Religious 'Nones' are now the largest single group in the U.S.
Religious 'Nones' are now the largest single group in the U.S.
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."
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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.
I like your Christ. I don't like your Christians.
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.
What exactly is reasonable about supernatural beliefs? The reason they disagree is because religious ideas consist of made up nonsense. This naturally leads to fracturing because instead of following observable, repeatable facts to their logical conclusion, religions make up anything they want and then stand by it regardless of what observational evidence tells us. The Hubble space telescope didn't exactly fail when it smashed into the firmament, you know.
Anything can be true when all you need to be convinced that it's true is faith.
I’m going off memory here but if it’s correct they held a live and let live dogma. No convert or kill mentality, do good above all else etc.
I (mainline Protestant) don't hate American evangelicals. But I don't want to be associated with people hating queer people or denying women basic rights like abortion.
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.
I guess my point is that faith is something you can have in anything. Faith never leads to correctness. Anytime it does, it does so completely by coincidence and has nothing to demonstrate why it's correct. This is why religion leads people to hold factually incorrect ideas as truth, and why reality is arbitrary and unimportant to people who have been led to think that faith is valuable.
Sure, people have different ideas about faith and its effectiveness. In theory, it also leads to community and cohesion and a lot of good public service and charity. That's all good, whereever it comes from. Faith or no faith. Doesn't matter to me.
My problem is the attempts at forced faith through politics. And that's what we're seeing in the US at the moment. It will never lead to actual faith, it only leads to dismissal and anger.
problem being religion is politics, early states and organized religion were one int he same and only as recently as 500 years ago did that get challenged