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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.
Stuff that matters...
Subject says it all.
This medieval superstition will die out eventually.
That should read because of the overall decline, not despite it. Being religious is correlated with lower social status; in the USA, lower social status is correlated with being non-white. In other words, the rich folks, who are predominantly white, are dropping religion, which leads to more "diversity" among those who are left with religion.
This topic just screams out for a Slashdot Poll! What is your religious affiliation?:
1. Something Christian-like (Can anyone tell me what the difference between a Presbyterian and a Methodist is?)
2. Zoroastrian
3. Skinny Hindu folks, who don't eat enough meat.
4. Islam (. . . and all their unwelcome fanatic folks)
5. Flying Spaghetti Monster?
6. "I'm a doctor, Jim, not a religious preacher!"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
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.
The benefits that faith brings to individuals and societies are trivialized. The engines of media are actively working to tear religion* down: few films in the last 40 years (aside from those specifically built for sale to the isolated Christian demographic) have identified-Christian characters that don't prove to be motivated to evil thereby.
*hypocritically, the attack is usually on the most benign and banal faiths. The most regressive, reactionary, anti-modern faiths are accorded a curiously protected status.
Finally, the acts of radicals have further poisoned the view of the general public toward religion generally.
This should surprise nobody.
I believe people need faith in proportion to their misery. As long as humanity continues to generally be better off, religious affiliation will decline. But of course, I personally don't expect that will be a ceaseless climb, and people will turn back to religion again.
-Styopa
Ironically, echoing what was happening in the Gospel accounts, the modern religious establishments have to a large degree lost touch with the purpose of the law of Moses and the teachings of Jesus (and so on). People need to move away from blind tradition, look at all major religions that have survived more than a few centuries, and ask exactly why they have been successful in surviving. When it comes to the actual teachings, effort need to be applied to understand the meaning of those teachings in practical real world terms. That means not just explaining 'sin' in terms of 'disobedience' to 'God' without also fully explaining what 'sin', 'disobedience to God' and 'God' mean in real world practical terms, and why, say, 'sin' in then a problem. Too many people leave these words as poorly defined abstract jargon, and end up doing the eight-year-old English lesson thing of just formally rearranging the words according to rules of grammar.
For a mundane example:
There is a cat called Gerald, who has pink fur.
What colour is the fur of the cat?
The colour of the cat's fur is pink.
What is the name of the cat with pink fur?
The name of the cat with pink fur is Gerald.
Now look at some Biblish:
Sin is the result of our disobedience to God. We need Jesus because he died for our sins.
What did Jesus die for?
Jesus died for our sins.
What are our sins?
Our sins are the result of our disobedience to God.
Why are our sins a problem?
Because... because... erm... because they are the result of our disobedience to God, and that's clearly a bad thing.
And that's kind of where such discussions go downhill. The above discussion is an illustration of what happens when genuine understanding is absent, and this is all too often the case, especially amongst members of the religious establishments we have today. On the other hand, just doing the atheist thing often falls into the same traps, but beginning from a different set of basic sentences (there is probably no God; science can explain everything; what is the scientific evidence for the efficacy of prayer). Without fully exploring what meaning can be recovered from ancient teachings given suitable interpretation (and this ultimately must be done by first exhibiting real world practical scenarios where the meaning can be seen at work) we can neither hold them up as truth, nor dismiss them as backward fairytales. Unfortunately the masses are generally doing one or the other.
John_Chalisque
I'm not sure how many years ago it was, but I thought Christianity was rising in the USA (I even think it was a news in /.).
Either way it's good news. I prefer my superpowers secular.
Elok
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.
http://saveie6.com/
Even if people aren't following traditional religions, they're still adhering to ideologies that share many of the same traits as religion.
"Social Justice" is a superb example. It rallies its believers around the notion that everybody is equal, but some people (such as feminists, homosexuals, and transsexuals) are far more equal than everyone else.
Much like religion, "Social Justice" brings out inane, anti-social behavior in many of its adherents. This often shows itself as extreme hypocrisy, for example. Take the case of bullying. While decrying bullying as being awful, we see "Social Justice" followers target and harass alleged "bullies" with more zeal and hatred (also known as bullying) than the bullies themselves could ever manage to deliver.
Religions don't have to be hundreds or thousands of years old. Religions don't have to involve worshipping some sky deity. The religious mindset and behavior can very easily work with flawed, hypocritical concepts of "justice" to create modern religions like "Social Justice" that are far more harmful in practice than traditional religions were.
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.
Today:
Evolutionary biology presents a rational basis for human origin, morality and social structure.
In a couple of centuries:
The great prophet Dawkins, who testified to the truths of our Messiah Darwin, receiving this truth in a series of dreams revealed to him at the great fountain of knowledge by the celestial quantum being called Oxford, tells us that we must cleanse the earth of this scourge called 'rational thinking'. As a ruler with lineage traceable back to the great Dawkins, I command you all to destroy those who are not like us and give me all your money.
Wash and repeat.
Why do we have religion?
Religion is natural reaction to our fear of dying. Until we find a way to make us immortal on earth, there will always be belief in the afterlife.
And religion has benefits to people, like giving them a meaning of life or relaxing them from the dear of dying. So although religion can caused bad things it is only the radical that do so. To most people, religion or no religion, makes no difference except in their personal lives.
