Look at what’s happening to the opinion on religion in our country:
Historically, the percentage of Americans who said they had no religious affiliation (pollsters refer to this group as the “nones”) has been very small — hovering between 5 percent and 10 percent.
However, Putnam says the percentage of “nones” has now skyrocketed to between 30 percent and 40 percent among younger Americans.
Putnam calls this a “stunning development.” He gave reporters a first glimpse of his data Tuesday at a conference on religion organized by the Pew Forum on Faith in Public Life.
It’s a poll, so it doesn’t say much about causes, but I can guess that two factors have been at work: that religion has become associated with the spectacular failure of reactionary conservative politics, and that at the same time, atheists have become more vocal and made the option of avoiding religion altogether viable. I suspect the former is more directly causal, but don’t discount the latter — young people aren’t leaving their obnoxious old church to find a new church, they are leaving the whole rotten shebang altogether.
Don’t be coy. You know Pharyngula is the cause.
It was Janine, OMnivore. She’s the cause. She declared all people free of dogma in the thread about Mormon’s baptizing Obama’s mother.
The best part of this is that Putnam has huge credibility.
I agree that atheists are coming out of the closet – but I also think that less formally a lot of people who might have previously just taken the path of least resistance (“uh, yeah I’m religious” – despite having not practiced in years or decades) are now finding that the “penalty” for stating nonbelief is tolerable or non-existent.
and mapped against all recent social trends is the Internet and digital tech, a happily democratic, egalitarian medium.
First Kate Harding’s book hits #1 on Powell’s, now this. Turning out to be a very good day indeed.
Putnam also seems to be saying that youth who return to religion will not be of the fundamentalist mold – bad news for creationists, and hopefully good news for defenders of church-state separation:
“A recent Newsweek cover article, entitled “The End of Christian America” provoked responses from religious thinkers all over the spectrum.”
Wait, religious WHATS?
Let’s not get to excited. As the article points out:
Just because young people are turning away from organized religion, doesn’t mean they are turning towards reason and science. There’s still as much credulous pseudoscience and superstitious spirituality as ever.
I wonder if it occurred to the pollsters that “younger Americans” grew up with 9/11 and they know it was caused by religious extremism.
Wait just a dang minute — the Charles Blow column in the NYT also covered this last week with a link to the Pew Forum “study”.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/opinion/02blow.html?_r=1)
The Blow column also printed a retraction/correction:
“The Charles Blow column on Saturday, about religious affiliation, misstated the percentage of Catholics and Protestants who became unaffiliated. The percentage for Catholics is 14, not 4, and the percentage for Protestants is 13, not 7.”
But the original material at the Pew website (Executive Summary) does not reflect that correction.
What’s going on here?
Also, the main point of the Pew study seems to have been to investigate the causes that people state for changing their religious affiliation, rather than polling to determine what people’s religious outlook is. There’s no dense work to try to separate out nuances of atheist/agnostic/no opinion, etc.
Later in the Pew poll site, we read:
“At the same time that the ranks of the unaffiliated have grown, the Landscape Survey also revealed that the unaffiliated have one of the lowest retention rates of any of the major religious groups, with most people who were raised unaffiliated now belonging to one religion or another. Those who leave the ranks of the unaffiliated cite several reasons for joining a faith, such as the attraction of religious services and styles of worship (74%), having been spiritually unfulfilled while unaffiliated (51%) or feeling called by God (55%).”
That factoid getting tossed around “most people who were raised unaffiliated now belong to one religion or another” seems to be unreflected in any data I can find anywhere, but I confess I’m only working with the executive summary. Gr.
Am I missing something, or is this story from June of 2008 (a year ago)? Is there an update or announcement that’s not linked in PZ’s post? I think I remember seeing this story posted here before – or maybe it was at Dawkins’ site – when it first came out.
Actually, I recently had a conversation with a former-christian friend, and we noted that there seem to be a heck of a lot of us these days (our generation is the sub-30, post collegiate). The cause of both our, and many other’s deconversions? The internet. Sustained blasting of information about all the religions of the world (from adherents, and from religious persons discussing other religions, and of course from atheists) seems to have led us to realize that, well, they can’t all be right; and they certainly all can be wrong.
Plus the church did it to itself- by trying to drive a wedge between religion and science, those of us who are willing to do a little research have, indeed, been forced to make that choice. And frankly science has correctness on its side.
