"No Religion" Tops Identity Survey

[Ranb]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/13/us/no-religion-largest-group-first-time-usa-trnd/index.html

For the first time "No Religion" has topped a survey of Americans' religious identity, according to a new analysis by a political scientist. The non-religious edged out Catholics and evangelicals in the long-running General Social Survey.
Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University and a Baptist pastor, found that 23.1% of Americans now claim no religion.

All of the religions surveyed on the graph show a downward trend since 1990 while those who identify as no religion (atheists, agnostics and those who reject organism religion) have sharply increased.

Whatever the causes, the non-religious represent a growing constituency. Yet this demographic is greatly underrepresented in Washington's halls of power. There is not a single open atheist amid the most diverse Congress in history, according to a Pew study.

i suspect that there are more than a few closet atheists in government though. The crowd I associate with at work and in the community is not exactly embracing those who reject religion. But I still get along.

Ranb

 

[Venom]

I also suspect there is a large number of closet atheists or people who functionally live as atheists.

 

[Thor 2]

Interesting that the Mainline Protestants have taken the biggest hit over the years. Anyway you guys are catching up to us in Australia. Our latest census showed "No Religion" to be the biggest group.

 

[dann]

Congratulations! You are slowly moving away from religion being as important as in a third-world country: Importance of religion by country (Wikipedia)

 

[dann]

And just to tease the Americans: Cuba seems to the sixteenth least religious country, USA the 44th!
Three things seem to correlate with irreligion: prosperity, social equality/welfare and/or a fairly recent past as a socialist country.

 

[Thor 2]

It occurs to me that given this is an America wide survey, including those highly religious Bible Belt states, the religiosity of those other states must be considerably lower to produce these results.

 

[Hans]

Once you remove a religions ability to inflict damage on people if they don't follow its diktats it declines.

I remember an old study showed that about 1/3 of people are spiritual and 'need' religion, 1/3 don't and another third like religion but don't pay much attention to it.

For Christians the internet has allowed them to do the unthinkable - study the bible themselves instead of following someone else's cherry picked parts to read. The bible is one the finest reasons to not believe a religion.

 

[arthwollipot]

For Christians the internet has allowed them to do the unthinkable - study the bible themselves instead of following someone else's cherry picked parts to read. The bible is one the finest reasons to not believe a religion.

While I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, the church I went to strongly encouraged people to read their bibles. Like, really strongly. It was their whole thing. We were encouraged to use highlighters and make annotations. AFAIK, not reading the Bible is more of a Catholic thing.

 

[8enotto]

My dog tags had the no religion option on them. I had a short debate with the guy taking my info that ended with "put whatever, it don't matter" and when my tags came he got it right.

I am happy more folks are being honest about it than before. Not all that professed really ever practiced the faith in reality.

 

[dann]

For Christians the internet has allowed them to do the unthinkable - study the bible themselves instead of following someone else's cherry picked parts to read. The bible is one the finest reasons to not believe a religion.

While I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, the church I went to strongly encouraged people to read their bibles. Like, really strongly. It was their whole thing. We were encouraged to use highlighters and make annotations. AFAIK, not reading the Bible is more of a Catholic thing.

There wasn't any shortage of Bibles before the internet: This Is the Real Reason Why Hotel Rooms Have Bibles (Reader's Digest)

 

[David Mo]

I suspect that, in many --all?-- cases, believing in God is a way of reinforcing what one wants to believe. If I don't like God or his interpreter, I ignore him or switch to another.
Deep down it is the same usual search for an excuse.

 

[dann]

No, some people like the Christian God, but more (modern) people like his alleged son and his love-thy-neighbour message. They just can't believe the whole story. That probably goes for most cultural Christians. It's not a question of not liking. I've met several Danes who claim that they want to believe, but they just can't.

 

[hank hill]

I wonder what percentage of those see Jesus as a historical figure but not as a living God.

 

[IanS]

No, some people like the Christian God, but more (modern) people like his alleged son and his love-thy-neighbour message. They just can't believe the whole story. That probably goes for most cultural Christians. It's not a question of not liking. I've met several Danes who claim that they want to believe, but they just can't.

That (the highlight) might just be a “figure of speech" though ... ie, they may just mean that they think it would be nice if there was a loving creator and a heaven, but as educated people in the 21st century they can no longer believe in claims of the supernatural (such as gods and miracles etc.). I expect a lot of people might say that if you put it to them directly like that.

