Atheism/Agnosticism on the rise
whygohome
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http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/0 ... ?hpt=hp_c2
Survey: One in five Americans has no religion
By Dan Merica, CNN
Washington (CNN) – The fastest growing "religious" group in America is made up of people with no religion at all, according to a Pew survey showing that one in five Americans is not affiliated with any religion.
The number of these Americans has grown by 25% just in the past five years, according to a survey released Thursday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The survey found that the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing even faster among younger Americans.
Thirty-three million Americans now have no religious affiliation, with 13 million in that group identifying as either atheist or agnostic, according to the new survey.
Pew found that those who are religiously unaffiliated are strikingly less religious than the public at large. They attend church infrequently, if at all, are largely not seeking out religion and say that the lack of it in their lives is of little importance.
And yet Pew found that 68% of the religiously unaffiliated say they believe in God, while 37% describe themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious.” One in five said that they even pray every day.
John Green, a senior research adviser at Pew, breaks the religiously unaffiliated into three groups. First, he says, are those who were raised totally outside organized religion.
Second are groups of people who were unhappy with their religions and left.
The third group, Green says, comprises Americans who were never really engaged with religion in the first place, even though they were raised in religious households.
“In the past, we would describe those people as nominally affiliated. They might say, 'I am Catholic; I am a Baptist,' but they never went" to services, Green says of this last group. “Now, they feel a lot more comfortable just saying, ‘You know, I am really nothing.’ ”
According to the poll, 88% of religiously unaffiliated people are not looking for religion.
“There is much less of a stigma attached" to not being religious, Green said. “Part of what is fueling this growth is that a lot of people who were never very religious now feel comfortable saying that they don't have an affiliation.”
Demographically, the growth among the religiously unaffiliated has been most notable among people who are 18 to 29 years old.
According to the poll, 34% of “younger millennials” - those born between 1990 and 1994 - are religiously unaffiliated. Among “older millennials,” born between 1981 and 1989, 30% are religiously unaffiliated: 4 percentage points higher than in 2007.
Poll respondents 18-29 were also more likely to identify as atheist or agnostic. Nearly 42% religious unaffiliated people from that age group identified as atheist or agnostic, a number far greater than the number who identified as Christian (18%) of Catholic (18%).
Green says that these numbers are “part of a broader change in American society.”
“The unaffiliated have become a more distinct group,” he said.
Pew's numbers were met with elation among atheist and secular leaders. Jesse Galef, communications director for the Secular Student Alliance, said that the growth of the unaffiliated should translate into greater political representation for secular interests.
“We would love to see the political leaders lead on this issue, but we are perfectly content with them following these demographic trends, following the voters,” Galef said.
“As more of the voters are unaffiliated and identifying as atheist and agnostics, I think the politicians will follow that for votes.
“We won’t be dismissed or ignored anymore,” Galef said.
The Pew survey suggested that the Democratic Party would do well to recognize the growth of the unaffiliated, since 63% of them identify with or lean toward that political group. Only 26% of the unaffiliated do the same with the Republican Party.
"In the near future, if not this year, the unaffiliated voters will be as important as the traditionally religious are to the Republican Party collation,” Green predicted.
Green points to the 2008 exit polls as evidence for that prediction. That year, Republican presidential nominee John McCain beat President Barack Obama by 47 points among white evangelical voters, while Obama had a 52-point margin of victory over McCain among the religiously unaffiliated.
According to exit polls, the proportion of religiously unaffiliated Americans who supported the Democratic presidential candidate grew 14 points from 2000 to 2008.
In announcing the survey’s findings at the Religion Newswriters Association conference in Bethesda, Maryland, Green said the growing political power of the unaffiliated within the Democratic Party could become similar to the power the Religious Right acquired in the GOP in the 1980s.
“Given the growing numbers of the unaffiliated, there is the potential that that could be harnessed,” he said.
Survey: One in five Americans has no religion
By Dan Merica, CNN
Washington (CNN) – The fastest growing "religious" group in America is made up of people with no religion at all, according to a Pew survey showing that one in five Americans is not affiliated with any religion.
The number of these Americans has grown by 25% just in the past five years, according to a survey released Thursday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
The survey found that the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing even faster among younger Americans.
Thirty-three million Americans now have no religious affiliation, with 13 million in that group identifying as either atheist or agnostic, according to the new survey.
Pew found that those who are religiously unaffiliated are strikingly less religious than the public at large. They attend church infrequently, if at all, are largely not seeking out religion and say that the lack of it in their lives is of little importance.
