identity in the US and Canada (with Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme) and Millennial
Mosaic: How Pluralism and Choice are Shaping Canadian Youth and the Future of Canada (with Reginald Bibby and Monetta Bailey). For more information, see www.joelthiessen.ca.
Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme [+]
University of Waterloo
Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo (Canada). She completed her DPhil (PhD equivalent) in sociology at the University of Oxford in 2015. Her research interests include
quantitative methods, sociology of religion, immigration and ethnicity and political sociology. Dr. Wilkins-Laflamme currently has 16 articles published in top Canadian and international peer-reviewed journals in the fields of sociology of religion, religious studies and political science, including the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Canadian Review of Political Science, Sociology of Religion, Canadian Review of Sociology, Studies in Religion, and the British Journal of Sociology. She is co-author of the 2020 book None of the Above: Nonreligious Identity in the U.S. and Canada, with New York University Press.
Description
Atheists hold varying attitudes toward religion because of different exposures to and experiences with a variety of religions around the world. In Canada and the United States, atheists are inclined to value religions that they perceive as more “inclusive” and tolerant – most notably, Buddhism – while reserving their disapproval for religions believed to be “exclusive” and intolerant, including notably Evangelical Christians, Muslims, Catholics, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.