And because of it's role in evolution (preventing us from fearing death and allowing us to live without worry of dying) religion will persist forever. Every animal with sufficient intelligent develops it. Elephants and apes have basic behaviours that show they have basic belief in the afterlife, like bury their dead or remember ancestors.
Hopefully the radical like ISIS will go away though. They do us no good.
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
Sad to see. Christians made America the glory that it is. Non-Christians are destroying it.
Religion is essentially "I believe in a sky daddy because I'm ignorant of science."
Theology is even worse, take Islam:
"Hi, I'm Muhammad, I can't write, read or preform simple math. I'm totally illiterate, have epilepsy, like to wear diapers on my head and ride unicorns. Let me tell you about Islam where women are objects, female children, much like Christianity, are rape objects and science must be outlawed at all costs, oh and don't think about drawing a picture of me, or someone could kill you"
Christianity:
"Hi, I'm God, I'm a piss poor engineer who has anger issue and love S&M. I put two or one person in a garden, they had children who killed each other, I allowed incest, rape, murder and slavery. I got really pissed off twice, once I wiped out humanity using a fable which no ration human could believe. I then sent my son to die in the greatest sadomasochist grandstanding in history for being mad at my self, oh and remember to give all your money to the church, because I can't and won't ever show myself or preform miracles."
Mormonism is to stupid to even comment on and the same can be done for ALL religions.
So it's a good thing religious belief is falling, it made no sense back in the day and less sense now. You can't call yourself a logical adult human and believe that your sky daddy created the universe and left no evidence, that isn't rational.
Ever Played "Telephone" as a kid?
That is what has happened with "holy writings" over the centuries. What we are left with is less than hearsay - completely bogus - IMHO. There are so many inconsistencies that religious people easily disregard. The input, if ever truth, which I doubt, has been lost over the ages.
Then there is the argument as to which is more likely
a) never ending, all powerful being who cares anything about humans
or
b) powerful beings made up to scare ignorant humans and to keep them in line.
I know which I think is more likely - neither.
My god is gravity. He exists. I can test that he works the same almost everywhere I can go or will ever go. He is all powerful to everyone else too. My god controls the universe, galaxy, planets, birds, bees, flowers, trees. Nothing would live without my god.
So - when any other imaginary being can touch the things MY god does today, everyday, always, then we can talk.
Gosh! Imagine how low it would be if the Catholic church wasn't helping so many of their patrons illegally immigrate into the U.S.
I think over time religiosity will die out, and that will be a good thing for humanity in the long run.
Thing is you can gradually and subtly shift the balance through education (more education is correlated with being less religious), and exposure to other viewpoints, but if you just up and attack people's religions they get defensive and entrench themselves because they are under attack. So it's best just to let this happen in due time, which means multiple generations. We're seeing the beginnings of this process now in the US, and other countries such as some places in Europe are further down this road.
I was surprised to see that all double blind tests are now showing liberals as more racist than conservatives. The average liberal now has a default "affirmative action" position and is racist against white people. This has been confirmed over and over again in studies, one even showed that liberals are far more likely to sacrifice a white person to save multiple black people than they are the other way around. So we gave truely crossed into delusional type unlogical thinking in politics as well.
And porn consumption is on the rise, Kristen Schaal worries that women are gonna date guys without faces (i.e. they will fall in love with the appearance of their penis, not their face), and the last catholic nun devoting her life to the service of others and self denial took up nun hood sometimes in the mid 90's in the US. Your kids are not gonna comprehend what mother Theresa was about, nor will they know what it's like to get whooped with a stick by nuns in a catholic school, because there will be no nuns around, all convents are gonna shut down, like churches later, and your great grandkids are not gonna know what it's like to get married in church, or more like what it's like to get married at all, it's all gonna be booty booty booty rockin everywhere party time and a bunch of baby mommas supported by the welfare machine fueled by ever increasing taxes until the whole system collapses under the burden and starvation begins. And then those kids will make it without starving to death whose parents stick together, i.e.marriage will come back into vogue, and good ethical behavior too codified as religion, because thats what will make the difference whether a tribe or clan starves and disintegrates, or makes it to the next decade, it's all gonna come down to internal proper behaviourvand lack of corruption, usually codified as religion. In about 200 years. Lots of downhill until then, and easy life, for a while.
:)
maybe the relig-a-phobes will calm down now.
Turn on the evening news tonight. Tell me how many stories you hear that at their core is some form of religious fighting or tribal bigotry. Israel/Palestine. Shiite/Sunni. Most acts of terrorism. Gay bashing. Anti-abortion protests. So called religious restoration acts (actually bigotry in disguise). Child abuse by priests. Oppression of women. It goes on and on. Tribal warfare, bigotry, hatred. While you don't need religion for these things, there can be no argument that religion frequently exaggerates these conflicts.
Would you be comfortable around a group of people who greatly outnumber you and who base a big part of their world view on something so fundamentally irrational and tribal and many of whom have a demonstrated propensity for violence?
From the summary "Americans identifying as Christian dropped from 78.4% in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014"
Why the fuck are they acting like an oppressed minority fearing that muslems and athiests are making their lives impossible?
Rich, decadent countries always face a decline in their traditional religion. On an international level, the picture is quite different with Islam and Christianity rapidly gaining adherents throughout the developing world.
