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Religious Affiliation Shrinking In the US
gollum123 notes new U.S. demographic data from the Pew Research Center which show that the percentage of Americans declaring affiliation with a particular religion has declined sharply since 2007. Americans identifying as Christian dropped from 78.4% in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014. Those describing themselves as atheist, agnostic, or simple having no affiliation took up most of the slack, rising from 16.1% to 22.8%. Members of non-Christian faiths collectively rose from 4.7% to 5.9%. Despite the overall decline, the demographics within the Christian group are getting much more racially and ethnically diverse. The willingness of respondents to marry outside their religious affiliation is also on the rise. The median age of unaffiliated adults is dropping, while the median ages of mainline Protestants and Catholics are rising. The study estimates that 85% of adults age 70 and over are Christian, while only 56% of adults ages 18-24 are Christian. They also say that each individual generation has shown a slight decrease in religious affiliation compared to their statistics in 2007.
Subject says it all.
This is very important, because religious wackos tend to be the ones against modern science and technology.
I'd say it is because of Christian inconsistencies. On the one hand they state that God's love is unconditional, on the other they say if you don't love God and follow His laws you will go to hell. There is no logic to religion.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
US is the only developed (or "more or less developed") country where religious nuts are still a majority.
no, I don't have a sig
These scary views of global warming and evolution are causing people to burn for eternity in hell for not believing in GOD!!
We need a pro God president to change the culture of this country so people stop thinking for themselves! It is only a matter of time before we anger him by voting for things Jesus did like providing healthcare and support for the poor and sick and our nation will fear his wrath.
Not sure if serious or just bad troll...
I find the GP's post to be a wonderful sarcastic post that encapsulates the ignorance and hypocrisy of the Evangelical Christians in the US - and the Republican base.
It's only a "Troll" to you because you don't like what is being said. But that's usually the case on the Net these days. If one doesn't like what's being said, just call them a "Troll" and be done with it. It's just as bad as exclaiming, "I'm offended!" It's just a cheap way to shut people up that you disagree with.
We live in a world of empiricism, where the concepts of faith and religion are - if not outright mocked and denigrated - are under constant pressure.
Not in the USA we don't. Go to certain parts of this country and openly mock religion and let me know how that works out for you. There are several states where it is technically illegal for me to hold public office if I am an atheist. There mere fact that close to 3/4 of people openly are affiliated (at least loosely) with some form of organized religion proves that your thesis is nonsense.
The benefits that faith brings to individuals and societies are trivialized.
Because in most cases they are trivial in comparison to the problems organized religion brings. There is no benefit that religion brings that necessitates belonging to an organized religion. We're supposed to forgive and forget all the misery, bigotry, tribalism and wars caused by religion just because they open some hospitals and food banks which are really just thinly disguised efforts to convert others to their tribe? I'm supposed to ignore the idiots trying to push their prayers in public schools or theology in the science classroom? I'm supposed to be ok with priests fondling children and never going to jail for it? I'm supposed to overlook the continual and ongoing wars between various religious groups across the world?
I believe people need faith in proportion to their misery.
And I disagree with you on this. People do not have a biological need to believe in fancy mythologies even in times of stress. It demonstrably is not required. Some find comfort in doing so (which is fine) but then some inevitably feel the compulsion to try to force their bizarre ideas on the rest of the world. If believing in something irrational helps you get through the day I have no problem with that as long as you keep it to yourself.
Belief in religion is belief in magic, hence anti-science. That's causation right there.
While you don't need religion for these things, there can be no argument that religion frequently exaggerates these conflicts.
But is it religion per se, or is it the "tribalism" in general (which you later reference). Religion is just one way of defining who's "in my group," and it's a very, very old and common one. But that doesn't mean by getting rid of religion, we'll get rid of tribalism.
Religion is just as often used as an excuse for warfare or conquest that people in power already want to do anyway. It's an ideological way of rallying the people at times, but there are plenty of other possible ideologies one could use for the same purpose.
Look at the biggest killers in the past century -- Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao, etc. They didn't need religion to justify their atrocities, and in fact many such figures have eschewed traditional religion (probably because megalomaniacs want a "cult of themselves" rather than implicitly acknowledging a "higher power").
You're right to be afraid of people who are "so fundamentally irrational and tribal and many of whom have a demonstrated propensity for violence," but both religious nuts and atheist nuts can demonstrate those features. Significant numbers of religious people in the world have activity tried to stop wars, to seek peace, to end bigotry, and to seek justice. Many of the civil rights causes that fought against bigotry and led to modern rights were done partly in the name of religion, too. That doesn't mean religion is all good, either -- it just means that it's an ideology, and like all ideologies it can be used for good or for evil, for rational or irrational purposes.
I'm not at all trying to defend religious nuts. But the reality is that there are nuts everywhere. And you, like many people who have bought into their own ideologies and beliefs, have lumped all religious people into one category. Ironic, isn't it? You accuse people of bigotry and irrational tribalism, when your arguments do precisely the same thing.
