A recent study done by a group of psychologists in the U.S. and Canada found that atheists, as a group, were the least trusted of all listed categories aside from rapists. Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity may decry the secular society that the Founding Fathers in fact enshrined in the Constitution, but in practice the outsized respect granted to religion in the public sphere has equated questioning the existence of God with being a bad person. Another survey, conducted for the Richard Dawkins Foundation in the U.K., demonstrated this social pressure by finding that most people polled had identified as Christian on British census forms because they feared their moral fibre would be questioned otherwise. Similarly, McConaughey’s decision to open his acceptance speech with thanks to God—as in many similar statements, usually made by victorious athletes in post-game interviews—was widely regarded as a sign of humility: a mark of virtue, in other words. I would argue that it would be far more humble to suggest that his hard work, the incredible physical transformation he underwent, and the dedicated cast and crew who supported his acting experience all directly led to his winning the award, rather than his being specially “blessed” by a God who chose him for that privilege.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 16:57:10 +0000
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