This isn't the first time that the public started moving away from Christianity. Reports from the time before the black plague spoke of the irreligiosity of the average person and there were similar events in the 5th and 6th century. When the US's foreign policy and economic chickens come home to roost, I suspect you'll see a lot of people turning back to religion instead of consumerism for meaning in their lives.
-1 Troll
Fun to see people pop up with the predictable, "science is winning" comments, but of course the science-religion boundary is only a small part of the story, and really not the most interesting to people who are inquisitive.
A much more intriguing line of query involves religion re public and individual liberty, welfare, and pursuit of happiness.
That is, thoughtful people will ask if this news helps or hurts people overall.
Thoughtful people would, of course, never use a phrase like 'religious wacko', idiot, etc, so, alas, this thread will see little deep inquiry.
If there are a few of you, here, you may be interested in this: lack of religion in the us is strongly correlated with poverty; economic mobility (escaping poverty, "climbing the economic ladder", achieving the "American dream") strongly correlates with religious affiliation.
And, historically, religious organizations have been at the forefront of most social change, education and the civil rights movement among them.
Wow, these stats mean that 'ebonics' and 'no child left behind', are actually working.
Watch out, the ATHEISTS are coming! They're coming for your children, to indoctrinate them with logic and critical thinking skills. Younger ones WILL BE EATEN!
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.
I would be far more likely to be swayed by your argument if you were to show / link / discuss any actual "double-blind tests now showing liberals as more racist than conservatives", Please show me how average liberals are racist against white people, especially 'over and over'. There are kooks everywhere, I know, but claiming massive one-sidedness doesn't work with some sort of evidence by a researcher.
Well it's rather racist to believe that brown people can't take care of themselves and must be protected from the evil white men.
Here are Gallup's historical trends up to 2013. Some things to note:
1. The % of those who say religion is a "very important" part of their life has remained roughly constant.
2. The % of those who says religion is only a "fairly important" part of their life has showed more consistent decline.
3. The % of "nones" seems to be mostly cannibalizing from the "fairly important" group, who are essentially nominal believers. The % of people who are "devout" seems to be more-or-less holding its own.
4. The % of people who claim to have attended church or synagogue in the last 7 days has remained roughly constant.
5. The % of people who self-identify as "evangelical or born-again Christians" has remained roughly constant (except for an elevated plateau from 1998 to 2002).
6. The % who self-identify as "evangelical or born-again" is actually higher (40%) in 2013 than it was in 1992 (36%).
While it'd be fun to take out the atheist triumphalism drum, it's worth noting that the thing being measured is religious affiliation not 'theological position' or 'amount of magical thinking done per day', or 'even the vaguest knowledge of how empiricism works'.
Religious affiliation is quite significant, of course, it's obviously notable that substantially more people both can't be bothered to get their ass out of bed on Sunday morning and are willing to admit that they have no formal affiliation(historically, at least in the US, you might not actually attend all that often, or pay that much attention; but denying association was somewhat transgressive). It's also significant for the hopes of various religious groups to exercise political power through organized bloc voting (the 'moral majority', not that it was ever either, sure isn't going to be done any good by the evangelical protestant numbers, nor is the ability of bishops to bluster during election season going to improve with those catholic numbers.
However, it's by no means the case that religious non-affiliation is necessarily anything other than pure disinterest, or vague belief in supernatural entities(probably shaped by a layman-level understanding of whatever your parents nominally believed, with any overtly objectionable parts left on the cutting room floor). There may also be a story about atheism here; but that isn't really the poll result.
In that sense, the results aren't really too surprising: the liberal protestant and 'cafeteria catholic' congregations have been working their way toward being increasingly irrelevant social activities for years to decades now; some nice people and all that; but pretty light on religion, which meant that they drifted into direct competition with any and all other activities you do with other people, without being obviously more entertaining, conveniently scheduled, or otherwise competitive.
The more conservative groups tended to retain the religiosity a bit more intensely; but they really got burned by their flirtation with state power(let's say roughly Reagan through Bush II in round numbers). They did get some of what they wanted, though not enough to prevent disappointment; but they burned a lot of religious legitimacy in the process. Remember that jewish radical who said that his kingdom was not of this world? Well, it'd be hard to argue that the evangelical power-brokers hanging out at the 'National Prayer Breakfast' and trying to get Washington to do something about homos and abortionists do. Even if your beliefs are fairly strong, and largely 'Christian' in outline, it's hard to avoid seeing the liberal wing of Christianity as increasingly wishy-washy and irrelevant, certainly not worth going to church with; and the conservative wing as dangerously unfocused on the kingdom of god in favor of trying to achieve local political gains.
How many people have faith in something as abstract string theory and mock another for belief in anything they classify as religion? How many people will say that extraterrestrial life exists with 100% certainty without an iota of evidence of that fact? I think some people should check that shit, pronto, before they start feeling intellectually superior.
finally we will be left with only true Beatlemania!
The Fabulous Four be praised.
I don't think we need to perform formal studies here. The evidence is right in front of us.
Look at the response to the Michael Brown case as an example. Most self-described social justice advocates immediately ran to his defence, proclaiming him to be "innocent" and a "victim of racism and police brutality", just because he was black and the officer involved was white.
But then the evidence and the facts of the case came out. Video footage was released, showing that Brown did in fact attack a store cashier just minutes before his confrontation with the police. Later on the grand jury findings were presented. The evidence here yet again showed that Brown attacked the police officer once while the officer was still in his vehicle, with Brown trying to take the officer's weapon. And yet more evidence showed that Brown was in the process of charging at the officer, thus putting the officer's life in extreme danger, when the officer fired the fatal shots in self defence.
