Brian Keith Dalton is a ‘Formon’ (former Mormon) and he shares with us the things he no longer believes, starting with the least crazy and moving up the scale of craziness. What is interesting is how even the least crazy sounds pretty crazy. (Via Machines Like Us.)
It is not just because he is talking about Mormonism that it sounds crazy. That religion sounds crazier than most because we are not so familiar with its theology. You could do the same exercise with any of the religions and non-believers of that religion would likely react the same way, because modernity makes those beliefs seem increasingly outlandish.
Is it any wonder that a new poll released today finds that the number of people in the US who answer “no religion” to the question “What is your religious preference? Is it Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, some other religion, or no religion?” has climbed to 20%, the highest since the 1930s? In 1990, the figure was just 8%.
And as to be expected, “More than one-third of 18-to-24-year-olds claimed “no religion” compared to just 7 percent of those 75 and older.”
My niece came home from Catholic school and told me about the religion class that day where they had a laugh over the funny things that other religions believe.
The coffee that I was drinking came out my nose.
kevinalexander- what about the funny things that Catholics believe?
Matt, that’s the reason the coffee came out of Kevin’s nose.
Ah, now it all makes sense! My irony detector needs a reboot, apparently….
… [the proportion of] people in the US who answer “no religion” to the question “What is your religious preference?” has climbed to 20%, the highest since the 1930s[.] In 1990, the figure was just 8%.
Probably because I belong to that 7% age cohort, I wish that some pollster would try to determine how much of this change represents emergence from the closet rather than change of convictions. Back in the day (and even yet, in parts of the US) it could be hazardous to your continued employment--among other things--to be irreligious and have that fact known.
“I wish that some pollster would try to determine how much of this change represents emergence from the closet rather than change of convictions.”
I suspect that there’s a lot of people, or at least a statistically significant number, who don’t identify as “religious” because they actually believe in the religion, but simply because they have only ever known that community and either can’t imagine another way or are afraid to say “I don’t believe in this”. I didn’t believe in God (and most of the religion) when I was a kid, but because of the community and family I grew up in I didn’t realize I wasn’t Christian until I was in my mid-late teens, and not an atheist for another decade.
My dad was in that cohort (86), and I wasn’t aware until only a few months before he died that he’d lost his faith more than 60 years earlier! He kept up pretenses mostly for my mother’s sake, and probably for his own mother’s sake before she went. Plus, he truly enjoyed the music at Catholic Mass.
I was almost fired once for sticking stones (and then my face) in a hat and reciting “kolob” over and over.
(waits a moment)
Ok, never happened but now I’m dying to give it a go.
Of that entire mess of beliefs, the one that makes me laugh are the bits where ‘bible stuff’ happens in the U.S. -- especially Mississippi.