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PRRI - Study of Nones - The Rise of the Unaffiliated

 
 
 
Cheerful Charlie

Cheerful Charlie

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http://www.prri.org/research/prri-rns-poll-nones-atheist-leaving-religion/
09.22.2016

Exodus - Why Americans Are leaving Religion And Why They Are Not Coming Back

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[h=3]The Decline of Religious Affiliation Among Young Adults[/h] Today, nearly four in ten (39%) young adults (ages 18-29) are religiously unaffiliated—three times the unaffiliated rate (13%) among seniors (ages 65 and older). While previous generations were also more likely to be religiously unaffiliated in their twenties, young adults today are nearly four times as likely as young adults a generation ago to identify as religiously unaffiliated. In 1986, for example, only 10% of young adults claimed no religious affiliation.
Among young adults, the religiously unaffiliated dwarf the percentages of other religious identifications: Catholic (15%), white evangelical Protestant (9%), white mainline Protestant (8%), black Protestant (7%), other non-white Protestants (11%), and affiliation with a non-Christian religion (7%).


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Unaffiliateds (Nones) now account for 26% of Americans. A new high. This is a major new survey with lots of information in it. 60% of unaffiliateds leave because they simply stop believing in the religion they were raised in.

Interesting if one likes to paw through such surveys to see what is happening in America's religious landscape.
 
A person's religion used to be part of their identity. Not so anymore for a growing number of people. Most importantly it's okay because there are more and more around just like yourself.

In a way religion is on the defensive. Look at atheists, a group that used to be hated almost universally. Now it's okay. I don't wear a sign advertising same on my back but when it comes up in conversation I certainly don't encounter the kind of shock and revulsion that used to be the norm. If nothing else it's tolerated. That's very cool, something unimaginable in my youth.
 
Western Europe already did this.

The USA is just fifty years behind. So if you want to know what the religious landscape in the US will look like in 2066, take a look at Western Europe today.

In the UK, attendance at weekly religious services in churches is something less than 10% of people do - and most of them are old people who have been doing it all their lives. Less than 2% of the population attends services in mosques - and Islam is the second largest major religion.

Basically religion is for old people and a handful of migrants.

But don't imagine that the churches will go quietly. They can do a lot of damage in their death throes.
 
Whatever. Atheists don't have no songs. People will go back to the religions.
 
bilby said:
Western Europe already did this.

The USA is just fifty years behind. So if you want to know what the religious landscape in the US will look like in 2066, take a look at Western Europe today.

In the UK, attendance at weekly religious services in churches is something less than 10% of people do - and most of them are old people who have been doing it all their lives. Less than 2% of the population attends services in mosques - and Islam is the second largest major religion.

Basically religion is for old people and a handful of migrants.

But don't imagine that the churches will go quietly. They can do a lot of damage in their death throes.
Click to expand...
Yup! I think the whole gay marriage reality is going to really start hurting the fundagelical side of the Christian equation in the US pretty bad with the under current under 40 crowd over the next 2 decades. They are still in complete denial on this issue, and after another decade of it being a part of normal society, their churches will start looking more like freak shows to the ever larger majority who consider gay people normal. The young people that grow up in these churches will largely abandon organized religion with some sliding over to the mainstream Protestant side.

Even today, you can see that most churches of all stripes are weakly represented in the 18 to 39 demographics.
 
I think rationalism has affected religion, but an even bigger factor, in the US anyway, is the decline of the middle class. Churches take up time, energy and resources.
 
If I were still a christian statistics like this would only have me assuming that Satan was gaining a short lived advantage. God would knock him on his back again soon enough.

I Kings 19 has Elijah despairing because he thinks he's the only Yahweh fan left and the Baal fans are out to kill him. Yahweh told him there were still 7000 who hadn't made the switch. Like many biblical anecdotes this story contains a lot of details that are unlikely to have happened. But the theme that religions wax and wane is reasonable.
 
