Of Pride and prejudice - An exploration of atheists’ national pride

This paper explores the relationship of atheism and national pride. Previous research has shown clearly that the relationship of religiosity and national pride is strong. Especially in the United States, but also for other countries data shows that religious people tend to be particularly proud of their countries. Reversely, it is a commonly shared assumption that people, who do not believe in any kind of God, inevitably also do not believe in the set of values perceived as fundamental for being good citizens and therefore are not expected to feel national pride. By examining cross-nationally, how proud atheists actually feel of their countries, I am checking whether this assumption holds true and/or whether the perceived relevance of belief in God for strong feelings of national pride, may be an American or, actually, a global phenomenon. The data reveals cross-country differences in both respects. In highly religious countries public opinion on atheists tend to be very negative, while feelings of national pride indeed tend to be weaker amongst atheists than among those, who believe in any kind of God. The United States an extreme representative here. In more secular countries, however, the patterns are not that clear. These results inevitably lead to the question of, what exactly predicts atheists’ feelings of national pride. For the analysis on a micro- as well as macro level across countries and decades, this article uses the ONBound database (https://www.gesis.org/en/services/processing-and-analyzing-data/data-harmonization/onbound). ONBound offers cumulated, harmonized, and linked data from international survey programs as well as relevant country-level data with focus on national identities and religion. Results from a Multilevel Analysis identify the relationship of church and state, the historic and current ideological background, the level of societal religiosity and the level of the country’s religious pluralization as crucial macro-level predictors for atheists’ national pride. If the church-state connection is positive and strong, people who deny religion seem also have ambivalent feelings towards the country. In turn, if the state ideology opposes religion, atheists, tend to support the combination of anti-religiousness and patriotism. The general societal religiosity and the level of religious diversity have amplifying effects on these mechanisms. The higher the level of societal religiosity and the lower the level of religious diversity, the lower the level of national pride among atheists.