More Americans Say They Have No Religion.
This is according to an Associated Press story from a recent poll. Link. According to a Washington Post story "15 percent of Americans have no religion" and "the percentage of Americans who call themselves Christians has dropped dramatically over the past two decades." The actual survey can be found here, but I haven't read through it yet. We are slowly winning...very slowly. Everyone who has ever spoken out has been a part of this slow trend.
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Religious sentiment will always be part of the fabric of humanity, I think. That being said, I think we should seek to tame the rigid fundamentalist tendencies within religion which are truly a dangerous impulse. Otherwise, I find some strains of liberal Christianity relatively harmless, for example, and I rarely bother attempting to shake those believers of their notions of God.
The content of page http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/05/what-would-convince-me-christianity-is.html is empty and I would very much like to read it. Is it available somewhere else?
Sometimes that happens with some of our pages and I don't know why. Just delete your temporary internet files and check back later.
As long as times are good the trend will continue. If they get too bad, though, you never know.
"We are slowly winning...very slowly. Everyone who has ever spoken out has been a part of this slow trend."
Perhaps, but you can never tell whether the next Great Awakening is just around the corner...
Not only that, but while the trend may be working in one direction here, it's working in the other direction in many, many other parts of the world.
John, this is off topic, but do you have any idea when the folks at 'The Things That Matter Most' are going to put your interview up?
Hey John,
It's your old buddy Daniel M. here. I just wanted to share a post I put up on a bulletin board of a local godless group that summarizes some statistics about us "non-religious" and the often-overlooked fact that we make up over 30 million Americans (and probably far more, like 50 million).
See all the information here
I'll also send you the information in an email (I'll send to the verizon addy I have from a while back). Feel free to share!
Thanks!
Warmly,
Daniel
Even during the leadership of a president who was very open to promoting religious ideas over the past decade, the numbers still fell for them.
Look at what happened during the ten years before that when we had a much more secular environment. The internet broke the bubble of isolation. Religions in advanced societies only thrive when there is no competition.
I would not be surprised to see another ten percent drop in Christianity over the next ten years.
The idea that some God/s created us allowing us to be dammed for supposed past wrong doings of Adam and Eve.Somebody who would then threaten us with a place in hell,for wrong doings.
Becomes a much more stupid thought more and more as time goes by.And as we have learned things such as how lightening happens,less often it is that people believe supernatural powers exist always ready to strike down those who lack faith.
And where once the religious ruled, together often posing a threat on any who openly displayed disbelief.
Now the threats have faded away somewhat and no longer is the stigma of disgrace with non belief the overbearing power that it once was.
Sorry I feel like a dope. I forgot our GC local group is private. See here for those statistics I mentioned.
'Even during the leadership of a president who was very open to promoting religious ideas over the past decade, the numbers still fell for them.'
Maybe because of not inspite of ;-)
I think that your point about the internet is a valid premise.
Certainly access to other ideas and world views are important here...methinks it is hard to swim against an intellectual current that no one else seems to question.
It is possible that even the thought of rebelling against the prevailing attitude has never been contemplated let alone seriously considered.
It is the informational and educational highway fueled by media... books...science that has forced the concept of an all powerful deity into the 'God of Gaps' scenario in an attempt to keep the delusion as a relevant element in spirituality as theistic logic might allow.
Those 'gaps' are squeezing closed and being filled with rationality and Yahweh is squeaking fit to rapture..or rather his fan club is...
To that end the truly mentally afflicted are flocking to where they think surety reigns...the cults inhabiting the circumference of religious thought.
It seems untenable to consider their delusion is slowly evaporating...that wonders are being explained by science and man made 'miracles' are par for the age!
They want their sky daddy back...and fringe wackaloon cults are their best haven to soothe their ignorance.
Prognosis is that they will flourish for a while then fade and wither away on the ecclesiastical vine.
ID has run out of excuses and is by and large just a nasty smell left in the air..Creationism is rapidly becoming the laughing stock of a society that before were indulgent as to this aspect of Christianity...mainly because Christianity was seen as off limits to mocking and derisive laughter!
That is not the case now...even five years ago that was unthinkable...
Pity is that the same cannot be said for other religious beliefs...that alone will offer a life line of sorts to religious bunnies from the Christian perspective...they will...if not already...use scaremongering and fear generation of evil beliefs to try and present themselves as the legion of jeebus sent to protect western democracy from the 'devil' that is yet to be seen how this attempt at religious 'Crusade' will actually pan out...
It has the potential of truly encouraging the end of times...in some mind sets it appears that the faithful are indeed girding their loins for the struggle...but jeebus is on their side so sorted it is...but we shall see!
In general though it is getting tougher to support the Christian religious dogma for sure...
But it will simmer on for a while... and those major religions that are in the public eye will continue to agitate for special treatment and social concessions and tolerance of their religion and demand special preference...but in the end it will be a historical after note...a significant one...but just historical!
Given the very foundations of the United States on the bedrock of Protestantism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-organized-religion, and given that in it (Protestantism) even the very word "religion" has acquired a negative conotation, why do You even wonder that Americans consider themselves as irreligious and non-affiliated? Do You know nothing about the history and philosophy of Your own country?
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