A new poll gives me cheerful results:
A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all.
Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.
Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state.
Keep those godless numbers going up!
I’ve been praying for this.
It occurs to me that everyone is, in fact, godless.
Apparently, the hocus-pocus mind set is waning in America. Science, thankfully, is providing Americans with real truths about those spurious claims made by the shamans of religion.
I wonder if there’s a point at which there are enough people claiming no religion that those who attend church for social reasons only become willing to come out of the closet?
Good news indeed.
But is it a change in what people believe that is being measured here or a change in how secure they feel in admitting they do not believe?
That’s good to hear. I can use a bit of good news today.
A few articles on the rise of ‘unaffiliated’ as a religious identification:
Altemeyer. The Decline of Organized Religion in Western Civilization. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion (2004) vol. 14 (2) pp. 77-89
Hout and Fischer. Why more Americans have no religious preference: Politics and generations. American Sociological Review (2002) vol. 67 (2) pp. 165-190
Paul. Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies: A First Look. Journal of Religion and Society (2005) vol. 7
Religion and Life. U.S. Religious Landscape Survey; Religious Affiliation: Diverse and Dynamic. (2008) vol. February http://religions.pewforum.org/reports
On the down side, the number of fundamentalists is also rising. It’s the religious ‘middle’ that’s being squeezed.
Slowly but surely! What chance of proper representation for the godless in our lifetimes?
#5: Either way, still good.
@#7 Nate McVaugh
“It’s the religious ‘middle’ that’s being squeezed.”
Could declining religion cause fundamentalism? Could fundamentalism cause declining religion? Perhaps fundamentalism is alienating more and more of religious moderates. And perhaps fundamentalism could also be the desperation setting in, seeing how their numbers are declining.
Maybe OT:
From Cracked.com’s “7 Dinosaurs You Could Take In A Fight”:
6. and 5. Archaeopteryx and Microraptors
Why You Could Take It: These are a couple of winged dinosaurs, one with two wings and one with four. Together, they’re considered part of the evolutionary bridge between dinosaurs and birds. The downside of being an evolutionary bridge is that, while you’re good at getting creationists to shut the hell up, you’re not so good at any of the things your various component parts are good at.
Happy Birthday.
Again, every time one of these surveys is brought out, it needs to be pointed out that “no religion” can not be considered synonymous with “atheist”. There are a great deal of people whose beliefs are indistinguishable from mainstream religious sects who answer “no religion” to these polls because they think religion is what other people do, while they have a personal relationship with Jesus or something along those lines. I remember a more detailed survey — perhaps someone can find it — where they actually broke down the “no religion”/”unaffiliated” number by asking them if they believe in god, and it was only like a third of them said no.
Is this PZ’s birthday present?
Vermont is looking pretty good, if only it weren’t so cold that far north!
@ 13: D’uh!
I read the headline AFTER I read the post…
The foxnews article doesn’t link to the original study, which is here: http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/
I was disappointed that the study, at least as reported, didn’t state how many identify as atheist. The link above states:
It is also interesting that the change from non-affiliated changed much faster during the 90s than in the past seven years.
seems to me that it mathers how the question is asked. For religion I might answer Lutheran because thats how I was brought up, but asked if I believe it would be absolutely not. Follows that the numbers could be even bigger…
Up from 14.2 to 15? Unless the sample size is monstrously large, this seems like it’s in the margin of error.
So why the “Mr. Gumby” icon and Comic Sans?
85% of 300 million is still a rather large number of wooists,and comforting to know if youre republican and trying to win influence and elections.
#12
I also should be pointed out that a number of people who report a religion are to all practical purposes non-religious. That’s why a far superior question is not “what religion are you?”, but “how important is religion in your life?”.
One other point – I wish the pew results would break out the affiliation by age group (the do so only within each religious category), but the figures they do show indicate that 71% of nonreligious are under 50.
Final point – as a denizen of the Washington State, the challenge is on to wrest the godless title back from Vermont.
Once Atheists start holding annual pancake suppers their numbers will increase substantially. Really, Shrove Tuesday is the only reason people still cling to religion.
I can predict the spin on the report that Roman Catholicism is moving from the Northeast to the Southwest: Irish Catholics and Italian Americans in New England have lost their faith and are using birth control while the Southwest states are teeming with fertile illegal immigrants who are taking over our land in a Reconquista of fecundity! We’ll probably hear it on Lou Dobbs first.
This doesn’t seem like a significant increase for an 8 year span, and almost certainly not outside the margin of error for a poll. The 1990-2001 jump on the other hand, is exciting. The author of this article is suffering from the same statistical disease that educators share: it increased (however little), therefor it worked…
eljay (@5):
I echo amphiox (@9): Either way, it’s a Very Good Thing™. On the one hand, you’ve got increasing numbers of unbelievers; on the other hand you’ve got existing unbelievers “coming out.” Good and good.
My cautionary note would be that no religion ≠ no superstition: These numbers could as easily be explained by a rise in nonsystematized New Age woo, or even by people who hold fairly traditional god beliefs but have become disillusioned with religion as a social institution.
But I would argue that even these “worst-case scenarios” would be good news. While it would be ideal if nobody were afflicted with superstitious beliefs, private superstition that’s not organized into pernicious social movements and institutions dedicated to dictating behavior to everyone is preferable to the alternative.
