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I know that this hardly counts as a scientific study, but out of interest I went through the list of speakers at The Amazing Meeting 9, a sceptical and atheist event that was held in Las Vegas in July, and checked photos of all the speakers. To reduce the variables as much as possible I considered only American speakers, of whom there were 36. Of these, FOUR (PZ Myers, Pamela Gay, Heidi Anderson and Maria Walters) appeared to be seriously overweight or obese, and Pamela Gay is not an atheist. As a third of US adults are obese this (admittedly crude) study suggests that it is not a problem linked in any significant way to atheism. If anybody can suggest a way to look at this in more detail I'd be happy to do what I can. --[[User:SamCoulter|SamCoulter]] 12:34, 16 September 2011 (EDT)

I know that this hardly counts as a scientific study, but out of interest I went through the list of speakers at The Amazing Meeting 9, a sceptical and atheist event that was held in Las Vegas in July, and checked photos of all the speakers. To reduce the variables as much as possible I considered only American speakers, of whom there were 36. Of these, FOUR (PZ Myers, Pamela Gay, Heidi Anderson and Maria Walters) appeared to be seriously overweight or obese, and Pamela Gay is not an atheist. As a third of US adults are obese this (admittedly crude) study suggests that it is not a problem linked in any significant way to atheism. If anybody can suggest a way to look at this in more detail I'd be happy to do what I can. --[[User:SamCoulter|SamCoulter]] 12:34, 16 September 2011 (EDT)

:::SamCoulter, for the sake of discussion lets assume that is true. With that being said, it depends on who you are comparing contemporary American atheists to. Are you comparing them to Jesus? Are you comparing the founders of the New Atheism movement to the American general public (3 out of 5 of the founders of the New Atheism movement have had problems with being overweight)? Are you comparing them to the very religious? Are you comparing them to the the bulk of Christianity which is in the non-Western World? Are you comparing them to Moses who certainly had a lot to say about diet? In any event, atheists say they believe in science and we know what science says about obesity  (medical science, nutritional science and exercise science).  Certainly a group of prominent atheists being prominent in the waist is an embarrassment especially since many atheists claim two things: atheism is in accordance with good science and theism is not and atheists are intellectually superior.  BY the way, given that being overweight/obese is a causal factor for brain impairment, an overeweight/obese atheist claiming intellectual superiority is problematic. Lastly, since some atheists probably believe that society is evolving upward, contemporary American atheists being more overweight than mankind was in general earlier is problematic as well. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 13:28, 16 September 2011 (EDT)

:::SamCoulter, for the sake of discussion lets assume that is true. With that being said, it depends on who you are comparing contemporary American atheists to. Are you comparing them to Jesus? Are you comparing the founders of the New Atheism movement to the American general public (3 out of 5 of the founders of the New Atheism movement have had problems with being overweight)? Are you comparing them to the very religious? Are you comparing them to the the bulk of Christianity which is in the non-Western World? Are you comparing them to Moses who certainly had a lot to say about diet? In any event, atheists say they believe in science and we know what science says about obesity  (medical science, nutritional science and exercise science).  Certainly a group of prominent atheists being prominent in the waist is an embarrassment especially since many atheists claim two things: atheism is in accordance with good science and theism is not and atheists are intellectually superior.  BY the way, given that being overweight/obese is a causal factor for brain impairment, an overeweight/obese atheist claiming intellectual superiority is problematic. Lastly, since some atheists probably believe that society is evolving upward, contemporary American atheists being more overweight than mankind was in general earlier is problematic as well. [[User:Conservative|Conservative]] 13:28, 16 September 2011 (EDT)