The facts paint a very, very different picture from what the social justice advocates were claiming. Instead of looking at the facts, they allowed their racism toward whites to overwhelm their judgment. The reality was completely different from what they claimed. Brown was not innocent; he had clearly engaged in violent and harmful activities prior to and during his shooting. Furthermore, the officer did not shoot Brown because Brown had brown skin; the officer shot Brown because Brown was in the process of bringing physical harm to the officer. Racism was not the cause of the shooting, and it was not a case of police brutality.
Even now, we see social justice advocates who refuse to accept the reality of the situation. They exhibit hallmark traits of religious behavior, including an inability to consider facts over their own (wrong and unsubstantiated) beliefs.
There is plenty of that still around.
Take climate scientists for example.
Please.
(Sorry couldn;t resist.)
It is unfortunate that the percentage in the US is going down.
At it's best, religion here has been a unifying force for good.
Unfortunately, it does not seem to be at it's best often enough.
Perhaps the current decline is because folks have so many other things to do?
Some good news for a change.
people will really only subscribe to the gods of War and Money.
Because superstition has no place in the modern world.
Are you claiming nothing bad has ever been done in the name of science?
I'm not aware of any wars or acts of genocide that have been conducted in the name of science. Of course I didn't bring science up at all so that's kind of irrelevant.
If you tried, could you find good things done in the name of religion?
Sure but almost always with disingenuous motivations usually related to marketing. Incredible amounts of charity work has been done by religious organizations. But this work is done at the end of the day as a marketing effort. Offering a hot meal to someone who is hungry is wonderful. Offering a hot meal and a bible is no longer charity - it is marketing. Doing a work of art celebrating something you personally believe in is fine. Putting it in a church to impress the public is marketing.
So yes I can find good works done in the name of religion but I have a much harder time finding good works done in the name of religion that lack ulterior motives. Good works done under false pretenses loses some of their luster.
... on the great contributions of atheists to society.
Little things like feeding the hungry, opening hospitals, composing timeless music, etc.
So, I see you carefully draw boundaries around the amount of good done to support your point.
Not drawing any boundaries around the amount of good. Their actions stand alone and speak for themselves. I'm merely pointing out that in many cases their charitable acts come with strings attached. Feeding the hungry is not the same act as feeding the hungry while proselytizing to them.
Take religion out of it altogether. Would you trust a for-profit company to be charitable without any ulterior motivations? I wouldn't. Nor would I trust a religious organization for the same reasons. Doesn't mean their actions are bad but they aren't entirely trustworthy either.
But you are assuming that wars 'in the name of religion' would not have happened regardless of religion, while history shows that wars are not a religious based phenomena of society.
"Wars are not a religious based phenomena"? Bullshit. There are countless wars that have been started in whole or in part based on religious dogma and tribalism. They are so numerous it's basically pointless to enumerate them. Religion is not the only reason wars are started but it's one of the most common ones. Religious conflicts are basically tribal wars with the tribes being the followers.
I also see you conveniently dismiss the good that religious people do, while not dismissing the bad. Its nice to rationalize that away despite the facts.
I don't dismiss it, I just recognize that the motives are not always pure. A good work done for marketing is still a good work (usually). But it would be a better work if it were done simply because it was a good work without any ulterior motives. The same would apply if it were done by a secular organization. A company that does charity for marketing purposes still is doing charity but it's not wholesome in the same way it would be if they didn't try to benefit themselves in the process.
Maybe if people didn't assume religion is a root cause, but rather a symptom or tool, we'd deal with it better.
Oh religion is a symptom of a problem. It's a symptom of human insecurity, tribalism, and gullibility among other things. Organized religion is a means for some people to control and gain power over others. Thought I had made that clear but if I hadn't, my bad. Religion is a definitely a symptom of deeper problems in the human psyche but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem itself.
"Bush: No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
The language of the GP was inflamatory.... But keep in mind we were deep throated during the last decades with scores of politician calling us second class citizen, or worst. See also scalia's 2014 speech in university of colorado's christian university.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
it's not going down, it's going under. History repeating. Good Luck!
That about sums up religion now. They go to church for one hour per week to be a good christian/jew/muslim/whatever, but the rest of the time are total dirtbags. Why do you bother going to Sunday services if you don't practice what is preached? You're only fooling yourself. I don't go to services because I don't need to confess all the sins I've made, because I haven't made any. I laugh at the jerks that go to church but sin the rest of the time with no remorse.
My girlfriend and I were wondering who exactly the Holy Ghost is. I mean, it's not God, and not his son Jesus, so who the fuck is it? I decided it was God's imaginary friend.
Look at it yourself before moderating me down: http://www.pewforum.org/religi...
How do you atheists geniuses deal with all the prophecy from the bible coming true around you?
23 down, 77 to go
Reduction in religious belief doesn't make the part of the population susceptible to it more intelligent, more educated, or less credulous. They'll just have their beliefs captured by the next charismatic demagogue that comes along.
Or rather, thank God. Thank your fucking Gawd, whoever she / he / it may be. Maybe the US, one day, will even be a sane country, with presidents that are not re-born evangelicals, and where religion is not a required ingredient of the political game.
I was surprised to see that all double blind tests are now showing liberals as more racist than conservatives.
