Non-Religious is now the largest religious group in America!

[Moloch]

Religious ‘nones’ are gaining ground in America, and they’re worried about the economy, says new study
https://religionnews.com/2017/11/16/religious-nones-are-gaining-ground-in-america-and-theyre-worried-about-the-economy-says-new-study/

Thirty-four percent of Americans surveyed said they were atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular,” according to the American Family Survey released today. (See here for the live stream of the launch event, kicking off at 9 a.m. EST.)

Taken together, this makes the unaffiliated the largest religious group in the study, having surpassed Protestants (33%) and Catholics (21%). There was also a smattering of other groups such as Muslims (2%), Jews (2%), Mormons (1%), Orthodox Christians (1%), and Hindus (1%), as well as those who said they were “something else” (4%).

The American Family Survey is the project of Christopher Karpowitz and Jeremy Pope, who teach political science at Brigham Young University, and is co-sponsored by BYU and the Deseret News. Now in its third year, it aims to uncover Americans’ attitudes on a broad range of issues, including politics, health care, immigration, and the challenges now facing the American family. This year had a special focus on comparing Clinton and Trump voters.

How respondents answered questions about challenges facing the family was the source of some of the surprises in this year’s study compared to 2015 and 2016, says Karpowitz.

“When we first started doing this study in 2015, more than two-thirds of our respondents picked at least one cultural issue as being one of the three most important issues facing American families. Now there’s been an 11-point increase in the percentage of people who say the biggest issues facing families are economic.”

Overall, economic issues increased in importance from 51% to 62%, while concern about “cultural” matters (e.g., the decline in religious faith or the increase in sexual permissiveness and drug use) decreased by 17 points, from 68% to 51%.

Basically, this shows that an increasing number of Americans are more worried about economic stresses than they are about traditional markers of moral decline.

What’s particularly surprising about this trend, says Karpowitz, is that “the economy seems to be humming along, and we’re not in a recession right now.” Various markers of economic health, such as low unemployment and a robust stock market, are already in place.

However, about four in ten respondents reported that they had put off going to the doctor when they were sick or experienced a time in the last year when they couldn’t pay a bill, showing that the economy’s health has not prevented many Americans from feeling a financial pinch.

There’s a religious divide in how Americans perceive which are the most pressing issues. Highly religious people are far more likely to point to cultural issues than are secular Americans, with 72% of frequent religious attendees and just 43% of non-attendees being concerned about things like sexual permissiveness or falling religious attendance. In contrast, nearly seven in ten secular respondents were concerned about the economy.

Faced with these polarizing differences, what can almost everybody agree on? There are two things.

First, “Everybody loves their own family, and there’s hope in that message—there’s a lot of commitment to family, across lines of political and religious difference,” says Karpowitz. Among parents, it doesn’t matter if respondents voted for Trump or Clinton, or did not vote at all; nor does it matter whether they consider themselves to be religious. Every group of parents sees the act of parenting as a fundamental, core part of their identity.

And second, Americans are concerned that kids need more discipline. “More than half of both very religious and nonreligious Americans say that parents not teaching or disciplining their children is one of the most important issues facing families,” says Karpowitz.

In other words: we all love our own kids to pieces, but we also think that other parents need to do a better job teaching theirs.

[af_newbie]

It is probably even higher among young people.

We need another generation to be a majority.

Similar results in Canada.  35% people do not believe in God, up from 19% in 2005.

https://www.crop.ca/en/blog/2017/169/

[m.roth]

It is nice to see this development. I don't speak against religion itself, but there will always be people interpreting and living too much after a book, which is written a long time ago. Religion is probably the number one reason for war besides fights about resources and territories. If it brings you peace and helps you through the day, really nice. But if you try to get someone else involved, then you think your religion is superior, you are already one step over the line!

[TheBiochemist]

It is nice to see this development. I don't speak against religion itself, but there will always be people interpreting and living too much after a book, which is written a long time ago. Religion is probably the number one reason for war besides fights about resources and territories. If it brings you peace and helps you through the day, really nice. But if you try to get someone else involved, then you think your religion is superior, you are already one step over the line!

you are right every religion says, in one way or another that only a false prophet would call another false. The loss of religion could be good since classic religion is merely worships buildings and rituals along with trying to mentally understand their creator which is impossible by definition.

Now days atheists thinks that everything came out of nothing, another concept we cant grasp mentally, and frankly just an excuse or another word for a creator. Without a creator we have no purpose and no reason to care about other humans really, which is strongly reflected in the world today. There are many atheists joining the agnostics, beveling in something unknown, which is very rational, again, since a potential creator could never be mentally understood.

I think casting away of the moral obligations that comes with beveling in a creator, is part of the problem in the world today, most humans know that they feed a war machine with their tax money, and eat suffering animals for lunch. They know they force poverty and suffering on other countries, by consuming 10 times more, but every one just silently obliges and continues to work and pay their taxes. This idle state, lack of moral and empathy sure could be caused by lack of meaning, lack of faith in a given code, the moral we have within.

