{"id":3143,"date":"2011-05-09T10:39:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T14:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=3143"},"modified":"2011-05-09T09:40:56","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T13:40:56","slug":"study-2-in-10-atheist-scientists-are-spiritual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/05\/study-2-in-10-atheist-scientists-are-spiritual","title":{"rendered":"Study: 2 in 10 Atheist Scientists Are ‘Spiritual’"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ADELLE M. BANKS<\/strong>
\nc. 2011 Religion News Service<\/em><\/p>\n

(RNS) More than 20 percent of atheist scientists consider themselves to be “spiritual,” according to a Rice University study.<\/p>\n

The findings, to be published in the June issue of the journal Sociology of Religion<\/em>, are based on in-depth interviews with 275 natural and social scientists from 21 of the nation’s top research universities.<\/p>\n

Elaine Howard Ecklund, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of sociology at the Houston university, said the research shows that spirituality is not solely a pursuit of religious people.<\/p>\n

“Spirituality pervades both the religious and atheist thought,” she said. “It’s not an either\/or. This challenges the idea that scientists, and other groups we typically deem as secular, are devoid of those big `Why am I here?’ questions. They too have these basic human questions and a desire to find meaning.”<\/p>\n

Ecklund and other researchers found that these “spiritual atheists” viewed not believing in God “as an act of strength, which for them makes spirituality more congruent with science than religion.”<\/p>\n

These scientists view both spirituality and science as “meaning-making without faith,” the study authors said. They viewed spirituality as congruent with science but not with religion because a religious commitment requires acceptance of an absolute “absence of empirical evidence.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By ADELLE M. BANKS c. 2011 Religion News Service (RNS) More than 20 percent of atheist scientists consider themselves to be “spiritual,” according to a Rice University study. The findings, to be published in the June issue of the journal Sociology of Religion, are based on in-depth interviews with 275 natural and social scientists from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3,9],"tags":[2232,677,2202,678,675,679,676],"class_list":["post-3143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-research","category-rns","tag-atheist","tag-rice-university","tag-rns","tag-s-tudy","tag-scientist","tag-sociology-of-religion","tag-spiritual"],"yoast_head":"\nStudy: 2 in 10 Atheist Scientists Are 'Spiritual'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/05\/study-2-in-10-atheist-scientists-are-spiritual\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Study: 2 in 10 Atheist Scientists Are 'Spiritual'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By ADELLE M. BANKS c. 2011 Religion News Service (RNS) More than 20 percent of atheist scientists consider themselves to be “spiritual,” according to a Rice University study. 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