Explanation of the Trends and Recent Changes in Spanish Society Regarding Belief in God: Atheism, Agnosticism, Deism, Skepticism, and Belief

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article “Religious Counterpoints: Atheism, Agnosticism, Deism, Skepticism, and Belief: An Empirical Study for Spain in the Decade 2008 to 2018” addresses a topic of interest, not only for Spain, but also for other countries that have experienced or are facing similar secularization processes. The text is clearly written and the sequence of its reasoning is well organized, making it easy to read and understand, unlike those texts, which one sometimes encounters, that resist the reader's comprehension and require repeated readings of their paragraphs. In addition, the theoretical framework and methodology employed are adequate. For all these reasons, the work is worthy of being published in a Journal such as Religions, to which it is fully suited. However, the author(s) should first make the following changes:

1) The Introduction is somewhat long and too philosophical and abstract. Moreover, there is no clear correlation between the theoretical character of this section and the empirical character of the manuscript afterwards. Proof of this is the paragraph that the author(s) are compelled to place just at the end of the Introduction, which reads as follows: “We, therefore, believe that in the Spanish case, regardless of the secularizing effect anchored in Western societies, social alternatives to faith and belief have a greater socio-demographic and socio-economic conditionality.” This is a paragraph in which it is not clear what it wants to say, and the discursive tone of the paragraph represents a great argumentative leap with respect to the philosophical and theoretical tone that the introductory text has had up to this point.

2) In relation to the above, when one finishes reading the article and compares what is said in the Introduction with what is said in the rest of the text, one has the doubt of whether there are two different themes here, two articles encompassed in one. Firstly, in the introductory text there is a very extensive philosophical or theoretical reflection that I believe is not appropriate to "introduce" what is really done in the subsequent statistical work. Frankly, I do not think it is the task of Sociology to enter into philosophical, theoretical or even 'theological' debates about whether God exists or not. What should be important for a sociologist is to analyze the social dimension, the social meaning, the social effects and the social functions that religion fulfills, which was already a preferential focus of attention for classic authors of sociological thought such as Durkheim or Weber, who left behind attitudes more or less in line with what could be described as a kind of ‘militant atheism’, as is the case of the thought of Marx or Comte, a thought more bent on denying God and placing Reason and Science in his place.... ... I have put these ellipses because I do not want to continue with reasoning like this. This, in order not to fall into reflections of the type I am criticizing in the article. The only thing I am interested in pointing out is that, in my opinion and given what is done later in the manuscript, the Introduction should have focused on defining the meaning of each of the following categories: atheist, agnosticism, deism, skepticism, and belief. Apart from this, the Introduction should include a more historical and/or sociological analysis aimed at explaining and contextualizing socially and politically (I am talking about social changes in this sense) the process of secularization experienced in Spain, delving into the reasons for it. This would better prepare the ground to then focus on the statistical study that is made, in which, after all, it is put how Spaniards manifest this secularization, or also how they position themselves in the interviews to which they have answered in relation to the aforementioned categories, depending on this secularization and how it has impacted them according to the sociodemographic characteristics that the manuscript takes into account.

3) On page 3 the following is stated: " From a dichotomous approach, Collins (1992) states that there are only two positions on religion according to whether one is a believer or not: those who assume that there is a supreme reality that transcends the sociological and those who understand it as an irrational superstition about things that do not exist, pointing out that most social thinkers hold the second position." In this regard, it should be objected that the sociological should not be confused with the social, since the sociological entails one or multiple analytical perspectives (paradigmatic pluralism of sociology) on the social. Specifically, in the above expression it should be made clear that what transcends this supreme reality is the social, not the sociological.

4) Instead of saying "Source: Own elaboration. CIS", I think it should be said “Source: Author or Authors' s elaboration. CIS.”

5) Page 9 repeats something I have pointed out before. It says " Sociologically, there is proximity on this Cartesian map between the atheist, agnostic and deist positions, which are placed at one end of the continuum, while believing skeptics tend to be right in the middle and believers at the opposite end of the continuum." I know that this is something very widespread, not only among radio talk-show and tertullian hosts and even quite a few journalists, but also among some sociologists. I reiterate, I would not say "sociologically", but socially, because sociological is a way of studying a particular social phenomenon through Sociology. In short, manuscript falls here into that frequent tendency to confuse the social with the sociological.