And yet Pew found that 68% of the religiously unaffiliated say they believe in God, while 37% describe themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious.” One in five said that they even pray every day.
John Green, a senior research adviser at Pew, breaks the religiously unaffiliated into three groups. First, he says, are those who were raised totally outside organized religion.
Second are groups of people who were unhappy with their religions and left.
The third group, Green says, comprises Americans who were never really engaged with religion in the first place, even though they were raised in religious households.
“In the past, we would describe those people as nominally affiliated. They might say, 'I am Catholic; I am a Baptist,' but they never went" to services, Green says of this last group. “Now, they feel a lot more comfortable just saying, ‘You know, I am really nothing.’ ”
According to the poll, 88% of religiously unaffiliated people are not looking for religion.
“There is much less of a stigma attached" to not being religious, Green said. “Part of what is fueling this growth is that a lot of people who were never very religious now feel comfortable saying that they don't have an affiliation.”
Demographically, the growth among the religiously unaffiliated has been most notable among people who are 18 to 29 years old.
According to the poll, 34% of “younger millennials” - those born between 1990 and 1994 - are religiously unaffiliated. Among “older millennials,” born between 1981 and 1989, 30% are religiously unaffiliated: 4 percentage points higher than in 2007.
Poll respondents 18-29 were also more likely to identify as atheist or agnostic. Nearly 42% religious unaffiliated people from that age group identified as atheist or agnostic, a number far greater than the number who identified as Christian (18%) of Catholic (18%).
Green says that these numbers are “part of a broader change in American society.”
“The unaffiliated have become a more distinct group,” he said.
Pew's numbers were met with elation among atheist and secular leaders. Jesse Galef, communications director for the Secular Student Alliance, said that the growth of the unaffiliated should translate into greater political representation for secular interests.
“We would love to see the political leaders lead on this issue, but we are perfectly content with them following these demographic trends, following the voters,” Galef said.
“As more of the voters are unaffiliated and identifying as atheist and agnostics, I think the politicians will follow that for votes.
“We won’t be dismissed or ignored anymore,” Galef said.
The Pew survey suggested that the Democratic Party would do well to recognize the growth of the unaffiliated, since 63% of them identify with or lean toward that political group. Only 26% of the unaffiliated do the same with the Republican Party.
"In the near future, if not this year, the unaffiliated voters will be as important as the traditionally religious are to the Republican Party collation,” Green predicted.
Green points to the 2008 exit polls as evidence for that prediction. That year, Republican presidential nominee John McCain beat President Barack Obama by 47 points among white evangelical voters, while Obama had a 52-point margin of victory over McCain among the religiously unaffiliated.
According to exit polls, the proportion of religiously unaffiliated Americans who supported the Democratic presidential candidate grew 14 points from 2000 to 2008.
In announcing the survey’s findings at the Religion Newswriters Association conference in Bethesda, Maryland, Green said the growing political power of the unaffiliated within the Democratic Party could become similar to the power the Religious Right acquired in the GOP in the 1980s.
“Given the growing numbers of the unaffiliated, there is the potential that that could be harnessed,” he said.
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Comments
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
atheism isn't a religion.. if religion is a hobby then if my hobby isn't religion then I'm not religious. I think personally it's a very positive shift and it's world wide.. Australia, Europe and many westernized Asian countries are a lot more non religious then America is. If it keeps science as the forefront of people's thoughts how is that a bad thing.. Some people believe good values are only born out of religious households.. obviously bullshit and a very old fashioned opinion.
Sha la la la i'm in love with a jersey girl
I love you forever and forever
Adel 03 Melb 1 03 LA 2 06 Santa Barbara 06 Gorge 1 06 Gorge 2 06 Adel 1 06 Adel 2 06 Camden 1 08 Camden 2 08 Washington DC 08 Hartford 08
I think it's gotten down to the 20-30 year old's have a higher sense of critical thinking and can actually look outside the box on issues such as religion, evolution etc. Critically thinking with religion opens up a lot of discussions and questions normally scientifically bashing the stories of the bible, creationism etc.
Sha la la la i'm in love with a jersey girl
I love you forever and forever
Adel 03 Melb 1 03 LA 2 06 Santa Barbara 06 Gorge 1 06 Gorge 2 06 Adel 1 06 Adel 2 06 Camden 1 08 Camden 2 08 Washington DC 08 Hartford 08
I agree with this. There are a lot of bad people and churches associated with religion that push people away.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
One of my best friends was telling me this weekend that Obama was waging a war on Christianity, yet he couldn't give me one example. He hears this shit at his mega church in Dallas. Every time he tells me one of these things I'm more and more convinced these rich churches need to pay taxes.
