For the first time "No Religion" has topped a survey of Americans' religious identity, according to a new analysis by a political scientist. The non-religious edged out Catholics and evangelicals in the long-running General Social Survey.
Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University and a Baptist pastor, found that 23.1% of Americans now claim no religion.
Catholics came in at 23.0%, and evangelicals were at 22.5%.
The three groups remain within the margin of error of each other though, making it a statistical tie. Over 2,000 people were interviewed in person for the survey.
[...] "We are seeing the rise of a generation of Americans who are hungry for facts and curious about the world," she says.
-- submitted from IRC
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Survey: As Many Americans Claim No Religion as there are Evangelicals, Catholics
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @12:29AM
What? They claim not to have religion? God help me, how are we going to fund the payouts to all the lawsuits against members of the church?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @12:39AM (13 children)
So when does the great religiously unaffiliated voting bloc need to be pandered to by politicians?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @12:49AM
In every election, just like all other voting blocs.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday April 15 2019, @01:01AM (1 child)
I'm not sure pandering works that way.
I think you can be pandered to if you're part of a group, but if you're not part of a group it's a bit harder.
I'm guessing that's how you've wound up with people like Mike Pence.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @02:05PM
They are a group, they're just a group that's identified as having opted out to all that silliness. The targeting isn't as easy as it is when all the rubes show up at the same place to receive programming every week, but it can be done.
Generally speaking, things which increase religious liberty are likely to go over well. Same goes for things that actually address our problems. You're just not likely to see us voting in lockstep to destroy the world or against our best interests because that's what the candidate that is giving lip service to us wants to do. Abortion and gay rights being criminalized is the only thing the evangelicals seem to care about, and they're willing to destroy the entire world to get it. Doesn't seem very Christian to me.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:32AM (4 children)
Around here it's pretty obvious that the big money goes to football, but that religion wasn't included in the survey. Makes it tough for me and a few friends that worship auto racing. While a local billionaire is courting tax $$$ for a new stadium, the local short track and drag strip (with a very dedicated group of 1/8 mile bracket racers) is between owners and may not open this year. I see many arrests for street racing as a real possibility this summer.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @04:38AM (3 children)
Let me tell you, they are coming for your street racing.
We now have live video feeds on at least every third lightpost and on all major intersections. There is at least one per mile on every non-thoroughfare street with a stop light as well. The only streets left that don't have them are stopsign only streets which aren't sufficient to get you across town without being recorded. Combine it with your cell phone, electronic or RFID tagged license places, tpms sensors, and cellular navigation/security systems and staying alive above 55 will soon be a thing of the past.
The only thing I can suggest to those of you who still like speed is live fast, drive hard, and die free. Because the end *IS* coming and while it may be a few decades later than the 70s and the rebellion the cannonball runs and similar activities made it seem, they finally have the civilization in place to catch you all whenever they find it convenient to. With the dwindling number of cars left that are spyware-free, it will only get worse as time goes on and license plate replacements are mandated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @05:35AM
While you might disagree, I posit that street racing is *not* a religion.
I say that despite Peter Medawar's insightful observation [azquotes.com]:
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:09AM (1 child)
Wonderful. If you can provide the footage for a modicum fee, so that we can decide the race winners easier, it would be excellent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:55AM
Hah! Due to county laws, the police in my area won't even pull the video for auto accidents.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday April 15 2019, @03:03AM (3 children)
1. When the unaffiliated refuse to vote for religious people the way that many die-hard Christians refuse to vote for non-Christians under any circumstances.
2. When atheist, freethinker, etc organizations put together larger checks than the religious types can.
Those are the only real mechanisms you have to influence politicians.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday April 15 2019, @05:51AM (2 children)
Those are the only real mechanisms you have to influence politicians.
We can't know that until people make an effort to vote them out.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @09:41AM
Isn't voting them out quite literally the first option given?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @04:58PM
Yeah, the push for voting machines came from no where and it seems like the point of them was to make it EASY to hack elections. This is upheld by the multiple researchers who were able to compromise voting machines within minutes.
