Growth of "nones" in America largely coming from Protestants.

[Underseer]

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-u-s-is-retreating-from-religion/

This article is from 2017. I'm mostly interested in this image:



Does anyone have hard data on why most of the increase in nones seems to be coming from Protestants?

If not, want to speculate?

 

[steve_bank]

There was a British survey that atheists pointed to. It turned out the questions were ill defined.

No religious affilation applied to a wide range of spiritual and supernatural beliefs. None does not equal atheist. It depends on the questions.

 

[Underseer]

There was a British survey that atheists pointed to. It turned out the questions were ill defined.

No religious affilation applied to a wide range of spiritual and supernatural beliefs. None does not equal atheist. It depends on the questions.

I'm well aware that many of the nones are people who have all manner of belief in gods or the supernatural. I never equated nones with atheists. Everyone here is more than aware that atheists are a subset of nones.

But that doesn't answer my question. Why are so many of the nones coming at the expense of Protestants?

 

[bilby]

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-u-s-is-retreating-from-religion/

This article is from 2017. I'm mostly interested in this image:

View attachment 16848

Does anyone have hard data on why most of the increase in nones seems to be coming from Protestants?

If not, want to speculate?

Purely speculation, but I get the impression that Catholics are more conservative and less likely to deviate from one another due to discipline imposed by the church; Protestants are more fractured and less disciplined, with a tendency to split into sects over points of doctrine, where the Catholics typically resist that in favour of taking the 'umpire's decision' from the Pope on matters of contention.

A less homogeneous group, with a history of dissent, will inevitably include people who are in disagreement with their particular church, and while historically such people have tended to find (or found) another sect with whom they are more closely in agreement, there presumably are some who observe this in-fighting and conclude that they are all getting it wrong. That was less likely to happen when information about a dispute between sect leaders was available to the congregation only from the leaders themselves; But these days if a congregant takes an interest in a disputed point of doctrine, they likely have access to the Internet to check out the wider discussion - and may well find that there are more than two sides to the story.

When one preacher tells you that the KJV is the only version of the Bible that is the unadulterated word of god; And another says that the KJV is the best path to understanding what god wants, but may not be perfect in all things, it is relatively easy to discover, if you do your own research, that both are full of shit, and that the bible has no divine qualities in any version.

 

[steve_bank]

There was a British survey that atheists pointed to. It turned out the questions were ill defined.

No religious affilation applied to a wide range of spiritual and supernatural beliefs. None does not equal atheist. It depends on the questions.

I'm well aware that many of the nones are people who have all manner of belief in gods or the supernatural. I never equated nones with atheists. Everyone here is more than aware that atheists are a subset of nones.

But that doesn't answer my question. Why are so many of the nones coming at the expense of Protestants?

Don't know. Growing up Catholic in the 50s/60s some were pious but the majority seemed to pick and choose how closely they adhered to doctrine, like contraceptives. Catholics seem to be generally happy and there was little overt theological ranting like evangelicals. It was a practical church. Just a guess, Catholics may be less likely to become disillusioned. There is a term Catholic In Name Only. The RCC also tends to provide many services to the community through non ordained nuns and brothers.

The RCC last time I looked has about 25% of population. 15% as a guess for atheists and others. That leaves about 60% protestant inclusive of Baptists and Lutherans and so on. Protestants are a larger pool.

Organized white protestants are more likely to be racist and bigoted, there may be a crises of consciousness. The RCC is not generally linked to racism.

 

[Underseer]

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-u-s-is-retreating-from-religion/

This article is from 2017. I'm mostly interested in this image:

View attachment 16848

Does anyone have hard data on why most of the increase in nones seems to be coming from Protestants?

If not, want to speculate?

Purely speculation, but I get the impression that Catholics are more conservative and less likely to deviate from one another due to discipline imposed by the church; Protestants are more fractured and less disciplined, with a tendency to split into sects over points of doctrine, where the Catholics typically resist that in favour of taking the 'umpire's decision' from the Pope on matters of contention.

A less homogeneous group, with a history of dissent, will inevitably include people who are in disagreement with their particular church, and while historically such people have tended to find (or found) another sect with whom they are more closely in agreement, there presumably are some who observe this in-fighting and conclude that they are all getting it wrong. That was less likely to happen when information about a dispute between sect leaders was available to the congregation only from the leaders themselves; But these days if a congregant takes an interest in a disputed point of doctrine, they likely have access to the Internet to check out the wider discussion - and may well find that there are more than two sides to the story.

When one preacher tells you that the KJV is the only version of the Bible that is the unadulterated word of god; And another says that the KJV is the best path to understanding what god wants, but may not be perfect in all things, it is relatively easy to discover, if you do your own research, that both are full of shit, and that the bible has no divine qualities in any version.