And, unfortunately, they're becoming a very vocal minority. Plus, I think they're convincing regular Christians that they have take a fundamentalist stance too so as to protect Christianity from the "war being waged on it by the liberals" - and that's what really worries me. (I remember telling my mom that she wouldn't go to hell for voting for Kerry over Bush and she said, "I know - but I don't want to take any chances." Fear and division is what it's all about. And it's working. :(
then I wised up
Life is all about learning, growing, exeriencing and keeping oneself
open to all that and then some.
Outside the box is God ...
unfortunately too many don't reach outside the box.
Yeah, my mom's always forwarding me these stupid chain emails about the "war on Christianity". And no matter how many times I debunk each one of them, she won't be convinced that no such war exists - largely, I think, because she heard it at her church & she believes everything the pastor says without question. (She usually gets the emails from my grandmother. My grandmother used to send them to me too but she stopped copying me; I think she got tired of me replying to all with Snopes links. She used to tell me to keep the Snopes links coming, but that was when she was sending emails that didn't pertain to religion. Once religion gets involved, she doesn't want to hear any facts.)
Unfortunately?
Furthermore, You are making the assumption there is only one box - the god one. There isn't. MANY people reach outside the box - this is not a something special to some 'enlightened' ones. Some may also look within the box, within themselves and find what they need, without having to 'go out'.
A lot more people are 'aware', questioning, etc. Not following a certain path because that's what the parents, grand-parents, etc. did and that's what was expected of them.
pandora... believe what you want. it has no effect on me. I was just giving my opinion on why I think religion is fading. It's only an opinion. I'm not offeneded by anyone being religious it's a personal thing to everyone and who am I to judge because I'm atheist.
by the 'box' I mean traditionally religion is defined as normal around the world and if you don't believe it is an alternative notion or belief.. what I'm saying is that this popular opinion is becoming unpopular and it's deemed ok not to believe.
Sha la la la i'm in love with a jersey girl
I love you forever and forever
Adel 03 Melb 1 03 LA 2 06 Santa Barbara 06 Gorge 1 06 Gorge 2 06 Adel 1 06 Adel 2 06 Camden 1 08 Camden 2 08 Washington DC 08 Hartford 08
(I'm open...come in)
But by the same token, I find it fucked up that many who declare there is no god or those who can't say one way or the other would bash those who do believe. Values, morals, etc. are found in many places, religion included.
Spiral in, spiral out.
Someone spends a lot of time in church, tries to be a good person, lives a peaceful life in the name of their god, of their religion...who am I to judge?
Who are YOU, anyone, to judge?
To me, religion is like the old adage - "the love of money is the root of evil". Yeah, it's not money itself, it's how we use it, the importance we attach to it.
Religion isn't inherently evil, it's those who skew it and use it to judge others, to enforce their way of life, to breed hate. I've seen the non-religious do it too.
People are the same all over.
no one has judged you or anyone for being religious... I don't want to be judged just as much for my atheism as you don't want to be judged for I'm assuming your christian beliefs.
Sha la la la i'm in love with a jersey girl
I love you forever and forever
Adel 03 Melb 1 03 LA 2 06 Santa Barbara 06 Gorge 1 06 Gorge 2 06 Adel 1 06 Adel 2 06 Camden 1 08 Camden 2 08 Washington DC 08 Hartford 08
funny I was not judging I spoke only of my experience,
seems the atheists are on the defense why is that?
And of course those of religion here get dished regular.
They pay for all the sins done in the name of religion.
What about all the incredible good done in the name of religion?
Let's finally talk positives, it's so much better for one's health.
Lets talk about love for Jesus and for everyone
We speaking of opinions not facts right
But you do have a point though - the stereotype of the ones following a religion. I believe it stems in the fanatical 'examples' we have - such as the latest in Broun. It would seem those kind of extreme fundamentalists (again in any religion) 'paint the picture' of what can be perceived as religion for a good number of people.
or claim to be :? but the religious just do what they are told,
have smaller less formed prehistoric brains
were brainwashed as children, can't think for themselves etc etc...
I'll say good Lord here. And the atheists complain about being judged. :fp:
I guess they just don't see it ... must be that bright part
maybe it's the within part ... that's it.
When you say you we're an atheist and then "wised up" aren't you implying that aetheists are less wise? Or does the
If you can imagine believing in God can you imagine how it would feel?
Aetheists claim to be bright? Who's judging here?
it would be horribly tedious I know
my words there have been claimed by atheists...
it gets old really.
it was a thread too! :fp:
It's important to keep a sense of humor in life but not at the expense of others.