Atheist population and verbal–linguistic intelligence

The Bible has been translated into 518 languages and 2,798 languages have at least some portion of the Bible.

In 2013, Charles Darwin's evolutionary book The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was translated into 35 languages.

Howard Gardner at Harvard University has identified various distinct intelligences: interpersonal, intrapersonal, visual–spatial, verbal–linguistic, logical–mathematical, musical–rhythmic, bodily–kinesthetic, and naturalistic. See: Theory of multiple intelligences and Atheism and the theory of multiple intelligences

Christianity with its belief in the brotherhood of Christian believers and missionary activities, encourages greater harmony between cultures and cultural exchange. The benefits of being multilingual are a greater understanding of language and being multilingual has beneficial effects on the brain. See also: Atheism and the brain

In addition, Christianity is pro-natal/family, so there is the speaking and social skills that develop within larger families and between families via marriages. In addition, Christians via sermons and teaching develop oratory skills. See also: Atheism and public speaking

Atheism does none of these things. According to an international study done by William Bainbridge, atheism is common among people whose interpersonal social obligations are weak and is also connected to lower fertility rates in advanced industrial nations (See also: Atheism and loneliness and Atheism and fertility rates).

Atheism and public speaking

See also: Atheism and public speaking

The atheist Jerry Coyne speaking at a 2013 atheist meeting entitled The Amazing Meeting (TAM). TAM is an annual meeting. In 2011, Coyne said about the atheist conferences which he attended that they had an air of self-congratulation. He also indicated about atheist meetings: "But to me the speakers and talks have often seemed repetitive: the same crew of jet-set skeptics giving the same talks."

The news website Vox reported about Reason Rally 2016:

“

It is clear, too, that almost nobody who takes the stage at Reason Rally was ever trained as a preacher. The whole thing is languid, urgent words in measured tones. The goal is an "end to bigotry," in the pitch of a polite request, to "reject" a supernatural worldview with all the force of tepid applause. Jamie Raskin says the job of politicians is to "listen to scientists" and closes with "Put your thinking caps on America!" Penn Jillette struggles to get a video playing, chokes up over Hitchens, then plays a Bob Dylan knockoff about his love for all people. The Amazing Randi devotes half an hour to a muted jeremiad against the obscure "facilitated communication" hoax. Peter says he does not know what "FC" is, but he'll look into it.

”

The atheist Jerry Coyne said about atheist conferences which he attended:

“

But to me the speakers and talks have often seemed repetitive: the same crew of jet-set skeptics giving the same talks. ...a few things bothered me, most notably the air of self-congratulation (which I excused on the grounds of enthusiastic people finding like-minded folks for the first time), the “fanboyness” directed at some of the famous atheists (they hardly let poor Richard alone, and I’m not sure he liked that!), and the lameness of quite a few of the talks. Again, how much new can you say about atheism?

”

Atheist population, locations and translation

See also: Atheist population and Global atheism

The current atheist population mostly resides in East Asia (particularly China) and in secular Europe/Australia primarily among whites. See: Western atheism and race

Multilingual Europe

Europe experienced hundreds of years of Christianization (see also: Protestant cultural legacies).

Europe has 23 officially recognized languages. In addition, it has migrants who tend to come from religious countries.

An essay entitled Multilingual Europe declares:

“

The 2012 Eurobarometer Report “Europeans and their languages” was published last month and makes fascinating reading. To begin with, it’s always heartening to see the value the European Union places on linguistic and cultural diversity: There are 23 officially recognised languages, more than 60 indigenous regional and minority languages, and many non-indigenous languages spoken by migrant communities. The EU, although it has limited influence because educational and language policies are the responsibility of individual Member States, is committed to safeguarding this linguistic diversity and promoting knowledge of languages, for reasons of cultural identity and social integration and cohesion, and because multilingual citizens are better placed to take advantage of the economic, educational and professional opportunities created by an integrated Europe. A mobile workforce is key to the competitiveness of the EU economy. (p. 2) It is even more heartening to see that this vision is shared by the majority of Europeans: almost all Europeans (98%!) think that learning at least one foreign language is important for the future of their children. And the current generation is itself well on the way towards that goal: with 46% of the population, monolingual Europeans are now in the minority. 19% of Europeans are bilingual, 25% are trilingual and 10% speak four or more languages.

”

Translation of the Origin of the species

Since World War II a majority of the most prominent and vocal defenders of the evolutionary position which employs methodological naturalism have been atheists and agnostics (see also: Causes of evolutionary belief). In 2013, Charles Darwin's evolutionary book The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life was translated into 35 languages. See also: Social Darwinism and Evolutionary racism

Christianity and linguistic diversity

In terms of its geographic distribution, Christianity is the most globally diverse religion (See also: Global Christianity). The Bible has been translated into 518 languages and 2,798 languages have at least some portion of the Bible. In addition, the Christian community is far more evangelistic than the atheist community and Christian missionaries are throughout the world.

Collectively speaking, due to its greater geographic diversity and its missionary and Bible translation efforts, the Christian community has a greater degree of linguistic and cultural intelligence than the atheist community.

Atheism and poetry

See also: Atheist poetry

Diagoras of Melos was an ancient Greek atheist, poet and sophist of the 5th century BC.

Despite atheism existing for thousands of years, there is no large body of quality atheistic poetry. For example, Wikipedia, which was founded by an atheist and agnostic, has no article on atheist poetry, yet it does have an article on Christian poetry.

In addition, the online book seller Amazon offers many books of Christian poetry as well as anthologies of Christian poetry (as of November 30, 2015 there were 61,064 search results for term "Christian poetry" at Amazon as far as soft cover and hard cover books being offered for sale to American consumers). On the other hand, the selection being offered at Amazon for atheist poetry was very limited (as of November 30, 2015 there were 123 search results for term "atheist poetry" at Amazon as far as soft cover and hard cover books being offered for sale to American consumers and a great many of the books were not even books of atheist poetry).

The British columnist Giles Coren wrote in The Times:

“

But it’s not the nihilism, the soullessness, the lack of poetry, the moral and physical ugliness, the shallow iconoclasm or the vainglory of atheists that bother me most. It’s the boringness. Is there anything more boring in the world than an atheist?

”

Inspiration is important as far as producing quality poetry, art and music. Atheist Francois Tremblay wrote: "One last problem that undermines any propagation of atheism is inspiration. Let's be honest here, "there is no god!" is not a very motivating call for most people." (See also: Atheism and inspiration).

At the present time, global atheism is shrinking in terms of its world percentage of adherents (See also: Desecularization).

See also

• Atheism and intelligence

• Atheism and the theory of multiple intelligences

• Embarrassing incidents concerning the website of the American Atheists

• Theory of multiple intelligences