It’s about knowledge and understanding. The more of it, the less religious this country (and any other) is bound to become.
Maybe this is the byproduct of the information age. Since religious idiocy is now on parade so that all may witness teh stupid for what it is, more and more net savvy young people are turning to REAL sources of information and not taking their pastor’s word for everything. Being exposed to more debates about the reality-based world might be making young Americans more skeptical. The eternal foe of Christ Inanity is accurate information.
Quote from the article. Silly emphasis mine.
I guess the youth of today just can’t hate enough to be religious.
Scratch my post at #10. The first link in PZ’s post takes us to a current story. I got confused because all the other links are to a story from last year. I fail.
In even happier news: Maine legalizes same sex marriage!!!!! http://www.sunjournal.com/story/316019-3/MaineNews/Governor_signs_same_sex_marriage_bill/
I’m so proud of my state right now.
Off topic, and I know others have mentioned it a lot but – OMG the new commenting style on sciblogs is bad. Really bad. It’s confusing, it makes it hard to see blockquotes, etc. I really, really wish they’d go back to the old style, or institute a template that clearly sets off blockquotes. New isn’t “better” if it makes the forum hard to read. Please don’t break things that were fine before, sciblogs?
I don’t buy it for a single second. And I also don’t buy that people turning away from religion is nearly as valuable as people turning to science and reason.
Take a poll of those who reject religious and superstitious belief as a matter of conscience and reason. Those numbers IMHO will reflect more accurately where atheism stands in our society.
No, it’s all due to the niceness of Mooney and Nisbet, and their followers.
How can you doubt it, since niceness and good thoughts conquer all, just as Disney told us.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
OT, but apropos of the title of this thread, there’s more happy news about gay marriage rights.
Another New England state leading the way!
(Hmm, I just noticed that Noadi beat me to this… but I’m going to hit Post anyway; you can’t celebrate this sort of thing too much!)
I echo the caveats that “unaffiliated” != “atheist” or “rationalist”. They could be vague free-lance theists, or newagers, or into medical woo, or just apathetic. Still, it represents a diminution of the power of religious institutions, and that’s a Good Thing.
More happy news: Huffington Post has posted a sane scienced-based article (found via Steve Novella’s ScienceBasedMedicine.)
I hope this is a new trend.
Click my name to link to the HuffPo article.
Dammit America if we can’t sneer at your superstitious backwardness what are you for. ;)
(congratulations, you rock)
Happy to hear this! These stats ring true for me…As a 20 year old I do see a good portion of my peer group finally letting religion whither away.
@17
Chiming in as well. Bigger font please. I’m on a 21″ monitor set to the highest res. My 40 y/o eyes just ain’t what they used to be.
Just a pointer to science blogs: I’ll bet a graphic/web designer chose the current layout and styles. Try having someone who actually reads and participates in blogs do the design, or at least approve it.
Just my $0.02.
Yeah, but statistics are really mixed. “No religious affiliation” doesn’t necessarily mean atheist… and in fact often doesn’t. “No religious affiliation” includes a lot of “spiritual” types who are not into formal religion, and may politically align themselves with us to a certain degree, but they’re not necessarily rationalists (i.e. atheists).
Also, statistics vary all over the place depending on who’s doing the polling and how it’s being worded. It seems that the general population is backing away from formal religion, but supernaturalism of some form is still the majority opinion, and while there are fewer Christians, the ones who are still around are nuttier than ever.
On the other other hand, the growing strength of the total nut-bar extreme of religion seems to be pushing more people away from religion, or at least pushing them toward more liberal and less literal and nutty degrees of religion.
This is definitely a mixed, mixed, mixed picture, and we can’t afford to be complacent, but have to keep speaking out as a community so that we don’t lose the ground we’ve gained. But declarations of “The End of Religion” have come before, and unfortunately they’ve been premature.
From the pew survey link under the video:
“Despite their religion, a majority of adults in the U.S. believe in angles.”
Wow! More good news and something else I agree with. I believe in angles, too! ;)
3#
I find that a very accurate version of probability.
I have always been a little sceptical of the claims made in the past by various organisations…
It did strike that the reality is more the ‘path of least resistance’in a community…
I also think that is known by the jeebus crows…they are aware that social cohesion is the key….if the memé of the myth is spread often and in liberal thickness by a few truly ignorant and easily manipulated folks that imitate the jeebus clones words and intent then that is how the nonsense endures…and so it goes…a few pillars of said community spouting the nonsense is all it requires to enable a self perpetuating myth literally…
I could imagine quite easily that maybe 80% of the community are not so affected…but social interactions and standing demand kowtowing to the dogma.