Whatever happened to "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof"? There is no reason to believe in the existence of any god, so until there is proof otherwise, forget it. That's not being close-minded, it's being rational. Also, we ARE human animals. Sentience isn't limited to just humans, either. First definition of sentience when I googled for it:
Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively. Eighteenth-century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think (reason) from the ability to feel (sentience).
Animals are capable of both reasoning (solving puzzles, etc) and feelings. Not only that, they are also capable of picking up on the feelings of other species - ask any dog owner if their dog knows when they're depressed or frightened, or if they can tell when their dog is happy.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Belief systems and the practice of science are as unrelated as music and athletics. There are plenty of excellent scientists that are devout believers in various religions. There are more who follow personal spiritual paths that are separate from any organized religion.
There is the unfortunate phenomenon of belief in Science, but that is not science. That is just another belief system, where pseudo-scientists believe that things science once discovered are somehow imbued with an eternal truth. The true practitioner of science knows that: firstly, every single scientific "law" might be overturned at any time by some new discovery that displays reality from a new and different point of view; and secondly, that Science as Religion is totally useless when it comes to guidance with any of the important decisions every one of us must make.
That second part is of direct concern to me, and to many other people. These decisions include whether to tell the truth or lie, whether to work for the common good or grab whatever you can get, whether honor and honesty are more important to the person than status and finding an easy way toward personal goals. Persons who believe in science have substituted Newton's laws and the periodic table for religious/spiritual principles, which just doesn't work. It seemingly gives them a framework that allows them freedom from the encumbrances of morals or ethics. But those encumbrances are part of being human, and without them these persons are just shits.
Will
Insightful? It's completely incoherent!
Belief in religion is belief in magic
I'll accept this premise just for fun. There's far too much ambiguity to consider it further.
hence anti-science
Science has nothing to say on the subject of magic. It is simply not within the scope of scientific inquiry. You'll also find that many practicing scientists are also religious. A recent survey found more than a third claim to "have no doubt about God’s existence", a surprisingly extreme position. Another found that, among AAAS members, more than half believe in "God or a higher power".
All the same, let's pretend we accept this as well and lament that our scientific institutions have not only been infiltrated, but completely overwhelmed by anti-science agents.
That's causation right there.
How on earth do you get "causation" out of the preceding? I can't even begin to guess what you conclude causes ... some other unknown! Even if we accept the previous absurdities, without reservation, this bizarre conclusion simply does not follow.
Required reading for internet skeptics
That second part is of direct concern to me, and to many other people. These decisions include whether to tell the truth or lie, whether to work for the common good or grab whatever you can get, whether honor and honesty are more important to the person than status and finding an easy way toward personal goals. Persons who believe in science have substituted Newton's laws and the periodic table for religious/spiritual principles, which just doesn't work. It seemingly gives them a framework that allows them freedom from the encumbrances of morals or ethics. But those encumbrances are part of being human, and without them these persons are just shits.
What's most interesting is that it's usually the most religious people who buy into the Republican Party's ideology, which includes "grabbing whatever you can get" and espousing Ayn Rand-style objectivist philosophy.
By contrast, the irreligious people are much more liable to vote for politicians who push social welfare programs ("working for the common good").
So the idea of religion giving people any kind of decent morals or ethics is blatantly false.
Belief systems and the practice of science are as unrelated as music and athletics. There are plenty of excellent scientists that are devout believers in various religions.
While your second statement is obviously true, that does not help validate your first statement. Every limitation can be overcome, even being a religious scientist. I equate it as being similar to a professional basketball player who is under 6' tall. It is absolutely possible but it does impact your play.
Neil Degrasse Tyson has a great lecture which goes over how religious thought has impacted some of the greatest minds in history. He also writes about the concept in an article titled "The Perimeter Of Ignorance." As I understood his point, there have been times when great scientific scholars have stopped their pursuit of knowledge because they were content with the "God did it" explanation.
Newton stopped investigating the movement of planets once his current mathematical knowledge was put to the task of understanding how planets affect each others' orbits. This was the man who invented Calculus and wrote the Principia, but even he was guilty of not pushing forward the boundaries of science because he was content with the "God did it" answer. If not for his religious beliefs, perhaps he would have added inventing perturbation theory to his list of accolades and could have introduced it a century before Laplace did.
I am not arrogant enough to think I could keep religious beliefs from impacting my ability to investigate the world rationally if even geniuses like Newton couldn't.
The most troubling causational link he highlights is how the Islamic world lost its place as a center of scientific progress when a radical version of Islam took hold in the 12th century. Over the centuries that followed, the Islamic world went from being the place Algebra was invented to having 0.6% of Nobel laureates in Physics/Chemistry/Medicine with 23% of the world's population.
My favorite concept from his lecture is the danger of Revelation Replacing Investigation. It is at the core of why scientific thought and religious thought are at opposing sides, even though they can both exist within the same human being.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke