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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
 Posted - 10/09/2012 : 11:40:07
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Stright from Salt Lake City, Mormons ground zero, comes some bad news for theists.
| New York • For the first time in its history, the United States does not have a Protestant majority, according to a new study. One reason: The number of Americans with no religious affiliation is on the rise. |
It's official! God's lemmings are disapearing and it's not due to the long over due Rapture. Don't blame God, he's not taking them.
It seems for the time being more theists are giving into reason and shaking off their fear of death and superstituion. A growing number of Theists in the US are less likely to ignore the ever growing mountain of knowledge that keeps filling in the ever decreasing number of gaps of knowledge where manmade Gods and superstitions of all flavors reside. Science and reason is continuing to eliminate the dark recesses of ignorance where God historically lives
Even the History Channel can't credibly deny it.
| ",,,their ties with organized religion are permanently broken." |
Anyone think this is a fluke?
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There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
Edited by - sailingsoul on 10/09/2012 11:43:11
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/09/2012 : 14:03:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by sailingsoul
Science and reason is continuing to eliminate the dark recesses of ignorance where God historically lives |
Be careful about fooling yourself. Plenty of the "No religious affiliation" people are those who are "spiritual," believe in angels, and/or pray every day. I don't know the proportions, but not a few of them are regular god-fearing Christians who are either just fed up with organized religion, or declare themselves to not be "religious" while doing everything that religious people do. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/09/2012 : 14:24:22 [Permalink]
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Yeah, looking at the survey results, we can see that since 2007, white Protestant Evangelicals have lost two percentage points, and the mainstream white Protestants have lost another three. But during the same time-frame, atheists have only gained 0.8%, and agnostics are up 1.2%. It's the "nothing in particular" group that has gained 2.3%. So the real godless gains have just balanced the evangelical losses, but the other losses (mainstream Protestant churches) and the Catholics (down 1%) are being balanced by "nothing in particular" and, more importantly, a two-point jump upwards of "other faiths."
The numbers for minority Protestant churches, the Mormons, the orthodox and the "Don't Knows" are all the same in 2007 and 2012.
(Oh, specifically regarding the increase in "other faiths," if Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists are immigrating to the U.S. in numbers larger than the Evangelical churches are increasing their rolls, you'd see the same effect: the proportion of people professing Evangelicalism would drop, even while the absolute number of their adherents rises. It'd just be rising more slowly than the rate of other faiths moving in. Assuming a steady population when looking at these numbers would be another mistake.)
I'm happy to see the godless numbers rising, but they're not rising by very much. Even if we made the wildly inappropriate assumption that the rate of increase will remain steady in the future, it means the U.S. won't be majority godless for at least another 110 years. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2012 : 05:49:51 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Yeah, looking at the survey results, we can see that since 2007, white Protestant Evangelicals have lost two percentage points, and the mainstream white Protestants have lost another three. But during the same time-frame, atheists have only gained 0.8%, and agnostics are up 1.2%. It's the "nothing in particular" group that has gained 2.3%. So the real godless gains have just balanced the evangelical losses, but the other losses (mainstream Protestant churches) and the Catholics (down 1%) are being balanced by "nothing in particular" and, more importantly, a two-point jump upwards of "other faiths."
The numbers for minority Protestant churches, the Mormons, the orthodox and the "Don't Knows" are all the same in 2007 and 2012.
(Oh, specifically regarding the increase in "other faiths," if Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists are immigrating to the U.S. in numbers larger than the Evangelical churches are increasing their rolls, you'd see the same effect: the proportion of people professing Evangelicalism would drop, even while the absolute number of their adherents rises. It'd just be rising more slowly than the rate of other faiths moving in. Assuming a steady population when looking at these numbers would be another mistake.)
I'm happy to see the godless numbers rising, but they're not rising by very much. Even if we made the wildly inappropriate assumption that the rate of increase will remain steady in the future, it means the U.S. won't be majority godless for at least another 110 years.
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Protestants are also down 100% in the Republican nominee category, first time ever. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2012 : 09:12:01 [Permalink]
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Of course your right Dave. I don't see theists as being a dying breed. Humans are wired to be delusional about one thing or another and for some a lot of things. The best one can do is to be on guard not to feed that monkey to much.
