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→PolitiFact Rhode Island accused Sliverman of exaggerating the number of atheists in the USA
For more information, please see: [[Elevatorgate]]
For more information, please see: [[Elevatorgate]]
== PolitiFact Rhode Island accused Sliverman of exaggerating the number of atheists in the USA ==
== Sliverman intentionally exaggerating the number of atheists in the USA ==
In 2012, the organization PolitiFact Rhode Island accused David Silverman of wildly exaggerating the number of atheists in America by attempting to included the Unaffiliated (also called [[Nones]]) who made up about 15% of the United States population at the time (despite the fact that only 15 percent of "nones" identify as atheists) and by also attempting to lump agnostics with the [[Atheist Population|atheist population]].<ref>[http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2012/feb/26/david-silverman/american-atheists-president-david-silverman-says-t/ American Atheists President David Silverman says there are twice as many atheists in U.S. as Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists combined] By C. Eugene Emery Jr. on Sunday, February 26th, 2012 at 12:01 a.m.</ref><ref>[http://www.pressdemocrat.com/csp/mediapool/sites/PressDemocrat/News/story.csp?cid=2501462&sid=555&fid=181 Meet the 'Nones:' Spiritual but not religious]</ref>
In 2012, the organization PolitiFact Rhode Island accused David Silverman of wildly exaggerating the number of atheists in America by attempting to included the Unaffiliated (also called [[Nones]]) who made up about 15% of the United States population at the time (despite the fact that only 15 percent of "nones" identify as atheists) and by also attempting to lump agnostics with the [[Atheist Population|atheist population]].<ref>[http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2012/feb/26/david-silverman/american-atheists-president-david-silverman-says-t/ American Atheists President David Silverman says there are twice as many atheists in U.S. as Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists combined] By C. Eugene Emery Jr. on Sunday, February 26th, 2012 at 12:01 a.m.</ref><ref>[http://www.pressdemocrat.com/csp/mediapool/sites/PressDemocrat/News/story.csp?cid=2501462&sid=555&fid=181 Meet the 'Nones:' Spiritual but not religious]</ref>
The 2008 [[American Religious Identification Survey]] (ARIS) found that only 0.7% of U.S. adults identified as atheist, but at the same time 2.3% said there is no such thing as a god.<ref>Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, [http://b27.cc.trincoll.edu/weblogs/AmericanReligionSurvey-ARIS/reports/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf], March 2009, American Religious Identification Survey [ARIS 2008], Trinity College</ref> The reluctance of Americans to self-identify as atheists is likely due to the American public's low opinion of atheists (See: [[Views on atheists|Americans have a low opinion of atheists]]).
The 2008 [[American Religious Identification Survey]] (ARIS) found that only 0.7% of U.S. adults identified as atheist, but at the same time 2.3% said there is no such thing as a god.<ref>Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, [http://b27.cc.trincoll.edu/weblogs/AmericanReligionSurvey-ARIS/reports/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf], March 2009, American Religious Identification Survey [ARIS 2008], Trinity College</ref> The reluctance of Americans to self-identify as atheists is likely due to the American public's low opinion of atheists (See: [[Views on atheists|Americans have a low opinion of atheists]]).
The atheist Vlad Chituc wrote at the University of Southern California's ''Religious Dispatches'':
{{cquote|This leads Silverman to make some wildly inaccurate claims. He argues that more than half of Jews and three-quarters of the rapidly growing religiously unaffiliated are atheists. But according to Pew, only 17% of Jews and 33% of the “nones” say they don’t believe in God. If you want to count the “don’t knows” or “others,” that gets to about 20% and 40%, respectively, at best.
These are not small discrepancies, and based on these falsely inflated statistics, Silverman makes startlingly inaccurate claims, like that there are 80 million atheists in the U.S., a full 26% of the country....To make things frustratingly worse, other atheists have been calling Silverman out for falsely inflating the number of atheists for [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/08/07/fact-check-please/ more than four years]. And last year, I specifically asked Silverman if he would stop reporting the stats on “nones” as being representative of atheism, and he [https://twitter.com/MrAtheistPants/status/581206498258325504 told me he would]. Yet here we are.<ref>[http://religiondispatches.org/how-not-to-defend-atheism/ How Not To Defend Atheism] by Vlad Chituc, University of Southern California's ''Religious Dispatches'', 2015</ref>}}
For more information, please see: [[American atheism]]
For more information, please see: [[American atheism]]