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

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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 to a stance of uncertainty about whether or not a god or gods exist, sometimes called weak agnosticism (Poidevin, 2010). It is a position that implies the possibility of seeking: the question of whether or not a god or gods exist is unanswered, but not unanswerable. As with atheism, it is possible to hold beliefs that fit the definition of agnosticism yet not identify oneself as an agnostic. One survey using a U.S. sample found that 4% held a strong agnostic stance on the existence of God and 6% held a weak agnostic stance, but less than 1% chose to identify themselves as agnostic (Kosmin & Keysar, 2009). 8

Recent research suggests that there are differences between people who hold agnostic vs. atheistic positions and that both groups are distinct from other non-religious identities (the religious nones). For example, self-identified atheists, compared to self- identified agnostics, have been found to have higher levels of life satisfaction (Galen &

Kloet, 2011) and lower levels of right-hemisphere dominance in brain activity (Burris &

Petrican, 2011). However, this area of research is relatively new in the area of psychology and is in need of more quantitative empirical work (Pasquale, 2007). The previously observed differences between atheists and agnostics suggest that it is useful to include both atheists and agnostics as distinct groups when studying nonbelief in gods.

Previous Categorization Schemes of Nonbelievers

Part of the study of atheism as a distinct identity includes understanding intragroup differences between atheists. Several attempts have been made at this task, using different theoretical frameworks and measures. These will be briefly reviewed next.

Norenzayan and Gervais (2013), using a genetic and cultural evolution framework, conceptualized four potential origins of religious nonbelief, each related to the failure or weakness of an evolved mechanism that tends to give rise to belief in a god or gods. The first origin, mind-blind atheism, is characterized by an individual who lacks the tendency to mentalize (that is, detect other minds), whereas the tendency to mentalize leads many people to believe in the existence of a personal god. The second origin, apatheism, is described as indifference to the existence of any gods, which is often found in individuals and cultures that experience significant social stability, personal freedom, and economic safety. In other words, apatheism occurs when the conditions of the social world make the documented benefits of god belief less salient. A third origin of nonbelief 9

in a god or gods, according to Norenzayan and Gervais, is inCREDulous atheism. In general, if an action seems to go against an individual’s self-interest, then the motivation for that action is judged more likely to be rooted in truth as opposed to mere personal preference or opinion. For the case of belief in a god or gods, this translates to people taking costly actions that only seem rational under the assumption that god is real, such as giving a significant proportion of one’s income to the church or giving up pleasurable but

“sinful” activities. For inCREDulous atheism, this cultural learning does not occur, and thus belief in a god or gods is not supported. The fourth origin is termed analytical atheism, wherein a person actively blocks or overcomes the intuitive cognitive processes that seem to suggest a god or gods exist in favor of using analytic thinking processes that, for these atheists, seem to suggest a god or gods do not exist.

This framework of understanding atheism by Norenzayan and Gervais (2013) has strong theoretical underpinnings. Their framework draws from very important theories of the evolutionary and cultural contexts of cognitive processes. Their four origins of atheism help provide some explanation of the demographics of atheism – for example, the disproportionate representation of autistic individuals and men in atheism (mind-blind atheism), the presence of high degrees of atheism in countries with strong social safety nets (apatheism), the disproportionate number of nonbelievers in the Northeast United

States (inCREDulous atheism) and the higher proportion of atheists among the National

Academy of Sciences (analytical atheism). Norenzayan and Gervais’ scheme is reliant upon unconscious processes; it is unclear to what degree atheists would consciously ascribe their atheism to these processes. 10

Other work has focused on identifying differences between atheists in terms of their self-concept relative to their nonbelief. Gibson (2011) describes a measure that attempts to identify atheists in terms of their lived experiences as atheists. Factor analysis has revealed four to five factors on which nonbelievers differ from one another.

The factors relate to rigidity around current beliefs, holding a “scientistic” worldview, indifference toward religion, positive vs. negative attitude about religion, and desire to withhold one’s nonbelief in God from others around them.

Silver (2013), based on a series of Internet-based qualitative interviews with 58 adult nonbelievers in the United States, proposed a typology of nonbelievers consisting of six categories: Intellectual Atheist/Agnostic, Activist Atheist/Agnostic, Seeker-Agnostic,

Anti-Theist, Non-Theist, and Ritual Atheist/Agnostic. The Intellectual Atheist/Agnostic category is defined by intellectual engagement with philosophical and scientific readings and discussions. The Activist Atheist/Agnostic primarily identifies oneself as an agent agitating for social justice, including a just society for non-believers. The Seeker-

Agnostic is comfortable with his or her lack of closure on the question of the existence of a god or gods, and is interested in continuing to search for spiritual and scientific truth.

The Anti-Theist is an ardent and active opponent of belief in a god or gods, because the individual is convinced such beliefs are false and harmful to others. The Non-Theist eschews all dialogue regarding the existence or non-existence of a god or gods, instead taking a stance of neutrality that reflects their underlying belief that religious opinions are unimportant. Finally, the Ritual Atheist/Agnostic does not believe in the existence of a god or gods, but finds participation in religious ceremonies and communities to be meaningful. 11

Silver’s (2013) work represents an important attempt to identify possible sources of variance within the nonbeliever population. Moreover, by using qualitative interviews,

Silver allowed nonbelievers to speak for themselves, giving his typology grounding in the lived identities of nonbelievers. Silver’s categories capture fundamental differences in attitudes toward truth, the potential harm or benefit of religious practice, and the importance of opposing religious beliefs. His typology does not directly ask nonbelievers their reasons for nonbelief, but one might speculate that differences in reasons for nonbelief may undergird some of the differences between the types. Currently, Silver’s types are a set of descriptions, one per type, that he created based on an analysis of the qualitative data. Use of a multi-item measure based on these descriptions may help elucidate the distinctive elements of each type and provide greater theoretical clarity and empirical support for the types.

Other, less pervasive differences between types of atheists have been found as well. A study of meaning-making found that self-identified atheists scored lower on a measure of meaning-making when compared to religious believers and religious “nones”

(Keenan & Schnell, 2011). The authors found that one subset of atheists could be described as highly committed to a variety of potential sources of meaning in life, another subset as committed to only self-actualization, and a third subset not committed to any of the sources of meaning in life measured by the authors. They further found significant differences between male and female atheists, with male atheists more motivated by the domains of self-knowledge, knowledge, and reason, and female atheists more motivated by love and community. Bradley and Exline (2013) identified a subset of atheists they termed emotionally engaged atheists who reported God-focused emotional reasons for 12

nonbelief (e.g., feelings of anger or disappointment focused on God or having a negative

God image) and who, compared to other atheists, exhibited more trait emotionality and more emotionality surrounding their hypothetical God construct.

Types of Reasons for Nonbelief

As reviewed above, there has been much theorizing and some empirical research on different types of nonbelievers. However, a fundamental question has gone largely unanswered: What reasons do nonbelievers give for their nonbelief in the existence of any god or gods? That is, why, in their opinion, are they nonbelievers? Atheists and agnostics might have a number of reasons for nonbelief in a god or gods. One recent study (Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014) asked participants to rate the importance of various categories of potential reasons for nonbelief in God: intellectual, emotional, socialization, bad experiences with religion, experiential, and intuitive. Generally, intellectual reasons were by far the most highly endorsed reasons for nonbelief in God, but all categories received some level of endorsement. Below is a brief review of potential reasons for nonbelief in the existence of a god or gods, some of which have not yet been examined empirically.

Intellectual. A belief is a stance on the truth or falsehood of an idea. One generally accepted way to determine an idea’s verity or falsity is to apply intellectual reasoning to the idea. Indeed, the phrasing of the question – reasons for nonbelief – may suggest a preference for rational argumentation based on philosophy or science rather than other potential reasons for nonbelief, especially if the person receiving the explanation is seen as an outgroup member (Kenworthy & Miller, 2002). In the case of nonbelief in a god or gods specifically, arguments based on evidence or rationality are 13

part of the milieu of nonbelief, with many tomes devoted to scientific or philosophical arguments against the existence of a god or gods (e.g., Dawkins, 1986; Dennett, 2006;

Martin, 1990; G. H. Smith, 1979; Stenger, 2007, 2009).

God Relational. Nonbelief in a god or gods may be influenced in part by experiences or beliefs about the character or actions of the god or gods that are proposed to exist. The way in which a person answers the question of whether or not a god or gods exists is not merely an intellectual exercise. In many conceptions of a god or gods, the god or gods are relational figures; that is, the god or gods are beings with whom one can have human-like relationships (e.g., Beck & McDonald, 2004; Granqvist & Kirkpatrick,

2013). In their study of reasons for belief in God, Exline, Bradley, et al. (2014) found that god relational reasons for belief in God, such as experiences of hope, security, or love focused on God, or seeing God as caring or loving, were the most highly endorsed reasons for belief. Bradley and Exline (2013) found that some atheists endorsed god relational reasons for nonbelief as well, such as experiences of disappointment, anger, or mistrust focused on a God once believed to exist, or holding a conception of God that was cruel or punishing. Since many nonbelievers at one time believed in the existence of a god or gods (Kosmin, Keysar, Cragun, & Navarro-Rivera, 2009), it is reasonable to assume that god relational reasons for nonbelief in the existence of a god or gods may remain relevant for some nonbelievers.

Socialization. The beliefs a person holds can be influenced by the beliefs of those around him or her. Beliefs that are reinforced in the sociocultural environment may seem more correct than beliefs that are held by relatively few people. This process has been observed in the realm of religious belief. In their study of atheists and believers, 14

Hunsberger and Altemeyer (2006) found that atheists, compared to believers, experienced less emphasis on religion during their upbringing. According to another survey, 27% of religious nones had at least one non-religious parent, a figure much higher than the general population (Kosmin et al., 2009). It is not possible to know from these findings whether nonbelievers were subject to socialization pressure that directed the nonbelievers toward nonbelief or whether the lack of socialization into religion explains the observed differences in rates of belief; that is, nonbelievers may have been actively pushed toward nonbelief and away from religious belief or merely not pushed toward religious belief.

However, there are data from surveys of professional scientists that suggest that some professions contain concentrations of people with negative views of religious beliefs

(Ecklund & Park, 2009), which may result in active socialization pressure toward nonbelief. While the presence of socialization pressures may be a reason for nonbelief in a god or gods, these pressures often act unconsciously (Asch, 1956; Bond & Smith, 1996) and thus may not often be endorsed as explicit reasons for nonbelief.

Anti-religion. Experiences with religious individuals and institutions can affect one’s beliefs about the existence of a god or gods. Positive experiences with religious individuals and institutions may lead some people to give more credence to the existence of a god or gods, and negative experiences may lead to nonbelief. Victims of clergy sex abuse, for example, have been shown to have lower levels of belief in God (Rossetti,

1995). The effect of perceived victimization at the hands of religion may extend to the societal level as well, as some view the teachings of religion to be harmful to society.

Some nonbelievers spend a considerable amount of time and energy combating what they perceive to be the negative influence of religious teachings on society (e.g., Christina, 15

2012; Hitchens, 2007). While it may be true that many nonbelievers feel that religion is a negative force, it is unclear how many would explicitly cite these beliefs as a reason for their nonbelief in a god or gods.

Intuitive. People sometimes make decisions, including evaluations of truth claims, based on preconscious factors that cannot be directly articulated. These preconscious factors are sometimes called intuition (e.g., Dane & Pratt, 2007). Research suggests that people can make objectively rational decisions before they are able to explain their decisions in rational terms (e.g., Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio,

1997). However, these intuitive processes do not always lead to objectively rational decisions or judgments, such as in cases of unconscious racial prejudice (Cunningham,

Preacher, & Banaji, 2001). Regardless of their veracity, intuitions can be powerful and hard to override with more deliberate cognitive processes (for a review, see Kahneman,

2011). Indeed, research has found that people superimpose rational explanations for the conclusions reached via intuition rather than give up their intuitions (e.g., Cushman,

Young, & Hauser, 2006). On a self-report measure, we might expect endorsement of intuitive reasons for nonbelief in a god or gods to be low, since intuitive processes occur below conscious awareness. However, previous research has found that some nonbelievers do endorse intuitive reasons for nonbelief, either in isolation or in conjunction with other reasons for nonbelief. For example, some atheists report that, in addition to intellectual or emotional reasons for nonbelief, they just have a gut feeling that God does not exist (Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014).