BTW, regarding:
First, “within the margin of error” does not mean “totally meaningless.” Unless there’s a specific, known source of asymmetrical error (which, if so, should’ve been corrected for in processing the data), a change that’s within the MoE is still most likely to be a change. I’m no statistician (though I do read Nate Silver, which is the statistical equivalent of staying at a Holiday Inn Express), but AFAIK “within the MoE” and “not statistically significant” are two completely separate concepts.
More significant to me than the magnitude of the national number is the fact that the trend appears to be going in the same direction in every state. When all the differences, no matter how small, are in the same direction, it strongly suggests that something other than random sampling error is at work.
Finally, an OT aside: I’ve just finished listening to Rachel Maddow interviewing Tim Pawlenty about the Rush Limbaugh kerfuffle (I’m catching up on last week’s podcasts). What a tool that guy is; you Minnesotans really need to do better! (And that Bachmann woman, too… but kudos on electing, no matter how perilously, Al Franken, who I think will be such a great senator that his obituary will barely mention his career as an entertainer.)
VT is number one! VT is number one!
Before we get all crazy, try to remember that 34% of “not very many” is “not very many”.
I am SO glad I grew up here. Hardly any woo at all compared to just about everywhere else I have been. It’s the only place I know of where there are churches that are literally crumbling and have no attendance.
The Pew study linked in the article is nice to see… Atheist/Agnostics/Unaffiliated are the largest non-christian group… by a decent amount…
For those interested, here’s a link to the original survey:
http://b27.cc.trincoll.edu/weblogs/AmericanReligionSurvey-ARIS/reports/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf
Bill> Right… margin of error is used in calculating the z score to determine statistical significance… so while they’re independent measures, one impacts the other. A decent rule of thumb is that if the change falls within the margin for error (random chance errors, not the sampling biases you addressed), it likely is not statistically significant. There are exceptions, but not many…
#21: I agree, and also with #17’s point: how many people saying they are Lutheran, or whatever, are just stating a tribal identity and not what they really believe? Basically any study that doesn’t ask “Do you believe in a god or gods?” simply doesn’t tell you any reliable information about the number of atheists involved. As #16’s link shows, even asking “Are you an atheist?” is unreliable.
Huge caveat here: “no religion” doesn’t mean “godless” or “not superstitious”.
Example: my dad rejected all religions and all holy texts (“just the works of men”, he said). Yet, he believed in a god of some sort and even talked to “it” from time to time.
He also rejected “evolution” (disclaimer: his formal education ended at 6’th grade).
Still, these are good numbers.
SteveM:
If you hover your cursor over the link, you’ll discover the source of the story… an inherently Comic Sans-worthy organization of Gumbies, even on the rare occasions when it reports news that makes us happy.
Most encouraging. The “Godless and happy” meme – what I like to call the “blasphmeme” is spreading, thanks to you, us, and the coninued idiocy and sterility of organised religion. All to the good.
Just one tiny little point, hovever, could atheists possibly be a little less foul-mouthed and strident in their opposition to godliness? The intemperate attacks of the likes of the birthday-boy and Professor Dawkins is, I feel, extremely harmful to our cause. Moderation and respect will win our argument, not abuse and blasphemy.
Fuck yeah! Now, where are those lions again?
Happy Monkey!
Yay for Vermont!
Sometimes, it’s easy to forget about religous kooks when living here. Of course, they came out of the woodwork when Expelled was released and during the Ben Stein UVM commencement thing.
‹PALIN› I can see Vermont from my house! ‹/PALIN›
(No, really, I can. It’s just across the lake.)
jt delaney> Thanks for the link… Did you notice that their definition of atheist (not self-identified, but by belief) only includes “there is no such thing”, as opposed to the “there is no way to know” Which they define as “hard agnostic”? I find that interesting… I think a fair number of posters here, and Dawkins from his writing, would fall somewhere between those two responses.. it piques my curiosity as to who would be inclined to respond with which option.
I spoke too soon…
We may not have many fundies here, but there are all sorts of New Age woo-lovers.
I’ve read more than a few authors who see fundamentalism as being in essence a reactionary movement–and specifically a reaction to modernity. And you’ll note fundamentalist’s own rhetoric frequently says as much quite explicitly. Those famous fire and brimstone sermons are generally full of language about how society is drifting away from ‘vital’ traditions–and every time someone’s basement gets flooded it’s the revenge of some deity or other on people who aren’t giving that particular sky god proper respect.
So in a broad sense: yes, I think that’s very true. Very much so for fundamentalist Christianity in the US, which owes much of its power to alienation felt by its adherents–tho’ it’s complicated, and it’s not just about modernity or secularism but also about the gulf between rich and poor, and a perceived ‘elite’ and those who feel politically disenfranchised–the poverty on one side of the hinterland/metropolis divide is often a driver, tho’ I’m not sure how true that is right now–see instead political/social disenfranchisement, perceived lack of stability. As to that political disenfranchisement, the Brylcreem brigade may rail against progressivism in federal politics, but it’s probably actually good for their numbers–those who feel threatened by a progressive executive or legislative branch get all the more dedicated to their creed. True for Islamism, too, which takes as grist perceived failures of secular governments within, and threats from foreign ‘godless’ types from without. A sense of threat, of being a chosen people amidst a rising godless tide, it’s all fuel for these movements.
That said, they don’t need much excuse. Any threat, real or imagined, will do, ‘long as the congregation buys it. And it’s got a long history: Elijah was doing this schtick, too, more or less.
