As I said, Christian: you did suggest what might be seen as positive traits to associate with atheism: but while that might be more palatable than the characterisations sometimes seen in the united states (and maybe elsewhere, I don't know) it is still what someone called "othering". Now sometimes there are real differences between the average in a group, as you have said. But it not a perfect match, as you have also said. So it serves no useful practical purpose: and it has its dangers. That does not mean one should not research it, of course: but you will understand that people will resist any such stereotyping, for good reasons and for bad reasons: if they are a beleagured minority (as atheists seem to be in the US) then they will be naturally suspicious of your motives. Perhaps that is not obvious to you: again I do not know your circumstances.
But the fact is that you have proposed a definition and you are clinging to it for reasons I do not understand. Until we clear that up then you cannot begin to design your survey even if your motives are of the very highest.
So let us start with your sample: as has also been noted, if you cling to the definition you have proposed then you will exclude me and others on this thread even though we are atheists. I say again: I do not reject god. I honestly do not care if there is a god or not: and since I see nothing to suggest that there is I presume that there isn't. That makes me an atheist.
I am not resistant to the muller lyer illusion: it affects me even though I know how it works. I am not resistant to any of the common optical illusions: they fool me just as they fool most people. I did not see the gorilla on the basketball court, either. This is the most obvious end of the perceptual problems which Piscivore referrred to. They are, so far as I know, universal. Our senses and our brains fool us all the time. I do not see that that is deniable, really. They fool us all in the same way, theists and atheists alike
There are things which follow from these limitations: we can't have gaps in our visual field, even though they are really there: so we have evolved to not notice those gaps: our brains fill them in. Yours does and mine does. This is part of what brains do. We tell ourselves stories to explain what we perceive: that is the way we are made, IMO.
Children do this: they don't have much experience and so they explain things using the experience they have: by making up stories which fit the facts they have. All children do this: all adults do it too. As we mature we understand more things and our stories get more sophisticated. They incorporate more facts as we learn more.
But we cannot learn everything: so we select for various reasons. And we take the rest on trust from the society we live in. How can we do anything else?
A child may see a shadow on the wall and become frightened because it looks like a distorted human shape to him: he has not seen many things, so his brain fits what he sees into one of the things he is familiar with. He has probably been told stories and they will also help to shape how he interprets what he sees: so in one culture he will see an ancestral ghost, perhaps: in another he may see an alien. But what he really sees is the shadow of his dressing gown:and no matter what he thinks he sees that is the reality. The real world dressing gown is turned into a manifestation of whatever his culture has led him to experience as possible furniture in the world.
Depending on how his culture (in this case generally his parents) respond to his frightened cry he will learn another way of interpreting what he sees: in the example I use they may tell him that yes, indeed he has seen his granny's spirit: but he is not to be frightened because his granny loves him: or they may tell him that there aren't any real aliens: those are just stories made up for his entertainment. In both cases I would hope his parents would move the dressing gown: but they will tell him a story to help him deal with his fear.
This is inevitable: it continues throughout our lives. I think it is wholly cultural. I do not think it arises from differences between the way our brains are made or our senses work: it arises from the similarities, rather. If such a child does not happen to be curious about his granny's spirit: if rather he is happy with the explanation given, it is quite likely that he will incorporate that spirit's existence into his world view and never give it much thought again: or perhaps he will at adolescence: folk often do look again at that kind of belief at that stage. Maybe they come in contact with people who do not believe in those certainties he shares with his family and his group: and it will spark an interest and he will read and learn and maybe eventually reject the explanation: or maybe decide his parents have the better story and so stick with it. But whether he questions it at all: and whether his questioning leads to a change in his position or not: there is no reason I can see to suppose his brain is different. It is a matter of happenstance who we meet and what we become interested in, very largely.
Like Sun Countess I grew up atheist: nobody ever suggested to me that the shadow in the bedroom was an angel or an alien or jacob marley or any other supernatural thing: yet I had my monsters: they were gnomes and they lived in my pillow. Fortunately they couldn't do anything to me so long as I did not lie face down. They existed until I told my dad they were there: then they didn't. It really was as simple as that and I do not think I am unusual.
You have said that anecdote is no good for this discussion: but you do not even have anecdote so far. So how are you going to choose your sample? If it does not include me and Sun Countess and Agatha, because of your stipulative definition, then you may find out something: but it won't be something about the difference between atheists and theists: whatever else it may be