Emotional. Experiences of positive and negative emotions can influence our conscious thoughts (for a review, see Frijda, Manstead, & Bem, 2000). Advertisers, for 16

example, are often successful in influencing attitudes toward their products by using emotional, rather than informational, appeals (Holbrook & Batra, 1987; Richins, 1997).

Arguments that use the peripheral pathway, i.e. focusing on changing emotional- attitudinal positions on a topic, are at times more effective than arguments that use the central pathway, i.e. attempting to use high-quality factual or reasonable arguments to alter beliefs (Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953; Petty & Cacioppo, 1984). Previous research suggests that some atheists do endorse negative emotional feelings toward a

“God” as a reason for nonbelief in God (Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014). However, while negative emotional states have a stronger effect on cognition than positive emotional states (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, 2001), there may be positive emotional states that come with nonbelief in God, such as relief from the threat of Hell or an increased sense of power in one’s life. For this reason, it is necessary to investigate the degree to which people do not believe in a god or gods due to general positive affect about nonbelief or negative affect about belief separately from feelings about God as a relational figure.

Agnostic. As discussed above, nonbelief in gods does not necessarily imply disbelief (i.e., an active belief that no gods exist). Agnosticism, in the sense of abstaining from both belief and disbelief, is another way to not believe in the existence of a god or gods. Agnostic nonbelief may be seen as a sort of epistemic humility concerning the existence of a proposed god or set of gods: the nature of a god or gods may be such that, if such a being or beings did exist, the usual ways of ascertaining a proposition’s truth value could not be applied to the question of their existence. Alternatively, agnostic nonbelief can be a statement about the strength of arguments for and against the existence 17

of a god or gods, namely that neither is persuasive at this moment, and as a result belief in a god’s or gods’ existence is not warranted. It is likely that agnostic reasons for nonbelief will be endorsed as an adjunct to other reasons for nonbelief, and will be endorsed more frequently by agnostics than atheists.

Existential. According to existential psychologists, humans have four basic concerns that arise as a matter of human existence (for a review, see Yalom, 1980).

Belief in the existence of a god or gods may be appealing in part because it offers answers to these four existential concerns. Therefore, individuals who have other ways of resolving these concerns or do not feel the weight of these concerns may be less likely to believe in a god or gods. The first existential concern is to find meaning in a universe that lacks inherent meaning (Frankl, 1969). Belief in a god or gods may provide a sense of meaning in everyday experiences (Park, 2013) as well as a way to find meaning in suffering (Park, 2005).

The second existential concern is to feel connected to others and the universe, despite inherent isolation and separateness, in an act of self-transcendence (Frankl, 1966).

Many religious and spiritual traditions argue that we are connected to one another and to the universe in some essential way. In theistic traditions, God is sometimes seen as the way in which all of Creation is connected. Some in the New Age spirituality movement have argued that one implication of quantum mechanics is that we are all connected at the quantum level (Radin, 2006). Other traditions argue that we must strive to find connection with others as a way to gain connection with the divine (Buber, 1923/2010).

The third existential concern is to face the specter of an unavoidable death

(Yalom, 2009). Terror Management Theory (for a review, see Greenberg, Koole, & 18

Pyszczynski, 2004) suggests that this fear can be diminished by belief in life after death, whether literal, as in reincarnation or the afterlife, or figurative, as in living on in the memories of others or through one’s children. Religious belief has been found to be an efficient provider of tools with which one can manage the fear of death, with one potent component being the tenet of a literal afterlife (Vail et al., 2010). One study found that temporarily increasing belief in the afterlife is a buffer against death anxiety, even for atheists (Heflick & Goldenberg, 2012).

The final existential concern is to face one’s essential responsibility for one’s actions and inactions (Sartre, 1956/2001). Some believers may experience relief from feelings of responsibility if they believe that a god or gods are in control of their life course in some way (Schieman, Pudrovska, & Milkie, 2005). Other believers may rely on a god or gods as a moral compass while still maintaining a sense of being responsible for their decisions. Some atheists may not believe in a god or gods because they do not feel the weight of one or more of these four existential concerns. For these atheists, belief in a god or gods would serve no existential purpose.

Study Overview and Hypotheses

As described above, individuals endorse a wide variety of reasons for nonbelief in a god or gods (Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014). There is reason to believe that differential endorsement of various reasons for nonbelief in a god or gods reflect structural differences between nonbelievers. Bradley and Exline (2013), for example, found significant differences in personality, past history with religion, and current thinking about the concept of God when comparing atheists who endorsed emotional reasons for nonbelief and atheists who did not. A more nuanced measure of reasons for nonbelief 19

may help elucidate further intragroup differences among nonbelievers and may help clarify the components of the previously identified reasons nonbelievers give for nonbelief. This study aimed to develop a multi-item measure of reasons individuals endorse for nonbelief in a god or gods and provide initial validity testing for the measure.

Scale development. An initial item pool was developed based on a review of relevant literature and open-ended responses from a prior study (Exline, 201) to the question, “What are some reasons why you believe that God does not exist?” After initial conceptual refinement of the items, the items were reviewed by four academic researchers in the field of nonbelief and three nonbelievers who have published non- academic works regarding reasons for nonbelief.

Responses to survey items were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA; for a review of EFA, see Fabrigar, Wegener, MacCallum, & Strahan, 1999) to refine the item pool and generate a draft version of the scale. While guidelines differ (see Fabrigar et al., 1999), one common guideline for determining adequate power for EFA is to recruit

5 participants for every variable entered into EFA (Gorsuch, 1983). The survey (see

Appendix) consisted of 64 questions, suggesting that an adequate sample size would be

320 participants. An 8-factor solution was expected, corresponding to the reasons for nonbelief discussed above: intellectual, god relational, socialization, anti-religion, intuitive, emotional, agnostic, and existential.

Because the factors were expected to show moderate intercorrelations, factor analysis was conducted using maximum likelihood extraction and direct oblimin rotation.

The highest-loading items on each factor that did not show substantial cross-loading (i.e., greater than or equal to .30) were retained. Reliability of the obtained subscales was also 20

assessed. Items were then trimmed where necessary to improve reliability and utility of the scale, with a minimum cutoff of Cronbach’s α = .70 for each subscale.

Validation plan. Next, initial convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity tests of the Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale

(RANGES) subscales were performed. Validity tests involved using bivariate correlations to examine the associations between a number of variables and scores from the 8 subscales. Predictions are described below and summarized in Table 1.

Intellectual. It was expected that intellectual reasons for nonbelief would correlate with the single, broad-based intellectual item from an earlier, shorter measure of intellectual reasons for nonbelief (Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014). High endorsement of intellectual reasons on the RANGES was also expected to correlate positively with nonspiritual identity. Nonspiritual identity is characterized by a rejection of supernatural phenomena and an embrace of naturalistic ways of understanding the universe in a way that would be consistent with endorsement of scientific or philosophical objections to the existence of a god or gods. High scores on the Intellectual subscale were also expected to correlate with endorsement of a scientific worldview over a spiritual or religious worldview. Intellectual subscale scores were also expected to positively correlate with religious doubts caused by viewing religious teachings as contradictory, hearing claims that the Bible is the word of God, and viewing faith as something that prevents open inquiry (as in Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1997).

God Relational. Scores on the God Relational subscale of the RANGES were expected to correlate positively with the broad-based god relational item from a previous measure of nonbelief (Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014). Since the concept of God will likely 21

carry more emotional weight for those with god relational reasons for nonbelief, scores on the God Relational subscale of the RANGES were expected to correlate positively with lifetime positive feelings toward God and lifetime anger toward God. God

Relational subscale scores were also predicted to correlate positively with doubts caused by the death of a loved one (e.g., because the deaths could be attributed to the action or inaction of a god or gods) and threats about condemnation to eternal punishment

(Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1997).

Emotional. Scores on the Emotional subscale were predicted to correlate positively with the broad-based positive and negative emotional items on a previous measure of nonbelief (Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014). It was also expected that scores on the Emotional subscale of the RANGES would correlate negatively with the desire for a god or gods to exist, because emotional reasons for nonbelief are indicative of emotional discomfort with the possibility of the existence of a god or gods or emotional comfort stemming from the nonexistence of any gods. Emotional subscale scores were expected to correlate positively with the presence of religious doubts related to finding that being religious did not bring peace and joy and the ways in which religion prevents people from enjoying themselves in sensible ways (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1997).

Socialization. Scores on the Socialization subscale were expected to correlate positively with the broad-based socialization item on a previous measure of nonbelief

(Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014). It was expected that scores on the Socialization subscale would positively correlate with self-reported importance of nonbelief identity in daily life and engagement in activities of nonbelief, such as consumption of explicitly nonreligious media and attending explicitly nonreligious groups. Exposure to nonbelief in media and 22

interpersonal interaction may lead to increased sense of social connection with nonbelief, allowing the hypothesized socialization pressures to be a more powerful influence in reasons for nonbelief. Alternatively, high nonbelief identity salience may cause individuals to seek out connection with other nonbelievers through, for example, shared sources of media or group membership. The Socialization subscale was also expected to correlate positively with endorsement of doubts stemming from getting to know people from other religions, including people with no religion (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1997).

Anti-Religion. Scores on the Anti-Religion subscale were expected to correlate positively with the broad-based bad experiences with religion item on a previous measure of nonbelief (Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014). Scores on the Anti-Religion subscale of the

RANGES were predicted to correlate positively with lifetime negative feelings toward religion – in other words, strong negative sentiments about religion throughout their lives.

Scores on the Anti-Religion subscale were also expected to correlate negatively with a measure of current positive attitude toward religion. Experiences of spiritual and religious struggles related to interpersonal factors should also correlate positively with

Anti-Religion scores. The Anti-Religion subscale was expected to be positively correlated with the endorsement of doubts due to bad things religion did in the past, the hypocrisy of religious people, religious teachings about the role of women, and the intolerance some religious people show toward other people (Altemeyer & Hunsberger,

1997).

Intuitive. Scores on the Intuitive subscale were predicted to positively correlate with a broad-based item regarding intuitive reasons for nonbelief from a previous measure of nonbelief (Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014). Scores on the Intuitive subscale of 23

the RANGES were expected to correlate positively with length of time as a nonbeliever, since the subconscious knowledge involved with intuitions about the nonexistence of a god or gods may be expected to occur relatively early in life. High scores on the Intuitive subscale were also predicted to be negatively correlated with complexity of thought on religious matters and positively correlated with a measure of indifference toward religious questions, since intuitive reasons seem to preconsciously provide closure to a question, forestalling conscious engagement with religious questions.

Agnostic. Higher scores on the Agnostic subscale were expected to be associated with a higher likelihood of self-identifying as agnostic and endorsing agnostic beliefs about the existence of a god or gods.

Existential. Scores on the Existential subscale were predicted to be positively correlated with the presence of meaning in life and negatively correlated with active searching for meaning in life. This prediction was made because one of the central existential concerns is the ability to find meaning in life and nonbelievers with high

Existential subscale scores are believed to have satisfied their existential concerns.

Similarly, high scores on the Existential subscale should also correlate negatively with religious and spiritual struggles around topics of morality and ultimate meaning. The

Existential subscale should also correlate with doubts due to wondering about the reality of an afterlife and the presence of evil and unfair suffering in the world (Altemeyer &

Hunsberger, 1997).

Method

Participants and procedure. Participants were 520 adults (267 cisgender female, 238 cisgender male, 15 other) residing in the United States recruited from 24

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) system and were compensated $2.00 for their participation in a one-hour survey. This compensation was slightly higher than the average hourly payment for someone who participates in Amazon’s Mechanical Turk

(Ross, Irani, Silberman, Zaldivar, & Tomlinson, 2010). MTurk allows researchers to quickly and inexpensively collect high-quality data with more demographic diversity than other Internet sampling methods (Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling, 2011). While MTurk participants are monetarily compensated for participation, survey data suggest that most

MTurk participants engage with MTurk activities as an engaging way to spend recreational time rather than earn money to pay for basic needs (Buhrmester et al., 2011).

