Survey: One-fifth of public, and one-third of those under 30, have no religious affiliation
In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. Their ranks now include more than 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics (nearly 6% of the U.S. public), as well as nearly 33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation (14%)…
However, a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, conducted jointly with the PBS television program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, finds that many of the country’s 46 million unaffiliated adults are religious or spiritual in some way. Two-thirds of them say they believe in God (68%). More than half say they often feel a deep connection with nature and the earth (58%), while more than a third classify themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious” (37%), and one-in-five (21%) say they pray every day. In addition, most religiously unaffiliated Americans think that churches and other religious institutions benefit society by strengthening community bonds and aiding the poor.
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About the same percentage who self-identifies as hardcore leftists.
Coincidence? I think not.
Norwegian on October 9, 2012 at 1:29 PM
And that’s why we’re going to Hell.
Axion on October 9, 2012 at 1:31 PM
I do not have a religious affiliation. I gave up on anything other than saying I am Christian. What ever reasonable church is closest to me gets 10% and I refuse to attend more often than occasionally.
astonerii on October 9, 2012 at 1:31 PM
Leftist and libertarian.
astonerii on October 9, 2012 at 1:32 PM
You’re welcome.
MadisonConservative on October 9, 2012 at 1:32 PM
I stole your Jesus Fish!
lorien1973 on October 9, 2012 at 1:35 PM
The mainline churches have become like those kids sports leagues where they don’t keep score and everybody gets a trophy. There’s no interest anymore because there’s no challenge anymore. Everybody is special and everybody goes to heaven. Makes you want to vomit.
RBMN on October 9, 2012 at 1:38 PM
The mainstream religions really haven’t covered themselves with glory over the past decade. Plus the Interwebs has opened a lot of young people to new ideas. And respect for the words handed down by authority becomes increasingly less popular as the years go by and hypocrisy becomes more popular.
So it’s not really a surprise.
albo on October 9, 2012 at 1:39 PM
Everybody is special and everybody goes to heaven. Makes you want to vomit.
Yeah, that’s a good way to attract the faithful.
albo on October 9, 2012 at 1:40 PM
Mainline churches are worthless. But many in geny care more about sex, drugs and gaga than faith. While this is bad news, what is worse is the steep decline in marriage rates and over half of kids born nowadays to mothers under 30 are illegitimate. Major social changes will be happening in the future.
IR-MN on October 9, 2012 at 1:41 PM
Sad that this country is becoming more like Norway and Japan rather than Pakistan and Iran.
Pablo Honey on October 9, 2012 at 1:43 PM
I thought we linked to this statistic already? Anywho, I joined the ranks of atheism on August 12th, 2012. I’m under 30, as well. Tipping point was learning that there is no historical contemporary evidence of Jesus even existing (i.e. only records of him long after his death), that Paul never once met Jesus because he coverted after Jesus’ death (yet we hold his writings as the entire truth?) and finally learning that there were gobs of Jewish Messiahs running around Judea at the time . Theudas, Judas of Galilee, Vespasiab, etc.
ZachV on October 9, 2012 at 1:44 PM
ITT: “no religious affiliation” = “GODLESS ANTI-THEIST RABBLE-ROUSERS”
Jeddite on October 9, 2012 at 1:45 PM
If the church isn’t going to tell a toddler they are horrible sinners and going to hell then who is?!!!
Pablo Honey on October 9, 2012 at 1:45 PM
Part of the reason why there are so many who do not see faith as worth pursuing is because of the big box store churches that have come along. It is now a big business with respect to many churches. They do not grade themselves on saving people, but on how many seats get filled and how many dollars get separated from the pockets in those seats.
Jesus tore down the temple. It is a physical idol in his eyes. It cheapens his sacrifice, and thus lowers the desirability for people to join him.
People are prone to failure, we are human after all. We are all unique. How can a preacher save his sheep when he has so many that only a very select few will ever get individual guidance? When this happens, and someone falls out, they blame Jesus and God. When in reality is was a human failure, part on themselves and part on the person who volunteered to guide them. I know from experience, I went through this several times, until I finally grasped some of the things churches refuse to touch on that Jesus talked about and did.
Christianity is not supposed to be a big business. It is supposed to be small groups of people with a multitude of leaders. So, in the creation of the mega churches, the aspect that makes Christianity valuable gets pushed aside in many cases.
astonerii on October 9, 2012 at 1:46 PM
Nice.