For myself when exchanging beliefs with a theists I always like it when I can honestly answer a question with 'I don't know but I'm not comfortable with accepting a made up answer based on no evidence'. Many times I can see them pause and some times they agree or at least indicate that they understand my position. I'm not expecting to see any of this shift effect my world before I die. |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2012 : 11:57:28 [Permalink]
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I think the news may be better than you think, Dave. At at time when religion is making about as much noise as it ever has in the US, the self-identified non-religious have risen to about 20% of the population. That many of these do not identify as atheists or agnostics is to be expected. Yes, there are "spiritual" people among them, and actually-religious people who are shy of admitting as much. But there must also be many formerly religious people who want to get as far away from their faith as they can, yet either wish to avoid being ostracized for irreligion, and/or wrongly think atheism or agnosticism are necessarily cultish, strident, or otherwise like the churches from which they have fled.
If I'm right about that, I'd predict that the numbers of self-identified atheists and agnostics will increase greatly as the formerly religious begin to understand the terminology.
Years ago I used to tell people that I "wasn't religious," and hardly ever got any flak from people, whereas now I tell them I'm an atheist, and usually get a heated reaction from the faithful. Probably most of the newly irreligious take the same approach as I formerly did, both with their families and acquaintances, and with pollsters. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 10/10/2012 12:53:16 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2012 : 21:54:43 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
I think the news may be better than you think, Dave. At at time when religion is making about as much noise as it ever has in the US, the self-identified non-religious have risen to about 20% of the population. |
No. The 20% figure is for the "non-affiliated", not the non-religious. The atheists and agnostics (those definitely non-religious) make up only 5.7% of the citizenry.
Now, maybe the majority of the other 13.9% of the non-affiliated are just afraid to or shy of coming out of the atheist closet or otherwise don't want to be known as atheists, but in the context of a survey with anonymity, this seems unlikely.
Especially because a full 68% of the non-affiliated "believe in god or universal spirit" with at least some certainty. That's only slightly less than the same proportion of non-affiliated people who don't claim to be atheists or agnostics (71%, a 3% difference). I can easily accept the idea that 0.4% of the population (3% of 13.9%) claims some certainty in god's existence in an anonymous survey due to the factors you suggest, but much more than that and I'd need to see the results of a poll specifically designed to test that question. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 10/11/2012 : 11:51:22 [Permalink]
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Religious leaders respond to the rise of the “Nones”:The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of "The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything"
Sadly, many young people tell me that even if they believe in God, they find organized religion not only boring and irrelevant, but corrupt and offensive. They find houses of worship with uninspired homilies and lousy music, at the same time they're reading about the crimes of sexual abuse and hearing some religious leaders saying hateful things about their gay and lesbian friends. The tragic result is that many young people are completely, and perhaps irrevocably, turned off to organized religion--and worse, to God. As one friend put it, "I didn't fall away from the church; it fell away from me." The Pew survey should be a wake-up call to every religious leader in this country. Hat tip to Mano Singham. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 10/12/2012 : 07:07:33 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Be careful about fooling yourself. Plenty of the "No religious affiliation" people are those who are "spiritual," believe in angels, and/or pray every day. I don't know the proportions, but not a few of them are regular god-fearing Christians who are either just fed up with organized religion, or declare themselves to not be "religious" while doing everything that religious people do.
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I don't believe I'm fooling myself. The points you raise could be absolutely valid. I'm not lead by the Pew survey to believing Religion is going away but I am encouraged to see that more are leaving organized religion because they can see the short comings of which ever church they attend has and not what the churches pretend to be which is the only way to the truth, eternal life, and salvation.
Put another way, those changing numbers show me the deluded waking up and are walking away. I say good for them. As I break it down religion is a con game that makes a huge profit from deluded and lied to believers.
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P.S. Who knows what the numbers might show a few years from now. They could show this as a fluke or an on going trend. I'm working for the latter. |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
| Edited by - sailingsoul on 10/12/2012 07:12:08 |
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God's Lemmings Disapearing