Several studies have found that MTurk samples provide results that are psychometrically similar to samples recruited in other ways (e.g., Buhrmester et al., 2011; Goodman,

Cryder, & Cheema, 2013; Mason & Suri, 2012; Paolacci, Chandler, & Ipeirotis, 2010;

Sprouse, 2011).

Measures. Measures are listed below in the order in which they appeared in the survey. All measures and items have been provided in the Appendix. Demographic data can be found in Table 2. Descriptive statistics for all other measures can be found in

Table 3.

Demographics. Participants reported their gender, age, race, nationality, education level, sexual orientation, and relationship status.

Belief in God’s existence. As in a previous study (Exline, Park, Smyth, & Carey,

2011, Study 5), participants were asked a forced-choice item adapted from the General

Social Survey regarding their belief or nonbelief in God as follows:

1) I know that no god or gods exist, and I have no doubts about it. 25

2) While it is possible that a god or gods exist, I do not believe in the existence of a god or gods. 3) I don’t know whether there is a god or gods, and I don’t believe there is any way to find out. 4) I don't know whether there is a god or gods, but it may be possible to find out. 5) I find myself believing in a god or gods at some of the time, but not at others. 6) While I have doubts, I feel that I do believe in a god or gods. 7) I know that a god or gods really exist, and I have no doubts about it.

Option 1 corresponds to the concept of strong atheism, option 2 corresponds to weak atheism, option 3 corresponds to strong agnosticism, and option 4 corresponds to weak agnosticism. Participants who answer with option 5 indicate that they oscillate between periods of belief and nonbelief. Those who answer with options 6 or 7 generally believe in God. Participants who answered with options 5, 6, or 7 were excluded from the rest of the survey and analyses.

Desire for a god or gods to exist. Participants were asked, “Regardless of how much you actually believe in the existence of a god or gods: How much do you WANT a god or gods to exist?” Participants used a slider bar to indicate their response on a scale from 0 (I do not want a god or gods to exist) to 100 (I want a god or gods to exist).

Religious or spiritual identification. Participants were given the NonSpiritual subscale of the NonReligious-NonSpiritual Scale (Cragun, Fernandez, Harder, Hammer,

& Nielsen, 2013), an 8-item subscale asking participants to indicate how strongly they agree or disagree with statements targeting supernaturally-based spirituality. While the measure was developed using a scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree), these anchors were reversed in the current survey to maintain consistency within the survey. Items are averaged with higher scores indicating higher levels of spirituality.

Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale.

Participants received the following prompt: 26

People can have many reasons for not believing in the existence of a god or gods. Below is a list of potential reasons. At the end of the list of items, there will be space to report any reasons you have for not believing in a god or gods not included in the reasons below. Some of the reasons listed below use the word “God.” Please interpret “God” to stand for whatever image or idea you primarily associate with that term, such as a specific god you used to believe exists or a specific god that other people believe exists.

It is possible that you may agree with a statement below as being true, but that the statement is not currently a reason for your nonbelief in a god or gods. For this reason, you will be asked two questions regarding each item:

On a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), with 3 indicating neither agree nor disagree, how much do you currently agree with each of the following statements?

On a scale from 1 (not at all important) to 5 (extremely important), how important is each of the following items in explaining why you currently do not believe in the existence of God?

Participants were asked to respond to 64 items. The full measure is included in the Appendix.

Past beliefs about God. As in prior studies (Exline, 2013), participants were asked whether they believed in God in the past. Those participants who indicated past belief were asked how long they had not believed in God. As in previous studies

(Bradley & Exline, 2013; Exline, Park, Smyth, & Carey, 2011), participants were also asked, “Looking back over your entire life, how often have you had positive feelings toward God?” Responses were recorded on a scale from 0 (never) to 10 (always). They then completed similar items asking about several different types of experiences and beliefs regarding religion and God; see Apendix for full list.

Religious and spiritual struggles. Religious and spiritual struggles were assessed using the 26-item Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale (Exline, Pargament, Grubbs, &

Yali, in press). Participants were asked to rate the frequency over the past few months 27

with which they had experienced different forms of spiritual and religious struggles, using a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (a great deal). Responses were then used to obtain mean scores on six scales: Divine, Demonic, Interpersonal, Moral, Ultimate Meaning, and Doubt.

Current nonbelief identity. Participants were given a list of labels nonbelievers might use to identify themselves (such as atheist, humanist, and skeptic; see Appendix for full list). Participants were asked to indicate which labels they feel apply to them and then to pick a label that seemed to best capture their identity. Participants were given the option to create their own identity label. Participants were then asked, using a scale from

0 (not at all) to 10 (extremely), “How important is your identity as a nonbeliever in your daily life?” They were also asked to indicate their frequency of involvement with various explicitly nonreligious activities over the past week, such as reading explicitly nonreligious books or attending groups focused on an explicitly nonreligious worldview

(adapted for use in nonreligious samples from a religious participation measure found in

Exline, Yali, & Sanderson, 2000; Exline, 2013). Responses range from 1 (not at all) to 6

(more than once per day). Scores are averaged, with higher scores indicating greater involvement in explicitly nonreligious activities.

Complexity of approach to religion and spirituality. Philosophical complexity of religious and spiritual beliefs was measured using the Complexity subscale of the

Multidimensional Quest Orientation Scale (Beck & Jessup, 2004). The measure consists of eight items with which respondents indicate their agreement on a scale from 1

(strongly disagree) to 7 (agree strongly). Scores are summed, with higher scores indicating greater complexity. 28

Broad reasons for nonbelief. As in previous studies (Bradley & Exline, 2013;

Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014), participants read: “People have many reasons for believing that God does not (or might not) exist. Do you see your doubts, or your decision to not believe in God, as being based on these types of reasons?” Participants responded on a scale of 0 (not at all) to 10 (extremely) to eight potential reasons for nonbelief or doubt in

God’s existence: intellectual, positive emotional, negative emotional, god relational, socialization, bad experiences with religion, intuitive, and good experiences with secularism.

Dimensions of secularity. Facets of how nonreligious identities are expressed were assessed using the Secularity Scale (Gibson, 2011). Participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) with 36 items. Responses were used to obtain mean scores on seven scales, three of which are of interest for the purposes of this study: Indifference to Religion, Attitude toward Religion, and Rigidity (scientistic worldview).

Sources of religious doubt. Participants read: “Please rate the extent to which each issue listed below has caused you to have religious questions or doubts.” They were then presented with 20 potential causes of doubt or questions and asked to indicate the level of doubt or questions caused by each item on a scale from 0 (this issue has not caused any doubts or questions for me) to 6 (this issue has caused extreme doubts or questions for me). Item responses are interpreted independent from one another.

Predicted emotional response to proof of God’s existence. Participants read:

“Imagine that you were suddenly presented with clear evidence that a god does actually exist (or that gods actually exist). What thoughts, feelings, or behavioral responses do 29

you think you might have in this situation?” Participants were then presented with 22 potential emotional responses (e.g., anger, terror, happiness, and hope) and asked to respond to the prompt for each item using a scale from 0 (Not at all) to 10 (Extremely).

Mean scores from 10 positively valenced and 10 negatively valenced items were obtained to represent positive and negative reactions, respectively, to the possibility that God exists.

Results

Exploratory Factor Analysis

As discussed above, the 64 items comprising the initial version of the Reasons of

Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God Scale (RANGES) were entered into factor analysis using maximum likelihood extraction and direct oblimin rotation. The following is a summary of the decision process used to determine the final list of items comprising the measure.

The original solution yielded 11 factors with eigenvalues over 1 (Kaiser, 1960), accounting for 56% of the total variance. Factors 1, 8, and 11 were difficult to interpret.

All 14 items on the proposed Existential and Negative Emotion subscales either loaded onto factors that were difficult to interpret or loaded poorly (< .50) onto other factors and were removed. The remaining three items on Factors 1, 8, and 11 were removed. An additional 13 items were removed from the item pool due to poor loading (< .50) or redundancy with other items. As per the initial data analysis plan, all factor reliability scores (i.e., Cronbach’s alphas) were maintained > .70. After initial trimming, there were

32 items remaining across eight factors. 30

At this point, a decision was made to enlarge the theoretical scope of two factors, one focusing on god relational reasons for nonbelief and the other focusing on emotional reasons for nonbelief. This was achieved by adding back items that were theoretically related to these factors and selectively removing items that loaded more strongly but were very similar to other items already on the factors. This process resulted in one additional item in the pool, leaving 33 items across eight factors. Two additional items were then returned to the item pool. These items were predicted to form a unique, theoretically meaningful factor centered on socialization into nonbelief early in life.

A second EFA was then run using the 35 remaining items. Using the standard of eigenvalue > 1, this EFA returned a solution consisting of seven factors and accounting for 56.27% of total variance. However, a seven-factor solution was difficult to interpret.

Examination of alternative solutions revealed that a nine-factor solution, explaining

60.27% of total variance, was more easily interpreted. The initial data analysis plan was to only interpret factors with eigenvalues greater than one. However, the eigenvalue- greater-than-one rule, sometimes called the K1 or Kaiser-Guttman criterion (Kaiser,

1960), has been criticized for its arbitrariness and its tendency to lead to underfactoring under some circumstances (Fabrigar et al., 1999). While Factor 8 had an eigenvalue of

0.99 and Factor 9 had an eigenvalue of 0.80, using a nine-factor solution did not damage factor-level psychometrics (i.e., factor reliability and item loadings) for existing factors, and the new factors did meet the factor-level psychometric requirements outlined in the data analysis plan. The nine-factor solution appears to provide the best fit for the data.

Table 4 shows eigenvalues, percent of variance explained, and the pattern matrix with 31

items and factor loadings for this final nine-factor solution. Boldface is used to indicate an item’s factor assignment.

The content of the nine factors is somewhat different from what was predicted.

As discussed above, eight factors were predicted to emerge during EFA: Intellectual, God

Relational, Socialization, Anti-Religion, Intuitive, Emotional, Agnostic, and Existential.

Five of the factors (Intellectual, God Relational, Intuitive, Emotional, and Agnostic) were retained as predicted. One factor (Existential) did not emerge at all and was removed.

The items from two of the predicted factors (Socialization and Anti-Religion) converged on a total of four independent factors. The hypothesized Socialization factor thus gave way to the Socialization-Current and Socialization-Past factors, and the hypothesized

Anti-Religion factor gave way to the Bad Experiences with Religion and Societal

Concerns factors. These factors are discussed in more detail below.

RANGES Descriptive Statistics

The total RANGES was scored by averaging all 35 items (M = 2.54; SD = 0.71; α

= .93). Each subscale was scored by averaging the items within the subscale. As Table 5 shows, all subscales correlated positively with the total RANGES score and with each other, ps < .001, except for the Intellectual and Socialization-Past subscales, which correlated with each other at the p < .01 significance level, and the Intellectual and

Socialization-Current subscales, which did not show a statistically significant correlation.

Bonferroni-corrected comparisons showed that Intellectual reasons for nonbelief were endorsed most highly (M = 3.60; SD = 1.07; α = .86, ps < .05 for all comparisons).

Next highly endorsed were Agnostic (M = 3.03; SD = 1.13; α = .75), Societal Concerns

(M = 2.90; SD = 1.23; α = .82), and Intuitive (M = 2.76; SD = 1.17; α = .82), all of which 32

differed from the other six scales, p < .05; though Agnostic and Intuitive did differ (p =

.001), neither were statistically different from Societal Concerns (ps > .05). The next highest scores were on the God Relational (M = 2.13; SD = 1.12; α = .85) and Bad

Experiences with Religion (M = 2.25; SD = 1.22; α = .83) subscales, which differed from all other subscales, p < .05, but did not differ from each other, p = .794. Following these subscales were the Emotional (M = 1.84; SD = 1.02; α = .87) and Socialization-Past (M =

1.83; SD = 1.05; α = .77) subscales, which differed from all other subscales, p < .05, but did not differ from each other, p = 1.000. The Socialization-Current subscale was the subscale with the lowest score (M = 1.55; SD = 0.91; α = .92, ps < .05 for all comparisons).