MadisonConservative on October 9, 2012 at 1:49 PM
Norway (and the rest of most of Europe) is becoming more like Pakistan and Iran (try being a Jew in France or Malmo).
Japan’s birth rate means that they really need those human like robots if they are to have any future. Also, Japan has very strict immigration policies and are often considered xenophobic by westerners.
I also take it then, that you equate our founding fathers with the mullahs in Iran?
gwelf on October 9, 2012 at 1:51 PM
And there was a “Back to Church” movement after WWII. Godless Triumphalists will swoon about these figures as if they were linear trajectories. I want to see comparisons to the 20s and 30s, myself.
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/twenty/tkeyinfo/trelww2.htm
Axeman on October 9, 2012 at 1:55 PM
Some good churches out there. But Joel Osteen is definitely bad news.
good comment.
IR-MN on October 9, 2012 at 1:56 PM
I’m no leftist, and besides weddings, I haven’t been inside a church in 30+ years.
So, there goes your theory. Nothing against religion at all, though. To each their own.
Moesart on October 9, 2012 at 1:57 PM
Are you saying I should stop telling my children not to hit each other? Or that they shouldn’t steal?
gwelf on October 9, 2012 at 1:59 PM
And yet the number of self described Atheists has barely nudged up to a whopping 2.5%
The number of people who believe in God has remained amazingly steady through the decades. It is only now, because of the increase in people who don’t identifying with a church, that these big numbers are thrown about. Christianity in America is actually in better shape now than in the 1920′s.
This study is just more of the same, but with a different spin thanks to the ‘unaffiliated’ label that is in vogue with those who don’t appreciate the religious right co-opting Christianity.
AmeriCuda on October 9, 2012 at 2:03 PM
Which religion make all the difference.
Axion on October 9, 2012 at 2:03 PM
I’d argue that hardcore Leftists are in fact religious zealots. Their religion of choice is the state and their spiritual leaders are politicians.
They (literally) have faith in Big Government delivering them to utopia (“free” health care, “rights” to internet, phones, food, housing, decent job, etc.), despite centuries of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I’d even go as far as to say their ideology is rabidly anti-science (the science of economics).
visions on October 9, 2012 at 2:04 PM
So you’re pro slavery? It was those evil believers which ended slavery in much of the world.
gwelf on October 9, 2012 at 2:04 PM
Hardcore Atheists are hurt that they have only converted a minority of people to their beliefs. Keep the faith, bro – it’s only taken you 2,000 years to get to 20%
fortcoins on October 9, 2012 at 2:11 PM
We are?
thebrokenrattle on October 9, 2012 at 2:19 PM
You are so full of crap. Abolitionist movements arose alongside the Enlightenment. You know, that secular movement that deliberately sought to undermine the religious stranglehold on society. The religious stranglehold that endorsed and promoted slavery and serfdom USING THE BIBLE for hundreds, no, thousands of years prior. It was the evil believers that brought slavery to much of the world in the first place. And its no coincidence that the last places for it to (officially) vanish from were the most bible and quran-thumping shitholes on the planet: Islamic Africa and the American South.
Daikokuco on October 9, 2012 at 2:24 PM
Perhaps some atheists simply reject the paradigm of faith. No faith in supernatural claims or support of government unless it is limited and operated with checks on power.
dedalus on October 9, 2012 at 2:25 PM
World population: 7 billion. Number of Christians: a little over 1 billion. A bit under 20% yourself there, champ. Fail!
And unlike you dominionist losers, atheists haven’t been roaming the world for 2000 years in search of illiterate tribes to drag into their belief system.
1/3 of those under 30, bub. 33%. And growing all the time. People want your crappy stories less and less by the year.
Daikokuco on October 9, 2012 at 2:27 PM
At least they’re being honest.
70% of America says they’re Christian, but it’s quite evident that there are not even close to that many Christ-followers in this nation.
itsnotaboutme on October 9, 2012 at 2:34 PM
There are not that many Christ-followers.
Going to a building with a cross on it once in a while does not make one a Christian.
Look at our president!
He says he’s a Christian, but he’s radically pro-abortion, he’s radically pro-homosexuality, & he’s got a radical lying habit.
itsnotaboutme on October 9, 2012 at 2:38 PM
You’re really stupid.