 

[dann]

No, it's real!
Did you think I'd let them stop there?
I ask them to elaborate, and they usually say something along the lines of wishing that they were able to believe because of the harmony or serenity that they seem to think that it brings true believers.
I usually tell them that I don't think that the apparent serenity is real. I think it's a front to hide their insecurities. They seem to know that they're lying to themselves.
And I tell them what Phil Zuckerman found out about dying Christians and non-believers when he interviewed somebody working at a Danish hospice: Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment, p. 46.

 

[IanS]

No, it's real!
Did you think I'd let them stop there?
I ask them to elaborate, and they usually say something along the lines of wishing that they were able to believe because of the harmony or serenity that they seem to think that it brings true believers.
I usually tell them that I don't think that the apparent serenity is real. I think it's a front to hide their insecurities. They seem to know that they're lying to themselves.
And I tell them what Phil Zuckerman found out about dying Christians and non-believers when he interviewed somebody working at a Danish hospice: Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment, p. 46.

OK, but that sounds like the same thing. That is - they think some aspects of the religion seem beneficial or helpful (in your example "serenity"), but where they say they still don't believe the central foundational claims of the religion are true (supernatural Intelligent creator/designer, miracles, heaven and hell etc.).

They are probably educated enough, and generally reasoned and rational enough, to know that just because the religion often seems to bring happiness and contentment to the lives of the believers, that's probably not such a good thing in the end if the hope/happiness/serenity/etc. is derived from seriously false beliefs ("seriously" false, because we are talking about beliefs that are claiming to reveal things as fundamental as the true nature of the universe around us and the true meaning of all life itself).

In the end I suppose we all have our own reasons for why we either believe or do not believe in any religions (or indeed why we believe or disbelieve anything). But what we have now learned from modern science over the last 200 years (or more), is that it's essential to have really good reliable evidence for anything where you hold strong beliefs about things that are important to you &/or important to the lives of others around you. And whilst the worldwide internet has become a very powerful tool which brings that evidence and explanation quickly and easily to everyone, that same power of the internet has been increasingly misused to present more gullible users with all manner of false evidence, deliberate disinformation, and dangerous conspiracy theories of every imaginable type.

 

[Trebuchet]

My dog tags had the no religion option on them. I had a short debate with the guy taking my info that ended with "put whatever, it don't matter" and when my tags came he got it right.

Mine proclaimed me "A Negative Presbyterian", which was unintentionally correct.

There wasn't any shortage of Bibles before the internet: This Is the Real Reason Why Hotel Rooms Have Bibles (Reader's Digest)

I hereby apologize on behalf of my great-grandfather, who was a founding member of The Gideons and who, according to his obituary, introduced a motion at their first national meeting that they take it as a mission to place Bibles in hotel rooms. Like all the early Gideons, he was a "travelling man".

 

[Pope130]

My dog tags had the no religion option on them. I had a short debate with the guy taking my info that ended with "put whatever, it don't matter" and when my tags came he got it right.

I am happy more folks are being honest about it than before. Not all that professed really ever practiced the faith in reality.

I went through several sets with "No Preference". I didn't much like that, it sounded like I was religious, but didn't much care what religion. Later I got them to change it to "None".

 

[dudalb]

I suspect that, in many --all?-- cases, believing in God is a way of reinforcing what one wants to believe. If I don't like God or his interpreter, I ignore him or switch to another.
Deep down it is the same usual search for an excuse.

Ypu can say that about a hell of a lot of secular beliefs...poltical ideologies in particular.

 

[dann]

They are probably educated enough, and generally reasoned and rational enough, to know that just because the religion often seems to bring happiness and contentment to the lives of the believers, that's probably not such a good thing in the end if the hope/happiness/serenity/etc. is derived from seriously false beliefs ("seriously" false, because we are talking about beliefs that are claiming to reveal things as fundamental as the true nature of the universe around us and the true meaning of all life itself).

That doesn't seem to bother them.
At this point in the conversation, I usually recommend that they do drugs!
If you want the kind of serenity that logical thinking tells you that there's no actual reason for, then the right combination of opioids and hallucinogenic mushrooms is the way to go! (I assume; I don't speak from experience.)