So if voting has been subverted then what?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday April 15 2019, @05:57AM
I don't think it ever will. In fact isn't the reverse true, that it's still effectively impossible to be elected president unless you affect some sort of religious attitude?
You also need to take any religion figures for the population with a huge grain of salt. My country is, according to the census, about 70% religious. However if you re-word the question to "do you go to church/temple/whatever at least three times a year outside of Christmas/Easter/funerals?" and that drops to single digits just for people religious enough to attend three while services a year. You put down that you're Anglican or whatever because it's peace of mind, not because you actually believe in any of that stuff. You just have to look at the empty and deconsecrated churches to see what the real figure for religion is.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:07AM (52 children)
The only reason I like religion is that a lot of people will turn to the state instead. They simply have a need for something like that and it is better to have separate competing authorities who act as checks on each others influence over these people.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:34AM (50 children)
Not that you would want cowpox, but it protects you from smallpox. The same is true of Christianity. As that declines, opposition to worse belief systems weakens.
You mentioned the state. That is one, and indeed we're seeing a terrifying resurgence in people desiring socialism. (WTF, you like Venezuela???)
The other terrifying belief system with increasing popularity is Islam. I have the beard at least, and I'm a straight male. I might be OK if I can keep my mouth shut and learn the popular Koran verses. My daughters however will have to dress like mummies, ninjas, or mailboxes. Worse yet, they'll probably still get raped.
Given the alternatives, I love Christianity! I'm actually an atheist, and I think Christianity is great. We need more hard-core Christians willing to fight to save western civilization.
(Score: 5, Informative) by D2 on Monday April 15 2019, @01:53AM (15 children)
False. Disbelief in skydaddy doesn't leave a gap. Atheists have ethics for guidance, a zillion social paradigms from bridge clubs to fan cons for any urge to 'belong', and more cultural opportunities than zealots allow themselves. The examples to look to are europe, china, japan, etc. Not having religion is kind of like not having cufflinks.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday April 15 2019, @02:02AM (10 children)
The A/C above is just presenting a sort of strawman for your enjoyment.
"If you want socialism, then you wind up with Venezuela, if you're not Christian, then you must be Muslim.
As someone who comes from a country where fewer than 8% of people attend any church regularly, that sort of blinkered thinking seems weird.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday April 15 2019, @03:01AM (9 children)
... and as someone from a socialist country (Canada, but most norther European countries re as well), AC can go fuck themselves. Pretty much all the top-rated countries for all the quality of life categories are socialist. Thanks for the support for the Corporatocracy though, my stock portfolio is doing very well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @03:05AM
"Quality of life categories" as defined and measured by governments...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday April 15 2019, @03:26AM (6 children)
Yeah, I come from one of those socialist hell-holes where I am not bankrupted when I get sick or have an accident too.
I can't understand why those Americans don't demand better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @04:17AM (3 children)
I hear it’s working well for Sweden.
(Score: 2, Touché) by The Vocal Minority on Monday April 15 2019, @04:34AM (2 children)
Neither Canada nor Sweden are socialist countries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:18AM
By American standards, they sure are socialist. Also, your nick is very telling, hahaha.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:40PM
It's convenient that socialist countries are no longer socialist countries once they start running into serious problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @02:09PM
Because ... Abortion!
Christianity, not just the destroyer of nations. The destroyer of civilizations. First Rome, followed by a thousand years of darkness, now the secular west, to be followed by even worse if things keep going the way they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @04:52PM
The problem is that "quality of life" isn't well defined. For example, a religious person might think "hrs spent praying per day" should be a component. Wasn't there that one metric for how "democratic" each nation was that put North Korea at the top, so they just dropped that country from the study?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @06:22PM
these state socialist countries are only doing so well because they have a fairly homogeneous (and Aryan) culture. let your stupid governments keep importing third world dipshits and get back to me in 25-50 years. You are just like well to do american whites who love diversity b/c they don't have to live in the ghettos and the only blacks and browns they have to deal with have been anglicized or are kept at arms length. their children don't have to go to school with central american gangs, retarded monkeys nor muslim rapists. you're on a path to suicide and you're too comfortable to know it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @03:34AM (3 children)
Due to radically different culture, put China and Japan aside. The USA will never be Japan and can never be Japan.