Media pressure…god spouting politicians…TV evangelistic all gas and gaiters talk show clones…political agenda’s…all might deliver the overall impression that a lot of folk actually buy the crud…and who are the doubters to buck the perceived trend…
At least that impression has certainly held sway for a good part of the last 200 years for sure…
Now with the emergence and higher profile of atheistic attitudes…it is breaking the religious hold in communities…those bonds of ‘believe or be damned and ostracised’are weakening and some are strarting to slip them.
That might explain the seemingly increased incidence of wingnuttery and jeebus prasin’ everywhere…it is the evangelicals response to the threat…they are in trouble…and they know it…their response is to ‘higher the profile’…everywhere.
I think they are losing…but they are tenacious…and bitter with it!
It would be beyond ironic if maybe 80% of American bible belt was actually inhabited by non-believers….and might just be the nightmare that the leading idiots fear more then jeebus returning…and it is far more likely!
I believe this poll. My 17 year old son says there are lots of atheists at his school.
Thirty years ago when I was in high school, there were none that I knew of.
I am certainly a statistical oddity being 66 y/o, undereducated and an atheist. It heartens me to see so many young people dumping religion. Few people in my generation are willing to give up their religious beliefs, so at least for that reason, I do not mourn our demise.
I’ve been saying for a while now that the fundies are destroying xianity. And that, due to them, there is a backlash against the Death Cults.
“When xianity becomes synonymous with liar, hater, ignorant, dumb, and sometimes killer, who would want to be one.?”
There is a phenomena in sociology called “Inversion” where followers turn the philosophy into its opposite and claim it as The Truth and they as True Believers. Orwell said it as well. Lies are Truth, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. Fundie xianity is inverted xianity and it has nothing to offer normal people.
MScot pointed out:
“Despite their religion, a majority of adults in the U.S. believe in angles.”
I think that is a cute observation.
MScot pointed out:
“Despite their religion, a majority of adults in the U.S. believe in angles.”
I think that is a cute observation.
Actually, Ditchkins did it. He has been canvassing the United States in his cold-fusion powered hotdog-mobile. He really brought a lot of people over to our side, or so I say.
You have to be kidding to claim outright there’s only two causes to the results of this poll. There’s been research done on the shifting religious and spiritual views of Americans, and with a gradual shift it what polls reveal. Among younger adults in the U.S. the numbers of “nones” have been consistently higher than the general average amongst Americans, this includes taking into account how survey questions such as these are asked. I think the quote can also appear to reveal more than it actually dose because of the juxtaposition of the %’s. There’s also factors of people either going back to a families religion or finding religion later in life, usually after college. Please, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy polls that show the possibility of religion receding. But, I do try to stay reasonable about the situation and my claims to it.
Also, and I’m sure you saw this, right after the quote used in the blog posting it reads:
“This trend started in the 1990s and continues through today. It includes people in both Generation X and Y.
While these young “nones” may not belong to a church, they are not necessarily atheists.
“Many of them are people who would otherwise be in church,” Putnam said. “They have the same attitidues and values as people who are in church, but they grew up in a period in which being religious meant being politically conservative, especially on social issues.”
This points somewhat to the first cause mentioned (it also includes me as a gen X). But, the shift is more noticeable in politics and attitude in general, not the failure of “reactionary conservative politics” (how’s that for vagueness on the part of the blog). The number of “nones” were increasing during the Bush years, including the first four. In fact, there was a noticeable trend in the 60’s of greater numbers of younger “nones” and increasing numbers in the general populous. There’s no doubt it’s right to point to the failure on conservative politics at a certain level, it is also why some religionist have tried to distance themselves from politics, or at least tried to appear that way (usually disingenuously).
There was a concerted effort during the 80’s of the Christian right to affiliate itself directly into politics. And they became successful as far as being a large influential block. There was also a shifting in religious beliefs demographically in the country, which continues today (the most evident being Catholics). However, these efforts, even as repressive as they almost seemed in that some political leaders were outspoken about their views of atheist in general (read: Bush Sr.), still don’t not produce any significant change in a shifts that were occurring and garnered little new adherence (above what religion does normally).