6) On page 9, at the beginning of the conclusions it says: " With a robust sociological perspective, this article approaches a long-standing and rather complex field of study rooted in philosophical debates as old as they are current. In any case, at least three conclusions can be drawn that open new challenges or future lines of research." Why is this sociological perspective robust, why have statistics been made? Does this mean that if they had analyzed qualitatively the views of the actors involved then it would not be robust or would be less so? In short, that I would change the adjective robust or simply remove it, so that I would start the conclusions by saying something like "The statistical work done has allowed long-standing approache.........".

 I hope that my above comments, which are basically constructive in purpose, serve to improve the article which addresses a matter of great interest and does so with sufficient rigor.

Author Response

REVIEWER 1
We are deeply grateful for your constructive comments, which undoubtedly improve the article.

1) - We have removed the last paragraph of the Introduction section:

• “We, therefore, believe that in the Spanish case, regardless of the secularizing effect anchored in Western societies, social alternatives to faith and belief have a greater socio-demographic and socio-economic conditionality”.

2) - We have removed the following paragraphs from the philosophical introduction to reduce its length:

• "Moreover, the same author positions his argument towards skepticism, agnosticism, and even atheism, when he explains that some philosophers have said that there are gods, which is the most probable point of view and that to which nature leads and guides us. However, Protagoras said that he personally doubted it, while Diagoras of Melos and Theodore of Cyrene held that there were no gods at all (Cicero 2008). However, the origins of the social, legal, political, and military structure in ancient Greece and Rome were founded on two religious beliefs: the family and religion's public generalization (Coulanges 2019)."
• "Mill, however, does allow for a belief in the supernatural through the renunciation of an omnipotent God based on Platonic and Manichaean principles, i.e., between the Designer's goodness and the principle of evil. (Mill 2014). He also ascribes a socializing influence to believe in the soul's immortality and miracles. Santayana (2015) states that a person's professed religion is a historical accident, like the language they speak."

- We have added this brief paragraph in the introduction to socially and politically contextualize the process of secularization in Spain:

• "Pérez-Ágote (2010b) summarizes the new socio-political context and the last religious changes in Spain with three trends: a) the sweeping individual secularization seen among the Spanish population, whose non-believing Catholic positions (deism, agnosticism and atheism) arrived later than in northern European countries; b) the separation between Church and State, which is experiencing major difficulties, due to the relevant power and influence of the Catholic Church; c) the recent settlement in Spain of a large immigrant population with other non-Catholic religious beliefs and experiences (Orthodox, Muslims, etc.)."

3) - We have replaced “sociological” with “social”.

4) - We have changed the source description in all the tables: Source: Author or Authors' s elaboration. CIS.

5) – We have replaced “sociologically” with “socially”-

6) – We have removed the adjective and changed the start of the conclusions following the reviewer's suggestion:

“The statistical work done has allowed approaches to a long-standing and rather complex field of study…”

Reviewer 2 Report

Regarding the structure of the article, it should be noted that the chapters are numbered incorrectly. Likewise, chapter 2. Results should not be titled results but Analyzes because the authors are trying to analyze the results.

From an experimental perspective, it should be noted that this research is based on data analysis of already conducted research, the results of which are presented and commented on. In other words, the article does not present its own experimental data.

Regarding the content and strength of the argument, it should be noted that the Introduction to the article is too long and should not contain sub-chapters as new units. In general, the announced philosophical and sociological analyzes of the positions of deism, theism, agnosticism, etc. are too superficial probably because they try to cover the whole of history. It would be more qualitative to present the basic philosophical and sociological characteristics of each position. This would ensure better quality content for further analysis and argumentation. Namely, the article in this form looks disjointed. Moreover, we can hardly agree with the author's conclusions at the end of 1.2. and in the Conclusion.

In this sense, the title itself in the section "Religious Counterpoints" is questionable because atheism is not a religious belief, but a belief. In the context of the above, the philosophical and sociological features of different beliefs should be better presented, and analyzed in the context of the research used by the authors. Likewise, the title should be modified to, for example, Explanation of the trends and recent changes in Spanish society regarding belief in God.

Author Response

REVIEWER 2
We are deeply grateful for your constructive comments, which undoubtedly improve the article.

- We have corrected the numbering of the sections of the manuscript.

- We have eliminated several paragraphs from the introduction to make it shorter and clearer, especially from section 1.1, but we have also eliminated the last paragraph of section 1.2.