Convergent and Discriminant Validity: Associations between RANGES and Other

Measures of Reasons for Nonbelief

As per the initial data analysis plan, bivariate correlations were run to evaluate the convergent and discriminant validity of the RANGES subscales in relation to other measures of nonbelief (Table 6). Examination of simple bivariate correlations revealed a significant number of variables with which multiple subscales correlated positively. To provide additional clarity regarding the relationships between the subscales and the target variables, simultaneous regressions (Table 7) were run predicting each variable from the nine RANGES subscales entered simultaneously. This method was also used in a recent measure validation study (Exline et al., in press). This was done to evaluate whether each of the RANGES subscales would predict unique variance (beyond the variance accounted for by other RANGES subscales) in the variable indicators most conceptually relevant to the respective subscales. There were no issues with multicollinearity (i.e., no VIFs 33

greater than 10); the highest VIF was 2.44. Due to risk of inflated Type I error from multiple comparisons, a very conservative significance level of p < .001 was used as the cut-off for statistical significance, with p < .01 suggesting a trend toward statistical significance. The evidence regarding convergent and discriminant validity for each subscale is discussed in turn below.

Socialization-Current. The content captured in the Socialization-Current subscale was originally predicted to make up part of a broader socialization factor, and thus no predictions were made for this specific subscale. However, the Socialization-

Current subscale should be expected to correlate positively with a broad item asking about the importance of socialization for nonbelief. The subscale did show a positive correlation using bivariate correlation (Table 6) but accounted for no unique variance in multiple regression (Table 7).

The relationship between the Socialization-Current subscale of the RANGES and other variables related to reasons for nonbelief were examined in an exploratory manner.

Bivariate correlations (Table 6) revealed several small to moderate positive correlations with broad-based reasons for nonbelief and no relationship with specific sources of doubt. However, these positive correlations disappeared in multiple regression (Table 7), and significant negative relationships appeared between the subscale and several measures of reasons for nonbelief; there were no positive relationships between the subscale and reasons for nonbelief.

Intellectual. As expected, the Intellectual subscale of the RANGES accounted for a large amount of unique variance in the broad-based, single-item measure of intellectual reasons for nonbelief (Table 7). As predicted, higher scores on the Intellectual subscale 34

also accounted for unique variance within three intellectual sources of religious doubt

(Table 7). However, contrary to predictions, the Societal Concerns subscale also accounted for moderate amounts of unique variance within two of the specific reasons for religious doubt: faith prevents questioning, and claims made by others that the Bible is the word of God.

Bad Experiences with Religion. The content captured in the Bad Experiences with Religion subscale was originally predicted to make up part of a broader anti-religion factor, and thus no predictions were made for this specific subscale. However, in multiple regression (Table 7), the subscale accounted for unique variance in broad-based reasons for nonbelief, namely bad experiences with religion, and several sources of doubt, such as the hypocrisy of religious people and religious teachings about the role of women, that were predicted to be related to the broader anti-religion factor. The subscale was also positively related to religious doubts due to feeling that religion did not bring peace and joy and doubts due to feeling as though religious faith prevents questioning.

The subscale was also related to nonbelief due to good experiences with secularism.

Agnostic. As predicted, the Agnostic subscale showed no significant relationships

(Table 7) with either sources of doubt or broad reasons for nonbelief. This may be because the target measures were designed for use with atheists rather than agnostics.

Nonetheless, the mean score on the Agnostic subscale among strong and weak atheists was significantly higher than 1, the lowest score possible on this subscale, M = 2.72, SD

= 1.11, t(266) = 25.42, p < .001. This suggests that the Agnostic subscale has some relevance for atheists as well as agnostics. 35

God Relational. As predicted, the God Relational subscale was related (Table 7) to broad-based god relational reasons for nonbelief and doubt due to the death of a loved one. Contrary to prior prediction, the subscale was not related to doubt due to threats about hell, which was instead related to the Societal Concerns subscale. Additionally, the

God Relational subscale was positively related with doubt due to the problem of evil and suffering.

Socialization-Past. The content captured in the Socialization-Past subscale was originally predicted to make up part of a broader socialization factor, and thus no predictions were made for this specific subscale. However, it would be expected that this subscale be positively related to the broader measure of socialization-related reasons for nonbelief. This expectation was met (Table 7).

Emotional. The Emotional subscale was predicted to be related to broad reasons for nonbelief related to positive and negative emotion; these predictions were confirmed

(Table 7). This subscale was also predicted to correlate with two sources of doubt related to religion preventing or not leading to positive emotional experiences. While bivariate correlations (Table 6) did confirm these two predictions, multiple regression (Table 7) suggests that the Emotional subscale did not account for unique variance in these two variables.

Societal Concerns. The content captured in this subscale was originally predicted to make up part of a broader anti-religion factor. Nonetheless, each of the predictions made of the broad anti-religion factor were found to be true of this specific Societal

Concerns subscale (Table 7). Specifically, there was a positive relationship between

Societal Concerns and general reasons for nonbelief due to bad experiences with religion 36

and there were positive relationships between Societal Concerns and doubt due to the negative history of religion, hypocrisy of religious people, religious teachings about the role of women, and intolerance of some religious people toward other people.

Additionally, this subscale accounted for unique variance in several other sources of doubt, including threats about a negative afterlife, religious prohibitions on sensible pleasures, religious faith preventing questioning, and claims that the Bible is the word of

God.

Intuitive. As predicted, the Intuitive subscale accounted for unique variance in responses to the broad item regarding intuitive reasons for nonbelief (Table 7) and did not account for unique variance in any of the sources of doubt or other reasons for nonbelief.

Predictive Validity: Associations between RANGES and Experiences with Belief and

Nonbelief

In addition to measures targeting reasons for nonbelief specifically, predictive validity was assessed examining the results of bivariate correlation (Table 8) and simultaneous regression (Table 9) analyses between the RANGES subscales and measures of current and past experiences with and attitudes toward aspects of belief and nonbelief. The evidence regarding the predictive validity of each subscale is discussed in turn below.

Socialization-Current. The content captured in the Socialization-Current subscale was originally predicted to make up part of a broader socialization factor, and thus no predictions were made for this specific subscale. Results of multiple regression

(Table 9) were not consistent with predictions made of the broader socialization scale.

One notable finding, however, is that there was a positive relationship between this 37

subscale and scores on the reverse-scored NonReligiosity Scale. In other words, the more a nonbeliever indicates current socialization pressure as a reason for nonbelief in a god or gods, the more they also endorse having a religious worldview.

Intellectual. As predicted, scores on the Intellectual subscale were related to less spirituality and more “scientistic” worldview (Table 9). Additionally, the Intellectual subscale was related to higher certainty of belief, a less religious worldview, greater likelihood of holding atheistic (vs. agnostic) beliefs, and less positive emotion if faced with the prospect of God’s existence.

Bad Experiences with Religion. The content captured in the Bad Experiences with Religion subscale was originally predicted to make up part of a broader anti-religion factor, and thus no predictions were made for this specific subscale. However, multiple regression (Table 9) revealed several significant relationships between this subscale and other variables. Specifically, scores on the Bad Experiences with Religion subscale were positively related to negative experiences with religious people and spiritual struggles in the interpersonal domain. Scores on this subscale were also related to increased endorsement of supernatural spirituality.

Agnostic. As predicted, the Agnostic subscale was positively related to self- identification as agnostic and endorsement of agnostic beliefs (Table 9). Consistent with prior predictions, the Agnostic subscale was also related to holding a less rigid and less scientistic worldview, less certainty of currently held beliefs about the existence of a god or gods, and more complexity in one’s search for religious truth. Additionally, higher scores on the Agnostic subscale were linked with higher lifetime positive feelings toward

God and toward religion, more spirituality, and a greater desire for God to exist. 38

God Relational. The God Relational subscale was predicted to show positive relationships with both positive and negative current and past attitudes about God.

However, examination of the planned analyses revealed positive relationships only with negative attitudes toward God (Table 9). However, supplemental analyses revealed that higher scores on the God Relational subscale were associated with higher endorsement of past struggles with the divine, desire for God to exist, and lifetime frequency of feeling as though a god or gods was angry at the participant.

Socialization-Past. The content captured in the Socialization-Past subscale was originally predicted to make up part of a broader socialization factor, and thus no predictions were made for this specific subscale. Results of multiple regression (Table 9) were not consistent with predictions made of the broader socialization scale.

Examination of supplemental analyses (Table 9), however, revealed significant or marginally significant negative relationships between the subscale and life history of negative emotions toward gods and religion as well as interpersonal struggles surrounding issues of religion and spirituality.

Emotional. Scores on the Emotional subscale were predicted to be related to a lower desire for God to exist. This prediction was not supported (Table 9). Additional analyses revealed that scores on this subscale were positively related to engagement in nonreligious activity, the salience of one’s identity as a nonbeliever, and self-predicted negative affect if God was proven to exist.

Societal Concerns. The content captured in this subscale was originally predicted to make up part of a broader anti-religion factor. However, some of the predictions made of the broader anti-religion factor would be expected to hold true in this more narrow 39

subscale, including positive relationships with positive and negative lifetime feelings toward religion and negative current attitudes toward religion. These predictions held true (Table 9) for lifetime negative feelings toward religion and current negative attitudes toward religion, but the prediction of higher lifetime positive feelings toward religion was not supported. Supplemental analyses revealed a significant relationship between the

Societal Concerns subscale and nonreligiosity and marginally significant (i.e., p < .01) relationships with engagement in nonreligious activities and salience of identity as a nonbeliever.

Intuitive. As predicted, scores on the Intuitive subscale were positively related to length of time as a nonbeliever (Table 9). Contrary to predictions, the Intuitive subscale was not related to lower levels of complexity in religious quest or higher levels of indifference to religion. In addition to the predicted relationships, higher scores on the

Intuitive subscale were also related to certainty of nonbelief and rigidity or scientistic worldview.

Discussion

Previous research has suggested that atheists and agnostics have a variety of reasons for nonbelief in the existence of a god or gods (e.g., Bradley & Exline, 2013;

Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014; Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1997; Norenzayan & Gervais,

2013). However, measurement of these reasons through open-ended questioning may lead to underreporting of non-intellectual reasons for nonbelief, and existing measures have either failed to provide useful higher-order categories or contain categories of reasons for nonbelief without adequate empirical support for the definitions of the categories. This study sought to develop and provide initial validation evidence for the 40

Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale (RANGES), a multi-item measure designed to capture the self-reported importance of reasons for nonbelief in the existence of a god or gods across a number of different domains.

RANGES Factor Analysis

As described in this thesis, exploratory factor analysis was used to analyze responses from 520 adults drawn from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Results from EFA suggested a 35-item scale with nine subscales: Socialization-Current, Intellectual, Bad

Experiences with Religion, Agnostic, God Relational, Socialization-Past, Emotional,

Societal Concerns, and Intuitive. The overall factor structure was a good fit for the data, and the subscales showed good internal consistency and breadth of content within the subscale.

These results were largely as predicted. One predicted subscale, a hypothesized

Existential subscale, failed to emerge. This may be because attempting to capture the breadth of existential concerns led to items that were too dissimilar to show a high level of agreement. Alternatively, any existential pressures (or lack of pressures) could operate on a subconscious level, and therefore may not be accessed by a self-report measure with such high face validity. Additionally, two predicted subscales (Anti-Religion and

Socialization) each were divided into two more specific subscales, revealing more subtlety in nonbelievers’ reasons for nonbelief than expected.

While it was expected (and observed) that the Intellectual subscale would be most highly endorsed, it is worth noting that the Societal Concerns subscale was also among the most highly endorsed subscales, higher than the reasons for nonbelief focused on negative personal experiences (i.e., God Relational and Bad Experiences with Religion). 41

This suggests that nonbelievers perceive their nonbelief as an intellectual decision, but they also perceive their nonbelief as a decision made in the best interest of society, with personal experiences of pain and disappointment relatively less important. At the same time, it is likely that all nine categories are necessary to gain a full appreciation of the diversity of nonbelief.

Convergent, Discriminant, and Predictive Validity

As predicted, most of the RANGES subscales showed moderate intercorrelations

(Table 5). This is consistent with the idea that all subscales are measuring in part a general strength of nonbelief. The only subscales not to correlate with each other were the Socialization-Current and Intellectual subscales, suggesting that current socialization pressure to express nonbelief was sufficient to cause a person to hold a position of nonbelief in the existence of a god or gods even in the absence of intellectual reasons for nonbelief.