All that said: there is something paradoxically cheering about seeing these people foam: the legitimate threats make ’em the foamiest, looks like, to me. And if they’re railing against secularism–as is in fashion right now for the book thumpers in the US south, the mullahs in the middle East, and that freak in a hat in Rome–it’s because they know people will buy it. They don’t like these numbers much.
#10: For a lot of the ‘unaffiliated’ increased fundamentalism (especially in Baptist denominations), is causing people to drop out of religion. The ‘who would Jesus hate’ crowd pushes people out of the church. So far as declining religion causing fundamentalism, not so much. Highly recommended are:
Bruce, S. (2000). Fundamentalism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Marsden, G. M. (1980). Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Marsden, G. M. (2006). Fundamentalism and American Culture (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Numbers, R. L. (1987). The Creationists. Zygon, 22(2), 133-164.
Numbers, R. L. (1992). The Creationists: The evolution of scientific creationism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
#12, 21 and 25 (and no doubt others posting at this very moment.
Yah, non-affiliated does not necessarily mean non-religious. At lot of the non-affiliated still consider themselves ‘spiritual’, but have broken with their church. The articles I mention go into more detail about these trends. As far as measuring religion, it’s always a problem. One survey I did went through changes in the pilot when a woman explained that she wasn’t a ‘Protestant’, she was a ‘Christian’. :-)
Here’s a bit more on the whole issue of measuring religion in surveys:
Alwin, D. F., Felson, J. L., Walker, E. T., & Tufis, P. A. (2006). Measuring religious identities in surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly, 70(4), 530-564.
Cheers.
This is encouraging and bears out what I have seen over the last 30 years.
As one drives around a small, medium or large town or city on a Sunday morning in New England, one passes churches with a few cars in their lots instead of the overflowing attendance one used to see (on my way to get donuts or bagels).
I was speaking to a woman who cuts hair at a Supercuts where I noted that they were very busy on a Sunday morning. She said they had to open even earlier (8 am) because so many people are out running errands. Hardly no one goes to church anymore around here. Churches and synagogues are closing down due to lack of congregation.
The best news there is the Pentacostals – the looniest of the loony – have peaked.
As for identifying as atheists … I’m British, living in the US. Half the people I know here have exactly the same ‘religious beliefs’ I do. I call myself an atheist, they recoil from the word, call themselves agnostic or ‘apathist’.
I don’t care what people who don’t worship any god call themselves.
The questions they should ask should concentrate on practicalities, not what people call themselves. How much time a week do they spend praying or in other acts of worship? Do they alter their behavior to conform to religious belief?
Do that, and the vast majority of Americans aren’t religious.
The question I’d really like to see some trending data on is:
My guess is that the answers would be strongly generationally linked, with the percentage answering “important” or “very important” significantly lower for respondent under 50 than for those over, and with the percentage of those answers dropping significantly as you move down the age scale from 40somethings to teens.
I think that’s the way it would come out. I hope that’s the way it would come out. But it sure would be nice to have something other than anecdote on the point.
David and Nils jointly win the thread right off the blocks.
FO @17,
I might answer Lutheran because thats how I was brought up, but asked if I believe it would be absolutely not
Good point. Here in Germany, Lutherans[FN1] and Roman Catholics each make up (roughly) 30% of the population. But less than half of registered church members actually attend church or otherwise participate in their religions. When a German tells you that he is “catholic” or “protestant”, he often means nothing more than “my ancestors were from a part of Germany that was [RC]/[prod] as a result of the cuius regio compromise at trhe ned of the 30 Years’ War”, much as some Americans whose families have been in the USA for five or six generations will say that they are Irish or Italian or what have you.
Mind you, while Germany is highly irreligious by American standards, it is more religious than many other western European countries. Judging by local reactions to things like the excommunication of that 9 year old Brazilian girl’s family, however, the RC church is doing an excellent job of reducing the incidence of religiosity in Germany. Keep up the good work, Your Reverences! At this rate, you’ll have made yourselves vanish from the country within 20 years.
[FN1] OK, “evangelisch” isn’t entirely as simple as that, but to a first approximation, “Lutheran” is what it effectively means.
We must first lose our religion before converting to the church of the FSM. This is just the first step.
(And I thought I actually beat PZ to the punch, posting about this poll…and he beat me by a hour!!! CURSE YOU PZ!!! http://doubtingeventhomas.blogspot.com/2009/03/america-slightly-more-rational-than-20.html )
@44 Mrs Tilton:
I wich I could share you optimism about religion vanishing within the next 20 years.
Just remeber: It’s OUR pope right at the moment (I’m german, too). Remember all those young people chanting in Cologne, when ‘detto was driven past in that barge?
I hope that this is because we rational people are putting out a strong, consistant message that “It’s OK to be rational. It’s OK to believe in evidence. It’s OK to live your life based upon facts. It’s OK not to believe in ghost of any kind. It’s not just OK, but morally better, to base your morality on what’s best for society rather than on late bronze age mythology.”
Wow, It’s OK to live a life based on evidence. Isn’t it amazing that so many people have such a hard time accepting such a simple concept.
Won’t Jesus be pissed when he comes back?
#21:
I think that wording may still need some work. If you’re a gay person unable to marry, or a woman needing an abortion, or a biology teacher, you probably feel that religion is very important in your life, even if you’re an atheist.
