Too much data and too many charts to cut and paste. Here's the Link to the Pew Survey, really worth the read, lots of good stuff: http://www.pewforum.org/Unaffiliated/nones-on-the-rise.aspx Basically more people than ever are admitting to being atheist, agnostic or non-affiliated. Young people especially, up from a quarter to a third. Here is what I thought real interesting: Several leading scholars contend that young adults, in particular, have turned away from organized religion because they perceive it as deeply entangled with conservative politics and do not want to have any association with it. University of California, Berkeley, socilogists Michael Hout and Claude S. Fischer first suggested in 2002 that “part of the increase in ‘nones’ can be viewed as a symbolic statement against the Religious Right.”13 And in their recent book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us,” Robert Putnam of Harvard University and David Campbell of Notre Dame marshall evidence from various surveys that supports this thesis. From the 1970s through the 1990s, they argue, “[r]eligiosity and conservative politics became increasingly aligned, and abortion and gay rights became emblematic of the emergent culture wars.” The result, they write, was that many young Americans came to view religion as “judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical, and too political.”14 The new Pew Research Center/Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly survey contains some data that can be seen as consistent with this hypothesis. The survey finds that the unaffiliated are concentrated among younger adults, political liberals and people who take liberal positions on same-sex marriage. In addition, two-thirds or more of the unaffiliated say that churches and other religious institutions are too concerned with money and power (70%) and too involved in politics (67%); these views are significantly more common among the unaffiliated than they are in the general public. Analysis of previous Pew Research Center surveys also shows that the unaffiliated are less likely than the affiliated to believe it is important to have a president with strong religious beliefs, and the unaffiliated are more likely than those with a religious affiliation to say that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of political matters.15 On the other hand, the percentage of religiously unaffiliated people has risen among Republican voters as well as among Democratic voters (though the increase is greater among Democrats). http://www.pewforum.org/Unaffiliated/nones-on-the-rise-sidebar.aspx#one Turns out the mixing of Church and State isn't just bad for the State.
I was gonna start a thread about this, but I'll just post this there- http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...1e2-9a39-1f5a7f6fe945_story.html?tid=obinsite Hmm. Gee, think it might have something to do with your pedophile priests?? Where does that fit into your 'objective right and wrong'?
Note how he doesn't say "irreligion", he says "secular". Meaning that he wants the state to legislate his morality. Asshole.
Another factor (in addition to the craziness of the religious right) is that gods are simply becoming less and less relevant to a society which is understanding more and more about our universe through science. To use a basic example: the sun used to rise because of supernatural reasons, now we understand that it doesn't actually "rise" even though religion once actively persecuted those who believed that fact. The incredible amount of scientific breakthroughs over the last few generations are displacing gods when it comes to explaining things.
Kind of what Chad said - IMO "God" is always one step beyond what you understand. Perhaps (most likely) primitive man thought fire (in the form of lightning for example) was from God. Once he mastered making it, that function of God went away. You can always find examples of things that cannot be explained...yet. So if you solve the riddle, people can always say "so what? Now explain X! That must be from God!" It's like a dog chasing it's tail.
It's no longer an old woman musing that a thing works the way it does because of God's plan. Now there's an explanation and most likely it has something to do with Steve Jobs.
And the whole 'religion' thing got much less interesting when some of us decided that there was only one god. Monotheism, although powerful and right for its time, will see the end of major world religions.
I have to wonder; do you smear lipstick all over your face before you post this stuff? You're such a glutton for punishment. You have to know what you're doing. I think you get a thrill out of it.
I have been saying that for many years. Religion loses its soul (if I may be permitted that term) when it gets secular power. The power to compel people to obey religion's rules necessarily has as its first effect the transformation of religion from being basically centered on beliefs to being basically centered on behavior. It then has as its second effect the transformation of religion from being primarily interested in "the other world" (whatever that is in that world) to being primarily interested in "this world": the money, politics, and even military might that make that power possible. Secular power necessarily makes religion into "bad" religion, no matter how lofty and spiritual that religion's goals were the outset. And being the worst form of religion, it then makes for "bad" society. It happened to Christianity massively in the 4th century, and only the Radical Reformation made some branches of Christianity into groups which were sufficiently marginalized in the world as to have almost no political power. They returned, in general, to "spiritual" concerns. From that movement the Evangelical movement was finally born in the 19th century. But in the States, the Evangelical movement is determined to regain secular power, and it is having all the usual bad effects, both on religion and on society.
In short, when the Church and the State get together, the gospel becomes "Let the love of Jesus into your hearts! ...or else."
Barack Obama is certainly a part of a religious minority, because he's a Protestant---something only 44% of Americans are these days. Catholics are about a quarter of the country, the rest either adhere to other faiths (Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc.) or are unaffiliated, either nonsectarian or totally agnoistic/atheist. Politicians need to be careful before aligning themselves with any fundamentalist sects, because even the once-growing ones no longer are according to Pew Research. Most Western nations are further along the secular path than we are, but clearly America is catching up. The biggest reason? The inflexibility bordering on bigotry which too many old line religious leaders embrace, which is a turnoff to people especially under the age of 50.
Yup, gods that don't command their worshipers to destroy each other for their amusement are boring. You're right, we're all better for it, but still...
The truly sad shit is that Ancalagon thinks this is an endorsement of Democrats rather than an indictment of atheists. It's all in your choice of which idiot shit to fall for. Worship an invisible sky fairy as a "god" or worship corrupt, lying, thieving fucking humans as a collective "god." You pick your poison, you still get your fuckin' lumps.
I do agree with the principle that there will be a backlash against the church-state business that so many are pushing right now BUT i disagree with the idea that religion will disappear. Religion isn't really about the things you can figure out with science - if you figure something out it will just shift to other areas. Religion is about the intangible things science can't even start to explain in a soul-satisfying way. notwithstanding the explanation which satisfies your soul may well be irrational - people believe irrational things ALL the time. Religious or otherwise. When people need someway to deal with their child who died of cancer, or the near miss tornado, or losing their job, or finding the spouse they intend to spend their lifetime with - they need to believe there's a God who's in control. that's not going to change because we expand the boundaries of science.
Actually, it's worse than that. "The love of Jesus" gets put more and more on the back burner, until it really has nothing to do with anything. Study the Christianity of the Middle Ages, when the mighty Church had all the religious power and all the secular power. Its message had basically nothing at all to do with "the love of Jesus." It was all about obeying the Church's interpretation of "Christian" morality, and paying all the necessary [-]taxes[/-] indulgences in order to avoid being declared an enemy of God and, therefore, of the State. They not only would condemn you to hell, they would take the appropriate steps to make sure you got there as soon as possible. The teachings of Jesus had very, very little place in that theology. It was as cold, harsh and legalistic as Islam (which doesn't even pretend that God is love, or that grace exists, or that the goal is knowing God, or anything like that--it's all just "obey the law, or die"). That is, in my opinion, where a large proportion of American Evangelicalism is headed today.
Something I found out on vacation. Supposedly we left England and first started developing our colonies for "religious freedom." That's what they taught us in school anyway. But Jamestown Virginia had one church, and you had to be that religion, and church was mandatory and oppressive. Not obeying the church was just like not obeying the king (of England of course at the time) and considered treason. So I find it funny that the people pining for religious freedom are the ones vehemently enforcing it when they get to a new place.
It was around the time that religion was starting the slide of losing tight dogmatic grip over England. Plenty of the religious leaving weren't doing so to have freedom to do what they wanted, but rather the "freedom" to live in a society where there beliefs would be enforced.