As planned, convergent and discriminant validity were initially tested by examining bivariate correlations between the subscales and broad measures of reasons for nonbelief (Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014) as well as sources of religious doubt (Altemeyer

& Hunsberger, 1997). Similarly, predictive validity was tested by examining bivariate correlations between the subscales and measures of past experiences with belief and nonbelief as well as measures of aspects of participants’ current nonbelief identity. Initial examination of the bivariate correlations revealed a large number of statistically significant correlations (Tables 6 and 8). This may have been due to the significant correlations between the subscales. More precise information regarding the validity of the specific subscales was obtained by entering all nine subscales in multiple regression 42

against the reasons for nonbelief and sources of doubt and examining the unique variance accounted for by each subscale (Tables 7 and 9). In most cases, the RANGES subscales accounted for unique variance in measures associated with the subscale’s content

(convergent validity, Table 7), did not account for unique variance in measures not associated with the subscale’s content (discriminant validity, Table 7), and showed positive relationships with constructs related to experiences and identity pertaining to belief and nonbelief (predictive validity, Table 9). The subscales are discussed in turn below.

Socialization-Current. Endorsement of reasons for nonbelief related to current socialization pressure were negatively related to several other reasons for nonbelief. This suggests that individuals who endorse socialization pressure as a reason for nonbelief tend not to highly endorse other reasons for nonbelief or sources of doubt. The only positive relationship observed was with religiosity. It is possible that the Socialization-

Current subscale is capturing people who profess nonbelief in a god or gods publically due to negative repercussions of belief in their social circle but privately remain committed to religion.

Intellectual. While the Intellectual subscale performed as expected in most of the validation tests, several of the predicted reasons for nonbelief or sources of doubt were also related to the Societal Concerns subscale. This suggests that in some instances intellectual objections to aspects of religion and faith are related to the perceived negative effect on society caused by belief. Additionally, the Intellectual subscale was related to negative feelings toward a god or gods and toward religion, suggesting an interplay 43

between intellect and emotion that was not completely captured in other, more affect- laden RANGES subscales.

Bad Experiences with Religion. The Bad Experiences with Religion subscale was related to higher levels of conflict with religious people and more positive feelings toward supernatural spirituality. These results suggest that endorsement of Bad

Experiences with Religion is specifically related to negative experiences and attitudes toward religious people, despite having an active belief in the supernatural. The subscale was also related to nonbelief due to good experiences with secularism, suggesting that bad experiences with religion may become clearer when placed in contrast with good experiences with non-religion.

Agnostic. The Agnostic subscale performed well in the validation tests. Of note is the observation that scores on the Agnostic subscale were also elevated among participants who endorsed an atheistic position on the existence of a god or gods.

Validation findings suggest that the Agnostic subscale is specifically related to uncertainty regarding the existence of a god or gods, which is the core of the agnostic position, and that the agnostic position is not solely a function of negative attitudes toward God, religion, or spiritual worldviews.

God Relational. This subscale showed some unexpected results during validation, which help clarify perceptions of God held by nonbelievers. Contrary to prior research, which found that god relational reasons for nonbelief were related to more positive and negative feelings toward God across the lifespan (Bradley & Exline, 2013), scores on the God Relational subscale were only related to negative feelings toward God.

However, scores were also positively related to a sense that God had negative feelings 44

toward the participant. Despite the negative history between the individual and the perceived God figure, high scores on the God Relational subscale were related to current desire for God to exist and current supernatural spirituality. These findings are generally consistent with previous research showing that atheists who reported god relational reasons as one reason for their nonbelief were more broadly relationally engaged with their imagined God concept (Bradley & Exline, 2013).

The “problem of evil,” or the existence of unnecessary suffering in the world, is often considered an intellectual problem, but in this study considerations of the problem of evil were related to higher scores on the God Relational subscale. While the problem of evil and suffering is often considered a problem with which believers and nonbelievers must struggle intellectually, the questions raised may also challenge an individual’s relationship with the god figure. Prior research on anger toward God has focused on the presence of suffering and evil in an individual’s personal life and the world more broadly

(e.g., Exline et al., 2011; Hale-Smith, Park, & Edmonson, 2012). Similarly, the God

Relational subscale was not related to doubt due to threats about hell, which was related to the Societal Concerns subscale. These findings suggest that the threat of hell was perceived to be a negative aspect of religious teachings rather than a factor that made relationship with a god figure unattractive.

Socialization-Past. Validation tests for the Socialization-Past subscale revealed significant relationships between this subscale and lower lifetime emotionality around a god or gods and around religion as well as less certainty and more positive current attitudes toward God. The validation results suggest that the Socialization-Past subscale is capturing early socialization into nonbelief, which might lead to less emotionality 45

surrounding god and religion across the individual’s lifespan and a lack of certainty regarding the question of the existence of a god or gods.

Emotional. The Emotional subscale was positively related to broad single-item measures of emotional reasons for nonbelief (both positive and negative) and predicted negative affect if God were proven to exist. While the subscale was initially expected to be related to doubts caused by religion preventing or not providing positive affective states, the fact that these predictions were not supported helps provide evidence that the

Emotional subscale is unrelated to religion, but rather to belief in god or gods per se.

Societal Concerns. The Societal Concerns subscale was positively related to several sources of doubt that were expected to be related to other subscales, including threats about an afterlife, religious prohibitions on sensible pleasures, religious faith preventing questioning, and claims that the Bible is the word of God. It is possible that those sources of doubt are cause for doubt due in part to their effect on society at large.

That is, the perception that religious faith prevents questioning, for example, is perceived to be damaging to society, not just to the particular individual being told not to ask questions.

Intuitive. Perhaps the most important relationship observed for the Intuitive subscale is the positive relationship between the subscale and length of time as a nonbeliever, even when controlling for scores on the Socialization-Past subscale.

Contrary to predictions, scores on the Intuitive subscale were not related to indifference to religion or simplistic approaches to the quest for religious truth. In addition, the

Intuitive subscale was not related to less endorsement of other reasons for nonbelief or experiences or attitudes toward god or religion. An intuitive sense of the nonexistence of 46

a god or gods, therefore, may be influential in early identification as an atheist but does not crowd out further exploration of religious beliefs or other reasons for nonbelief.

Limitations and Future Directions

The intent of this study was to develop a self-report measure. However, self- report measures have limitations. Response biases cannot be ruled out, and participants may be reluctant to report non-intellectual reasons for nonbelief (e.g., Bradley & Exline,

2013; Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014).

Regarding sampling, using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk has likely resulted in a sample more representative of the atheist and agnostic population compared to many sampling techniques common in nonbelief research, such as recruitment from active members of nonbelief groups or advertising through announcements on blogs focused on nonbelief (e.g., Silver, 2013). However, the sample was by necessity limited to individuals with Internet access and a willingness to complete a survey for less than the current United States minimum wage rate. Also, the sample was confined to individuals in the United States; future research should explore whether the constructs measured in the RANGES are applicable in other cultures. For example, in Western Europe, nonbelief is more common than in the United States, which may lead to higher endorsement of socialization reasons for nonbelief (WIN-Gallup International, 2012). It is also unknown how well the RANGES would apply to cultures where polytheism is a common belief structure, such as in India (Registrar General and Census Commissioner,

2001). 47

Another limitation was the use of exploratory factor analysis and lack of confirmatory factor analysis. Future work should seek to use CFA techniques to confirm the integrity of the RANGES structure.

The RANGES and its subscales has many potential uses. These results can be used to refine the wording of the existing broad-based measure of reasons for nonbelief containing only one item for each of the nine categories (Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014).

For example, the current broad-based measure does not distinguish between early-life and present socialization factors, conflates bad personal experiences with religion and concern about the societal impact of religious belief, does not explicitly mention scientific reasons under the Intellectual category, and does not include a category for agnostic reasons for nonbelief. These findings also support the decision to include distinct emotional and god relational reasons for nonbelief, which were not well- distinguished in early versions of the brief measure (as in Bradley & Exline, 2013). The utility of a nine-item measure compared to the current 35-item measure should be explored.

Finally, responses to the RANGES may be useful in formally defining a typology of nonbelievers. Such a typology would be of use to researchers as they try to understand the varieties of nonbelief, to leaders in the nonbelief community as they try to meet the needs of disparate groups within their community, and to mental health practitioners to help them understand the experiences of their atheist and agnostic clients.

Table 1

Summary of Hypothesized Correlations for Initial Validation of the Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale

God Sociali- Anti- Intellectual Relational Emotional zation religion Intuitive Agnostic Existential NonSpirituality Scale + Sources of doubt: Religious teachings + are contradictory Sources of doubt: Religious faith + prevents questioning Sources of doubt: Claims that the + Bible is the word of God Dimensions of secularity: Scientific + worldview Reasons for nonbelief: Intellectual + Lifetime positive feelings toward + God Lifetime anger at God + Sources of doubt: Death of a loved + one Sources of doubt: Threats of eternal + punishment Reasons for nonbelief: Relational + Desire for God’s existence - Sources of doubt: Religion does not + bring joy Sources of doubt: Religion prevents + people from enjoying themselves Reasons for nonbelief: Emotional + (Positive)

Reasons for nonbelief: Emotional + 48

(Negative) Engagement in nonreligious activity + Nonbelief identity salience + Sources of doubt: Meeting people of + different religions, or no religion Reasons for nonbelief: Socialization + Reasons for nonbelief: + Good experiences with secularism Lifetime positive feelings toward - religion Lifetime negative feelings toward + religion Sources of doubt: Negative history of + religion Sources of doubt: Hypocrisy of + religious people Sources of doubt: Religious teachings + about the role of women Sources of doubt: Intolerance of some religious people toward other + people Religious and spiritual struggles: + Interpersonal Dimensions of secularity: Attitude - toward religion Reasons for nonbelief: + Bad experiences with religion Length of time as a nonbeliever + Dimensions of secularity: + Indifference to religion Religious quest complexity - + Reasons for nonbelief: Intuitive 49

Endorsement of agnostic beliefs + about God Identify as agnostic + Sources of doubt: The afterlife + Sources of doubt: Presence of + suffering Religious and spiritual struggles: - Ultimate meaning 50

51

Table 2 Sample Demographics

Variable n %

Gender

Cisgender female 267 51.3

Cisgender male 238 45.8

Other 15 2.9

Age (M, SD) 32.29 (11.71)

