Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Stephen Morris on October 31, 2011 at 5:49pm

Oh, and please don't take offense just because I disagree with you. We are doing exactly what I want to do: analyze the validity of the test.

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Permalink Reply by Lindsay M. on October 31, 2011 at 6:02pm

here's mine! http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=-6.88&soc=-5.49

About what I expected too, and fitting in with most of the rest of this crowd...

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Morris on October 31, 2011 at 6:19pm

Lol, you conformist :P

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Permalink Reply by Dennis Weaver on October 31, 2011 at 7:12pm

 

 

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=-1.50&soc=-3.08

 

Some of the wording in the questions made me say, "It depends," or, "replace 'should' with 'does'." I think I made an inaccurate answer sometimes for the purpose of gauging myself because of semantics. But I think it's sort of close enough. Definitely belong in the lower left quadrant at any rate.

I used to have a good friend who is Stalinist. We kind of drifted away, from being too busy and moving etc., but I'd love to see his graph. Hah.

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Permalink Reply by Bart Mitchell on November 1, 2011 at 9:40am

Totally.  I spent the entire quiz wanting to engage in debate.  I'd love to figure out which questions sent some of the members here to the right, or left.  Quite interesting that every person so far has been south in Libertarian country.  I wonder if that's a general trait of atheistsl, or a cultural trait picked up by atheists that would join Think Atheist and take polls....

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Permalink Reply by Dennis Weaver on November 1, 2011 at 11:43am

Yeah, it raises more questions than it answers... which is probably the best thing about it. And good question. As far as this poll group's results (us), it's not surprising to me, but funny because I know a lot of people in the social circles of my religious family that automatically assume that most atheists would fall deep into the upper left quadrant, like we wish 1984 on everyone. Hah. And interesting that I imagine many of the people in that circle would fall on the upper right quadrant. Yet they regularly take on the attitude that they are 'defending liberty' from everyone else trying to 'destroy' it. Strange world we live in.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Morris on November 1, 2011 at 12:00pm

That's ultimately what I was thinking. I think there is a correlation between theism and authoritarianism. If you believe there is a higher power, then you also have to believe that there should be a structure underneath that power as well.

This is, of course, purely speculative, as there are always exceptions. Many of my thirst friends scored libertarian, and one of the worst totalitarians in history (Stalin) was an atheist.

I guess it would be more accurate to say that endorsing theism makes it easier to accept authoritarianism.

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Permalink Reply by Dennis Weaver on November 1, 2011 at 1:57pm

Certainly. That has been my experience as well, exceptions aside. I'm probably stating the obvious with this point, but I'm sure you'd also agree that the level of authoritarianism in the religion itself is generally proportional to political acceptance or leanings in the same manner. I guess it mostly depends on what sort of deity we're talking about. Again, an example from the social circle of my family, quite a few who are extreme fundamentalist Calvinists (and directly involved with people like Douglas Wilson), have taken the political and philosophical stance of people like Rousas John Rushdoony and associated writers and figures. It still shocks me that I made it out alive and with my sanity, being steeped in this environment. My mom still has a posed picture of me being held by Rushdoony when I was about 5 years old. It's rather disturbing to me it exists. Great discussion with you, BTW.

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Permalink Reply by Dennis Weaver on November 1, 2011 at 11:59am

Also, it might be more interesting to see it with the dot, but also with a web graph, where one could see the extent of where all their answers fall. But you'd probably need more agree/disagree points in the answer gradient to make that more interesting.

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Permalink Reply by Ronald on October 31, 2011 at 11:09pm

Here's my graph. http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=-6.25&soc=-5.69

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Permalink Reply by Trish E. Harmon on November 1, 2011 at 1:00am

This is really fascinating. As I suspected, most atheists tend to be left leaning, and we agree on many social issues. One of my daughters, who is 21 and agnostic, took the test, too, where I posted it on facebook. Her graph was almost a bulls eye as to where my spot landed! My sister was more in the upper left from me, and she's a muslim convert. My graph is, I think, the first one done here.

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Permalink Reply by Dustin WIdmann on November 1, 2011 at 1:27am

I am here:

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