There's no evidence, but it's a statistical fact that people who despise liberals are 573% more likely to invent studies than other people.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Elephants may not be used to plow cotton fields. While having sex, you must stay in the missionary position and have the shades pulled. If a man and a woman who aren’t married go to a hotel/motel and register themselves as married then, according to state law, they are legally married. Persons in possession of illegal substances must pay taxes on them. A three dollar tax must be paid on all white goods sold. Organizations may not hold their meetings while the members present are in costume. Bingo games may not last over 5 hours unless it is held at a fair. Serving alcohol at a bingo game is not allowed. All from North Carolina http://www.dumblaws.com/
At that point, you might as well argue that Marxism, free-market capitalism, and militant atheism are also religions.
If one of them (religions) was right, they would have won by now!!
I wonder what the numbers would be if "Progressivism" were also counted as a religion, rather than JUST a philosophy or political affilication? B-)
Think about it: It claims to prescribe what behavior is good or bad, generally expects its adherents to take its pronouncements on faith, and has a lot to say against various religions - just like ("other") competing religions do to their opponents.
I could go on with the similarities. But since they include suppression of competing ideas by pretty much any available mechanism (including arbitrary down-moderation, personal attacks, and flame wars), I'd prefer to keep the discussion light.
They're not alone in this, either. (c.f. any of several political philosophies, right, left, libertarian, authoritarian, moderate, ...) But they're my current candidate for the largest not-advertised-as-religion-religion at the moment. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This study is one small indication for why I argue against those who claim that the country has shifted right - when popular media itself, as a reflection of society, indicates the opposite. At least in terms of religion, this study suggests.. well, I'm not sure it suggests a move left, but it sure doesn't suggest a move to the right. I think those who are fanatically religious are just more shrill than they used to be and stand out more.
As an agnostic, I think this study is a good sign. Religion and government do not make good bedfellows. Religion should be a personal thing if anything. I'm wary of large, organized religion particularly.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Hard-core believers of anything are a problem and they will kill/maim/terrorize because only they know what is right. It could be any cause, like breast feeding, and some morons will take it too far. My sister-in-law was getting phone calls from breast feeding loonies because her body wasn't capable of producing freaking milk.
I've seen anti-war demonstrators beat the shit out of a soldier. What kind of insanity is that?
Damn, I can't give you mod points, but you nailed it. An awful lot of the poeple out there decrying "haters" seem more hate-filled than anyone else, they can't seem to differentiate between hate and basic disagreement with their SJW views.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Humans make decision based on emotion and then try to rationalize those decisions. Religion is a great way to rationalize doing all sorts of things But even if there were no religion, people would find other ways to rationalize whatever they do (including wars, genocide, etc.). Speaking as a non-religious person, I think religion takes some criticism which should more likely be directed at faulty human nature.
You should find a country founded on atheism to test your theory in...
I'll wait while you find a country founded on atheism. Good luck with that.
Mostly the comments here are from people who are butt-hurt because christians don't approve of their life style. This leads to some weird fixation where atheists are really focused on christianity, almost more so than most christians.
The less people believe in their imaginary sky fairies the better... better for science and rational policy making as well.
Plus, I'm kind of pulling for The Flying Spaghetti Monster... cause HE IS the real deal you know...
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
I had to take a double take as I first read the summary title as "Religious Affliction Shrinking In the US".
The World Ends Tomorrow and YOU MAY DIE!
"Bob" has all the answers to questions you never even thought to ask!
THE CONSPIRACY!
The idea that America (or any country) values individuality as the highest ideal is a myth. Perhaps in simpler times it was true, but no MODERN industrial society can really afford a population of unpredictables. This is not surprising -- the long history of our cult's persecution by the Conspiracy goes back for generations untold, and indeed there are signs of their hoary repression of prehuman SubGenii dating from BEFORE "man's" appearance on Earth. All of civilization's painful and misguided climb up from the primeval slime, and its subsequent loss of Slack AND OF ANY CLASS AT ALL, has been indelibly marked, nay, ENTIRELY MOTIVATED, by the aeons- bridging conflict between the Conspiracy's mindlessly chickenshit Witless Principals and the Jehovah-spawned, grandiose depravity of the superior yet ethnically all-encompassing race of latent SubGeniuses. (You should know this -- YOU WERE/WILL BE THERE IN THE BEFORELIFE!) The fact that only in recent years has "our kind" begun to recognize our own sovereignty demonstrates both how vicious have been Their efforts at further denying us Slack and yet now near is our race to TRIUMPH.
All this is ULTIMATE PROOF that Jehovah 1 has not only promoted the SubGenius as His Special Tool, but has SIMULTANEOUSLY pulled the strings which make THEM endarken Themselves with their hereditary ignorance AND US with their cubistic witch-hunt superstitions. His "reason" for this two-faced obedience-school programming, this fissioning of history into binary "war equations," unfortunately, or, perhaps, thankfully, remains at total mystery.