Sexual Orientation

Heterosexual 412 79.2

Homosexual 25 4.7

Bisexual 51 9.6

Other 32 6.2

Race

African-American/Black 26 4.9

American Indian/Native American/Alaska Native 18 3.4

Asian Indian 12 2.3

East Asian/Pacific Islander 24 4.5

Middle Eastern 2 0.4

Latino/Hispanic 39 7.4

White/Caucasian/European American 445 84.1

Marital Status

Single, not in a committed relationship 181 34.9

Single, in a committed relationship 109 21.0

Living with partner 79 15.3

Married or civil union 123 23.7

Divorced 14 2.7

Separated 8 1.5

Widowed 1 0.2

Education

High school graduate or less 71 13.7

Some college/technical school 180 34.7

Completed two-year/technical degree 57 11.0

Completed four-year degree 120 23.2

Attended/completed graduate/professional school 90 17.4

52

Table 3 Variable Descriptive Statistics Variable M SD Range Alpha Reasons for Nonbelief Intellectual 79.46 26.15 0-100 --- Emotional (Negative) 23.93 29.00 0-100 --- Emotional (Positive) 24.80 30.08 0-100 --- Socialization 26.42 29.58 0-100 --- Bad exp. with relig. 42.54 36.06 0-100 --- Intuitive 53.74 32.69 0-100 --- Good exp. with secularism 38.64 34.83 0-100 --- Relational 35.23 34.43 0-100 --- Altemeyer Sources of Doubt The problem of evil 4.36 2.20 1-7 --- Neg. history of religion 4.93 2.06 1-7 --- Hypocrisy of relig. ppl. 5.18 2.00 1-7 --- The death of a loved one 2.09 1.81 1-7 --- Religious teachings about the role of women 4.71 2.24 1-7 --- Being relig. ≠ peace, joy 4.26 2.30 1-7 --- Intolerance by relig. ppl. to some groups 5.49 2.03 1-7 --- Threats about hell 4.62 2.21 1-7 --- Relig. prohibits pleasure 4.43 2.20 1-7 --- Relig. tenets don’t make sense 5.71 1.71 1-7 --- Relig. faith prevents questioning 5.39 1.97 1-7 --- Claims that the Bible is the word of God 5.12 2.05 1-7 --- Lifetime history with r/s Pos. emo. at a god or gods 3.60 2.68 0-10 --- Felt angry at a god or gods 2.95 2.94 0-10 --- Had pos. feelings at relig. 3.51 2.46 0-10 --- Had neg. feelings at relig. 6.24 2.74 0-10 --- Neg. exp. w/ rel. ppl. 4.41 3.33 0-10 --- Believed a god or gods felt angry at you 1.54 2.43 0-10 --- Dimensions of Secularity Pos. attitude toward relig. 3.83 1.32 1-7 .81 Indifference to relig. 3.64 1.44 1-7 .74 Rigidity (scientistic) 4.54 1.22 1-7 .83 Past and current nonbelief NonSpirituality scale 2.34 0.99 1-5 .92 NonReligiosity scale 1.51 0.61 1-5 .87 Desire for God to exist 34.48 32.70 0-100 --- Engagement in nonrelig. activity 0.73 0.80 0-5 .80 Certainty of nonbelief 57.32 34.77 0-100 --- Pos. emo. if God existed 3.53 2.93 0-10 .97 Neg. emo. if God existed 2.94 2.35 0-10 .90 Nonbelief identity salience 2.28 1.08 1-5 --- Length of nonbelief 17.91 13.36 0-81 --- Agnostic beliefs (n/N, %) 253/520 48.7% ------Identification as agnostic (n/N, %) 233/520 44.8% ------Religious quest complexity 30.88 8.17 8-56 .66 Relig. and Spir. Struggles Divine 1.29 0.69 1-5 .92 Interpersonal 1.85 0.87 1-5 .85

Table 4 Exploratory Factor Analysis Showing Final 35 Items and Factor Loadings from Pattern Matrix (Maximum Likelihood Extraction with Direct Oblimin Rotation) Factor Loadings and Descriptive Statistics 1 3 5 8 2 4 6 7 9 Soc. Bad Exp. God Societal Intellect. Agnostic Soc. Past Emotional Intuitive Current with Rel. Relational Concerns Eigen. 10.22 4.46 2.24 1.91 1.53 1.26 1.11 0.99 0.80 % of var. 27.82% 11.68% 5.14% 4.31% 3.35% 2.44% 2.29% 1.55% 1.69% 1.55 3.60 2.25 M (SD) 3.03 (1.13) 2.13 (1.12) 1.83 (1.05) 1.84 (1.02) 2.90 (1.23) 2.76 (1.17) (0.91) (1.07) (1.22) Alpha .92 .86 .83 .75 .85 .77 .87 .84 .82 Items Belief in God would be make me an outcast in my .869 .016 .038 .006 .048 -.012 .013 -.025 -.026 social group. Belief in God is not accepted .868 .004 -.003 .023 -.015 .017 -.029 -.015 -.013 in my social group. It is easier for me to fit in with my social group as a .775 -.036 .060 .010 -.025 .006 .045 .022 -.026 nonbeliever. Other people would look down on me if I believed .767 .000 -.035 .009 -.045 .106 .065 .018 .060 in God. I have scientific reasons for not believing in God’s -.041 .762 .060 -.024 .027 .072 .043 .062 -.025 existence. The existence of God doesn’t -.060 .730 -.048 .017 .013 .046 .020 .003 -.145 make logical sense. There is no scientific evidence for the existence .021 .666 -.028 .065 -.024 -.024 -.023 -.044 -.048 of God. The natural world makes more sense without the -.044 .659 .009 -.068 .048 .078 .098 -.022 -.060 existence of God. The idea of God is full of -.002 .585 .056 .144 -.087 -.066 -.069 -.139 -.048 53

contradictions. The events of history are inconsistent with the .090 .547 .019 -.022 -.035 -.050 -.029 -.071 -.014 existence of God. I have been hurt by religious .059 .057 .839 -.002 .018 .070 .026 .075 -.020 people in the past. Religious people have made .064 .058 .627 -.052 -.086 -.031 .075 -.208 .003 my life worse. I have been let down by .011 -.058 .526 .071 -.193 .009 .056 -.147 .012 religious institutions. No one really knows for sure whether God does or .034 .022 .003 .781 -.041 -.027 -.012 -.051 -.078 doesn’t exist. It would be arrogant to claim that I know for sure .046 -.026 .052 .591 .080 .107 .064 -.080 .087 whether or not God exists. God’s existence or non- existence cannot be -.029 .268 -.076 .581 -.081 -.026 .080 .007 .070 proven. I’m not sure whether or not .032 -.120 .037 .553 -.063 .032 -.044 .070 -.108 God exists. If God does exist, that means that God has caused me -.022 .006 -.068 -.055 -.845 .086 .029 -.057 .004 to suffer. If God does exist, God should have been there .039 .093 .025 .070 -.773 -.056 -.024 -.024 .018 for me when I was suffering. Earlier in my life, I felt as though I was mistreated .159 -.002 .109 -.035 -.614 .056 .072 .080 .021 by God. In the past, I felt as though -.042 -.095 .106 .077 -.555 .022 .058 .004 -.069 God disappointed me. Growing up, my parents or caretakers did not believe .007 .006 -.044 .002 -.037 .809 -.004 -.063 -.017

in God. 54

Growing up, people around me did not believe in .072 .062 .071 .047 -.014 .677 .003 .019 -.017 God.

I find it uplifting to believe -.035 .022 .063 .015 .021 .002 .845 -.019 -.018 that God does not exist. I find it comforting to believe that God does not .091 .017 .012 .052 -.037 .014 .733 -.037 -.017 exist.about religion or spirituality It would be depressing for me to believe that God .115 -.104 -.011 -.003 -.140 .071 .496 -.045 -.152 exists. The possibility that God exists is unpleasant for .227 .023 .029 .006 -.142 .038 .428 -.029 -.030 me to consider. Religion is bad for society. .066 -.014 -.028 .026 -.025 .039 -.036 -.872 -.034 Religious institutions are too -.069 -.045 .191 .155 .016 .062 .027 -.634 .023 powerful in society. The world would likely be better off if no one .056 .119 .012 -.077 .008 .007 .152 -.575 -.076 believed in God. Belief in God prevents people from making -.009 .132 .006 -.109 -.075 .000 .098 -.562 -.065 society better. I have an intuitive sense that -.030 -.027 .055 -.014 -.038 .082 -.004 .059 -.790 there is no God. I know, at a deep, personal level, that God does not .005 .079 -.023 -.023 .003 .034 .075 -.058 -.642 exist. I just know that God doesn’t .077 .050 -.092 .031 .037 -.034 .104 -.058 -.629 exist. The concept of God doesn’t make sense on a gut .002 .215 .090 .079 -.023 -.045 -.069 -.093 -.569 level. Note: Items for each factor are listed in descending order based on loadings. Boldfaced text indicates items assigned to each factor. All subscales correlated positively, despite negative loadings listed for Factors 5, 8, and 9 from this factor analysis (maximum likelihood; direct oblimin). 55

Table 5

Intercorrelations among the Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale (RANGES) full scale and subscales

RANGES Soc. Bad Exp. God Societal Intellectual Agnostic Soc. Past Emotional Intuitive total Current with Rel. Relational Concerns RANGES total 1 .59** .62** .67** .52** .67** .53** .76** .73** .67** Socialization Current .59** 1 .04 .44** .26** .46** .47** .63** .28** .22** Intellectual .62** .04 1 .18** .22** .16** .12* .26** .49** .58** Bad Exp. with Rel. .67** .44** .18** 1 .28** .54** .36** .49** .52** .24** Agnostic .52** .26** .22** .28** 1 .34** .26** .24** .25** .19** God Relational .67** .46** .16** .54** .34** 1 .34** .53** .34** .28** Socialization Past .53** .47** .12* .36** .26** .34** 1 .46** .27** .28** Emotional .76** .63** .26** .49** .24** .53** .46** 1 .51** .43** Societal Concerns .73** .28** .49** .52** .25** .34** .27** .51** 1 .42** Intuitive .67** .22** .58** .24** .19** .28** .28** .43** .42** 1

Note: * p < .01, ** p < .001 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 RANGES Soc. Bad Exp. God Societal Intellect. Agnostic Soc. Past Emotional Intuitive Total Current with Rel. Relational Concerns

Reasons for Nonbelief Intellectual .21* -.15+ .56* -.05 .07 -.10 -.07 .00 .23* .31* Emotional (Negative) .34* .24* .17* .25* .09 .28* .14+ .37* .22* .19* Emotional (Positive) .34* .21* .13+ .25* .08 .21* .19* .47* .29* .19* Socialization .21* .22* .03 .13+ .12+ .14+ .40* .21* .10 .18+ Bad exp. with relig. .42* .19* .17* .55* .23* .33* .10 .27* .43* .15+ Intuitive .21* -.04 .26* .03 .03 .03 -.04 .07 .17* .47* Good exp. with secularism .28* .12+ .16* .29* .13+ .11 .16* .21* .28* .16* Relational .35* .18* .06 .36* .15+ .46* .14+ .33* .31* .15+

Altemeyer Sources of Doubt The problem of evil .27* .04 .24* .18* .10 .32* .04 .17* .24* .15+ Neg. history of religion .36* .05 .27* .31* .17* .22* .09 .21* .46* .17* Hypocrisy of relig. ppl. .34* .04 .23* .35* .20* .16* .04 .17* .48* .16* The death of a loved one .17* .12+ .02 .10 .08 .31* .05 .15+ .09 .06 Religious teachings about .23* -.04 .21* .24* .12+ .03 .06 .09 .34* .16+ the role of women Being relig. ≠ peace, joy .28* .05 .15+ .29* .18* .21* -.01 .19* .28* .19* Intolerance by relig. ppl. to .26* -.04 .25* .26* .13+ .06 .07 .09 .39* .14+ some groups Threats about hell .27* .03 .20* .22* .13+ .11 .06 .20* .38* .12+ Relig. prohibits pleasure .32* .03 .25* .28* .10 .16* .05 .22* .46* .19* Relig. tenets don’t make .22* -.23* .49* .05 .13+ -.02 -.09 -.03 .30* .25* sense Relig. faith prevents .32* -.04 .39* .26* .13+ .05 .01 .14+ .46* .20* questioning Claims that the Bible is the .23* -.13+ .36* .10 .12+ .03 -.02 .05 .35* .22* word of God

Note: * p < .001; + p < .01. 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 Soc. Bad Exp. God Societal Intellect. Agnostic Soc. Past Emo. Intuitive Current with Rel. Relational Concerns Reasons for Nonbelief R2 Beta Beta Beta Beta Beta Beta Beta Beta Beta Intellectual .37* -.07 .54* -.07 .03 -.13+ -.07 -.04 .06 .07 Emotional (Negative) .15* .03 .09 .06 -.03 .10 -.05 .29* -.02 .00 Emotional (Positive) .25* -.14+ -.03 .06 -.02 -.06 -.01 .56* .07 -.02 Socialization .17* .03 -.03 -.04 .02 -.01 .38* .04 -.01 .02 Bad exp. with relig. .35* -.04 -.02 .46* .09 .06 -.13+ -.03 .23* -.03 Intuitive .27* -.04 -.06 .01 .00 -.03 -.13+ -.09 .05 .58* Good exp. with secularism .12* -.07 .02 .23* .05 -.12 .05 .09 .12 .03 Relational .26* -.13 -.14 .09 -.02 .38* -.05 .12 .17+ .01 Altemeyer Sources of Doubt The problem of evil .17* -.13 .18+ -.01 -.04 .36* -.05 .02 .10 -.06 Neg. history of religion .24* -.15+ .07 .12 .04 .09 -.02 .00 .39* -.05 Hypocrisy of relig. ppl. .28* -.11 -.02 .21* .10 -.02 -.09 -.06 .44* .00 The death of a loved one .10* .00 -.02 -.09 -.01 .36* -.04 .01 .04 -.01 Religious teachings about .17* -.16+ .03 .21* .07 -.14+ .01 -.02 .29* .04 the role of women Being relig. ≠ peace, joy .16* -.14 -.06 .22* .11 .05 -.17+ .09 .14 .11 Intolerance by relig. ppl. to .21* -.17+ .09 .20* .06 -.09 .03 -.06 .34* -.03 some groups Threats about hell .17* -.14 .03 .08 .06 -.05 -.04 .13 .34* -.06 Relig. prohibits pleasure .24* -.17+ .03 .12 -.01 .01 -.06 .09 .40* -.01 Relig. tenets don’t make .34* -.25* .39* .04 .09 -.02 -.07 -.08 .19* .05 sense Relig. faith prevents .30* -.15+ .24* .20* .04 -.21 -.06 .01 .34* -.05 questioning Claims that the Bible is the .22* -.20* .18+ -.01 .07 -.01 -.05 -.04 .32* .06 word of God

