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Many Answers Exist As to Why Some People Do Not Believe In THE REASONS OF ATHEISTS/AGNOSTICS FOR NONBELIEF IN GOD’S EXISTENCE SCALE: DEVELOPMENT AND INITIAL VALIDATION by DAVID F. BRADLEY, M.A. Submitted in partial fulfillment for the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts Department of Psychology CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY May, 2014 1 CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES We hereby approve the thesis of David F. Bradley, M.A. Candidate for the degree of Masters of Arts*. Committee Chair Julie Exline, Ph.D. Committee Member Heath Demaree, Ph.D. Committee Member T.J. McCallum, Ph.D. Date of Defense 03/28/2014 *We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained therein. 2 Table of Contents List of tables……………………………………………………………………………….3 Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………4 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..5 Study Overview and Hypotheses………………………………………………………...18 Method…………………………………………………………………………………...24 Results……………………………………………………………………………………29 Discussion……………………………………………………………………….……….39 Tables…………………………………………………………………………………….49 Appendix…………………………………………………………………………………62 References………………………………………………………………………………..80 3 List of Tables Table 1. Summary of Hypothesized Correlations for Initial Validation of the Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale………………………48 Table 2. Sample Demographics…………………………………………………………51 Table 3. Variable Descriptive Statistics………………………………………………....52 Table 4. Exploratory Factor Analysis Showing Final 35 Items and Factor Loadings from Pattern Matrix (Maximum Likelihood Extraction with Direct Oblimin Rotation)................................................................................................................53 Table 5. Intercorrelations among the Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale (RANGES) full scale and subscales……………………56 Table 6. Convergent and Discriminant Validity of the Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale (RANGES) and Subscales: Correlations with Measures of Nonbelief and Sources of Doubt…………………………………57 Table 7. Convergent and Discriminant Validity of the Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale (RANGES) and Subscales: Simultaneous Multiple Regression Predicting Measures of Nonbelief and Sources of Doubt…58 Table 8. Predictive Validity of the Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale (RANGES) and Subscales: Correlations with Measures of Current and Past Experiences and Identities Related to Belief and Nonbelief…………...59 Table 9. Predictive Validity of the Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale (RANGES) and Subscales: Simultaneous Multiple Regression Predicting Current and Past Experiences and Identities Related to Belief and Nonbelief…………………………………………………………………………60 4 The Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale: Development and Initial Validation Abstract by DAVID F. BRADLEY, M.A. Previous research exploring reasons for not believing in the existence of a god or gods has largely been theoretical. What reasons do nonbelievers actually give for their nonbelief? Drawing on previous studies, this project aimed to develop and provide initial validity testing of a measure to capture these reasons: the Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale. Participants (N = 520) were adults drawn from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk worker database. Responses to the measure were subjected to exploratory factor analysis. Factor analysis revealed a nine-factor solution: Socialization-Past, Socialization-Current, Bad Experiences with Religion, Societal Concerns, Intellectual, God Relational, Emotional, Intuitive, and Agnostic. The obtained factors were subjected to initial validity testing across a number of variables, including attitudes toward God or religion and previous measures of nonreligious identity and doubt. Correlation and multiple regression generally supported the construct validity of the measure’s subscales. 5 The Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale: Development and Initial Validation Many answers exist as to why some people do not believe in the existence of a god or gods.1 Prior writings have largely been theoretical, drawing on psychoanalytic or evolutionary-cognitive frameworks. However, a more basic question has been left unanswered: What reasons do nonbelievers give for not believing in a god or gods? Previous research has begun to examine the reasons both believers and nonbelievers give for their respective positions regarding God’s existence (Exline, Bradley, & Uzdavines, 2014). Research suggests that atheists with different reasons for nonbelief also differ in terms of personality characteristics (Bradley & Exline, 2013). This study extends research into the area of the diversities of nonbelief by developing a nuanced measure of reasons atheists and agnostics give for nonbelief in a god or gods. Nonbelief, Atheism, and Agnosticism The term atheism can refer to a facet of a person’s identity or it can refer to a stance regarding the question of the existence of a god or gods. Before the 19th Century, atheism was a pejorative label applied to others, used to refer to nonbelief in the existence of a particular god or particular conception of that god (Armstrong, 1993). In more modern usage, atheism has come to mean nonbelief in the existence of any god or gods. 1 In this thesis, when referring to divine beings that are the object of religious belief or nonbelief, the phrasing god or gods is generally used to represent the wide array of conceptions of a divine being. The term God is avoided due to its association with the particular deity posited to exist by some monotheistic religions, whereas nonbelievers do not believe in any god or gods, including the polytheistic pantheons of, for example, ancient Greek tradition and modern Hinduism. Some researchers have used the term God in their measures or conclusions without specifically intending to refer to the Christian or Jewish deity; when referring to such measures or findings in this thesis, the term God is carried over. 6 Yet, this usage is not without controversy. For some, atheism refers to the active disbelief or certain rejection of the proposition that a god or gods exist (sometimes referred to as strong atheism), while for others, atheism refers to the more modest claim that there is no reason or evidence to believe that a god or gods exist (or weak atheism; Martin, 1990; Nielsen, 2013; G. H. Smith, 1979). One way to conceive of this difference is to frame the question of the existence of a god or gods as a scientific hypothesis. In the case of weak atheism, the null hypothesis would be that a god or gods do not exist, and the evidence is not persuasive enough to reject the null hypothesis. In the case of strong atheism, a more Bayesian approach is used. Bayesian approaches to hypothesis testing allow for evidence to persuade individuals to accept the null hypothesis as true, whereas traditional null hypothesis significance testing only allows individuals to say that the null hypothesis has not yet been falsified (for more on Bayesian hypothesis testing, see Rouder, Speckman, Sun, Morey, & Iverson, 2009). For strong atheists, the evidence regarding the existence of a god or gods leads to the acceptance of the null hypothesis that no god or gods exist. Atheism can also be understood as an achieved identity (J. M. Smith, 2010). The definition of atheism or atheist as an identity is controversial at a basic level for the reasons discussed above; namely, the definition of the nonbelief is nebulous, and therefore any identity based on that nonbelief cannot be any more concrete. However, the Oxford English Dictionary (“atheist,” 2013) provides a usefully broad definition: “a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.” Self- identification as an atheist is only one option for those people who hold the epistemological position of nonbelief in any god or gods. Indeed, one study found that 2% of the United States population are atheists based on their stance on the existence of 7 God, but less than 1% of the U.S. population identify themselves as atheists (Kosmin & Keysar, 2009). Other terms atheists use include skeptic, freethinker, religious none, Bright, agnostic-atheist, humanist, anti-theist, apatheist, secularist, secular humanist, spiritual but not religious, or non-theist (Pasquale, 2007). One reason for the proliferation of identity labels is the desire to define oneself in terms of one’s positive beliefs rather than simply the lack of belief in a god or gods. Each of the terms above carries a slightly different tone or emphasis that communicates either a reason for nonbelief or an approach to life that approximates the importance of religious identity. A second reason may be to escape the negative social costs and prejudices that are associated with atheism (Gervais, Shariff, & Norenzayan, 2011). Agnosticism, too, has varying definitions. Sometimes, agnosticism refers to the stance that, as a matter of epistemological fact, nothing can be known about the existence or traits of any gods or god-like figures (Huxley, 1889/1992). This is sometimes referred to as strong agnosticism (Poidevin, 2010). It is a position that implies closure: there is no use in exploring the question of whether or not a god or gods exist because no facts or rational arguments can be brought to bear. At other times, agnosticism refers
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