Religion
See other Religion Articles
Title: Americans are turning away from organized religion in record numbers
Source:
Alternet
URL Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/ ... ed-religion-in-record-numbers/
Published: Mar 2, 2015
Author: Lynn Parramore
Post Date: 2015-03-06 12:42:16 by Willie Green
Keywords: None
Views: 22205
Comments: 83
With fire-breathing religion figuring anew in global conflicts, and political discussions at home often dominated by the nuttery of the Christian right, you might get the sense that somebody’s god is ready to mug you around every street corner. But if you’re the type who doesn’t like to hang your hat on organized religion, here’s a bit of good news: in America, your numbers are growing. There are more religiously unaffiliated people in the U.S. today than ever before. Starting in the 1980s, a variety of polls using different methodologies have come to the same conclusion: people who do not identify with religious labels are on the rise, perhaps even doubling in that time frame. Some call them “nones”: agnostics, atheists, deists, secular humanists, general humanists, and people who just don’t care to identify with any religious group. It’s not exactly correct to call them nonbelievers, because some still have faith and spirituality in some sense or another. A 2012 Pew study noted that 30 percent of these people believe in “God or universal spirit” and around 20 percent even pray every day. But according to the latest research, Americans checking the “none of the above” box will make up an increasingly important force in the country. Other groups, like born-again evangelicals, have grown more percentage-wise, but the nones have them beat in absolute numbers. The nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute has documented this sea change in its American Values Atlas, which it released last Wednesday. The fascinating study provides demographic, religious and political data based on surveys conducted throughout 2014. According to PRRI director of research Dan Cox, “The U.S. religious landscape is undergoing a dramatic transformation that is fundamentally reshaping American politics and culture.” Last year, for the very first time, Protestants lost their majority status in the Institute’s annual report, making up only 47 percent of those surveyed. The religiously unaffiliated, who come in at 22 percent, boast numbers on par with major religious groups like American Catholics. All told, the unaffiliated is the second-largest group in the country. It was also the most common group chosen by residents in 13 states, with the largest share (a third or more) in Washington, Oregon and New Hampshire. In Ohio and Virginia, this group was tied for first place. The unaffiliated don’t find too many like-minded folks down in Mississippi, however, where they make up only 10 percent of the population. The study also found that there are 15 states where the unaffiliated constitute the second-largest group. So what do we know about these people? Nones tend to be more politically liberal — three-quarters favor same-sex marriage and legal abortion. They also have higher levels of education and income than other groups. While about one out of five Americans is unaffiliated, the number is much higher among young people: Pew research shows that a third of Americans under 30 have no religious affiliation. Harvard professor Robert Putnam, who studies religion, thinks the trend among younger people is part of their general lack of interest in community institutions and institutions in general. Last year, the Washington Post ran an article citing research by Allen Downey, a professor of computer science at Massachusetts’ Olin College of Engineering, who claims that people become nones mainly for two reasons: lack of religious upbringing (OMG those hippie parents!) and… the Internet. According to Downey, as much as 20 percent of unaffiliation is attributable to Internet use. He found that between 1990 and 2010, the share of Americans claiming no religious affiliation grew from 8 percent to 18 percent while the number of Americans surfing the Web jumped from almost nothing to 80 percent. But he acknowledges, as his critics are quick to point out, that correlation does not causation make. One thing is certain: voting nones are making their presence felt in politics. They are thought to have helped Obama win a second term. But the GOP doesn’t seem to show many signs of reducing the outsized influence of white evangelicals, who represent only 18 percent of the population, at least publicly. Just a couple of weeks ago, presidential hopeful Scott Walker could be seen refusing to answer a question about evolution, as if embracing widely accepted science would make him an apostate. Ordained Southern Baptist Mike Huckabee, also making noises of running, just released a book titled God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy, which kind of makes the Lord sound like the Great Bubba in the sky. But on the secretive big money donor trail, which all serious candidates must follow, the only religion they’ll be talking about much is free market fundamentalism. Your libertarians, your supply siders, and your various fatcats care a whole lot more about their bank accounts than any spiritual reckonings. Getting the government out of their way to leave them to their plundering is their holy scripture. But when talking to voters, the GOP really can’t afford to tone it down, because while monied elites tend to be secular, selling free-market pillage to the people getting robbed is not a very effective strategy. So they still have to mask their agenda behind appeals to popular religion so the non-rich will vote against their economic interests in places like Tennessee, which has the highest share of white evangelicals, at 43 percent. (White mainline Protestants account for 14 percent of the population nationally.) As you might expect, the fact that religion is losing its grip on the daily lives of Americans is freaking a lot of people out. The New York Times’ David Brooks is quite alarmed, admonishing nones that “secularism has to do for nonbelievers what religion does for believers — arouse the higher emotions, exalt the passions in pursuit of moral action.” Of course, secularists only form one portion of the unaffiliated group, but considering that Mr. Brooks likes to wax on about the moral probity of America’s founders — your George Washingtons and so on — he might ask himself which box they might have checked.
