It’s always a good idea to be skeptical of polls. With that caveat in mind, a recent survey (PDF file) of Canadians offers some possible food for thought.
In one section of the multipart 2005 survey, respondents were asked to identify themselves as theists or atheists. Elsewhere they were asked if certain moral values were "very important" to them.
Some values were about equally important to both groups – honesty, for instance. But in many cases there was a significant gap. Kindness was rated very important by 88% of theists but only 75% of atheists. Concern for others: 82% (theists) vs. 63% (atheists). In some cases the gap was really large. Forgiveness was very important to 84% of theists but only 52% of atheists. Generosity had a whopping thirty-point gap: 67% of theists found it very important, but only 37% of atheists felt likewise.
Sociologist Reginald Bibby, who crunched the data, "acknowledged that many non-believers still place a high value on morality and ethics. But he said some of that is a legacy from previous generations who held deeper religious views."
Discussing forgiveness, Bibby says,
That’s a pretty explicit value within a large number of religious communities… Look at the culture as a whole and ask yourself: To what extent do we value forgiveness against themes like zero-tolerance? We don’t talk very much about what we’re going to do for people who fall through the cracks. So I think forgiveness is pretty foreign to a lot of people if they’re not involved in religious groups.
If you think about it, it’s true that movies, TV shows, and books with the theme of forgiveness are few and far between. This theme is heavily stressed in Judeo-Christian teaching, but rarely promoted in secular culture.
An atheist named Justin Trottier tries this response:
To me, scientific thinking is a value. Critical thinking is a value. Open inquiry is my biggest value…. If he made those values — the way atheists would — he would have gotten different responses.
Perhaps so, but I’m not sure "scientific thinking" is a moral value. It seems like more of an intellectual skill.
Trottier adds:
Religion always does this black-and-white thing. An atheist is a lot more temperate, a bit more hesitant. An atheist might be more nuanced in his or her thinking.
Sorry, but I don’t see a lot of nuance in the polemicism of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, to name two currently prominent atheists. Nor was there much nuance in the late Ayn Rand’s writings; she was the champion of black-and-white thinking, and proudly so. Which is not to say that there aren’t nuanced atheists – of course there are – but there are nuanced theists as well.
I have mixed feelings about this report. On the one hand, society is probably polarized enough already without exacerbating tensions via this type of study. On the other hand, if there are important moral values more strongly associated with religious belief than with secularism, then we need to know it – because in some parts of the West, religion is clearly on the wane.