We must admit that there is no "nothing" and that everything in existence as we know is, is created. There is no nothing, what is that? every attempt to explain existence from nothing implies giving it something, like quantum dynamics or other natural laws. Even virtual particles, which is fluctuations in something, there is no logic or rationality by dismissing a creator, not in science nor anywhere else, i would love to hear a rational explanation of how nothing gives birth to everything, along with a definition of nothing that enables this, good luck <3

Peace

[Moloch]

It is nice to see this development. I don't speak against religion itself, but there will always be people interpreting and living too much after a book, which is written a long time ago. Religion is probably the number one reason for war besides fights about resources and territories. If it brings you peace and helps you through the day, really nice. But if you try to get someone else involved, then you think your religion is superior, you are already one step over the line!

you are right every religion says, in one way or another that only a false prophet would call another false. The loss of religion could be good since classic religion is merely worships buildings and rituals along with trying to mentally understand their creator which is impossible by definition.

I prefer the religions that announce at the beginning they don't have the whole truth.  For example, the Tao Te Ching begins, "The Tao that can be told, is not the eternal Tao," basically admitting nobody has all the answers, not even him.

Now days atheists thinks that everything came out of nothing...

Atheists are skeptics, and usually answer, "I don't know where the universe came from."  It is typically christians who claim atheists say "everything came from nothing", in an attempt to straw-man the other side.  I don't hear atheists claim answers to questions without evidence for their claim.  They always say, "I don't know."

Science does not say we came out of nothing either.  Scientists who study the early universe say, "we don't know what happened before 10 ^ -32 seconds after the big bang"

I have heard various hypothesis that don't "come from nothing."  One example would be a repeating universe where gravity wins in the end, and it "bounces" rather than "bangs" into a new universe.  Now you have a reset button ever trillion years or so, making an infinite series of the same matter being recycled rather than coming into existence from nothing.

This hypothesis has been relatively abandoned lately as dark energy seems to be the driving force of the universe, overtaking gravity.  This leads to an infinitely expanding universe, rather than a collapsing/repeating universe.

Also, There is legitimate science involving particles coming from nothing, so it isn't an absurd concept at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy - "Vacuum energy can also be thought of in terms of virtual particles (also known as vacuum fluctuations) which are created and destroyed out of the vacuum. These particles are always created out of the vacuum in particle–antiparticle pairs, which in most cases shortly annihilate each other and disappear..."

An example of the Casimir effect:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/something-from-nothing-vacuum-can-yield-flashes-of-light/

[dogtana]

Actually, late Stephen Hawking explains in his book The Grand Design how universe came out of nothing without there having to be a creator. It is an interesting read, though if one is faint at heart, they should probably not read it.

I can not claim with 100% certainty that there is no creator, so I won't claim that. However since there is no evidence of a creator, I tend to believe there isn't one. I wish there was because it would make living easier in some aspects (but not all).

I think the non religious crowd will grow and when people stop commiting attocities in the name of religion, it will be a wonderful world.

[BADecker]

It is nice to see this development. I don't speak against religion itself, but there will always be people interpreting and living too much after a book, which is written a long time ago. Religion is probably the number one reason for war besides fights about resources and territories. If it brings you peace and helps you through the day, really nice. But if you try to get someone else involved, then you think your religion is superior, you are already one step over the line!

you are right every religion says, in one way or another that only a false prophet would call another false. The loss of religion could be good since classic religion is merely worships buildings and rituals along with trying to mentally understand their creator which is impossible by definition.

Now days atheists thinks that everything came out of nothing, another concept we cant grasp mentally, and frankly just an excuse or another word for a creator. Without a creator we have no purpose and no reason to care about other humans really, which is strongly reflected in the world today. There are many atheists joining the agnostics, beveling in something unknown, which is very rational, again, since a potential creator could never be mentally understood.

I think casting away of the moral obligations that comes with beveling in a creator, is part of the problem in the world today, most humans know that they feed a war machine with their tax money, and eat suffering animals for lunch. They know they force poverty and suffering on other countries, by consuming 10 times more, but every one just silently obliges and continues to work and pay their taxes. This idle state, lack of moral and empathy sure could be caused by lack of meaning, lack of faith in a given code, the moral we have within.

We must admit that there is no "nothing" and that everything in existence as we know is, is created. There is no nothing, what is that? every attempt to explain existence from nothing implies giving it something, like quantum dynamics or other natural laws. Even virtual particles, which is fluctuations in something, there is no logic or rationality by dismissing a creator, not in science nor anywhere else, i would love to hear a rational explanation of how nothing gives birth to everything, along with a definition of nothing that enables this, good luck <3

Peace

But you notice, don't you, that Moloch calls non-religion a religion. I agree. People have religion. Non-religion is just a form of humanism religion, and humans aren't really that bright, considering that with all the modern scientific miracles, people still can't make themselves live much longer than 100 years, or even produce a single form of life from scratch.

[kevoh]

Actually, late Stephen Hawking explains in his book The Grand Design how universe came out of nothing without there having to be a creator. It is an interesting read, though if one is faint at heart, they should probably not read it.