In my experience (at least in America), Catholics aren't more conservative. They are less homogeneous than Protestants in every possible way, including liberal/conservative or fundamentalist/moderate.

Anyway, this opinion piece suggests that no matter what the cause, it's about to get worse because Evangelical leaders threw their story behind Trump with such enthusiasm.

https://www.salon.com/amp/evangelicals-embrace-of-donald-trump-may-cost-them-the-future

Just from the deconversion stories around here, we know that this kind of hypocrisy can drive deconversion, and many younger atheists left religion because of the moral hypocrisy of conservative Evangelicals.

 

[Keith&Co.]

There was a British survey that atheists pointed to. It turned out the questions were ill defined.

No religious affilation applied to a wide range of spiritual and supernatural beliefs. None does not equal atheist. It depends on the questions.

Seems quite likely.
At bootcamp, I put 'atheist' in the form, my dogtags read 'NO PREF(erence)'
The guy in front of me put 'Druid.' He was 'NO PREF.'

I think if they didn't have a symbol for it at Arlington, you were assigned 'No preference.'

 

[Keith&Co.]

Does anyone have hard data on why most of the increase in nones seems to be coming from Protestants?

If not, want to speculate?

Well, the worst liars seems to be amongthe Protestant side of our family.

The Catholics are just as sure that the Protestants are wrong as the other way around, but they seem less likely to invent horrible stories of excess evil. My cousin will say that my uncle is in error about, say, the age of the Earth, while my Uncle will go into great detail about the secret rites the Catholics practice in the basements, invoking Satan and spreading his lie of evolution...

And they are very, very invested in these lies. EVERYONE is against them. Conspiracies to put homosexualevolutionbuttsex agendas in schools/sitcoms/cartoons/music. Global government, taking guns, forced baking graphic sex cakes, turning our sons and daughters into Thai hookers...

I have to think that if anyone ever starts to really examine these rants, and comes to reject one or two of the more outrageous lies, they have to reject a whole swath of them. As more and more people become habituated to homosexuals, they see that they're not constantly on the prowl to rape little kids, they're not interested in brainwashing the straights, they're not slipping gayist porn into textbooks... Then they can't trust the person who told them about the Queer Agenda, or whatever.

There are, of course, those that will double-down on the crazy, just to convince themselves that it's not crazy, that they haven't been lied to, they haven't supported the cray cray... But some are going to hit the eject.

 

[bilby]

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-u-s-is-retreating-from-religion/

This article is from 2017. I'm mostly interested in this image:

View attachment 16848

Does anyone have hard data on why most of the increase in nones seems to be coming from Protestants?

If not, want to speculate?

Purely speculation, but I get the impression that Catholics are more conservative and less likely to deviate from one another due to discipline imposed by the church; Protestants are more fractured and less disciplined, with a tendency to split into sects over points of doctrine, where the Catholics typically resist that in favour of taking the 'umpire's decision' from the Pope on matters of contention.

A less homogeneous group, with a history of dissent, will inevitably include people who are in disagreement with their particular church, and while historically such people have tended to find (or found) another sect with whom they are more closely in agreement, there presumably are some who observe this in-fighting and conclude that they are all getting it wrong. That was less likely to happen when information about a dispute between sect leaders was available to the congregation only from the leaders themselves; But these days if a congregant takes an interest in a disputed point of doctrine, they likely have access to the Internet to check out the wider discussion - and may well find that there are more than two sides to the story.

When one preacher tells you that the KJV is the only version of the Bible that is the unadulterated word of god; And another says that the KJV is the best path to understanding what god wants, but may not be perfect in all things, it is relatively easy to discover, if you do your own research, that both are full of shit, and that the bible has no divine qualities in any version.

In my experience (at least in America), Catholics aren't more conservative. They are less homogeneous than Protestants in every possible way, including liberal/conservative or fundamentalist/moderate.

Anyway, this opinion piece suggests that no matter what the cause, it's about to get worse because Evangelical leaders threw their story behind Trump with such enthusiasm.

https://www.salon.com/amp/evangelicals-embrace-of-donald-trump-may-cost-them-the-future

Just from the deconversion stories around here, we know that this kind of hypocrisy can drive deconversion, and many younger atheists left religion because of the moral hypocrisy of conservative Evangelicals.

I am not using the word 'conservative' in its wider party political sense.

(and if I was, it would be synonymous with 'liberal' in my dialect of English).

Catholicism is more bound to tradition and dogma, while Protestantism is more ideologically diverse.

If that's not the case in the US, then how come there are so many different Protestant churches and sects?

