Survey on Coming Out As An Atheist

If you have 20 minutes to spare, please consider helping a couple Godless academics out by taking this survey which inquires about coming out and living as an atheist.

As professor Tom Arcaro writes:

Why am I doing this research? As a tenured full professor I have no pressing need to add to my curriculum vita. My motivation for this research is to reach out to other atheists and provide them with an additional sounding board for their experiences. I want to describe the population of self-proclaimed atheists and ferret out some of the correlations between their gender, age, and other demographic variables with their responses to the array of questions that are posed in the survey. After the data is collected, I will openly share to summarized results both in the popular press (and, of course, appropriate web sites) and in sociological journals. I pledge to do my best to describe, analyze, summarize and present the data carefully and, importantly, to absolutely maintain the confidentiality of each participant.

Ultimately I hope that this survey and the publication of the results will, in some a small way, encourage more of us to more openly be who we are, atheists.

(via Life Without Faith)

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amiable

took it.

i wish there was a way to differentiate between where i live and where i was raised (unless i missed it). wasn’t sure how to answer some of the questions because of that.
Jim

Done. Easy. Only took 5-10 minutes.
Sisyphus Fragment

I’m in the process of completing it as we speak.
Polly

What? They didn’t tell me my fortune or even guess my sign!

Actually, what would be cool is if they offered a discount coupon for CafePress merch.
JSug

It should probably be specified that this survey only applies to people that identify as atheists, even though one of the first questions asks you to pick a label for yourself that includes things like “agnostic” and “humanist” which are not the same thing. Also, the wording of some of the questions and responses seem… poor to me.

For example:

3. Which of these factors was most significant in holding you back from acknowledging to yourself that you were an atheist?
* Fear of the reaction of others who are believers

Um, how would acknowledging it to myself invoke a reaction from others?

Also, this:

4. Who did you “come out to” first?

I don’t feel like this question, or any of the responses applies to me. I don’t feel like I was ever “in” since my immediate family is not religious (this was asked earlier). Do I select the “I’m not out” option?

And, apparently, the only thing anyone is allowed to miss about religious affiliation is “the social aspect.” But take heart, because you can miss it to varying degrees.
Sean the Blogonaut

Done. I hope you will post the results when it is completed
Christophe Thill

I was embarrassed by several questions that felt irrelevant. I never really felt I was “in the closet” or “coming out”. I suppose most people around me have no strong feelings about religion, even the believers among them. So there’s just not much talk on the subject, or not at all. Why would it be most difficult to mention my atheism to my coworkers? Because there really aren’t opportunities to discuss the subject (at work there’s usually other stuff to do).
D

Done! I hope there are some interesting results that come out of this.