Note: * p < .001; + p < .01. Highest VIF = 2.44 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 RANGES Soc. Bad Exp. God Societal Intellectual Agnostic Soc. Past Emotional Intuitive Total Current with Rel. Relational Concerns Lifetime history with r/s Pos. emo. at a god or gods -.02 .03 -.15+ .12+ .17* .05 -.04 -.02 -.05 -.15+ Felt angry at a god or gods .27* .12+ .09 .28* .15+ .47* .02 .19* .19* .06 Had pos. feelings at relig. -.08 -.01 -.16* .00 .13+ -.01 -.09 -.03 -.12+ -.12+ Had neg. feelings at relig. .21* -.08 .29* .17* .04 .03 -.12+ .09 .36* .16* Neg. exp. w/ rel. ppl. .22* .01 .18* .38* .08 .11 -.02 .13+ .26* .05 Believed a god or gods felt .25* .19* .01 .28* .13+ .38* .08 .25* .13+ .03 angry at you Dimensions of Secularity Pos. attitude toward relig. -.21* .08 -.36* -.11 .17* .00 .10 -.12+ -.48* -.19* Indifference to relig. -.02 .01 -.04 -.02 -.11 .05 .05 .02 -.04 .03 Rigidity (scientistic) .05 -.15* .43* -.14+ -.32* -.16* -.19* .00 .18* .29* Past and current nonbelief NonSpirituality scale .12+ .17* -.22* .26* .29* .26* .18* .10 .00 -.11 NonReligiosity scale .07 .35* -.25* .13+ .13+ .18* .22* .18* -.12+ -.06 Desire for God to exist .04 .11 -.20* .10 .29* .20* .12+ -.01 -.08 -.10 Engagement in nonrelig. .22* .06 .24* .16* .03 .03 .01 .22* .29* .12+ activity Certainty of nonbelief .05 -.07 .25* -.02 -.28* -.11 -.13+ .06 .12+ .23* Pos. emo. if God existed .12+ .20* -.15* .12+ .28* .18* .23* .12+ -.03 .00 Neg. emo. if God existed .27* .09 .23* .17* .06 .19* .07 .26* .22* .18* Nonbelief identity salience .28* .12+ .23* .16* .04 .13+ .11+ .28* .29* .18* Length of nonbelief -.02 -.09 .08 -.11 -.08 -.11 .00 -.07 -.02 .18* Agnostic beliefs -.08 -.01 -.31* .06 .28* .10 .10 -.07 -.10 -.26* Identification as agnostic -.11 -.08 -.16* -.04 .21* -.02 -.06 -.11 -.13+ -.19* Religious quest complexity .16* .10 .02 .17* .27* .18* .07 .10 .05 .03 Relig. and Spir. Struggles Divine .26* .27* -.02 .28* .16* .45* .20* .28* .06 .00 Interpersonal .30* .09 .19* .39* .10 .19* .02 .23* .32* .13+

Note: * p < .001; + p < .01. 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 Soc. Bad Exp. God Societal Intellectual Agnostic Soc. Past Emotional Intuitive Current with Rel. Relational Concerns Lifetime history with r/s R2 Beta Beta Beta Beta Beta Beta Beta Beta Beta Pos. emo. at a god or gods .10* -.02 -.12 .19+ .21* -.02 -.10 .02 -.07 -.11 Felt angry at a god or gods .26* -.07 .02 .05 .01 .52* -.14+ -.02 .09 -.09 Had pos. feelings at relig. .07* -.02 -.14 .07 .20* -.04 -.12 .08 -.11 -.04 Had neg. feelings at relig. .22* -.13 .14+ .13 -.01 -.06 -.20* .03 .32* .00 Neg. exp. w/ rel. ppl. .21* -.14+ .15+ .46* .02 -.10 -.13+ .08 .06 -.11 Believed a god or gods felt .18* -.02 -.02 .10 .01 .33* -.10 .14 -.02 -.10 angry at you Dimensions of Secularity Pos. attitude toward relig. .39* .07 -.22* .03 .28* .02 .14+ -.01 -.53* .05 Indifference to relig. .03 -.02 -.04 -.04 -.14+ .10 .08 .00 -.04 .05 Rigidity (scientistic) .42* .01 .41* -.13+ -.37* .08 -.17* .03 .13+ .16* Past and current nonbelief NonSpirituality scale .23* -.03 -.26* .20* .26* .14+ .08 -.01 -.06 -.08 NonReligiosity scale .24* .27* -.22* .04 .10 .03 .09 .07 -.21* .00 Desire for God to exist .19* .02 -.22* .03 .30* .19* .07 -.13 -.08 -.02 Engagement in nonrelig. .14* -.05 .17+ .07 -.03 -.14 -.09 .23* .18+ -.09 activity Certainty of nonbelief .22* .00 .20* .04 -.32* -.11 -.15+ .10 .03 .18* Pos. emo. if God existed .17* .06 -.23* .01 .27* .06 .15+ -.01 -.08 .05 Neg. emo. if God existed .11* -.09 .13 .04 .00 .13 -.04 .26* -.04 -.02 Nonbelief identity salience .12* -.05 .14 -.01 -.06 -.02 .00 .24* .15+ -.05 Length of nonbelief .08* -.03 -.01 -.06 -.07 -.08 .05 -.09 -.01 .28* Agnostic beliefs .27* -.14+ -.30* .05 .34* .10 .14+ -.05 .00 -.18+ Identification as agnostic .13* -.10 -.11 .02 .31* -.01 -.04 .01 -.07 -.14 Religious quest complexity .09* -.02 -.03 .12 .25* .07 -.04 .02 -.07 -.02 Relig. and Spir. Struggles Divine .24* .01 .02 .08 .01 .40* .05 .13 -.15+ -.15+ Interpersonal .21* -.10 .08 .38* -.01 -.03 -.15+ .14 .11 -.05

Note: * p < .001; + p < .01. Highest VIF = 2.44 60 61

Appendix

Reasons of Atheists/Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale

INSTRUCTIONS: People can have many reasons for not believing in the existence of a god or gods. Below is a list of potential reasons. At the end of the list of items, there will be space to tell us any reasons you have for not believing in a god or gods that we did not mention. Some of the reasons listed below use the word “God.” Please interpret “God” to stand for whatever image or idea you primarily associate with that term, such as a specific god you used to believe exists or a specific god that other people believe exists.

It is possible that you may agree with a statement below as being true, but that the statement is not currently a reason for your nonbelief in a god or gods. For this reason, you will be asked two questions regarding each item:

On a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), with 3 indicating neither agree nor disagree, how much do you currently agree with each of the following statements?

On a scale from 1 (not at all important) to 5 (extremely important), how important is each of the following items in explaining why you currently do not believe in the existence of God?

Intellectual 1. The existence of a God doesn’t make logical sense. 2. The idea of God is full of contradictions. 3. Science explains so much that assuming God’s existence isn’t necessary any more. 4. The natural world makes more sense without the existence of God. 5. There is no rational reason to believe in God. 6. There is no scientific evidence for the existence of God. 7. Inconsistencies between religious faiths make it hard to believe that God exists. 8. If God existed, God would show me proof of God’s existence. 9. The events of history are inconsistent with the existence of God. 10. I have philosophical reasons for not believing in God’s existence. 11. I have scientific reasons for not believing in God’s existence. God Relational 12. Earlier in my life, I felt as though I was mistreated by God. 13. In the past, I felt as though God disappointed me. 14. If God existed, that means that God caused me to suffer. 15. If God existed, I would dislike God. 16. If God existed, God would be responsible for my suffering. 17. If God existed, I think God would dislike me. 18. If God existed, God should have been there for me when I was suffering. Positive Emotion

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19. I find it pleasant to believe that God does not exist. 20. I find it comforting to believe that God does not exist. 21. It is helpful for me to not believe in God. 22. I find it inspiring to believe that God does not exist. 23. I am glad that I don’t believe in God’s existence. 24. I like not believing in God’s existence. 25. I find it uplifting to believe that God does not exist. Negative Emotion 26. The possibility that God exists is unpleasant for me to consider. 27. If I found out that God existed, I would feel distressed. 28. It would be unhelpful for me to believe that God exists. 29. If I found out that God existed, I would feel frightened. 30. It would be depressing for me to believe that God exists. 31. I would be sad if I found out that God existed. Socialization 32. My social group would mock me if I believed in God. 33. Belief in God would be make me an outcast in my social group. 34. My parents did not believe in God. 35. Belief in God is not accepted in my social group. 36. Other people would look down on me if I believed in God. 37. It is easier for me to fit in as a nonbeliever. 38. Growing up, people around me did not believe in God. Anti-religion 39. I have been hurt by religious people in the past. 40. Religious people have made my life worse. 41. Religion is bad for society. 42. The world would be better off if no one believed in God. 43. Religious institutions are too powerful in society. 44. Belief in God prevents people from making society better. 45. I have been let down by religious institutions. Intuitive 46. I just know that God doesn’t exist. 47. I just don’t believe in God’s existence. 48. The idea of God just never “clicked” for me. 49. The concept of God doesn’t make sense on a gut level. 50. I have an intuitive sense that there is no God. 51. I know, at a deep, personal level, that God does not exist. Agnostic 52. I need to keep an open mind about whether or not God exists. 53. It would be arrogant to claim that I know for sure whether or not God exists. 54. I’m not sure whether or not God exists. 55. God’s existence or non-existence cannot be proven. 56. No one really knows for sure whether God does or doesn’t exist. Existential 57. My life has meaning and purpose without God.

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58. If God existed, my life would have less meaning and purpose. 59. If God existed, I would feel less connected to the universe. 60. I do not need God to feel a sense of connection to other people or to the universe. 61. I am comforted that there is no soul, spirit, or consciousness that will survive my death. 62. I am not concerned about whether or not there is an afterlife. 63. I have a moral code that does not require the existence of God. 64. Believing in God would make it harder to make important life choices.

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Demographic data Q1.1 What is your age, in years?

Q1.2 What is the term which best represents your gender identification?  Female  Male  Transgender, Female-to-Male  Transgender, Male-to-Female  Genderqueer  Other ______ Prefer not to say

Q1.3 What is the term which best represents your sexual orientation?  Heterosexual  Homosexual (Lesbian or Gay)  Bisexual  Pansexual  Queer  Asexual  Other: ______ Prefer not to say

Q1.4 What is your current relationship/marital status?  Single, not in a committed relationship  Single but in committed relationship  Living with partner  Married or Civil Union  Divorced  Separated  Widowed  Prefer not to say

Q1.7 What is the highest level of education you completed?  Less than High School  Some High School  Graduated High School  Some College  Completed a Two-Year Degree (e.g. Associates)  Completed a Four-Year Degree (e.g. Bachelors)  Some Graduate/Professional School  Completed a Master's Level Degree

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 Completed a Doctoral Level Degree (eg. Ph.D, MD, JD)

Q1.8 Are you of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?  No, not of Hispanic, Latino, or spanish origin  Yes, Mexican, Mexican-American, or Chicano  Yes, Puerto Rican  Yes, Cuban  Yes, Other: ______

Q1.9 What is your racial identification?  White  Black or African American  American Indian or Alaska Native - Please list the name of your enrolled or principal tribe: ______ Asian Indian  Chinese  Filipino  Japanese  Korean  Vietnamese  Other Asian: ______ Native Hawaiian  Guamanian or Chamorro  Samoan  Other Pacific Islander: ______ Some other race: ______ Prefer not to say 66

Beliefs about a god or god’s existence

Which statement comes closest to what you believe about a god or gods?  I know that no god or gods exist, and I have no doubts about it.  While it is possible that a god or gods exist, I do not believe in the existence of a god or gods.  I don't know whether there is a god or gods, and I don't believe there is any way to find out.  I don't know whether there is a god or gods, but it may be possible to find out.  I find myself believing in a god or gods at some of the time, but not at others.  While I have doubts, I feel that I do believe in a god or gods.  I know that a god or gods really exist, and I have no doubts about it.