If you haven’t seen it yet, the Obama administration has just officially announced that science is in again. Happy Birthday!
The fact that the linked article was Fox News had me worried for a second, but the actually did seem to stick to the facts of the study.
Go you American non-believers! :)
Once again, I’m proud to be from New Hampshire: if I remember correctly, we’re overall the second least religious state, and I can tell you from personal experience that even our Catholics and Baptists are mellow and far from stereotypical.
Here’s a more reputable source than Fox News:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090309/ap_on_re/rel_religious_america
Sweet.
I found this weird though:
I always thought the terms “born-again” and “evangelical” were exclusive to Protestants. Are they using the terms in a different way?
…perhaps there is hope after all…
Maybe some previously religious folk are getting tired of blatant lies put forth by leaders of their religions such as Cardinal William Levada.
Cardinal says atheist’s theories “absurd”
I wonder if his emminence would care to back up that assertion with a direct quote from Professor Dawkins.
Once Atheists start holding annual pancake suppers their numbers will increase substantially. Really, Shrove Tuesday is the only reason people still cling to religion.
The really awesome thing about atheism is that we can eat pancakes whenever we want.
just a bearish before a bullish. Finding a new equilibrium.
The Rise of Islam
According to this research, America now has about 1,209 mosques, most of which were constructed very recently. Thirty percent of these mosques were built in the 1990s, and 32% were built in the 1980s. Other statistics show that in 1994, the total number of mosques in America was 962; in 2000, there was a 25% increase in this number.
a Moslem will govern US soon after Obama. Happy Birtday !
Thanks for the link, #28. I didn’t see that before. So NH is indeed the second least religious (29% “none”) — just ahead of Wyoming (28% “none”)?! I didn’t see that one coming.
I live in a town in Georgia where the same people preach in front of the WalMart every Saturday. I get the feeling we’ll be the last to experience this wave of unbelief just like we were the last to get the internet in the 90s. My double-wide in the middle o’ nowhere is my oasis.
At first i thought Simon was someone with a spotty education using English as a non-native language and was willing to cut him some slack, but now I see he’s just another jerk.
must..learn…to…preview…
I would LOVE for a muslim to be president. It would be an admission that a particular religious belief is not a qualification for the presidency. And were a really zealous muslim ever elected he’d still have Congress and the Courts opposing any religious laws and decrees he tried to hand down. Plus, afterwards, an atheist candidate wouldn’t seem all that bad to the American people. :)
@62
Not to mention undercutting some terrorist’s justification for attacking the “Great Satan”.
Simon, you Islamophobic fool, did even read the article?
That’s hardly grounds for your claim that “a Moslem will govern US soon after Obama”. Slightly better though than those claiming Obama already is a secret Muslim. Also, out of the 435 representatives in the House do you know how many are Muslim? One .
All that aside, what would be a problem with a Muslim being elected President of the United States?
Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion
Now only 85% of Americans are insane.
#64
All that aside, what would be a problem with a Muslim being elected President of the United States?
that’s better than an atheist.
simon I want to thank you for being one of the consistently idiotic trolls we’ve had recently. There is not a single post I can point to where your comments haven’t exposed you as a gigantic moron. For that and the entertaining comments that follow your public displays of stupidity I do thank you.
Don’t go a changing.
Catholic and Mormon friends tell me that the number of members their churches claim comes no where near matching the number of actual members. There are probably more “no affiliation” or “no religion” people than the poll PZ mentioned reflects. I also hear from former missionaries that they focused on numbers as far as new members were concerned and that many people in third world countries are baptized and counted as members even though they never show up in church again. The best information comes from clerks who serve in the churches. They keep the rolls and they know the truth.
Excerpts from postings on http://www.exmormon.org
Posted by MadeGuy, August 13, 2008
Any Mormon who comes to church regularly can’t help but notice that most members are invisible. This became painfully obvious to me a few weeks after I had been called to be the ward membership clerk…I counted the names listed in the ward directory of people that I knew, or at least had seen in church. I then counted all the families, and divided those that showed up at church, at least once in a while, by the total number of families listed…Back’ to church? I saw no evidence they had ever been to church in the first place. For all I knew, these ‘members’ were just a figment of someone’s imagination.
If you tell a TBM [True Believing Mormon] that the church’s activity rate, averaged worldwide, is only thirty percent they might consider you a minion of the devil…The reality is that active members are in the minority, and this minority is actively shrinking…Another reason is the internet, which provides easy access to real historical information, that once examined, makes the church’s official story tough to swallow…The legion of inactive Mormons is eight million strong…
——-
Posted by Diederik Manderfeld
1) I was an Elders’ Quorum clerk in Spain and our activity rate was less than ten percent of the people on our list. That was in Madrid, the biggest city.
2) I went to Portugal for a vacation in the countryside and the branch presidency (the mishies) told me their activity rate was less than three percent…
3) A friend went on a mission in Brazil and saw a ward with a million inhabitants, two-thousand baptized members still known to be living in the area, less than ten of them known to be active in any ward. Less than half a percent! He saw four more such wards on his mission, none had an activity rate of more than two percent.
Thirty percent? Maybe in a state bordering Utah, but nowhere else I’d think.
The time of prophesy is at hand! As the great prophet Darwin foretold we shall smite the faithful with our cyberpistols and rejoice. Soon the feast of a thousand Christian babies shall begin. Muhahahaha.