Having a central authority in the vatican practically defines Catholicism as conservative; While Protestantism is anything Christian that doesn't subscribe to that authority, and includes everything from Unitarianism to Southern Baptism; and from mega churches to the Quakers. Are all of those diverse sects really so similar in the US?

 

[Underseer]

In my experience (at least in America), Catholics aren't more conservative. They are less homogeneous than Protestants in every possible way, including liberal/conservative or fundamentalist/moderate.

Anyway, this opinion piece suggests that no matter what the cause, it's about to get worse because Evangelical leaders threw their story behind Trump with such enthusiasm.

https://www.salon.com/amp/evangelicals-embrace-of-donald-trump-may-cost-them-the-future

Just from the deconversion stories around here, we know that this kind of hypocrisy can drive deconversion, and many younger atheists left religion because of the moral hypocrisy of conservative Evangelicals.

I am not using the word 'conservative' in its wider party political sense.

(and if I was, it would be synonymous with 'liberal' in my dialect of English).

Catholicism is more bound to tradition and dogma, while Protestantism is more ideologically diverse.

If that's not the case in the US, then how come there are so many different Protestant churches and sects?

Having a central authority in the vatican practically defines Catholicism as conservative; While Protestantism is anything Christian that doesn't subscribe to that authority, and includes everything from Unitarianism to Southern Baptism; and from mega churches to the Quakers. Are all of those diverse sects really so similar in the US?

Catholicism includes both creationists and pro-science under the same roof, though. That's pretty diverse ideology, isn't it? Protestant churches tend to be mostly evolution or mostly creationism from what I was told.

 

[bilby]

In my experience (at least in America), Catholics aren't more conservative. They are less homogeneous than Protestants in every possible way, including liberal/conservative or fundamentalist/moderate.

Anyway, this opinion piece suggests that no matter what the cause, it's about to get worse because Evangelical leaders threw their story behind Trump with such enthusiasm.

https://www.salon.com/amp/evangelicals-embrace-of-donald-trump-may-cost-them-the-future

Just from the deconversion stories around here, we know that this kind of hypocrisy can drive deconversion, and many younger atheists left religion because of the moral hypocrisy of conservative Evangelicals.

I am not using the word 'conservative' in its wider party political sense.

(and if I was, it would be synonymous with 'liberal' in my dialect of English).

Catholicism is more bound to tradition and dogma, while Protestantism is more ideologically diverse.

If that's not the case in the US, then how come there are so many different Protestant churches and sects?

Having a central authority in the vatican practically defines Catholicism as conservative; While Protestantism is anything Christian that doesn't subscribe to that authority, and includes everything from Unitarianism to Southern Baptism; and from mega churches to the Quakers. Are all of those diverse sects really so similar in the US?

Catholicism includes both creationists and pro-science under the same roof, though. That's pretty diverse ideology, isn't it? Protestant churches tend to be mostly evolution or mostly creationism from what I was told.

Well, in principle, Catholicism has an authoritative dogma, defined by the Vatican, and any who don't agree with that are heretical.

Concerning cosmological evolution, the Church has infallibly defined that the universe was specially created out of nothing. Vatican I solemnly defined that everyone must "confess the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, as regards their whole substance, have been produced by God from nothing" (Canons on God the Creator of All Things, canon 5).

The Church does not have an official position on whether the stars, nebulae, and planets we see today were created at that time or whether they developed over time (for example, in the aftermath of the Big Bang that modern cosmologists discuss). However, the Church would maintain that, if the stars and planets did develop over time, this still ultimately must be attributed to God and his plan, for Scripture records: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host [stars, nebulae, planets] by the breath of his mouth" (Ps. 33:6).

Concerning biological evolution, the Church does not have an official position on whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However, it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.

Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man’s body developed from previous biological forms, under God’s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. Pope Pius XII declared that "the teaching authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions . . . take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter—[but] the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God" (Pius XII, Humani Generis 36). So whether the human body was specially created or developed, we are required to hold as a matter of Catholic faith that the human soul is specially created; it did not evolve, and it is not inherited from our parents, as our bodies are.

While the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental creation on certain questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution.

(Source)

Catholics are at liberty to believe that creation took a few days or a much longer period, according to how they see the evidence, and subject to any future judgment of the Church (Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical Humani Generis 36–37). They need not be hostile to modern cosmology. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "[M]any scientific studies . . . have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life forms, and the appearance of man. These studies invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator" (CCC 283).

(Source) (My bold)

Of course, in practice, the church tolerates all manner of heresy, partly because they want to keep their membership numbers up, and avoid schisms, and partly because most jurisdictions no longer allow them to set heretics on fire. But where a question is left open in their dogma, it is noteworthy that they reserve the right to declare it closed, and to impose an answer that cannot then be questioned, at any time.