• "Moreover, the same author positions his argument towards skepticism, agnosticism, and even atheism, when he explains that some philosophers have said that there are gods, which is the most probable point of view and that to which nature leads and guides us. However, Protagoras said that he personally doubted it, while Diagoras of Melos and Theodore of Cyrene held that there were no gods at all (Cicero 2008). However, the origins of the social, legal, political, and military structure in ancient Greece and Rome were founded on two religious beliefs: the family and religion's public generalization (Coulanges 2019)."
• "Mill, however, does allow for a belief in the supernatural through the renunciation of an omnipotent God based on Platonic and Manichaean principles, i.e., between the Designer's goodness and the principle of evil. (Mill 2014). He also ascribes a socializing influence to believing in the soul's immortality and miracles. Santayana (2015) states that a person's professed religion is a historical accident, like the language they speak."
• "We, therefore, believe that in the Spanish case, regardless of the secularizing effect anchored in Western societies, social alternatives to faith and belief have a greater socio-demographic and socio-economic conditionality."

- We have changed the title to "Explanation of the trends and recent changes in Spanish society regarding belief in God: Atheism, Agnosticism, Deism, Skepticism, and Belief".

Reviewer 3 Report

• In the paper, there is a clear and interesting question about the reasons why some parts of the population are becoming less religious or are leaving religion (roman catholicism) by becoming deists, atheists or agnostics. The author uses the quantitative approach, and the analysis are based on ready-made data from the research carried out in the framework of International Social Survey Programme. This allows the author to analyze the change in declarations about religious attitudes in Spanish society between 2008 and 2018. There are hypotheses about the few factors of the change, i.e.: age, gender, and education. The influence is being analysed with the assumption, that the attitudes toward religion are being also shaped by the process of secularization as well as by the individual experience. Using the ready-made data has some pros but also cons: analysis and conclusion could be more in-depth, but - as I wrote - they are limited by the variables from the used database.
• The results of statistical analysis are presented clearly and comprehensively. The author indicated which factors have a statistically significant effect on changing attitudes towards religion.
• In the introduction, mainly philosophical assumptions and characteristics of the title ideas (deism, atheism...) and views are presented. They are too little grounded in sociological theory. We also know little about the social dimension of atheism, agnosticism or deism in Spain. 
• The phrase 'religious counterpoint' used in the title is inaccurate. It is not clear how the author understands the 'counterpoint'. I would remove this phrase from the title slightly changing the rest. 
• Point 3 in the structure is missing (there is point 2. Results and then 4. Conclusions).

Author Response

REVIEWER 3

We are deeply grateful for your constructive comments, which undoubtedly improve the article.

 

- We have added this brief paragraph in the introduction to contextualize socially and politically the process of secularization in Spain.

• Pérez-Ágote (2010b) summarises the new socio-political context and the last religious changes in Spain with three trends: a) the sweeping individual secularization seen among the Spanish population, whose non-believing Catholic positions (deism, agnosticism and atheism) arrived later than in northern European countries; b) the separation between Church and State, which is experiencing major difficulties, due to the relevant power and influence of the Catholic Church; c) the recent settlement in Spain of a large immigrant population with other non-Catholic religious beliefs and experiences (Orthodox, Muslims, etc.).

 

- Other reviewers have requested that we reduce the introduction in the philosophical section to balance it with the sociological perspective and to highlight more of the different religious positions. Thus, we have eliminated the following sentences from the philosophical section:

• "Moreover, the same author positions his argument towards skepticism, agnosticism, and even atheism, when he explains that some philosophers have said that there are gods, which is the most probable point of view and that to which nature leads and guides us. However, Protagoras said that he personally doubted it, while Diagoras of Melos and Theodore of Cyrene held that there were no gods at all (Cicero 2008). However, the origins of the social, legal, political, and military structure in ancient Greece and Rome were founded on two religious beliefs: the family and religion's public generalization (Coulanges 2019)."
• "Mill, however, does allow for a belief in the supernatural through the renunciation of an omnipotent God based on Platonic and Manichaean principles, i.e., between the Designer's goodness and the principle of evil. (Mill 2014). He also ascribes a socializing influence to believing in the soul's immortality and miracles. Santayana (2015) states that a person's professed religion is a historical accident, like the language they speak."

- We have changed the title to "Explanation of the trends and recent changes in Spanish society regarding belief in God: Atheism, Agnosticism, Deism, Skepticism, and Belief."

- We have corrected the numbering of the sections of the manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

No comements.