US secular voters - FFRF poll

[lpetrich]

The Nones may be the Reason that Joe Biden is the President Elect – Religion in Public - they were part of a coalition, so it's rather hard to properly apportion credit.

I am left with the impression that a lot of the gains for Joe Biden were not because of anything that the Democratic candidate did. Instead, I think he garnered a larger share of the none’s votes because he was simply not Donald Trump. I am interested to see if the Democratic candidate in 2024 will see as much enthusiasm from this community as they mustered in 2020. If they stay home, or some switch their vote to the GOP, that makes a much narrower path to victory for Democrats in four years.

The Twilight of American Evangelicals | Adam Lee back in 2018 - "Only 10 percent of Americans under 30 identify as white evangelicals. The exodus of youth is so swift that demographers now predict that evangelicals will likely cease being a major political force in presidential elections by 2024."

We are now seeing a bit of that already, in the defeat of Trump, despite evangelicals' adoring of him.

 

[lpetrich]

America’s Post-Christian Future, Part 2 | Adam Lee
notes
Ryan Burge on Twitter: "The share of Americans who identify as Protestants has dropped from 42.8% in 2010 to 35.1% in 2019.

The decline in born-again Protestants is 1.2%, it's 6.5% for not born-again.

55% of Protestants were born-again in 2010, by 2018 it had risen to 65% https://t.co/gc7d1uszM8" / Twitter
For 2010 - 2019:

• Born-again: 23.9% - 22.7%
• Non-BA: 18.9% - 12.4%

While the BA ones declined only a little bit, the non-BA ones declined by 1/3.

Ryan Burge on Twitter: "Here's another piece of evidence that contradicts the narrative that disaffiliation slows or reverses as people move into adulthood/marry/have kids/etc.

25% of Gen X were nones in 2008. It was 36% in 2019.

33% of millennials were nones in 2008. It was 43% in 2019. (link)" / Twitter
For 2008 - 2014 - 2019:

• Silents: 12% - 14% - 17%
• Boomers: 17% - 21% - 25%
• Gen X: 25% - 31% - 36%
• Millennials: 33% - 38% - 43%
• Gen Z: (-) - 40% - 48%

Millennials Are Leaving Religion And Not Coming Back | FiveThirtyEight
Adam Lee:

In a society where nonreligious people are rare, most of them have little choice but to marry a religious spouse, who may persuade them to return to church or convert. Even if not, the religious spouse is likely to insist that their children are raised in the faith – and that matters, because people rarely leave the religion they grow up with. In that situation, the nonreligious spouse’s ideas aren’t transmitted and die out with the next generation.

But as nonreligious people become more common and meet more often, the feedback loop goes the other way. When two nonreligious people marry, they’re almost certain to raise their children without religion, and children raised without religion are very unlikely to adopt one later in life.

538:

In the 1970s, most nonreligious Americans had a religious spouse and often, that partner would draw them back into regular religious practice. But now, a growing number of unaffiliated Americans are settling down with someone who isn’t religious — a process that may have been accelerated by the sheer number of secular romantic partners available, and the rise of online dating. Today, 74 percent of unaffiliated millennials have a nonreligious partner or spouse, while only 26 percent have a partner who is religious.

...
A majority (57 percent) of millennials agree that religious people are generally less tolerant of others, compared to only 37 percent of Baby Boomers.

…Less than half (46 percent) of millennials believe it is necessary to believe in God to be moral. They’re also much less likely than Baby Boomers to say that it’s important for children to be brought up in a religion so they can learn good values (57 percent vs. 75 percent).

 

[lpetrich]

Ryan Burge on Twitter: "Here's a for religious people in the US:

When do retired people outnumber those of child-bearing age in a faith tradition?

For mainline Protestants it was 20 years ago.

For evangelicals, Catholics, and black Protestants the shift is happening right now. https://t.co/7tx9PG5Jjq" / Twitter

Opinion | One nation ‘under God’? More and more Americans don’t think so. - The Washington Post noting the work of University of Michigan political scientist Ronald F. Inglehart:

Social and economic development renders human survival less precarious, human suffering less dramatic — and human beings less needful of existential comfort or guidance from age-old traditions.

Inglehart notes that religions generally revolve around beliefs, and rules, about sex, gender roles and family that are “closely linked to the imperative of maintaining high birthrates.” In modern societies that have mostly conquered infant mortality — while extending life expectancy — that imperative loses relevance.

The decline of traditional religion is thus an indirect, but foreseeable, result of demographic transition and may spread to less developed countries as they modernize.

That may explain a lot of sexism -- making women baby machines so as to produce future generations.

 

[lpetrich]

“Nones” Elected Biden-Harris | James Haught by Adam Lee guest James Haught

Noting Ryan Burge's work.

“Half of white liberals today identify as religiously unaffiliated,” he said. He said atheists and agnostics gave about 80 percent of their votes to Biden-Harris in key battleground states. Those who say their faith is “nothing in particular” went Democratic by two-to-one.

Of course, in any election, victory can be attributed to several voting blocs. Biden-Harris also couldn’t have won without black votes, or labor union votes, or Hispanic votes, etc. But it’s significant that the churchless now are a mighty political machine.

“We represent maybe 30 percent or so of Democratic voters,” says Harvard and MIT humanist chaplain Greg Epstein, who headed Humanists For Biden-Harris, sponsored by Secular Democrats of America. Other skeptic groups also pushed get-out-the-vote efforts among the godless.

He returned in Secular Power Changing America | Adam Lee

Sociologists are amazed by the rapid collapse of faith in Western democracies. Until the postwar years, Christianity dominated all cultures, while unbelievers were a fringe of outcasts. But a remarkable reversal happened. On charts, it promises to form a large X as Christianity sinks and the churchless rise.