Through the 90’s, polls were showing the decline in Christian religions. From 1990 to 2008 the % has gone from the mid 80’s to the mid 70% range. There was a pull away from conservative politics at this time, though even then (no, it’s not new), democrats were using faith to their advantage. The social conservatives (in and out of politics – and a combination therein) were up against a population growing increasingly accepting of shifting social ideals, however slowly and painfully it has happened. Then Bush Jr. was able to capitalize on the religious and its political influence probably more than the Dems could have realized. Though conservative, not overwhelmingly popular, but willing to push social conservative ideals. Then 9/11 happened, the Christians reacted strongly in the U.S. to Islam, even while the Gov. was trying to downplay the religious role (soon to follow was a strong, and strangely similar to the conservatives, reaction by the “nones”).
At around this same time and into 2002 and 2003, we started to see the largest number of reported “nones”.
Eh, good news, but I’m afraid that a good percentage of those religiously unaffiliated might not be using their critical thinking skills in other arenas – I have several friends who, though not at all religious, will base things off star signs/believe in the New World Order nonsense/think Atlantis was real/2012/etc..
I wanted to add quickly that I purposefully didn’t get into other issues or research, I just wanted to address the claims in this post blog.
Yours in skepticism and atheism,
Luke
Christianity is as strong as it ever was. Christians are simply hunkering down, prepared to patiently and prayerfully ride out this Age of Persecution orchestrated by secular liberalists and their Dark Lord, Hussein Obama, the modern day Sanhedrin. A few among us will be martyrs, renditioned and tortured like Christ for our Faith in Him. The remainder will emerge from the catacombs to repopulate the Houses of Holy Worship when the pogroms and proscriptions end.
Such is the fate of a Chosen People. Indeed, without your venom and hatred of us, we lack the vital life force into our movement.
The World Trade Center attack was minor as an example of religious extremism.
We also see every day, the sectarian violence in Iraq with an unknown but large, hundreds of thousands of people killed, for being the wrong rdenomination in endless cycles of mass murder. Plus the general baseline level of wackiness with female children being married to old men, people accused of witchcraft, and major sins like women driving cars in conservative moslem countries. Everyone knows what religious fanatics with god on their side, brains the size of walnuts, and rifles and bombs can do.
The difference between fundie xians and fundie moslems is, basically nothing. In times past xianity was just as malevolent. We grew up and just don’t let our extremists run around loose anymore with armies and heavy weapons.
The fundies should have read their magic book and paid attention.
“As you sow, so shall you reap.” They sowed during the last few decades and especially the last 8 years. It is harvest time and they aren’t going to like what came up.
I wanted to add quickly that I purposefully didn’t get into other issues or research, I just wanted to address the claims in this post blog. I was pretty brief for a reason, comments don’t seem the best place to post an entire essay on, which would be easy to do with this subject.
I also apologize for the spelling and grammatical errors as well as some of the sentence structure. Would have been better to preview. Ah, hell wit it…
Yours in skepticism and atheism,
Luke
Christianity is as strong as it ever was. Christians are simply hunkering down, prepared to patiently and prayerfully ride out this Age of Persecution orchestrated by secular liberalists and their Dark Lord, Hussein Obama, the modern day Sanhedrin. A few among us will be martyrs, renditioned and tortured like Christ for our Faith in Him. The remainder will emerge from the catacombs to repopulate the Houses of Holy Worship when the pogroms and proscriptions end.
You’re Poe-ranoid
PZ, this is a great posting in light of tomorrow being the National Day of Prayer, and Obama’s toned-down celebration of it.
I will not pray tomorrow. Why? Because it doesn’t do any good.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/06/obama.prayer/index.html
PZ, this does not show that “they are leaving the whole rotten shebang altogether.” Need to compare these data with other indices such as belief in God, prayer practices, etc. That gap is more closely related to what Grace Davie argued is the case in Europe, namely, that generations following the post war generations are less inclined to associated with a “traditional” religious institution, but are not becoming less religious. Triangulating this against GSS data among other indices shows this correlation and scholars like Wuthnow, Norris & Inglehart, Hour & Greeley among others generally agree with this.
This would all but eliminate the hypothesis that secularist activism is having the desired effect that you mention. Rather, this more or less supports Putnam’s theory of a declining social capital which is why he might be so apprently gleeful at the report.
MikeM (@42):
Note the last paragraph of that CNN.com story:
Reason enough for Obama to distance himself, no?