Several polls, notable Gallup show that up to 11% of respondents claim to not believe in God or a Universal Spirit, depending on how the question is phrased. But only a small percentage self identify as atheists. Sp atheism as such is a problem. Many "Nothing in particulars" do not believe in God or a universal spirit, nor agnostics. So we atheists have a ways to go as far as image and acceptability to the general public. And as discussed in another thread, Pew surveys show 26% of belivers believe in God as a force, not a personal God.
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
Several polls, notable Gallup show that up to 11% of respondents claim to not believe in God or a Universal Spirit, depending on how the question is phrased. But only a small percentage self identify as atheists. Sp atheism as such is a problem. Many "Nothing in particulars" do not believe in God or a universal spirit, nor agnostics. So we atheists have a ways to go as far as image and acceptability to the general public. And as discussed in another thread, Pew surveys show 26% of belivers believe in God as a force, not a personal God.
Click to expand...

Most English people never go to church, and never think about God unless prompted - but when asked, they claim to be Christians.

The question is, why should anyone care? They are atheists, but they don't call themselves that out of a sense of community with their immediate ancestors. That's not a problem, until the churches try to use their supposed support base to justify meddling in government. And most such cases can be (and are) dealt with via public opinion - people won't bother too much about the church meddling in government in a general sense, but if the specifics impact on their lives, they soon speak out.
 
bilby said:
Western Europe already did this.

The USA is just fifty years behind. So if you want to know what the religious landscape in the US will look like in 2066, take a look at Western Europe today.
Click to expand...
no the cult of atheism will die by 2040, atheism is a fashion of rap generation
 
Syed said:
bilby said:
Western Europe already did this.

The USA is just fifty years behind. So if you want to know what the religious landscape in the US will look like in 2066, take a look at Western Europe today.
Click to expand...
no the cult of atheism will die by 2040, atheism is a fashion of rap generation
Click to expand...

:hysterical:
 
Syed said:
bilby said:
Western Europe already did this.

The USA is just fifty years behind. So if you want to know what the religious landscape in the US will look like in 2066, take a look at Western Europe today.
Click to expand...
no the cult of atheism will die by 2040, atheism is a fashion of rap generation
Click to expand...

Atheism has been an available menu option since the paleolithic era.
And yet it has consistently failed to win hearts and minds.
 
Lion IRC said:
Syed said:
no the cult of atheism will die by 2040, atheism is a fashion of rap generation
Click to expand...

Atheism has been an available menu option since the paleolithic era.
And yet it has consistently failed to win hearts and minds.
Click to expand...


If you ignore Europe, large parts of China et al. Atheism is doing well in the Scandinavian nations, England, France, and other European nations.

And about 10% of Americans now do not believe in God. Did you actually bother to read the PRRI study in all it's glory?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism
 
Lion IRC said:
Syed said:
no the cult of atheism will die by 2040, atheism is a fashion of rap generation
Click to expand...

Atheism has been an available menu option since the paleolithic era.
And yet it has consistently failed to win hearts and minds.
Click to expand...
If anyone can ever show me their magic spaceman I'll sign on. I'll certainly never worship the magic spaceman but at least I'll know it's real.
 
Lion IRC said:
Syed said:
no the cult of atheism will die by 2040, atheism is a fashion of rap generation
Click to expand...

Atheism has been an available menu option since the paleolithic era.
And yet it has consistently failed to win hearts and minds.
Click to expand...

That's because there aren't many good atheist stories. It's why we're always trying so hard to integrate atheism more fully with Star Wars. Star Wars is a good story. If we could somehow have the central message of atheism (that everyone who isn't us is kind of a moron) be summed up by the adventures of Batman flying around in the Millenium Falcon, the philosophy would take off.
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
Several polls, notable Gallup show that up to 11% of respondents claim to not believe in God or a Universal Spirit, depending on how the question is phrased. But only a small percentage self identify as atheists. Sp atheism as such is a problem. Many "Nothing in particulars" do not believe in God or a universal spirit, nor agnostics. So we atheists have a ways to go as far as image and acceptability to the general public. And as discussed in another thread, Pew surveys show 26% of belivers believe in God as a force, not a personal God.
Click to expand...

As far as the image of atheism, it doesn't help when closeted atheists like Neil deGrasse Tyson throw atheists under the bus in order to try and score "open-minded" points for themselves. He isn't the only closeted atheist that publicly rejected atheism in favor of "agnosticism" under the false assumption that atheism entails being absolutely certain that God doesn't exist. Gould made similar bogus arguments against atheism. Gould said he would bet against God's existence and be "very surprised if God existed." That is atheism and belief that that God doesn't exist, because a belief does not require absolute certainty, but merely viewing the idea as more probable than the alternatives.
 
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