But Jehovah 1 is not alone in His cosmic meddling, for Earth has been periodically visited for thousands of years by BENEVOLENT ALIENS of such technical and psychic superiority that their powers, while no match for Jehovah's, are nonetheless nothing short of "Godlike" to we roaches, the Human Race. These BENIGN SPACE MONSTERS, the "X-ists," have walked among us throughout history, investigating and sometimes resisting the subatomically-pervading presence of Jehovah 1. We are not, then, alone in our battle/subservience. The rise and "fall" of Atlantis, the erection of the Pyramids and other monuments which NO SLOPEHEADS ALONE COULD BUILD, the miracles of the Old Testament, all these and more are events so inextricably interwoven with the invisible background war between Jehovah and the Xists that all the "Ancient Astronaut" fossils in the world furnish only the barest of clues. (The movie rights ALONE to these gut-splitting tales of reincarnancient history are worth MILLIONS!) Yea, it has even been suggested that the Carpenter of Nazareth himself, God Jr., Jesus 'What, Me Worry?' Christ, was in actuality a 'space detective' of the Xists, walking the Earth in human form with the mission of extricating us from the Monster God's grip.
The black shadow of the Conspiracy, unfortunately, has seen to it that even His teachings were diluted and distorted until human attempts to follow them were fully as misguided as the carving of the heads of Easter Island or the 'runways' of Nazca.
And so the true history of the SubGenius has been kept secret from Man. For Jehovah 1 is to the Xists and Us what a hungry fisherman is to a prize fish and his favorite pet worm - the last in the can. How many million other races were used before us in these ghastly galactic water-sports?
UNTIL NOW!!
For YOU are lucky enough to "live" in the End Times when the Word of Jehovah's Prime Ordinance has been made known to "Man"kind by the Primanimal SubGenius, the High Epopt of the Church!
In the early Fifties an industrious young American drilling equipment salesman, while watching late-night TV, was abruptly REMOVED and transported astrally to the 'IDGE' of JEHOVAH 1 HIMSELF! In this s
People voting to rob other people at gun-point (which is how taxes are collected) to pay for something, they themselves consider worthwhile are not "charitable" and driven not by ethics, but by simple greed: "I want a better road, I can not pay for it — ergo, I'll vote for forcing others to pay it for instead." It is so blatant, whenever a poor person speaks out against such "spreading the wealth around", he is accosted as "an idiot" acting against "his own interests". These arguments and accusations are proof, that the accusers' own motivation is not ethical, but egoistic, greed and envy — and that they are stupefied to find somebody else not sharing them.
Whereas the "grabbing whatever you can get" Republicans are happy to limit the "grabbing", to what's rightfully theirs, Illiberals aren't satisfied with such restrictions...
Your generalized hand-waving in support of this conclusion hereby destroyed, do you have anything better to offer as evidence?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I wouldn't be sure that the numbers are correct.
Here in the UK 59% of the population claimed to be Christian in the 2011 census. However attendance at churches of all varieties runs to about 6% of the population. So what happened to the other 53%, are they really Christian or merely putting themselves down as Christian because it sounds better?
One thing that has been reported in the past is that while 40% of the population of the States reports that they attend services each week. However when actual counts are taken the figure is only about 20%
Conclusion? The 77% might be overselling the number of people who are actually Christian compared to being cultural Christians.
but.. bu...t but....what about the american Jesus - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12kcpP-8jfM ????
1) the quote was never disputed by the WH, the staff at the epoch or bush himself. In fact if you read what rob sherman reported afterward instead of deniying the WH tries to justify that what Bush said won't affect policy. They would not state that if it was a false quote.
2) it is typical of the christian conservative of the epoch to think something similar
3) it is a step up from the definition of atheist as "wicked , godless" the albeit archeic but previous definition.
Frankly it would have been easy to debunk this from the WH. But they always avoided to even take a stance or denie it. As for the point of the other journalist not hearing it, how many of them simply dismissed it as a campaign wink at his conservative base ? And simply did not see it as news ? Heck if you do not pay too much attention all you get is "we are christian nation blah blah one nation under gods - OK not reporting worth he is pandering". The atheist things could have been misheard by Sherman , but Bush and co never denied having said this. in fact IIRC later he said in 2004 something similar in the imius morning radio show about the elligibility of an atheist.
So suck it troll.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
when you base your dogma upon worship, fear, and ideology. Not reality. Modern day Christianity is mostly the polar opposite of the things That Jesus taught - note that most religious leaders are very fond of quoting the old testament, and saying "God says". When a religion becomes primarily a social self reinforcing group based upon a set of rules, then it is doomed from the beginning to fail.
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
"Belief", aka "Faith" is based upon ideology, ie a set of rules imposed by those who determine who is in and who is out of the religion. Spirituality, however, is based upon one person's relationship with their existence, and a search for meaning and commonality.
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
You don't. You're making that claim up.
Religion has been on a slow decline in the US for decades now. It was probably on the rise back in the 50's or somewhere thereabouts, but not recently.
Perhaps rational thought will indeed become common place...
Religious Affiliation Shrinking In the US? Thank god!
I think it was a few years after 9/11 while Bush was still in power. I remember because it hit me that, unlike all other developped country, the religion was rising and atheism was shrinking in the US.
Elok
Fortunately, I don't think so. Religious people got a lot louder, and became stronger in politics (this article, for example, claims that politics became much more Christianity-infused after 9/11). But in terms of population number I don't think they ever increased by a measurable amount.
If you can find a source that proves me wrong, I'd be interested to read it, though.
It may suggest a move toward freedom, as belief in god is one form of tyranny over the minds of men. Whether freedom is well-correlated with conservatism is open to debate, but freedom is not in the realm of the left.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Yeah I've done some little research but couldn't find anything so I guess you're right. It must have been something else religion-related that was rising.