I can not claim with 100% certainty that there is no creator, so I won't claim that. However since there is no evidence of a creator, I tend to believe there isn't one. I wish there was because it would make living easier in some aspects (but not all).

I think the non religious crowd will grow and when people stop commiting attocities in the name of religion, it will be a wonderful world.

lol...This is not wholly true. Humans are naturally selfish. When they are not committing atrocities in the name of religion, there are other causes for which they can commit atrocities greed, personal interests, ego e.t.c

[cheeseandcrackers]

Something about religion that always gets to me is the fact people who believe it wholeheartedly seem to think that there's no way people could be moral without the promise of reward in another life.  That seems just, so beyond pathetic to me I don't even know what to say.  The fact SO many people I've run into act this way makes me really disdainful towards religion in general, how could one assume that people are only good people because they get something out of it.  Only selfish people will think such foolish things.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Something about religion that always gets to me is the fact people who believe it wholeheartedly seem to think that there's no way people could be moral without the promise of reward in another life.  That seems just, so beyond pathetic to me I don't even know what to say. 

Penn Jilette said it perfectly:

The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what’s to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn’t have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine.

As Moloch has pointed out, over a third of Americans are not religious. Are these 100 million or so people all rapists and murderers? Of course not. So it is complete nonsense to claim you can't be moral without religion.

Indeed, the Bible teaches us to keep slaves and to stone homosexuals to death. The fact that we don't do these things means we have an internal moral compass, completely separate from religion, to guide us.

[BADecker]

Something about religion that always gets to me is the fact people who believe it wholeheartedly seem to think that there's no way people could be moral without the promise of reward in another life.  That seems just, so beyond pathetic to me I don't even know what to say.

Penn Jilette said it perfectly:

The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what’s to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn’t have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine.

As Moloch has pointed out, over a third of Americans are not religious. Are these 100 million or so people all rapists and murderers? Of course not. So it is complete nonsense to claim you can't be moral without religion.

Indeed, the Bible teaches us to keep slaves and to stone homosexuals to death. The fact that we don't do these things means we have an internal moral compass, completely separate from religion, to guide us.

The people who seem to not be religious, live their lives in a religious way. No, maybe they don't go to church or worship God. But they live as the dictionary says for the definition of religion... https://www.dictionary.com/browse/religion?s=t... #6: "something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience: to make a religion of fighting prejudice."

Number 3 is, "the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions." But this could be things other than standard religions, since the "world council of religions" was only an example. It could be people who believe that Big Bang is fact, when it is not known to be fact.

People who claim that they are not religious simply have non-religion as part of their religious beliefs. Dictionary definition.

[KingScorpio]

nonreligious people tend to see rather the risk than the opportunity and they also tend to join and enslaves themselves to the biggest power nearby

[Soundy]

This will continue to increase not only in USA but globally .

[BADecker]

This will continue to increase not only in USA but globally .

If it increases, it will only be because that is what God wants.   

[Moloch]

This will continue to increase not only in USA but globally .

If it increases, it will only be because that is what God wants.

Hahaha

Bahahahahahaha

 

[Moloch]

Not only in America...

British Survey Says Only 2% of Young People Belong to the Church of England
http://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2018/09/08/british-survey-says-only-2-of-young-people-belong-to-the-church-of-england/

According to the latest British Social Attitudes survey, membership in the Church of England isn’t just dropping, it’s practically non-existent for the younger generation.

Only 2% (!) of people under the age of 24 belong to the Church, while approximately 70% of that same group claims no religious affiliation whatsoever. (Anglican? More like Anglican’t.)

    Roger Harding of the National Centre for Social Research, which conducts the BSA survey, said the figures showed “an unrelenting decline in Church of England and Church of Scotland numbers. This is especially true for young people where less than one in 20 now belong to their established church. While the figures are starkest among younger people, in every age group the biggest single group are those identifying with no religion.

    “We know from the British Social Attitudes survey that people’s views are becoming more socially liberal on issues like same-sex relationships and abortion. With growing numbers belonging to no religion, faith leaders will no doubt be considering how to better connect to a changing society.”

[Cofuchu]

I can't believe that people can live without an religion. You may not be practising your religion but you need to follow one. This shows that people are scared of the people who are following their religion. We need to leave them alone and let them lead their live with ease.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I can't believe that people can live without an religion. You may not be practising your religion but you need to follow one. This shows that people are scared of the people who are following their religion. We need to leave them alone and let them lead their live with ease.

So you can't believe that some people are atheists, and think we should force religion on them. But you also think we need to leave religious people alone and let them believe what they want.

Nice double standard.

[Foxpup]

You may not be practising your religion but you need to follow one.

Merely out of curiosity, what exactly does it mean to "follow" a religion without "practising" it? Does it mean Douglas Adams had the right idea with his Electric Monks?

The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

[eann014]

There is nothing wrong if non religious in America is increasing, religion is one of the reasons why there are some war or fighting people because of it because they believe that they are the right religions, ALL of them believes that they are the right one the Jesus created, but for me, no religions can save us in hell. Only ourselves can save ourselves in hell. We really trust God then we can be faithful to him even without religions.