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15 Percent of Americans Have No Religion
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15 Percent of Americans Have No Religion Fewer Call Themselves Christians; Nondenominational Identification Increases By Michelle Boorstein Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, March 9, 2009; A04 The percentage of Americans who call themselves Christians has dropped dramatically over the past two decades, and those who do are increasingly identifying themselves without traditional denomination labels, according to a major study of U.S. religion being released today. The survey of more than 54,000 people conducted between February and November of last year showed that the percentage of Americans identifying as Christians has dropped to 76 percent of the population, down from 86 percent in 1990. Those who do call themselves Christian are more frequently describing themselves as "nondenominational" "evangelical" or "born again," according to the American Religious Identification Survey. The survey is conducted by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and funded by the Lilly Endowment and the Posen Foundation. Conducted in 1990, 2001 and last year, it is one of the nation's largest major surveys of religion. The increase in people labeling themselves in more generic Christian terms corresponds strongly with the decline in people identifying themselves as Protestant, the survey found. People calling themselves mainline Protestants, including Methodists and Lutherans, have dropped to 13 percent of the population, down from 19 percent in 1990. The number of people who describe themselves as generically "Protestant" went from approximately 17 million in 1990 to 5 million. Meanwhile, the number of people who use nondenominational terms has gone from 194,000 in 1990 to more than 8 million. "There is now this shift in the non-Catholic population -- and maybe among American Christians in general -- into a sort of generic, soft evangelicalism," said Mark Silk, who directs Trinity's Program on Public Values and helped supervise the survey. The survey substantiated several general trends already identified by sociologists: the slipping importance of denomination in America, the growing number of people who say they have "no" religion and the increase in religious minorities including Muslims, Mormons and such movements as Wicca and paganism. The only group that grew in every U.S. state since the 2001 survey was people saying they had "no" religion; the survey says this group is now 15 percent of the population. Silk said this group is likely responsible for the shrinking percentage of Christians in the United States. Northern New England has surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious section of the country; 34 percent of Vermont residents say they have "no religion." The report said that the country has a "growing non-religious or irreligious minority." Twenty-seven percent of those interviewed said they did not expect to have a religious funeral or service when they died, and 30 percent of people who had married said their service was not religious. Those questions weren't asked in previous surveys. The survey reflects a key question that demographers, sociologists and political scientists have been asking in recent years: Who makes up this growing group of evangelicals? Forty-four percent of America's 77 million Christian adults say they are born again or evangelical. Meanwhile, 18 percent of Catholics also chose that label, as did 40 percent of mainline Christians. "If people call themselves 'evangelical,' it doesn't tell you as much as you think it tells you about what kind of church they go to," Silk said. "It deepens the conundrum about who evangelicals are." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...9030801967.html |
15% of Americans are making progress then. 
I actually think the real number is much higher than that. Many people claim they are Christian out of habit..or just to avoid the stigma/weirdness of the atheist and agnostic labels.. If you ask how many believe the bible is literally the word of God and that it's stories are factually accurate, you would have a "yes" number far lower than 85%.
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| Originally posted by Capitalizt 15% of Americans are making progress then. I actually think the real number is much higher than that. Many people claim they are Christian out of habit..or just to avoid the stigma/weirdness of the atheist and agnostic labels.. If you ask how many believe the bible is literally the word of God and that it's stories are factually accurate, you would have a "yes" number far lower than 85%. |
does that mean 85 percent of americans beleive that ancient dinosaurs and humans co existed 7000 years ago?
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| Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit does that mean 85 percent of americans beleive that ancient dinosaurs and humans co existed 7000 years ago? |
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| Originally posted by Capitalizt 15% of Americans are making progress then. |
Im very sure these figures are deflated(number of atheists/agnostics) if anything.
In congress, i can assure you that 15 percent don't come out and say they are disbelievers(actually, for a more educated group the number of atheists should be even higher).
"godless" people are heavily discriminated against in politics.
this is definitely a step forward, in America's case.Alex, would you would be saying the same thing if the number was on the rise in Iran?
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| Originally posted by DJ Damerchi Im very sure these figures are deflated(number of atheists/agnostics) if anything. In congress, i can assure you that 15 percent don't come out and say they are disbelievers(actually, for a more educated group the number of atheists should be even higher). "godless" people are heavily discriminated against in politics. this is definitely a step forward, in America's case.Alex, would you would be saying the same thing if the number was on the rise in Iran? |
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| Originally posted by Krypton Maybe 1 million years ago? |
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| Originally posted by Capitalizt If you ask how many believe the bible is literally the word of God and that it's stories are factually accurate, you would have a "yes" number far lower than 85%. |
Come on Lebez
We all know you can't make as many people laugh, nor can you sound smarter if you try and attack moderates. (Nor can you sell more books )
Straw men work a lot better when attacking the religious, so why not distort the position of over 1.2 billion Christians in the world to make your argument sound convincing?
