When Americans are asked to check a box indicating their religious affiliation, 28% now check ‘none.’
A new study from Pew Research finds that the religiously unaffiliated – a group comprised of atheists, agnostic and those who say their religion is “nothing in particular” – is now the largest cohort in the U.S. They’re more prevalent among American adults than Catholics (23%) or evangelical Protestants (24%).
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“We know politically for example,” [Gregory Smith at Pew] says, “that religious Nones are very distinctive. They are among the most strongly and consistently liberal and Democratic constituencies in the United States.”
Although religious ‘Nones’ doesn’t necessarily mean atheist, anti-theist or agnostic, I’ve got to say, never in my wildest dreams did I think this milestone would be achieved during my lifetime.
Nice. We won the war on Xmas.
*winning the war on Xmas.
The fight must go on until it retreats back to last half of December.
You know, I’m even willing to let it have all of December. But any incursion before the last day of November needs to be met with swift and severe retaliation. Scorched pine tree shit.
I wonder what the results would be if “Christian, but too embarrassed by those that claim the label to apply it to myself” was an option
If ‘Christian’ were it’s own label it would nearly double the ‘Nones’. Nones = 28% Protestant = 24% Catholics = 23% Total of the two Christian groups reported = 47% That is just adding the highest reporting sects of Christianity, there’s probably a few % points that could be added in there as well.
To be fair, if we go by the recent comments from the pope. (Which maybe we shouldn’t.) Catholics may have more in common politically with the nones than the evangelicals.
Idk why people who think Jesus died for them can’t just accept each other and just all be Christians. It shouldn’t matter the specifics of your Christianity as long as your core beliefs match the others, ya know?
I’m also a life-long atheist who attended a bunch of different churches with friends growing up to see what they were like. I don’t understand how someone can believe in a God. What makes even less sense is why people, who believe in the same God with the same kid who sacrificed himself and preached love and all that, hate each other so fuckin much.
Because the Christians who were reasonable were murdered by the crazies we have today. Quite literally, I’m not joking.
The Gnostic Christians were killed off by the crazies. All that hereric hunting that happened during the dark ages? Yea… it wasn’t just “witches” and Pagans and satanists or whatnot.
… Not that many of the sects didn’t believe crazy things; it’s still religion. Though the important thing is many were analyzing the material world a whole lot better than modern Christians born and bathed in capitalism.
Christians, especially white evangelicals, have managed to intertwine themselves so hard with the Republican Party that it is difficult for many to see the difference between the church and the party.
Many people give up church because they don’t want to be a part of the Republican Party. Especially young people. If Christians want to see growth in the future, they gotta move away from politics.
Would help if they could back up their claims with any evidence of anything, too. It’s getting harder and harder to deny the reality that thousands of years have passed without the people who are most incentivized to prove their religious ideals showing any aspect of it to be true. At best, they have a failed apocalyptic preacher with a cult of personality. They look very silly at best when defending their invisible, non-corporeal, fire-breathing dragons to anyone with a basic capacity for observation, and fully destructive when attempting to overthrow democracy with symbols of iron age torture devices strapped to their necks and Christian nationalism flags waving over their heads.
Well, it’s just faith. And people can have whatever faith they want to. I have no problem with that whatsoever. The problem arises when they attempt to force that faith down people’s throats through politics. That’s when people stop listening and find community and beliefs elsewhere.
About time they get some service, too. I’ve had it up to here with the theists, especially radical xtian evangelicals, constantly swinging their weight around, saying and doing outrageous things, thinking their little book club should rule over others, and thinking that’s normal.
i wonder why
There are a few things contributing to this:
- The child molesting done by the Catholic church has turned a lot of people away from what used to be one of the biggest churches in the country
- The rise of evangelical churches and the hollowing out of mainline Protestant churches. Now if you go to church you either have to be a conservative or you have to risk being ostracized.
- It’s clear god has abandoned us.
God has abandoned us? Have you read of any history? Like there were many worse things happening in the 1000-1600s. Like everywhere. But I agree that the first two lead to the decline. I think it has more to do with a lack of proof the more and more we learn. If God does exist in some monitoring sort of way, they choose not to interfere and just observe. That’s a hard sell.
I mean, some Christian sects teach that we’re here to be tested, right? What kind of good teacher slips you answers during the test?!
It’s fucking never made sense. At all. Either we’re being tested or we’ve been abandoned, or it’s all just a misconstrued allegory about parenthood and authority and passing down good lessons.
My money’s on the last. The overtly religious are all morons.