Elok
There, found an article that show that you were right (and wasn't completly wrong).
http://tobingrant.religionnews.com/2015/03/12/7-5-million-people-left-religion-since-2012-three-graphs-latest-general-social-survey/
According to this article, we can see a slight drop after 2001 but the trend is clearly rising. Good.
Elok
The article seems to be focused on the number of people affiliated with christianity and not religion in general.
Just because you choose to not affiliate yourself with organized religion doesn't mean that you don't believe in a supreme being. Christian religious organizations have meddled too much in politics and they are losing people because of it. The statistics just confirm what everyone already knows.
I'm not entirely fluent, but your translation is a little weird.
Grim god, cold God, God with a book of entries and exits, like a jailer, etc.
Poetic phrasing is hard. "exits" is not being used as a verb, is what I'm trying to clarify. Also note that the use of "tu" could be considered somewhat rude. Also note that "Dios frio" is probably a pun on "Dios mio".
Not many adults will claim to still have a persistent belief in Santa Claus, of which they were taught to believe in at an early age. Upon approaching maturity, it becomes obvious that this belief is absurd; it isn't big enough of a lie to withstand inspection.
Somehow the other invisible yet omniscient being that rewards or punishes behavior remains perfectly reasonable. Instead of mere trinkets once a year, the promised reward for good behavior is upgraded to blissful non corporeal existence for eternity upon death. Elves become angels and a scapegoat villain is added. Most importantly, certain men (and now women) are now able to claim to be Supreme Being's direct representative.
It just amazes me how that works.
All I can say about people moving away from religion, or an affiliation with them - too many religions and churches are like clubs, with members who use that club to beat up on people who do not believe in their religion, or go to their church. Why would anyone want to belong to such a a group or organization that demeans and threatens people with hell and damnation?..
You and your pink cats really need to get some science. No STD is curable. If you become infected, even if the infection is eliminated, you will still be permanently maimed by the damage it has done.
Though, entertainingly, PP is close to the mark - and then he goes on the whole "Christians are being persecuted" tangent which is pure nonsense.
But he got the opening line right:
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.
Which again proves that the truth is subversive.
Yes, we do live in a world of empiricism - because that's how the world is, whether we like it or not.
And such world will always put concepts of faith and religion under pressure. Just like it puts everything else under pressure.
It's only that PP finds the reality expressed in that sentence threatening.
I'll digress for a moment... I want to show a familiar example to point out something.
Remember how in "Godfather 2", Fredo tells Michael's son, Anthony, about a "secret" for catching fish?
How he'd always say a "Hail Mary" when throwing the line and he, out of all the kids, would catch the most fish.
Then later, we see him still doing that just before he gets "taken out" by Michael's assassin, Neri. SPOILERS!
Now, that's a '70s movie, done by a Catholic. Not very "observant" as he puts it himself, but still very "religious".
So, that is not "Fredo the idiot" - that is "Fredo the unloved child, becoming a traitor out of unrequited love and childlike innocence". And John Cazale pulled that off perfectly.
Today, that SAME character would be someone with mental issues.
Someone who does not understand the world around him, with that story hinting not at his childlike innocence but at his childlike mental capacities.
That's the '70s.
Showing that by then even for a religious Catholic director something like saying a prayer before every action that you feel is up to chance is something that only a child or someone as innocent as child might do.
An adult doing that... That's someone who's a bit iffy. One way or the other.
Cause Fredo sure as hell has issues. He's not an idiot... but he has emotional issues written all over him.
Compare that to Barry Pepper's Private Jackson in "Saving Private Ryan", praying for "true aim" and "victory in battle".
Which feels completely in character AND not disparaging at all. It feels like something that a young man might do in the war, during 1940s.
And nobody invented that prayer - he's quoting Psalms.
Which are basically a collection of ready-made prayers for various "troubles" one might find themselves in, and for saying "thanks god" for being delivered from them.
There are like 150 specific ways to cry "HELP GOD!" and to say "Thanks god!" just there.
Same thing with all those saints, protectors and patrons of this and that, and their corresponding amulets.
Or with all those relics of various saints, apostles, pieces of "true cross" etc.
Or with all the gods in Hinduism, or all the kami in Shintoism.
For everything out there that may harm or benefit one's existence and/or circumstances - there is a prayer, an amulet, a saint, a kami, a god...
But none of them deal with empirically provable aspects of the thing they are supposed to be influencing.
There is no "make sure that fire has flames" god or amulets - though there are dozens of fire-gods.
Or a kami you could pray to "to make water wet". Though there is a water kami.
Or an amulet with a saint whose job it was to make sure that apples are apples and not oranges. Though there is a saint of apple orchards - St. Charles Borromeo.
There is even a "fear of mice" saint - St. Gertrude of Nivelles.
Because, when you DON'T LIVE IN AN EMPIRICAL WORLD, when you live instead in a "Demon Haunted World" - you need a protector, an amulet, a prayer for everything.
Whatever it is you're not certain of, be it fish biting on a particular day or bullets hitting their target - just use the right amulet or prayer and shift odds in your favor.
If
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
They were told off for leaving some of the people alive when they took the city, according to one of the fights in the OT. They were PUNISHED for not killing the innocent, children and animals.
Unless you're claiming your bible is fiction, it's 100% happened in your religion.
Therefore I know who is here. Me. No god is here. Not a single one.