However, Putnam says the percentage of “nones” has now skyrocketed to between 30 percent and 40 percent among younger Americans.
Perhaps this is strong evidence for the idea that ridicule works. Young people watch atheists point at Christian retards and laugh at them. They learn that Christianity is just another word for stupidity and they learn to stay away from it.
raven @39:
You are absolutely right. There’s virtually no difference between a Muslim terrorist and a Christian extremist (all Christians are extremists because there’s nothing moderate about believing in bullshit). This is the message that young people need to hear. Don’t like terrorism? Then don’t be a Christian because Christians are no better than terrorists.
Bobxxxx,
Ridicule does not work you ignorant swine. See? Not convincing right? Neither is it for Xians. For all the anti-theist scientific aplomb, the paltry ability to examine sociological and political data and evidence is what is actually laughable. Tell me, how many social scientific articles do Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins refernece, or Dr. Myers for that matter? Right. Happy hunting.
If you for a moment think that social science has protected religion like so many assertions levied toward mental health, it is actually social science that atheists should kiss the ground before, for it is in social science that the movement to secularize state education was begun. Surely you know Comte and Marx? But I doubt it quite honestly.
Without understanding the social dimensions of religious behavior all of these atheist assertions will be revealed as continually empty.
So have fun ridiculing the religious Bobxxxx you absurd numb-nut.
It’s good news in any case. Even if these people are just as religious as before, the fact that they’re getting away from organized religion is a step in the right direction.
But Leon, it really does not predict a damn thing. According to the best evidence in the 1960’s, America should be as secular as Sweden right now. Didn’t pan out. It predicts nothing. Therefore, stop asserting it is a step in any direction. That’s unscientific foolishness that somehow atheists get away with while using science as a virtual nuclear warhead against religion. Ignorance is stupid no matter the source.
37#
Xians really get the hots for martyrdom do they not?…in fact they get very tetchy when they are not repressed or tolerated…they get all wistful and teary cos they are not suffering like their jeebus…so they always manage to stir up some stench to get themselves vilified or hated…then they feel all glowy and holy again.
The remainder will be sorely disappointed because the Houses of Holy Worship will no longer exist…except as an historical memory…
They are all going bankrupt…and remember the cash says it only puts its trust in god…so man made abominations of questionable taste and propriety are not by themselves capable of standing the test of time….they are crumbling to dust…and car parks make more money…the rapture is upon the faithful…the end times cometh…god is absent…and jeebus is a wishful myth perpetrated by goat herders and to much hashish 2000 years ago….all ‘good’ things come to an end…oh dear!… how sad!…never mind!
Hipple, Rev. Paul T. @37
Notice on the website from the link in your name that Pharyngula
is part of the list of evil websites which cannot be trusted. I thought this might get you into some kind of trouble being amongst us folk, until I read this on the about part.
http://protoplasm.wordpress.com/about/
Drew Tatusko wrote “Ridicule does not work you ignorant swine.”
Really? You got any evidence for that? Have you interviewed any atheists who used to be Christians? Did they tell you they became atheists because they knew atheists who respected Christianity?
Ridicule does not work on the vast majority of Christian retards because nothing works for them. Their lives are wasted and nothing can be done for them. I suggest for younger Christians ridicule is their only hope. I myself first had doubts about my idiotic Christian beliefs when I heard people laugh at them. Suck up to Christian stupidity if you want to. I won’t do that because unlike you I have moral values.
U.S.Religious Landscape Survey, the full report is here:
http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf
Since it is 210 pages, it will take some time to put more sense to this.
Isn’t it ironic that the name for the group which has no specific religion rhymes with “nuns”?
Drew Tatusko #47
Your concern is noted.
=======
Posted by: iago | May 6, 2009 2:36 PM
MScot pointed out:
“Despite their religion, a majority of adults in the U.S. believe in angles.”
I think that is a cute observation.
========
No, I think that observation is kind of obtuse, actually.
=======
Posted by: iago | May 6, 2009 2:36 PM
MScot pointed out:
“Despite their religion, a majority of adults in the U.S. believe in angles.”
I think that is a cute observation.
========
No, I think that observation is kind of obtuse, actually.
I was a happy apatheist for the first 35 years of my life.
Thanks to the “Religious Right”, I’m now a militant atheist!