So OK, how about Europe? Islamists are succeeding. How about that Nice truck attack? How about the one in Sweden, ripping a girl in half and smearing her blood all down the street? Package delivery services have stopped going into some of the most Muslim areas due to safety problems. The cops won't even go except as large teams. Sweden has enough grenade attacks that Wikipedia keeps an ever-growing list. German-speaking kids get bullied in Germany for speaking German. Jews in France are no longer safe wearing traditional Jewish garb, such as their hats.
Who allowed that to happen? Who welcomed the invaders? Who is converting? With the popularity of atheism in Europe, the answer is obvious. Atheism puts up no defense.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Monday April 15 2019, @08:40AM (1 child)
Atheism puts up no defense.
Atheism, aka rationality, is playing a long game. As a well-known thinker said: "Nature cannot be fooled", so irrational beliefs will eventually have to acknowledge reality.
This is of little solace to the individual, however, as just like markets can be irrational for longer than you can remain solvent, so too can irrational beliefs hold sway for longer than an individual human lifetime. This means that small groups of irrational people with power can temporarily impose their thinking on large numbers of people, so that while you as an individual think more rationally than the average, you may not see power structures change or be overthrown in your lifetime.
The average Muslim's day-to-day behaviour is little different to their non-Muslim neighbours. Most people are not particularly concerned with theological niceties, but a small number of highly visible hard-liners have a disproportionate effect on public perceptions and the tenor of public debates. It is generally young men that cause the problems, egged on by some lunatic greybeards who are careful not to be in the (literal) firing line. Give the young men something better to do that they perceive now as more valuable than the promises of riches after they die, and a significant amount of the problematic behaviour will vanish.
As a counter to the 'riches after you die', I strongly recommend reading "Pascal's mugging" - Wikipedia article on Pascal's Mugging [wikipedia.org] - Accessible example written by Nick Bostrum (pdf) [nickbostrom.com].
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @11:50AM
Wrong. Their non-muslim neighbours are unlikely to start their day with a prayer swearing to 'correct' their neighbours, swear and re-affirm allegiance with an incarnation of evil, and reiterate negative deadly thoughts about people not of their kind.
Perhaps you need to learn more about islam.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Monday April 15 2019, @10:57AM
Well, purely historically, in southern Europe, it was the Jews who opened the gates to let the Muslims in.
(Don't get me wrong, this isn't antisemitic, it's history - the Catholics (who were prior invaders) were the chief cunts in this story.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @02:06AM
Most people don't even know what "socialism" is, only that it's something that they're supposed to be scared of. As a result, it gets thrown around a lot in situations where it doesn't even make sense, like in discussions about single payer healthcare. I've seen no evidence that a significant amount of people actually desire socialism. What I have seen, though, is propagandists erroneously throwing that term around to try to smear social democratic policies that would help ordinary people. Same with Venezuela. For some reason, the propagandists don't mention Scandinavia when discussing single payer, but instead refer to Venezuela, almost as if to hide the fact that they have no criticisms of substance.
And that's what people who don't care about policy substance do: Mindlessly throw around labels.
Or, you could just support a secular society.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @02:53AM (3 children)
Christianity is just a more mature belief system. Islam is where Christianity was like 400 years ago. The scarier one is "statism" (or whatever you want to call blind faith in the state), we've only seen the beginning of the horrors in the last century and it apparently requires a couple thousand of years for people to work out the kinks.
Look in this thread and you see people still blind to the fact they even have a religion.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday April 15 2019, @05:19AM (2 children)
I think you need to read a bit of history, and think a bit about strategic game theory.