Q76 From 0-100%, how certain are you in your beliefs regarding the existence or non-existence of a god or gods with 0% meaning absolute uncertainty and 100% meaning absolute certainty?

Q77 Regardless of how much you actually believe in a god or gods: how much do you want to believe in the existence of a god or gods? (0 = I do not want to believe in the existence of a god or gods; 100 = I do want to believe in the existence of a god or gods) 67

Spiritual and NonSpiritual Identity

The Nonreligious-Nonspiritual Scale (NRNSS): NonSpiritual Subscale (Cragun, Fernandez, Harder, Hammer, & Nielsen, 2013)

Q2.3 Some people use the terms “spirituality” and “spiritual” in a broad, NON- supernatural sense. They see those terms as just having to do with: a special or intense experience, an appreciation for existence, meaning in life, peacefulness, harmony, the quest for well-being, or emotional connection with people, humanity, nature, or the universe. In this way, an atheist could technically describe her or himself as being “spiritual” or as having had a “spiritual experience.” In contrast to that broad approach, when you answer THESE items we'd like you to think about “spirituality” and “spiritual” in the specific, SUPERNATURAL sense. And by “SUPERNATURAL” we mean: having to do with things which are beyond or transcend the material universe and nature. God, gods, ghosts, angels, demons, sacred realms, miracles, and telepathy are all supernatural by this specific definition. Please rate how strongly you agree or disagree with the following statements:

1 2 Agree 3 4 5 Strongly Neutral Disagree Strongly Agree Disagree Spirituality is important to me.      The rightness or wrongness of my actions will affect what      happens to me when my body is physically dead. I have a spirit/essence beyond      my physical body. All other things being equal, a      spiritual person is better off. The supernatural exists.      I engage in spiritual activities.      I feel a sense of connection to something beyond what we      can observe, measure, or test scientifically. I cannot find worthwhile meaning in life without      spirituality.

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Religious and spiritual struggles

Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale (Exline, Pargament, Grubbs, & Yali, 2013)

Over the past few months, to what extent have you had each of the experiences listed below?

not at a little Some- quite a a great all / bit what bit deal does not apply Questioned God’s love for me      Felt angry at God      Felt as though God had abandoned me      Felt as though God was punishing me      Wondered if God really cares      Felt as though God had let me down      Felt attacked by the devil or by evil      spirits Felt as though the devil (or an evil spirit) was trying to turn me away      from what was good Worried that the problems I was facing were the work of the devil      or evil spirits Felt tormented by the devil or evil      spirits Had conflicts with other people about      religious/spiritual matters Felt rejected or misunderstood by      religious/spiritual people Felt as though others were looking down on me because of my      religious/spiritual beliefs Felt angry at organized religion      Felt hurt, mistreated, or offended by      religious/ spiritual people Felt guilty for not living up to my      moral standards Worried that my actions were morally      or spiritually wrong

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Wrestled with attempts to follow my      moral principles Felt torn between what I wanted and      what I knew was morally right Had concerns about whether there is any ultimate purpose to life or      existence Felt as though my life had no deeper      meaning Questioned whether life really matters      Questioned whether my life will really make any difference in the      world Struggled to figure out what I really      believe about religion/spirituality Felt troubled by doubts or questions      about religion or spirituality Felt confused about my      religious/spiritual beliefs Worried about whether my beliefs about religion/spirituality were      correct

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Life history items pertaining to God and religion (Exline, Park, Smyth, & Carey, 2011)

Looking back over your entire life, how often have you:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Never very often Had positive feelings            toward God Helt angry at God            Felt anger around the            idea of God Had positive feelings            about religion Had negative feelings            about religion Felt "angry at religion            Felt mistreated, offended, or            misunderstood by religious people Felt supported, helped, or understood by            religious people Disagreed with others (e.g., friends, family, members of a religious group)            about religious/spiritual issues Struggled to follow your personal            beliefs about what is right and wrong Felt excessive guilt about things you’ve            done that were wrong Had doubts about whether your life had any deeper            spiritual meaning or purpose

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Thought that you were being attacked by            the devil or evil spirits Had questions or doubts about whether God            exists Believed that God felt            angry at you Believed that God had positive feelings            toward you Experienced a "drop" or decrease in your            belief in God's existence

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Nonreligious identity

What labels would you use to describe yourself in terms of your non-belief? Check all that apply.  Agnostic  Agnostic Atheist  Anti-Theist  Apatheist  Apostate  Atheist  Atheist+  Bright  Dudeist  Freethinker  Happy Heathen  Humanist  Infidel  Naturalist  Non-Believer  Nontheist  Pastafarian  Rationalist  Secular  Secular Humanist  Skeptic  Spiritual, But Not Religious  Unitarian Universalist  Other: ______ Other: ______ Other: ______ Other: ______ Other: ______

Of the items you selected, which single label BEST describes yourself in terms of your non-belief?

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How important is your general identity as a non-believer in your everyday life?  Not at all Important  Very Unimportant  Somewhat Unimportant  Neither Important nor Unimportant  Somewhat Important  Very Important  Extremely Important

Engagement in nonreligious activities (modification of Exline, Yali, & Sanderson, 2000)

How often have you participated in each of these activities IN THE PAST WEEK?

Not at Once A Few On Daily More All Times Most than Days Once Per Day Read books or articles about non-religious worldviews       or that are critical about religion Watched or listened to programs focusing on a non-religious worldview       or that are critical of religion Attended meetings of a group that is focused on a non- religious identity (e.g.,       Secular Student Alliance, Center for Inquiry, American Atheists, etc) Thought about issues involving a non-religious       worldview Talked to others about issues involving a non-religious       worldview

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Multidimensional Quest Orientation Scale – Complexity Subscale (Beck & Jessup, 2004)

Please rate your agreement with these statements.

Disagree 2 3 4 5 6 Agree strongly 1 strongly 7 I would characterize my beliefs about religion as very philosophical in        nature. I dislike very philosophical answers to        my religious questions. I feel like most religious questions involve complex answers that take        a lifetime to fully understand. I feel that most things in religion are        clear and easy to understand. I feel that it takes a lot of time and intensive study to even begin to        have an informed opinion about religious issues. It would be hard for me to express my religious views in a short amount        of time due to the complexity of the arguments I would give. I would characterize my beliefs about religion as very complex rather        than simple and straightforward. I feel that most religious questions do not have simple, straightforward        answers.

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Reasons for nonbelief and doubts

Sources of Religious Doubts (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1997)

Please rate the extent to which each issue listed below has caused you to have religious questions or doubts.

this issue 1 2 3 4 5 this issue has not has caused caused any extreme doubts or doubts or questions questions for me 0 for me 6 the existence of God, an all-good, all-powerful supreme being who        created the universe the problem of evil and unfair        suffering in the world the history of religion; bad things        religions did in the past the evolution / creation controversy        the way religious people sometimes pressure others to believe what        they believe the hypocrisy of "religious" people (i.e., the nonreligious behavior of        supposedly religious people) getting to know people from other religions, or people with no        religion the death of a loved one        religious teachings about sex        the way some religious people seemed interested mainly in        getting money from others the intolerance some religious people        showed toward other religions religious teachings about the role of        women threats about what would happen if you were bad (e.g., being        condemned to eternal punishment) finding that being religious did not        bring peace and joy after all the intolerance some religious people        showed toward certain other

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people (e.g., homosexuals) claims that the Bible is the word of        God the way religion kept people from enjoying themselves in sensible        ways religious teachings did not make sense; they seemed contradictory        or unbelievable what happens to us when we die; is        there really an afterlife? religious faith made people "blind," not questioning teachings that        should be questioned

Reasons for Nonbelief (Exline, Bradley, et al., 2014)

How important are these reasons in making you believe that God does NOT exist? (from 0-100) Intellectual (e.g., seeing belief in a god or gods as illogical, not rational; religious teachings or beliefs about gods seem inconsistent or confusing) Emotional (Negative) (e.g., finding it unpleasant, frightening, unhelpful, or depressing to think that a god or gods exist) Socialization (e.g., not being raised to believe in a god or gods; friends or family do not believe in a god or gods; work or school environment does not emphasize a god, gods, or religion) Bad Experiences with Religion (e.g., being offended or hurt by religious people or institutions; finding religious teachings distasteful; concern about religious hypocrisy or pride; feeling judged or misunderstood by religious people) Experiential (e.g., you’ve had personal experiences that made it seem clear that a god or gods do not exist; events from your own life or things that you have witnessed personally have led you to not believe in a god or gods) Intuitive (e.g., you have a “gut level” sense that a god or gods do not exist; at some deep, personal level, believing that there are no gods simply makes sense and “feels right”) Emotional (Positive) (e.g., finding it pleasant, comforting, helpful or inspiring to believe that a god or gods do NOT exist) Good Experiences with Secularism (e.g., being supported by secular people or institutions; finding secular teachings comforting; feeling accepted or understood by secular people)

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Predicted emotional response to God’s existence

Q9.6 Imagine that you were suddenly presented with clear evidence that a god does actually exist (or that gods actually exist). The questions on this page will focus on this situation. What thoughts, feelings, or behavioral responses do you think you might have in this situation? To what extent do you think that you would feel ______in this situation? (See list below.) 0 Not 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 at All Extremely Anger (1)            Happiness (2)            Love (3)            Terror (4)            Trust (5)            Resentment (6)            Relief (7)            Joy (8)            Shame (9)            Guilt (10)            Respect (11)            Fear (12)            Disappointment            Confusion (14)            Mistrust (15)            Positive Feelings            Anxiety (17)            Closeness (18)            Frustration (19)            A Loss of            Freedom (20) Hope (21)            A Sense of            Freedom (22)

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Dimensions of Secularity (Gibson, 2011)

Please rate your agreement with the statements below. strongly 2 3 4 5 6 strongly disagree 1 agree 7 I feel indifferent to religious issues.        When I read about religion I have        strong emotional reactions. I take no interest in religious        matters. I’ve never given religion much        thought. All religious ideas are harmful.        We would all be better off if people        left religion behind. The teachings of traditional        religions are still helpful today. All things considered, religion is a        cause for good in the world. Science has made a religious        understanding of life redundant. I am certain that there is nothing        beyond the physical universe. I believe in a universal spirit or        higher power. I see myself as on a spiritual        journey. It’s important to me that others        share my views about religion. Some of my views about religion        may be wrong. I avoid discussing my views about        religion with other people. I avoid people who have strong views about religion that differ        from my own. Believing in life after death is just        wishful thinking. I can't see myself changing my        beliefs about God's existence. I feel confident that my beliefs about God's existence are the right        ones. My views on religion may change        as I get older. Whether or not God exists is a        question that doesn't interest me

79

much. I enjoy listening to other people's views about religion when they are        different from my own. I dislike talking about religion.        I dislike other people questioning        my views about religion. I oppose religion in any form.        I sometimes try to persuade others        to adopt my views about religion. Most of my friends would agree with me about whether or not God        exists. What people believe about God        isn't anyone else's business. I don't miss an opportunity to        argue about God's existence. I sometimes doubt whether my beliefs about God are the right        ones. I'm often interested in people's        reasons for believing in God. I'd be surprised if my friends didn't        know what I think about religion. I often think about religion.        I fear that religious people will        condemn me for my mistakes. I feel resentment toward religious        people. I have bad memories of past experiences with religion or        religious people.

80

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