My home state of New Jersey went from 6% to 15%.
Say, I’d like to see how per-capita microbrew consumption correlates with ungodliness, state by state. To be sure, WA and OR are pretty high in both, and I suspect that VT is way up there too (this, an extrapolation from a very nice smashed-getting a few years back in Burlington; the microbrew vibe is really there).
Not that there’d be a causal link, of course. Still, if you want to think that “smart == atheist” and “smart == microbrew drinker” I’m only going to offer token* resistance.
*Ha ha, given my ‘nym, I just realized that could be considered a sly reference. But Humulus lupulus is from Cannabinaceae as well.
P.S. Does anybody think that if the “simon” poster went back for some remedial kindergarten, they might be able to grow up and be a real troll?
Your point is well taken. There was a survey of this sort taken in Canada in the last few years (I’ll see if I can find a link, but probably not). The upshot was that some relatively large percentage of people claim “no religion” but of those, a great many will answer something like “I practice no formal religion but I am spiritual / believe in Jebus but not organized Christianity / believe in an unnamed almighty creator / believe in the spirit of Nature / etc.”
Worse still, I know a few people like that. If the topic comes up, they will often say to me “but you have a religion too Squid… you believe in atheism” – a comment whose vapidity pretty much leaves me speechless.
A few more winters in the Northeast like the last two and we’ll be pushing those godless numbers higher.
Nah, there are all sorts of flavors of Catholics. I suspect we tend to pigeonhole Catholicism based on Catholics’ role in U.S. politics… which is to say, more or less in line with secular liberals on every issue that isn’t tainted by some link with human sexuality.
But if you reflect on how much older Catholicism is than any other version of Christianity, and how broadly spread around the world, it should be no surprise that virtually every branch and tributary of Christian theology or social practice is reflected somewhere within the embrace of Mother Church.
So there charismatic Catholics whose antics are similar (in type if not in detail) to those of Protestant Holy Rollers and serpent handlers, and there are Catholic ascetics and Catholic fundamentalists and born-again Catholics… howevermuch those branches may not reflect the popular notion of mainstream Catholicism. As for “Evangelical,” while Catholic evangelicals may have many doctrinal differences with their Protestant brethren, the basic idea of evangelism — spreading the so-called Good Word to the heathen world — is at the very heart of the church’s history.
Yeah, but the point of a pancake supper isn’t the pancakes; it’s the supper… which is to say, the point is social. I suspect that many nonbelievers nevertheless cling to church because of the nontheological, social benefits it offers: a web of community connections, a focal point for activism and good works (and no, I’m not making the false argument that god-belief is necessary for morality; only that it’s easier to perform socially beneficial work in the company of like-minded fellows), a source of pleasing rituals (esp. an excuse for nonmusicians to sing in public [without being drunk]), etc. If it wouldn’t encourage the false identification of atheism as “just another religion,” I’d say what we really need is a secular church that would satisfy all the emotional and community/social needs that churches do without any reference to the supernatural.
Actually, what I’d like to see is the public schools replacing church as the organizing social center of the community. This could be accomplished by bringing parents (and other adults from the community) into the classroom more often, and by more fully integrating schools’ extracurricular programs with the larger community (i.e., not just students and their parents… an idea that occurred to me when I taught at a school that was so small it had to open auditions for the spring musical to the community, in order to fill the parts). This would have the salutary effect of building support for school budgets among nonschool families.
Ahh, but any such attempt to elevate the role of public schools would no doubt enrage the right-wingers who believe they’re living in a supersaturated solution that’s ready to crystallize into Soviet-style totalitarianism at the slightest stimulus! [sigh]
In the meantime, I’ll settle for Secular Mardi Gras: A festival of heightened hedonism and debauchery, preparatory to 40 days of… ordinary hedonism and debauchery!
I think it probably has more to do with laziness and a disinterest in religion in general or organized religion in particular than any great triumph of science or reason. While the latter would be awesome, I have seen no evidence that people are increasing their understanding of science while I have seen evidence of increasing distaste with the beliefs, practices, and failings of religious groups and a resulting divestment of religious capital.
People are still, as a whole, grossly uneducated and laughably ignorant of anything relating to science.
But ignorance is vastly more remediable when it’s not sheltered behind deliberate fortifications designed to repel knowledge and reason.
@68 (Lynna): I can attest to miserable LDS attendance rates in France, Germany, and various locations in the Eastern United States. A metastudy of the LDS Church’s own published activity rates from various sources (Deseret News articles, conference talks, etc.) by the active LDS webmaster of cumorah.com suggested that the LDS Church has an overall activity rate between 1/4 and 1/3.
Analysis of the Church’s published statistics by various contributors to exmormon.org suggest that it’s also extremely lax in removing deceased members as well as excommunicated and resigned members from the rolls.
So even though the Mormon Church boasts over 13 million members, the reality is that the membership who attend or at least consider themselves Mormon/LDS is probably closer to 3-4 million tops.
But ignorance is vastly more remediable when it’s not sheltered behind deliberate fortifications designed to repel knowledge and reason.
But there’s no demonstration in this survey that that’s anything remotely related to what’s reflected in the results.
http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/
The “None” category, the change in which we are proclaiming as some marker of the progress in American reason, contains the following options:
No religion specified, groups
90 Atheist
91 Agnostic
92 Humanist
93 Secular
94 Ethical Culture
95 No religion/None
DD Don’t know
RR Refused
(Note: DD and RR seem to have been separated from the 15% number.) Several of these options include possibilities which are quite open to profound superstition and unreason.
