It looks like aethism’s bad reputation just got worse. Atheists must not only live with the stigma of being non-believers in one of the most churched nations in the world, now they have to deal with the stigma of being superstitious.A recent Gallup poll shows atheists are more superstitious than people who attend religious services — which has led some to question the legitimacy of many atheists’ “non-believer” stance.  Further inspection of the poll leads to some different conclusions.In a post published Sept. 19 Wall Street Journal online contributor Mollie Ziegler Hemingway questioned the beliefs of today’s atheist. She thinks they are irrational.Hemingway argued the “new atheist movement” has chosen to attack believers by claiming their religious beliefs are nonsense.  Furthermore, the beliefs — or lack thereof — of atheists are illogical because atheists are more likely to believe in the paranormal or     pseudo-science.She drives her point home even further by saying “… the New Atheist campaign, by discouraging religion, won’t create a new group of intelligent, skeptical, enlightened beings. Far from it: It might actually encourage new levels of mass superstition…”In making these claims, not only does Hemingway mischaracterize a decent amount of the U.S. population, but she also insults the intelligence and beliefs of her own readers.The basis for Hemingway’s claim is a Baylor-funded Gallup poll published in late September.The poll, entitled “What Americans Really Believe,” is a survey designed to gauge American attitudes on various paranormal and religious beliefs.Hemingway is correct about the results of the poll. It found 31 percent of people who never worship expressed strong belief in paranormal or  pseudo-scientific phenomena, while only 8 percent of people who attend a house of worship more than once a week expressed the same beliefs.The questions used in the survey run the range of possible topics. Some of the questions used were “Do dreams foretell the future? Did ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis exist? Can places be haunted? Is it possible to communicate with the dead? Will creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster someday be discovered by science?”The study was performed by Rodney Stark, a well-vetted and respected sociologist specializing in religion. The empirical analysis is not problematic and the results of Stark’s work are clear.The problem is Hemingway’s incorrect depiction of the belief structure of atheist. Her comparison of “superstition” and religion are insulting to both believers and non-believers alike.From a sociological perspective religion and superstition may not look all that different. Both involve rituals repeated for a desired feeling or effect, and both involve separating aspects of life into sacred and mundane. But religion and superstition are not the same.In her haste to demean and belittle the beliefs of atheists Hemingway forgets the most important part of most religious experiences — the idea of a collective experience. What makes religion such a fascinating slice of human life is the idea that millions of people around the world believe in and define their worldview by the same set of rules, obligations and a belief in something greater than humans. Without the collective aspects, religion is the same as superstition.In her critique of atheism, Hemingway uses social scientific data — which may be pseudo-science as she never fully defines the term — in ways that are unjustified and themselves irrational.In Hemingway’s world atheists bash the religious and atheists are more likely to believe in bigfoot. Therefore, atheists are just as irrational as they claim the religious are.In making that thoughtless logical jump Hemingway disrespects the beliefs of atheists and also disrespects believers by dragging them down to this level of discourse.I won’t deny the existence of evangelical atheists who bash the religious, but I won’t justify their beliefs, either. These people exist on both sides of the religious debate and are equally problematic.It’s sad that closed minded evangelicals like Hemingway and her non-believer counterparts keep different groups from having reasonable and truly rational dialogue.Charity is about more than putting money in the collection plate — it’s also about respecting the beliefs of those you oppose.—-Contact Skylar Gremillion at [email protected]