MadisonConservative on October 9, 2012 at 2:41 PM
Hardcore atheists are asking reasonable, enlightened people to believe something that cannot be proven. You cannot say with 100% certainty that God does NOT exist. You cannot prove a negative – reasonable people understand that. It is something atheists have to take on..ahem…faith, because you do not know. That, and some atheists’ apparent disdain for us “dominionist losers”, is why your belief system will only go so far, and no farther.
If atheism is so obviously correct and the only way a rational person can view the world, why are there still so many “ignorant believers”?
fortcoins on October 9, 2012 at 2:51 PM
The doors to Hell are wide open. They accept all comers.
faraway on October 9, 2012 at 2:59 PM
Nope, in almost every single instance, it was a Christian.
astonerii on October 9, 2012 at 3:04 PM
Daikokuco,
There are 2.2 billion Christians. A third of the world’s population. No one, but apparently you, disputes this. Also, contrary to Western media myths, Christianity is growing faster than at any time in the last thousand years. Africa (as of just a few months ago) became a majority Christian continent for the first time in history. 52% (from a mere 5% in the year 1800). Christianity in China is exploding and, of course, in South Korea as well. Europe is really the only sore spot for global Christianity.
If you look deeper into the study you will see that of the 6% who identify as atheists or agnostic, agnostics make up the lions share (close to 4%). ‘Just don’t know. Could be.’ is a different world from the militant atheist position. The number of self-described atheists is still a tiny minority.
AmeriCuda on October 9, 2012 at 3:06 PM
History fail.
Feudalism existed across the world – including in China and Japan where religion was a marginal part of the culture in terms of political power. A lot of good came from the Enlightenment but it also gave rise to new forms of tyranny (French Revolution, socialism, fascism, communism).
It was religious abolitionists in England that pushed the British Empire to end the wide-spread practice across the globe (William Wilberforce).
Lincoln in America invoked God in his fight to end slavery.
Certainly there were many Enlightenment philosophers who opposed slavery but abolition was championed and made possible by Christians.
gwelf on October 9, 2012 at 3:09 PM
Are these two articles related?
faraway on October 9, 2012 at 3:09 PM
Enlightenment philosophers who philosophically opposed slavery on paper. Unfortunately, they did not have any actual internal impulse to put themselves out to get’er done.
astonerii on October 9, 2012 at 3:12 PM
I don’t understand why people get so upset about others religious beliefs. This includes proselytizing atheists and Christians, and even more so apostate-murdering muslims.
A key point in this country’s founding was individuals rejecting the persecution deriving from religious intolerance.
Clark1 on October 9, 2012 at 3:41 PM
No, that was the driving force for people leaving their homelands to come here. When they came here, they grouped among like minded (religious) people and predominately stayed that way for hundreds of years.
The founding was based on taxes without representation if I remember correctly. In order to be free from the tyranny of far off governments, they all grouped together to form a power strong enough to free themselves, a common goal. They then created a federal government that was not to promote one religion over another, even though the individual states had their own religions at the time.
Because so few traveled far coming into frequent contact with people of other beliefs, there was not a large amount of conflict. Thus the states all got along well enough.
Now we move from state to state, have hundreds of different denominations, many cities having dozens alone. Even towns with just a couple hundred people will have three or more denominations represented with a church and probably more as just simple meetings between kindred spirits.
astonerii on October 9, 2012 at 3:52 PM
Same reason why people believe in astrology, seers and alien abductions.
Hint: People aren’t rational much of the time.
Pablo Honey on October 9, 2012 at 3:59 PM
I agree there’s plenty of irrationality to go around on all fronts. I would still contend that since God’s non-existence can NOT be proven definitively, atheism is no more rational than believing God does exist, whether it’s the Christian God of the Bible, Allah, or whatever. Not trying to start a flame war, since they don’t accomplish much. VMMV.
fortcoins on October 9, 2012 at 4:12 PM
That’s right. It took people able to tear themselves away from the sophistication of the Northeast and go homestead in Kansas and the other territories which could come into the union as slave states.
That self-interested academics did this is risible.
Here’s a handbill from the New England AntiSlavery Society’s Fouth of July celebration in 1834, founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur_Tappan: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/1834_NewEngland_AntiSlavery_BoylstonHall_Boston.png. Note it opens with Hymn . And this one from 1832 has a liturgy : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/1832_NewEngland_AntiSlavery_BoylstonHall_Boston.png/220px-1832_NewEngland_AntiSlavery_BoylstonHall_Boston.png
Heck, even wikipedia cites that it came out of The Great Awakening. Here.