Before everybody gets TOO happy, I’ll bet that many of the 30-40% would still self-ID as “Christian”, it’s just that they’ve got better things to do on Sunday mornings than go to a church that usually doesn’t reflect their values, anyway. But, thank f*ck, it’s a step in the right direction, regardless.
OT
Alex @ 25
use “Control” + “+” to increase the font size.
(In FF View>Zoom>ZoomIn)
Similar in IE but doesn’t seem to work as well.
Ciao
Just as the gay movement has shown, when you come out, you change minds.
From the Pew Research report http://religions.pewforum.org/reports# (under report 2, scroll down to “Conception of God” chart), does anybody else find it odd that 21% of self-identified atheists believe in God? I mean, I thought being an atheist meant you do not believe in God (that’s what I mean when I say I’m an atheist), especially not a personal one (according to the report 6% of these “atheists” believe in a personal god).
BlackCentaur @61
ctrl+ is the ticket. Much thanx.
Even more happy news: Obama tones down National Day of Prayer observance (CNN news link). Now the freepers have even more evidence he is the anti-christ.
Even more happy news: Obama tones down National Day of Prayer observance (CNN news link). Now the freepers have even more evidence he is the anti-christ.
I’m not sure is this is enough to skew the data at all, but I’ve heard a lot of people among the right-wing Christian set lately say things such as “Christianity is not a religion, it’s a personal relationship with Jesus” or “religion is false, Christianity is real” and stuff like that. I’m seeing that a lot on one online forum after another, so it seems to be a real undercurrent.
So … at least a little bit of the increase in “nones” could well be Christians who are redefining things somehow.
Rebranding. The majority of the US public is sick and tired of these clowns, fact from surveys. The brighter among them might even dimly realize this. Most fundies I see online are oblivious. They spend a lot of time hating Fake Xians(tm) these days. Maybe some have jumped ship for less extreme churches?
Even if the numbers mentioned were true,I think it just reflects a trend in society where for young people that grow up with the net and constant advertising,anything thats longer and requires continuous attention for more than 10 minutes is just not worth their time and effort.Makes them fidgety.
They’re not atheists.They just cant be bothered.
Idiocracy,not theocracy.
Steve @66 could be right. I’ve observed the same thing in fundies (of the USamerican kind) down here. Maybe it’s because religion’s reputation is down lately. I find this similar to the political extremists, typically facists but it happens on the other extreme of the spectrum too, do it as well. You know, the “apolitical” pose.
Seokso: Just because young people are turning away from organized religion, doesn’t mean they are turning towards reason and science. There’s still as much credulous pseudoscience and superstitious spirituality as ever.
Yes, and as long as it’s DISORGANIZED, it’s not really anybody’s problem but the individual in question, their close associates, and random pharyngulite busybodies.
Really, don’t you have something better to do than worrying about folks’ individual neuroses? When they join a mob — then it’s my business. Individual madness? Blehh — as Jesus said, the Poor in Intellect shall always be with us (I think…)
Reynold #57
Either way, it’s just not right.
Hi! LOVE YOUR SITE! I’m very happy to hear that the young generation is smart and questioning religious crap. I’m sick of religion, especially christian shit, and how it destroys lives all for a figment of the imagination.
Hi! LOVE YOUR SITE! I’m very happy to hear that the young generation is smart and questioning religious crap. I’m sick of religion, especially christian shit, and how it destroys lives all for a figment of the imagination.
Hi! LOVE YOUR SITE! I’m very happy to hear that the young generation is smart and questioning religious crap. I’m sick of religion, especially christian shit, and how it destroys lives all for a figment of the imagination.
Hi! LOVE YOUR SITE! I’m very happy to hear that the young generation is smart and questioning religious crap. I’m sick of religion, especially christian shit, and how it destroys lives all for a figment of the imagination.
Hi! LOVE YOUR SITE! I’m very happy to hear that the young generation is smart and questioning religious crap. I’m sick of religion, especially christian shit, and how it destroys lives all for a figment of the imagination.
I was once quite tolerant of religiosity, mostly because not being a church goer I seldom encountered it. But since I began escorting patients weekly in and out of a Planned Parenthood clinic six years ago, I’ve had an up close and personal encounter with a group self righteous, judgmental. bigoted, hateful, ignorant and lying Christian protesters. It’s not nice and has caused me to take a decidedly very dim view of almost any religious blowhard. Each week I harbor less and less tolerance for them.