The specific numbers on Atheists and Agnostics are n/a and .7% for 1990, .4% and .5% for 2001, and .7% and .9% for 2008 respectively. That means that the allegedly sustantial gains made in the “No Religion” category (from 8.2 to 14.1 to 15.0) belong much more to the other categories. Further, according to Table 4 (in the belief section), only 6.6% of those surveyed agreed with the either of these statements regarding the existence of God “There is no such thing” or “There is no way to know”. The survey takers include “I’m not sure” as “softer agnosticism,” but I’m always hesitant to use “not sure” answers as anything but a transitory function removing people from the sample. It’s too iffy as to what they mean. Just because they list it in a certain order doesn’t necessarily mean the respondent doesn’t mean “I’m not sure there’s a personal God, but I really think there’s a higher power, but I’m not willing to commit to deism.”
And finally, I really don’t think the expectation of a religious wedding or funeral ought to be a consideration in actual tendency toward belief.
It’d be nice if any of these numbers actually corresponded to a real shift in woo, but, even if the 15% were true atheists, I know plenty of atheists who participate in junk health practices and other such unreasoned crap.
Religious People Rapidly Vanishing From America
Socialist pagan, Barack Obama, plans to accelerate this trend by putting Rick Warren on national teevee at least once a year, so that people having second thoughts about this whole religion thing will look at this fat turd and then quickly dump their bibles in the incinerator.
Ken Layne Wonkette
Craig @77
If even the LDS webmaster posts the 1/4 to 1/3 stats for active members, how does the Mormon Church get away with the “growing by leaps and bounds” propaganda? The positive PR campaign must be extensive. I keep thinking that mainstream media will call them on the bafflegab they put out, but for the most part even non-members buy the bafflegab. Because I live in the heart of Mormon Country, I see and hear more of their disconnect with reality than I do for other religions, but I suspect the story is the same for most religious organizations. One bafflegab tactic is to claim that some people leave the church because they want to sin, an old argument long since discredited but still in use in my neighborhood.
I’ve been pressured to join for business reasons: “You’d make at least $10,000 more per year if you joined the Church.” A very good reason to resist joining, if you ask me. Any religious organization that has that much control over regional economics should be trimmed back. Not sure how that could be accomplished.
Seeing the discussion on this thread does give me some hope that there are more non-religious people in church on Sunday mornings for business and social reasons, and not because they believe the Father-in-the-Sky bit. From the outside, I can’t tell who believes and who does not.
But Phyllis, all atheism means is a lack of belief in god/s. As people are atheist for any number of reasons, being an atheist has no bearing on whether someone is a critical thinker, believes in faeries at the bottom of the garden, believes in homeopathy or in any other kind of woo.
As people are atheist for any number of reasons, being an atheist has no bearing on whether someone is a critical thinker, believes in faeries at the bottom of the garden, believes in homeopathy or in any other kind of woo.
Quite so, hence my statement taking issue with proclamations that any significant (little s) rise in the precentage of atheists (even if that were really demonstrated in this report) has anything to do with alleged triumphs of science! or reason!
Phyllis (@78):
My point (@76) wasn’t to dispute this, but rather to say that “participat[ion] in junk health practices and other such unreasoned crap” is far less troublesome when it’s the residue of individual laziness and ignorance than when it’s the desired condition of an aggressive, self-perpetuating social institution bent on actively defending its members’ superstitions from any attempt to educate them.
IMHO, a decline in “religion” is worth celebrating, even if it’s not accompanied by a decline in individual ignorance and superstition… because social institutions like churches have vastly more power to do harm than lazy, self-deluded individuals do.
The difference in the rate of change in the “No Religion” category in the 90s and Nauties is dramatic. One possible explanation is the upsurge in religiosity that accompanies every new decade (and new millenium) but that’s just guesswork on my part. I doubt there’s make the comparison empiricaly.
I suspect the rise of certain kinds of woo make these categories a lot blurrier than they previously were (and they always were blurry). For example you have people who value homeopathy for chanelling the placebo effect who I wouldn’t categorize as “wooey”. But on the flipside you have homeopathic gurus who are creating Scientology-esque cults (see Lynne McTaggart’s Living the Field program). So you have rising numbers of people who might identify themselves as “Not Religious” who are in effect as fully wooed out as Scientologists. That’s not a distinction that’s going to be easy to make with polling.
“participat[ion] in junk health practices and other such unreasoned crap” is far less troublesome when it’s the residue of individual laziness and ignorance than when it’s the desired condition of an aggressive, self-perpetuating social institution bent on actively defending its members’ superstitions from any attempt to educate them.
IMHO, a decline in “religion” is worth celebrating, even if it’s not accompanied by a decline in individual ignorance and superstition… because social institutions like churches have vastly more power to do harm than lazy, self-deluded individuals do.
Is a kid who dies of whooping cough less dead because his parents were post-religious woo-nauts than a kid who dies of whooping cough because their church told them vaccines interfere with God’s Will?
How about those who are still working to restrict gay rights because it’s not “normal” or “natural”? Are they less discriminatory than those who do it because God’s going to throw sulphur at them?
Or how about those who seek to start holy wars with Islamic nations? Are they less dangerous and less warlike because they think Islam is a dangerous religion because it’s a religion than those who think Muslims are fighting against the “right” Christian God?