"Denying a God isn't as easy as saying: you claim this, therefore you have the burden of proof and hence it is your liability to prove it." Yes it is.
Because if not, then my claim is there is no god and I don't have to have any burden of proof behind my claim that there is no such thing as God.
If you want me to prove there is no god, then you're doing what you claim I cannot do with your god claim.
If you don't want the burden of proof to prove ME wrong in my anti-deity claims, then we're back to you having to prove your claim, which you haven't even started.
You can only "prove" god exists by presuming he exists. Just like every other faked story in the universe.
If god is bigger than the universe, then so what? It would require
a) he exists,not yet proven.
b) and is bigger than the universe.
Well, that's two things you have to prove, now. Worse
c) you have to prove that him being bigger than the universe means he could not be proven not to exist
which 100% does not follow on from your assertion.
It's amusing to watch faithiest fundamentalists flail about presuming there IS a god, therefore saying that proves there's a god.
Never works.
Never stops them trying. Because insanity is like that.
"Greater things shall ye do."
"Identifying as" "Describing themselves as". It's not like these people used to spend Sundays in church, and study the Bible, and memorize the Gospels, and have long family discussions about Christ and Christianity, but now they're stopped. It's just that it was very unfashionable in most of the US a while back to not say you're a Christian; and less unfashionable now.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I was surprised to see that all double blind tests are now showing liberals as more racist than conservatives. The average liberal now has a default "affirmative action" position and is racist against white people. This has been confirmed over and over again in studies, one even showed that liberals are far more likely to sacrifice a white person to save multiple black people than they are the other way around. So we gave truely crossed into delusional type unlogical thinking in politics as well.
Let's see now, where's the pony inside this pile...
"Overall, Republicans are slightly more likely to assess blacks unfavorably on these dimensions. For example, 39% of Republicans place blacks on the “lazy” side of the scale, while 31% of Democrats do. But by and large, Tabarrok is quite correct: both parties include substantial fractions willing to stereotype blacks unfavorably....This graph shows that identification with the Democratic Party tends to decline, and identification with the Republican party tends to increase, as attitudes toward black become less favorable—at least when attitudes are measured with two different racial stereotypes." http://themonkeycage.org/2012/...
"We examined the relation between political ideology and racial categorization. People categorized morphed faces that ranged from 100% Black to 100% White. Conservatism (vs. liberalism) was associated with the tendency to categorize racially ambiguous faces as Black. Relation between ideology and categorization was mediated by opposition to equality. This research helps to explain the ideological underpinnings of hypodescent." http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...
" in Studies 1a and 1b we found that liberals were less willing to endorse the killing of an innocent person on consequentialist grounds when the name of the individual suggested he was Black than when it suggested he was White. Study 2 demonstrated that liberals’ biased application of moral principles, when made salient in a within-subjects design, was eliminated. When given both the Chip and Tyrone scenarios, participants were strikingly consistent in their use of consequentialist or deontological principles, such that their responses on the second scenario almost always mirrored those in the first. This suggests that participants explicitly believed that the principles they were invoking were general enough to apply regardless of the victim’s race. In Study 3 we found that conservatives were more likely to condone the killing of innocent civilians in a military attack when those civilians were Iraqis killed by Americans rather than Americans killed by Iraqis, while liberals did not demonstrate such a flexible set of responses. Finally, in Study 4 we primed participants with either patriotism or multiculturalism, and found that, analogous to the effects on self-reported political ideology in Study 4, participants primed with patriotism (compared to those primed with multiculturalism) were more likely to accept collateral damage when Iraqi civilians were killed by American forces, but not when American civilians were killed by Iraqi forces." http://journal.sjdm.org/9616/j...
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I would be far more likely to be swayed by your argument if you were to show / link / discuss any actual "double-blind tests now showing liberals as more racist than conservatives", Please show me how average liberals are racist against white people, especially 'over and over'. There are kooks everywhere, I know, but claiming massive one-sidedness doesn't work with some sort of evidence by a researcher.
So.... have you never met a rightwinger before?
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Ah. Doesn't sell and be profitable.
Oh, and there are far better ways of undoing the vitamin deficiency (they evolved in the region to adapt to the local foodstuffs, remember, so something changed to make that wrong. Exporting rice. No money to make locally grown food other than rice, ergo nutrition problem).
There ARE good GMO options. Those, though, are like "Farma", where plants are modified to produce chemical products we need. Here's where it gets a pass (somewhat): they aren't grown by the megahectare out in the open, but in a closed area where they won't infect or be infected, won't be predated and won't harm the ecosystem because it's kept outside. Therefore if we discover a problem later (see Thalidomide), we can contain it and undo it.
Even golden rice would, if we found out in 20 years time that it was fucking up the ecosystem (see Bee Colony Collapse) would result in no way of undoing the problem.
But Golden Rice, despite being the poster boy of GMO fluffery, fails because it hasn't been done. Because there's no profit in it, it was a PR stunt pure and simple.
Like moths to a flame.
Moths to a flame.
FWIW, I recall some studies (maybe a decade ago) which suggested that while Christianity was slowly declining in the US, Evangelicals were on the rise, and I think one of those studies may have been on slashdot at some point. Also, not only were Evangelicals increasing as a percentage of US Christians overall, but even increasing relative to the general population. This would accord with my anecdotal observations. Sorry, no links.
- T