Mark me down in the latter category. I’d probably still be paying lip service to the Jesus myth if it hadn’t been for my exposure to certain individuals who helped me realize that it was, in fact, quite okay not to believe in gods.
The tide has been turning here in Australia for a long while. about 30% of people here did not state a religious affiliation on the 2006 census. We’ve even had some atheist prime ministers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Australia
I think, perhaps, if one wants to fight back Religion, the best way to do it is by adopting their practice. Something like the First “Church” of Atheism or the First “Church” of Science. Some kind of organized group that goes out and helps build communities like a church, helps people in need, that sort of thing. That way, when people are down on their luck, who do they turn to? Why not the First “Church” of Reason over on the corner of Main and 9th street? I hear they’ve been running a soup kitchen for the homeless, surely they’ll have some answers. And they’ll get answers, based in reason and logic.
A brand new opportunity to educate people missed the first time around, so they won’t be fooled again, and the new boss won’t be the same as the old boss.
We can thank the likes of Pat Robertson and all the other wack job vocal fundie christians for helping to drive our youth away from the dark side.
Isn’t it a bit redundant to say “reactionary conservative”.
I assume you’ll also be publicizing this “happy news” from the same article:
“His research shows that people who go to church are much more likely to vote, volunteer and give to charity.”
I nominate PZ for Randi’s Million Dollar Prize for Pharyngulating a non-internet poll. Let’s see you do it again PZ – $1M has got to be better than an iPod from Eric Hovind. I’ll even nominate you for sainthood if you can repeat the miracle – you can be the first admittedly godless icon to catholics (popes who have been sainted were likely godless but just wouldn’t admit it).
People are confusing various polls here. The Pew study was conducted over a year ago and found the usual 12-14% unaffiliated. The Pew study is old news.
The study that finds 30-40% is a new study conducted by a Robert Putnam at Harvard. Putnam announced his findings at a Pew conference, hence the confusion. Details about Putnam’s data are not yet available (AFAIK).
My first reaction is there is either something wrong with Putnam’s methodology or he used different definitions of “unaffiliated.” You don’t get a sudden doubling of a number like this in just one year. But you can’t tell without the data.
A third alternative explanation is that a whole lot of people might be leaving their affiliation with traditional churches and becoming affiliated with parachurches that reject denominational identity, c.f. the Third Wave Christians. Those people might feel moved to answer a question about what religion they claim to affiliate by saying “None” despite the fact they are every bit as batshit insane about religion as they used to be, maybe even more so, and the organizations with which they are affiliated are just as religious as the churches they’ve left, or more so.
Maybe it is because we are happy, and don’t feel like we need to pray for things, or wait for our afterlives.
I too have noticed something like this trend. An encouraging glimmer of light at the end of an oppressively long, dark and dank tunnel.
Let’s press onwards toward it with all dispatch!
“Ridicule does not work on the vast majority of Christian retards because nothing works for them. Their lives are wasted and nothing can be done for them. I suggest for younger Christians ridicule is their only hope. I myself first had doubts about my idiotic Christian beliefs when I heard people laugh at them. Suck up to Christian stupidity if you want to. I won’t do that because unlike you I have moral values.” ah, the happiness thing I speculated about is probably not universal.
Ugh, my anon post #90 is a followup to my non anon post #88. This comment form should keep my info until I close the window, that is totally standard.
James F. #71
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Posted by: iago | May 6, 2009 2:36 PM
MScot pointed out:
“Despite their religion, a majority of adults in the U.S. believe in angles.”
I think that is a cute observation.
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No, I think that observation is kind of obtuse, actually.
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Either way, it’s just not right.
Pah! Knee-jerk reflex responses.
What we may have is a surge in “spiritual not religious” folks. Superstitious ninnies, but they won’t kill you for being an infidel.
The well-known Right Reverend Hipple is a parodist.
Complete nonsense. I stopped having faith when I realized it was all hanging in the air without any contact to evidence, when I realized that “ineffable” equals “useless”. Shame was not involved. I wasn’t a fundamentalist, so I had never even encountered a ridicule of what I specifically believed.
I mean, really – peer pressure!?! That’s among the worst reasons for doing anything.
His research shows that people who go to church are much more likely to say they vote, volunteer and give to charity…
Switch auto-fill-in on in your browser, and you’ll only have to type the first letter ever again.
Has anyone found a link to the full data of Putnam’s survey or is it just not available yet? I’ve certainly tried and failed. My google-fu is not strong.