Woo of any kind is an equal plague, regardless of the organization of those who adhere to it. And, I assure you, in the absence of a “Church,” people are quite capable of forming their own little non-religious woo support groups.
Is that still the case? Or is everyone now suddenly remembering that he’s Bavarian, and the Bavarians remember he’s Upper Bavarian, and the Upper Bavarians remember he’s from Marktl am Inn, and so on?
After all, now they have some experience with what he thinks, and they didn’t have any such experience before (other than vague assurances that he was conservative and that his former office was technically a successor of the Inquisition).
America, the strange land where even the Catholics are Southern Baptists…
No, seriously, I think they’re just trying to say they feel (or wish to feel!) that their lives are inspired, and that they don’t know the official Catholic interpretation of “unless you’re born again, you can’t go to heaven”, which is that baptism is the rebirth where you die to the world and rise again in Jesus, and instead use the Generic American Fundamentalist interpretation, which is “you must say you’re born again on every occasion and then some”.
That said, American Catholics do tend to look strange from a European perspective. Even the Catholic fundamentalists are different (Bill Donohue vs Radio Maryja in Poland or that Wagner guy in Austria or… or… hm…)
If you were a scientist, simon, you’d ask for the causes of this increase, so you can find out if it will continue beyond its current 0.6 %.
Is there any cause other than immigration? Are there mass conversions of Americans to Islam — more of those than deconversions of (1st-, 2nd- or 3rd-generation) immigrants from Islam?
If yes, then you might have a point — but why haven’t I already heard of it, then? Will you blame a conspiracy of the Liberal Media™? Worldwide?
Forget it, simon. Find something else that your ignorance can make you afraid of.
This makes me very proud. I am a native Floridian that now live on the coast in New England. Who woulda thought?
lives in
Phyllis (@85):
You are (willfully, I suspect) missing my point. You must know that I’m not defending the sort of woo-induced child abuse you describe. It’s horrifying when parents deny their children life-saving medical care because of their own superstitions. But how much more horrifying that there should be a large, powerful social institution devoted to promoting and defending this horrifying behavior (and recruiting people into it), not to mention other anti-rational behaviors too numerous to mention that are also more or less evil?
Further, you’re assuming that individual, disconnected woo-nauts are just as likely to perpetrate these sorts of deeds as religionists, but I’m not so sure: A person’s own private superstitions may motivate any number of foolish and self-destructive decisions, but to do something as evil and counter-intuitive as standing by while your own child dies needlessly usually requires the “support” of a community of trusted people telling you it’s the right thing to do. Stupid happens, but evil requires infrastructure. Which is to say, in this case, a church.
You may point to the internet cults of anti-vaxers and so forth as such communities, but they’ll never have the emotional and cultural heft of churches. The air of moral authority that makes it possible to talk good people into horrifically evil behaviors takes centuries or millennia to cultivate.
And so I insist that the decline of church (if that is what we’re seeing) is a good in and of itself, independent of whether personal reason is rising or superstition declining.
Phyllis:
I thought a bit more about the following after I posted my previous response:
Plague is an interesting choice of metaphor here: It requires specific human conditions, usually related to population density and social interactions, for a disease to become a plague. When an individual dies of cholera or flu or yellow fever1, it’s a tragedy… but it doesn’t become a plague unless one victim contaminates others’ water, or sheds virus in others’ space, or gives a blood meal to a mosquito that bites others.
I’d say superstition (aka woo, if you will) is the disease, but religion is the vector that turns it into a plague.
1 I’ve read books about all three recently. I particularly recommend Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map, about a devastating cholera outbreak in London, and the resulting discovery that cholera is waterborne.
There’s one more point about the ARIS survey’s “unaffiliated” numbers that’s important to note. ARIS conducted surveys in 1990 and again in 2001 and the number of unaffiliated responses more than doubled.
But there’s a methodological issue. The question asked in 1990 was, “What is your religion?” In the 2001 survey, they asked, “What is your religion, if any?” It’s entirely believable that the difference is mostly made up of folks who didn’t realize that “none of the above” was a legitimate choice in 1990.
That said, I think the survey is still a positive result, and I hope they do it again in a couple of years so we can see how much of an impact the new vocal style of unbelief has really had.
So what if they’re unaffiliated, mildly religious people? Do you insist on total mind control? Did a little feng shui ever hurt anybody?
re: #88 and others–Bill Dauphin for a Molly!
The influence of the internet and decent searching on curious minds is still relatively new. I hope that when the new generation of kids who were raised on the internet come of age that it will jump-start the number of atheists/agnostics and raise our numbers to a new level.
Think of all the kids in rural areas who, until now, were only exposed to ideas in their local community. Today they can travel the interwebs and be exposed to all sort of ideas. They will grow up with with two things I didn’t have growing up: access to competitive ideas and a boatload of porn.
Of course I base this on no evidence whatsoever but a whole lot of wishful thinking. (The exposure to idea others thing, that is. I have sufficient evidence of the porn thing.)
Tying into that point, USA Today also covered this survey (Front Page FTW!!!!), and one person attributed a lot of what is fueling the decline of religion is social mobility. When you’re no longer living in a community, you’re freed of the obligations that small communities demand. And do Americans ever move around a lot!
