According to a relatively new survey (March 2009) by the American Religious Identification Survey, more the number of Americans who have "no religion" is ever increasing. This increase is a mere .8% from 14.2% from 2001 but is nonetheless noteworthy. The researchers who conducted the study claim that "no other religious bloc has kept such a pace in every state," referring to the fact that the number of non-religious persons has increased not only nationwide, but in every state as well.
Among the other facts the study uncovered was a sharp drop in the number of mainline Protestants and Christians overall. This would make sense, just like we discussed on class--the rise in non-religious people must come from somewhere, and mainline Protestants seem to be taking the brunt of that change. Catholics remain the largest single denomination, at 57 million members, while "non-denominational Christians" went from .1 percent in 1990 to 3.5 percent in this survey.
I wonder if any of these trends will continue. Like Professor Lienesch pointed out in class, it seems that people frequently say how America is becoming more progressive and secular over time, so I would be curious to see how these trends play out in the next few years. Some of this may just be cultural adjustments to a President who included in his inaugural address a mention of "non-religious" people. I wouldn't underestimate the value that this may hold to those who are now more open to speaking their mind to survey-takers.
I also found it a little strange that the title of the article clearly emphasizes the increase in Americans without religion, and yet that is only mentioned in the first line of the article. And a .8% increase over 7 years? That barely falls above the .5% margin of error, so it was an interesting choice to include that as the title. Then again, this is FOXNews, so they were probably just going for the most provocative title they could think of to maximize their hits.
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2 comments:
I wonder what was the age of those surveyed. If it was younger individuals the numbers would only indicate a growing number of people in that exploratory stage in their life. Also, I think there could be a growing number of people who classify themselves as spiritual rather than religious, which would indicate the number of people of faith is not decreasing--viewed this way, the problem seems less severe.
If you withheld any religious training from all children (just like say alcohol) until they were 18; how many do you think would buy the stuff?
It's only because we brianwash helpless children that religions continue to exist at all
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