Stereotypes of Non-Religious People Held by the Religious

[curiosityandthecat]

"Aggressive, Anti-Christian, Arrogant, Care-free, Careless, Confused, Critical, Denies reality, Depressed, Determined, Disrespectful, Empty, Evil, Extroverted, Faithless, Freaks, Free, Friendly, Happy, Fake, Ignorant, Immoral, In denial, Indecisive, Independent, Interesting, Judgmental, Laid back, Looking for something, Lost, Materialistic, Miserable, Mostly whites, Mysterious, Narrow minded, Negative, Nonconformists, Nonspiritual, Normal, Not centered, Not religious, Objective, Open minded, Opinionated, Questions everything, Rational, Rebellious, Relaxed, Rude, Sad, Satanists, Scared to make a choice, Scientific, Searching, Secretive, Self-centered, Self-indulgent, Self-reliant, Sinners, Spontaneous, Striving for happiness, Strong, Stubborn, Stupid, Shallow, Unbelievers, Uncaring, Unethical, Unfriendly, Unique, Unrealistic, Violent, Without commitment, Without devotion, Without direction, Without focus, Without goals, Without purpose, Without respect."

All these adjectives were used to describe non-religious people by a group of over 100 religious students under the age of 20 in a first-year psychology course at a major university. (Harper, M.  (2007.)  "The Stereotyping of Nonreligious People by Religious Students: Contents and Subtypes.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.  46:4(539-552).)

Discuss.

[Tom62]

Amazing how they hit the hammer on the nail with that one. That is a perfect description of me

[Asmodean]

Freaks

Freakish and loving it!  

[crocofish]

Interesting how many of those words could be applied to religious people also.

Not all the words were bad.  Out of that list, I'll take words like "Happy", "Free", "Friendly", "Independent", "Interesting", "Normal", "Objective", "Rational", "Scientific", and "Striving for happiness".

[Will]

I like "nonspiritual". It's more broad than atheist. Not only do I not believe that there's a god or gods, but anything supernatural, and atheist has never seemed to cover all that.

[McQ]

I like "nonspiritual". It's more broad than atheist. Not only do I not believe that there's a god or gods, but anything supernatural, and atheist has never seemed to cover all that.

Ditto to that, Will. I've tried to always use a broader term, even though "atheist" fits some of my nature. I tried "naturalist" but that's pretty much taken by another group already.  

[Msblue]

It's interesting how most of the words are negative stereotypes but, they're are a few positive ones on the list. I wouldn't have thought a Christian would ever describe us as happy, rational or free.

[Will]

Ditto to that, Will. I've tried to always use a broader term, even though "atheist" fits some of my nature. I tried "naturalist" but that's pretty much taken by another group already.  

Oh, it's even worse than that. Even Rationalist is taken. I remember thinking "aww crap" when I started reading Descartes in high school. He was a rationalist, one of the greatest names in rationalism, but he was also a theist. Actually, it's even worse, he was a Christian apologist.

[Jolly Sapper]

I am somewhat unsurprised that some of the terms in the list were directly contradictory.

Depressed, Miserable, Sad - Happy
Determined - Confused
Materialistic - Carefree
Open minded - Denies Reality, Unrealistic
Extroverted - Unfriendly

 I also find it amusing that some of the terms don't seem to make much sense.  

Scared to make a choice.
In denial
Indecisive
Judgmental
Uncaring, unfriendly, unrealistic
Without Commitment, and the rest of the W's listed in the OP

I am surprised that there were no terms for shy or introverted used.  I'd figure that a belief that tends to be labeled as antisocial would have fostered at least a few descriptions of "shy, lonely, introverted, quiet, keeps to themselves" but the closest I could see in the list was "Lost."  I won't think to much about "Lost" though as it has a different meaning to the religious's views about an after life and salvation.

I wonder if there were any follow up studies trying to see if the descriptions given might be influenced by projection.