For everyone who was worried about the non-believers actually being believers, yes, it’s a concern, but there’s a lot more to fear for Christians of the members who are essentially non-believers claiming otherwise, than vice versa. Non-believers don’t have churches to support, or empty pews to look at if people claim to be something they’re not.
A lot of people have been saying for a while that Christianity in America is in worse trouble than most people realize. The evangelicals aren’t growing all that much (of the three groups that their members would most likely self-select as (Christian generic, Pentecostal and Protestant), they showed only 0.2% growth. The Christian generics–which I’d bet most evangelicals answer to, actually fell. There’s a lot pointing to the megachurch phenomenon being a consolidation of Christian churches, rather than an independent growth movement. This survey’s numbers would seem to bear that out.
I suppose we’ll see if we’re starting to see a serious decline in American religiosity, but these numbers were quite surprising and hopeful, even to a cynic like me.
Kinda late for everyone to see this, but Lou Dobbs had Billy Donahue on his 7:00 Pm EST news tonight and good ol’
Billy Boy said something like “Vermont is the least religious because all the ‘hippy dippies’ moved there”.
So much intelligence for the catholic league.
My home state is the 3rd leat religious. There is hope! As Maine goes, so goes the Nation!
I find your church here quite interesting –I really don’t groove in discussion with fellow Christians like you do here on discussions with fellow atheists. I don’t understand your delight in “preaching to the choir.” You all think alike –what’s to discuss? Misery loves company, seems to me.
Christian fellowship, on the other hand, is more evident when we gather in person –focusing on the One in whom we believe. Our conversations with each other are more personal and not for the internet. We use the internet to disagree on theological points –more than to agree.
christianity is competing with porn and Hollywood and the liberal news media and humanist educators –and the fact that it is hard to afford our own schools –gov’t schools belong to the devil, the “prince of the air [waves?],” and preach his philosophy –as here.
And Christianity is a boring product to begin with…
Typical of a complete dumbass. She cannot understand what a blog is and tries to think of it in religious terms. Barb is unable to understand life outside of her humble god soaked domain.
Dunning-Kruger effect.
Sure, that’s about as dumb as, oh, I don’t know…gathering together to focus on “the One”?
Please, Barbie, let’s call it what it is — a giant circle jerk. You gather together for religious masturbation, nothing more. But hey, if it feels good, if it gets you off, more power to you. Just don’t come here whining that “[we] all think alike”. You just make a total ass of yourself.
@Kel
I disagree – the Old Testament had fetishes and relationships I imagine even Hefner would’ve considered sick shit.
That book’s battles and resulting massacres make 300 look like Sesame Street.
Thanks for posting that Barb. You’ve now shown you are mentally ill at best and evil at worst.
You also, like most fundies, have no idea what xianity is all about. “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” It is quite clear in the NT that judgement is up to god not man.
We’ve seen the fundie kooks hundreds of times. They lie constantly, hate everything, and occasionally kill. Like you. The Liar, Haters, and Killers for jesus crowd have made a mockery and travesty of the religion. And have and will do some serious damage. When xianity becomes synonymous with Liar, Hater, and Killer, who would want to be one? It is happening right now all over the USA.
So Barb, amuse us. Who is on your to Hate and Kill list? You obviously have such a list. I’m sure it is the public schools, universities, scientists, gays, nonwhites, catholics, democrats, moslems at the least. How about Mormons?
The ergot-inspired ending of the New Testament does make the product at least somewhat interesting, all that interesting stuff in the OT is all the things that are wrong… Perhaps a better strategy would be “Christianity – do whatever the fuck you want, as long as you believe in Jesus you’ll be saved.”
Barb, read the poll below. This is what all the Hate, Lies, Death, and Nihilistic Destruction of the fundie xian Death Cults has accomplished.
As you sow, so shall you reap. You and your kind have done more to create atheists in 1 day than Dawkins and PZ could do in a millenia.
There has always been a battle between the forces of light and dark. No doubt which side you are on.
So tell me – what makes Christianity so different from the Taliban, or any other theocratic gov’ts in the Middle East Christianity professes to hate? Granted your community’s not as violent (not yet at least), it’s statements like this that betray how similar your groups really are.
It’s exactly this sort of hardlining, morally narrow-minded “us or them” mentality that made me leave the church.
Oh and your blog Barb is just FILLED with interesting and lively debates *guffaw* If you don’t like it here – then FUCK OFF! We don’t need or want to be reminded that people like you exist – this blog is a haven of open-minded and frequently scientific discussions.
Wow. I go off for a short while and the crazy just EXPLODES…
Focus…believe in the One…somebody here doesn’t know Neo isn’t really real…
brokenSoldier in da house, yo.
Welcome back!
Posted by: Mrs Tilton | March 10, 2009 3:58 AM
Thanks!
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Sarah
http://www.lyricsdigs.com
What’s even more encouraging is that the popular (and in some ‘academic circles’) myth of rough times having the effect of strengthening religious or superstitious views is quite evidently blown away…
I’ve always had complete confidence in reason overcoming superstition. The latter is an inertial beast – there’s really no contest, but all the heat and noise distracts and bogs down progress. Now if we can only get the afterburner of educated intelligence flamed up, we can leave much of the considerable ignorance and stupidity behind as well. It will take generations. A dash of serious dedication will take out the mindless stubborness, but at this point that’s the icing on the cake.
I just hope that the Age of Enlightenment Part II comes about quickly enough to save our future asses.