Comments on: The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:00:31 +0000

Hey, Paul:
Professors Kosmin and Keysar are, respectively, director and associate director of Trinity’s Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture. The Program on Public Values at Trinity College comprises the Institute and the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, which is also directed by Professor Silk. ARIS 2008 was made possible by grants from Lilly Endowment, Inc. and the Posen Foundation. To receive a copy of the ARIS 2008 Summary Report by email, contact any of the above

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:18:57 +0000

I love the bit where you can see the changes in percentage in each state from 1990 to 2008. Watch the circles grow for the non-religious!

Holy shit! If we extrapolate the same trends decades ahead, that map begins to look like the map used in the movie Outbreak!

The end is near!

I don’t really see this as good news, either. Some people may be seeing through Christianity, but it doesn’t mean they’re embracing reason and skepticism either. In ten years, we may find that a lot of the de-converts have found something even worse than Christianity to believe in.

I have little expectation that the overall culture will ever embrace reason and skepticism. I think the best we can hope for is the generic disinterest in religious issues characteristic of Europe. And if the Christians all become New Agers or Buddhists or something, that’s still not bad for us, because then a single faith trying to browbeat everyone in to submission to its theology will cease to exist. A religious marketplace means everyone can believe, or not believe, whatever floats their boat. If that happens, religion will cease to have such clout with people, and people won’t take it so seriously (something they should not have done in the first place!)

By: Wolfgang Fernandez

Wolfgang Fernandez — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:57:12 +0000

I’m disappointed for the analysis of ARIS is rather superficial. The fact is that the growth rate of the None group has dramatically slowed down between 02 and 08. This is either an anomaly or the numbers of people who identify themselves as “None” is hardly growing anymore. The other important factor which is alluded by one of the people who wrote back is that the None group includes many more people besides Atheists. There is a lot of people there who believe in God (in various forms) but are dissatisfied with church as it is know today.

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:10:34 +0000

I was in a non-religious wedding this weekend. There was a minister, but I don’t think he mentioned God once, which was neat. There was no long, drawn-out reading of Proverbs, no prayer, and no two-hour religious ceremony. We were in and out in twenty minutes. Of course, having the minister, and being in a church (well, a Unitarian church) might mean it was counted as religious.

This same friend who got married participates in a few Jewish holidays, but has never mentioned a belief in God, ever. On the other hand, she and the MoH drove with me to the church and those two babbled on about astrology. Clearly one can be basically non-religious but still susceptible to woo-woo thinking.

By: Richard Wade

Richard Wade — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:19:49 +0000

Siamang,

But what about the 2012 end of the world, Gabe?

It will only be the end of the world for ancient Mayans. All ancient Mayans will cease to exist in 2012. Good riddance. Pesky ancient Mayans.

The rest of us will have to continue hearing about each successive doomsday, watch them come and go, and then notice that the only people who disappeared were the ones who made some money making the predictions. I’ve lost count of how many ends of the world I’ve survived.

Back on topic, these stats are encouraging but we should not read more into them than is really there. As others here have pointed out, the “unaffiliated,” the “nones” as they are called are not necessarily free of belief in gods. Those who still retain some kind of belief in the supernatural may be susceptible to joining organized religions later in life.

I hope they don’t revive some kind of ancient Mayan religion.

By: Obligatory Survey Celebration « Nous

Obligatory Survey Celebration « Nous — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:00:42 +0000

[...] that those who predicted the death of atheism were apparently way off. One commentor on the Friendly Atheist blog had this to say (and yes, he was apparently being serious): Yeah, go ahead and yuck it up [...]

By: Stephie

Stephie — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:21:50 +0000

@godhatesprotesters:

That’s awesome… What, aside from officiating, does an atheist minister do, may I ask? (How do you even get atheists to attend a “religious” function??) I wish you could officiate for us, although I WOULD like ninjas to be mentioned a LITTLE bit…

By: weaves

weaves — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:46:31 +0000

Conveniently, a previously religious friend of mine just came out of the atheist closet. Made a facebook status and all, so you know it’s serious.

By: godhatesprotesters

godhatesprotesters — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:19:16 +0000

Two thoughts:

First, I’ll bet the shift towards secularism is mostly generational. It’s the under-30 crowd that largely identifies as non-religious, so it may be several more years before secularists (finally) make real headway into politics.

Second, I’m an ordained atheist minister. Last year I officiated at my friend’s wedding without a single mention of God, Jesus, angels or ninjas. I guess you’ve attended the wrong weddings.

By: Erp

Erp — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:52:11 +0000

I should point out that the 2.3% of no belief in God is in answer to the question

“Regarding the existence of God, do you think…”

The choice of answers was
There is no such thing – 2.3%
There is no way to know – 4.3%
I’m not sure – 5.7%
There is a higher power but no personal God – 12.1%
There is definitely a personal God – 69.5%
Refused to answer – 6.1%

Agnostic atheists would quite likely give the second answer or even the third answer (I’m not sure …but I’m going to assume not) so atheistic people might range up to about 12% of the population. Deistic people seem to be another 12.1%.

Also the among those without any religion there are 60 men to every 40 women. Note that some atheists might have a religion (e.g., Unitarians) and some of the ‘no religion’ might be theists.