Atheist teen girl holding a banner with the inscription-"THERE IS NO GOD" (Shutterstock)
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 48.
#9. To: Willie Green (#0)
And that's as American as Apple Pie and Thomas Jefferson...
Well now -- is "Gay Marriage" also as "American as Apple Pie and Thomas Jefferson" as well? Frankly, Jefferson's wisdom in the area of Salvation was found to be sorely lacking. If the "record number" of sheep choose to follow his example, they do so at their own eternal peril.
No dumbass, homosexual marriage isn't isn't even human. "I KNOW BUT ONE CODE OF MORALITY FOR MEN WHETHER ACTING SINGLY OR COLLECTIVELY" Frankly, if the religiously petrified McSheeple hadn't allowed state-establishing Eunuchs to castrate their ability to place human morality in the context of several billion years of heterosexual evolution, you might be up to speed on that.
No dumbass, homosexual marriage isn't isn't even human. Given your attention span of a gnat, Doofus, let me remind you that "Gay Marriage" was in quotation marks. And it's NOT that a "human" thing; It's a language thing. And a lie. (Jefferson): "I KNOW BUT ONE CODE OF MORALITY FOR MEN WHETHER ACTING SINGLY OR COLLECTIVELY" Out of curiosity, have you rummaged through your extensive Tommy Jefferson Fan Club paraphernalia and pom-poms to discern EXACTLY the derivation of his "One Code of Morality"? Frankly, if the religiously petrified McSheeple hadn't allowed state-establishing Eunuchs to castrate their ability to place human morality in the context of several billion years of heterosexual evolution, you might be up to speed on that. First, you'd have to further define "religious," Sparky. In the meantime, you're blaming the electorate for trusting what has become a rogue globalist secular humanist gubmint that's become hostile to both the USCON and Christianity? Or do you mean Fundies? Catholics? Baptists? (white or black?) Secular Humanists? (yes, they are "religious") Statists? (yes, they too are "religious") New Agers? Atheists? The disturbing truth is that Tommy Jeff has contributed to making us the victims of The Law of Unintended Consequences. Without God as our moral underpinnings (and NO, not just your same ol' Romans 1:25 spamming), Jefferson's obsession with undercutting the Bible-based moral foundation has evolved into the current confused, divided and conquered MESS. And America MIGHT have survived the current secular humanist insanity.
There are no replies to Comment # 48. End Trace Mode for Comment # 48.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
"...who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men , have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time;
--Thomas Jefferson, 1786
#17. To: VxH (#9)
Turning away from organized religion in record numbers....[is] as American as Apple Pie and Thomas Jefferson...
#19. To: Liberator (#17)
(Edited)
Well now -- is "Gay Marriage" also as "American as Apple Pie and Thomas Jefferson" as well?
#48. To: VxH (#19)
Well now -- is "Gay Marriage" also as "American as Apple Pie and Thomas Jefferson" as well?
Replies to Comment # 48.
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]