No one is going to sit around siding with the guy that sets his hat on fire because he wants to relive Pentecost.
Dawkins ONLY ever goes after fundamentalists and therefore his cult following automatically associates Islam with Violence and Christianity with dinosaurs and Noah's ark.
Misconceptions suck but no one cares enough usually to wade through them.
moderate religion is the cesspool from which fanaticism grows. -there you go lebez
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN moderate religion is the cesspool from which fanaticism grows. -there you go lebez |
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN moderate religion is the cesspool from which fanaticism grows. -there you go lebez |
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| Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov Religion is a belief much like ideology. |
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| Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov It's no surprise that there are both docile and radical variants of it - using exclusively radical examples undermines the argument. |
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN but it is very special and stands above and beyond every other ism. well, you guys call these "radical examples" whereas i merely think they're examples. is it a "radical" example when we talk about how many americans truly believe that the world is ~6000 years old? last time i checked that belief stood at around 40%. how does one even classify radical? we have the recent example of the brazilian catholic church ex-communicating that 9yo girl who aborted the twins of her rapist. can it be considered radical when the actual mouthpiece of the belief system is acting? would you call all the opponents to abortion in the US "radical"? coz as far as church-goers go, they'd be pretty damn mainstream. I guess its all in the eyes of the beholder, and what you consider to be outside the "normal" bounds of religious belief. Me being me, I see much of this "radicalism" to be nothing more than the manifestation of moderate religion given too much credence by society. Too much acceptance, too much "understanding", too much deference. Moreso than every single ideology ever invented by man. Why are we all so surprised when it blows up in our face? As renegade put it- since there are no real yardsticks for measuring religious "accuracy", nobody can say for sure that those that strap TNT to their chests are necessarily any more "radical" than those that do not. For all we know god really does reward them with 72 virgins. It might be easy to call these people extremists, but the attempts by theists to disown the real problem- religious belief itself- is absurd. you cannot reason with someone who believes (honestly) that they are doing what god wants them to do. Edit: the other reason we might focus on these "extreme" examples is because the news media doesn't really delve into the more mundane examples- "Child has nightmare about young friend who went to hell" - "adolescent too scared to ask about contraceptive measures ends up preggers" - "moderate religion the number 1 causing schism in society" - "girl dies from AIDS because condoms are satan!" - "US president hopeful fails as they do not believe in god" You get the idea |
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| Originally posted by Alex More militant atheist bull shit. Talk about the culture of fear |
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| Originally posted by Alex Better ban religion to protect the moderates from going crazy and scaring us with their door knocking. |
Also PKC if you're going to use ridiculous examples as evidence as to religion being bull shit. Get the damn facts straight.
You have a bad habit of exaggerating and providing false details to make your arguments sound more convincing.
That 9 year old girl was not excommunicated. The others involved in the abortion were. This is clearly a case of a Bishop going too far. I believe he could have merely asked the people involved to attend confession because I imagine regardless of the situation that as Catholics they felt bad both for the girl and for the lives they were forced to terminate for the sake of the girl.
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| Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN I don�t fear religion. You know why? Because I live in australia and religion has a wonderful backseat here. |
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Christian Lobby Calls for Bipartisan Support of ISP Filtering The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) today called for bipartisan support for the Federal Government�s plans to filter the Internet at service provider level, saying that in the interests of children this issue should be placed above party politics. http://au.christiantoday.com/articl...tering/4844.htm |
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| Originally posted by Alex That 9 year old girl was not excommunicated. The others involved in the abortion were. |
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| Originally posted by Alex This is clearly a case of a Bishop going too far. I believe he could have merely asked the people involved to attend confession because I imagine regardless of the situation that as Catholics they felt bad both for the girl and for the lives they were forced to terminate for the sake of the girl. |
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| Originally posted by josh4 The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) today called for bipartisan support for the Federal Government�s plans to filter the Internet at service provider level, saying that in the interests of children this issue should be placed above party politics. |
There is no God, but this doesn't stop people from pretending as such.
If you think this is wrong, then keep in mind that the burden of proof has been upon you for thousands of years and you've only succeeded in providing reasons why nobody in their right mind should listen to you.
Are you even aware of how silly you look?
Don't roll your eyes at me, you look ridiculous.
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| Originally posted by Aortik There is no God, but this doesn't stop people from pretending as such. If you think this is wrong, then keep in mind that the burden of proof has been upon you for thousands of years and you've only succeeded in providing reasons why nobody in their right mind should listen to you. Are you even aware of how silly you look? Don't roll your eyes at me, you look ridiculous. |
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| Originally posted by Krypton Nobody can prove or disprove the existence of a creator god. Your point is moot. |
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| Originally posted by Krypton Nobody can prove or disprove the existence of a creator god. Your point is moot. |
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