Bradley Monton’s Blog

Video of the debate I moderated between William Lane Craig and Francisco Ayala is now available.

I’ve had the suspicion that most philosophers are (like me) inclined toward atheism, but now there is solid evidence to back this up. The impessive PhilPapers survey results have just been released, and 73% of philosophy faculty surveyed accept or lean toward atheism, while only 15% accept or lean toward theism.

Interestingly, amongst philosophy graduate students, only 64% accept or lean toward atheism, while 21% accept or lean toward theism (and the numbers are about the same for undergraduates). Do more people in general nowadays become atheists as they get older, or is there something about getting more philosophy training that makes it more likely that one will drop belief in God, or is there something about the getting-a-job process that leads theist grad students to disproportionately not become professors?