Axeman on October 9, 2012 at 4:16 PM
It’s obvious that so many prefer to be blissfully ignorant instead.
The only thing that exists in this universe that either requires or desires your faith are con-men, frauds and charlatans trying to deceive you with otherwise unconvincing lies.
Deceivers need believers, and that’s why religion needs faith.
That’s why it promises unimaginable rewards only for those who are easily led, and that’s why it threatens a fate worse than death to those with the temerity to try to understand it, who ask too many questions, or who dare to peek at that man behind the forbidden curtain.
SauerKraut537 on October 9, 2012 at 4:18 PM
Ignorant people are just exactly like you.
Life after death is not unimaginable. It is imaginable. Imagine that.
Fate worse than death for trying to understand it? That is part of humanity moron. Some people use good things to gain power over others. Does not make the good thing bad. Means people should read the Bible for themselves in full several times working out the over all message meant to be given. It is not hidden in the Bible, it is written for anyone with the skill to read to figure out. Something you never did, even though it appears you have eyes and can read the English language which the Bible is printed in.
You obviously know nothing about the bible other than a few very select, likely out of context, quotes you abuse to great lengths, much like the charlatans you expound upon do. Makes you pretty much exactly like them, doesn’t it? What a pathetic excuse for an atheist you are.
Your entire reason for not believing is a direct result of your willful ignorance on a subject. A real Atheist would actually have something real and concrete to base their atheism on. Instead all you got is propaganda you were spoon fed by another charlatan, one that gains value in tainting your mind against God.
astonerii on October 9, 2012 at 4:54 PM
LOL! Just because something is imaginable doesn’t make it so, in fact, more often than not our imagination is wrong rather than right. The key is having evidence that its right, which in the case of religion is non existent aston. The only “evidence” is anecdotal evidence. He said/she said kind of evidence.
The adherents of various religions “threaten” a fate worse than death for not believing, not understanding the religious adherent’s metaphysical/mystical claims.
Gods impregnating virgins and angels whispering to prophets in caves is just infantile astonerii. Grow up.
SauerKraut537 on October 9, 2012 at 5:37 PM
Your word was unimaginable. Yet it was imaginable. You failed your argument right there.
Man came from monkeys? So, if man came from monkeys just a short time ago geologically, why are there no between groups in existence? Lots of variations of animals, but we pretty much never see the between phases that get you from one viable specimen to the next viable specimen. How does it work? No answer? You likely never will have an answer. You will die never knowing.
Life came from goo. Never mind the fact that the energy required to create the building blocks of life must combine in an environment that destroys the building blocks as fast as they assemble, thus they also have to create a protective coating that manufactured as they assemble. How does it work? No Answer? You will most certainly go to your grave never knowing that one either.
The Universe has an age. The spread of the galaxies are too large to account for the age from a big bang. Physics did not exist at the big bang. Then they came into being. Dark matter had little power in the smaller universe, now it has the lions share. How? No answer. Another thing to go to your grave never knowing.
But the idea that a universe that is measured around 14 billion years of age could not have intelligent life that that is beyond our understanding when we started life on this Earth a mere few billion years ago at most. A civilization that started at say, universe age 4 billion years would have 10 billion years head start on us humans. But the idea that they would be able to impregnate a woman without intercourse is beyond belief. That they would have the ability to project lighted images of themselves is beyond belief to you. That they might have the power over human death is beyond belief for you. That they may know how to harness the spirit of man and place it in either a heaven or hell is beyond belief for you. What would be a God?
Now imagine beyond that ten billion year old civilization one which could actually create universes at will. The universe came from somewhere, why not from an action of a powerful race of beings? Are we not tinkering on creating artificial intelligence? We are only a few tens of thousands of years into our intelligent civilization… By our measure of time, based on the universe in which we live.
You are just simply someone who argues science has the answers while ignoring the fact that everything is possible given the right amount of time. This universe might be equivalent to a balloon and 1 years worth of time to the one that created it. You cannot know. But there are scientific explanations that which you argue are beyond imagination. So it must be some other reason for you to protest so much.
astonerii on October 9, 2012 at 6:24 PM