Statism one of the oldest religions. The pharaoh was worshiped as the embodiment of the state. This has been re-implemented man times, sometimes more successfully than others. It can be modeled as worship of power, or worship of that which enables life. Both have happened, frequently at the same time. During the Roman Empire the Emperor was considered the direct representative of Jupiter, i.e. the power of the state. At the arena all the kills were dedicated to the emperor as the representative of Jupiter, i.e. of the state.
Today it's hard to see what's equivalent, but that doesn't mean it isn't present. The Romans thought they had abolished human sacrifice to Jupiter...but they just changed the form a little bit. I'm a part of the current social matrix, so I have a hard time seeing it also, but that doesn't mean it's not there. Perhaps it's related to the officially sanctioned slavery, and explains why the US has the highest percentage of incarcerated people, but that doesn't feel quite right. OTOH, a large part of the prisoners are convicted either falsely, convicted of trivial offenses, or both, so perhaps. After all, most of the gladiators who died in the arena were also slaves.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @06:16AM (1 child)
You're describing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesaropapism. [wikipedia.org]
I'm referring to just pure believe in the state as a solution to your problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @04:56PM
Fixed link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesaropapism [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday April 15 2019, @03:12AM (27 children)
Are we talking about the same "western civilization" that was formulated by pagans in the Roman Empire? The "western civilization" fed massive amounts of scientific knowledge from the Muslim Caliphates that led to a rediscovery and massive boom in interest in that pagan thought? The "western civilization" that experienced another boom in science and major political reforms by rejecting Christianity in the early 19th century?
These hard-core Christians reject some pretty fundamental changes in modern society, such as the theory of evolution and the closely related development of vaccines and DNA testing. They generally refuse to even acknowledge all that history I just laid out above. So what exactly are they willing to fight to save here?
My own experience, for whatever that's worth: There are truly wonderful and kind people in every group of folks, including in every major religion in existence. There are also truly dangerous and terrible people in every group of folks, including in every major religion. People adhering to every major branch of religion known to humanity has made major contributions to science and enlightenment, and likewise people adhering to every major branch of religion known to humanity has perpetrated war and genocide in the name of their religion. So I'm not sure what exactly Team Western Civ thinks it's fighting for, but I'm quite certain that at least some percentage of Team Western Civ are people that are thoroughly destined for Hell if such a thing exists.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @03:32AM (3 children)
The people who say men are the same as women, or people/cultures are all equally suited for every environment are the ones who deny "evolution". And there is UN directive that's states essentially that.
And evolution has nothing to do with vaccine development or DNA tresting, you seem unfamiliar with the claims. Also, many heroes of scientists believed in God, eg Isaac Newton.
Personally I refuse to ever set foot in any type of cult building ever again. Not for weddings, funerals, nothing. But that doesn't change the fact your narrative is false.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @04:40AM (2 children)
Evolution has everything to do with vaccine development and DNA testing. Researchers need to follow the evolutionary changes of the pathogens closely. If they don't, they cannot properly aim the vaccine at antibody binding sites. If they pick the wrong site, one mutation can render the vaccine useless. Evolution also informs the epidemiological trends of what diseases pop up when.
As for DNA testing, you can't really understand where groups come from without also factoring in the changes of allele frequencies in populations through time (i.e. the definition of evolution). If you want to talk more narrowly, it also helps because children don't get exact duplicates of their parent's DNA, but rather their own mutations. Thus, proper understanding of evolution helps even in the case of simple parental inheritance testing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @05:25AM (1 child)
I did medical research and evolution was totally tangential to it. God/aliens created different species that genetically vary within a survivable range and reused the same general patterns across species. For all practical purposes that is the exact same thing for 99% of medical research.
The only people who think evolution is a big deal for something like vaccines have never actually done that work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @11:01PM
So, you did medical research and didn't give any attention to how the pathogen populations change over time? Not only that, but 99% of the researchers don't either? Guess I've been wrong this whole time. Since evolution doesn't matter, I await your insights as to why there is no vaccine for HIV, or why they do a different flu vaccine every year.
(Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday April 15 2019, @04:51AM (16 children)
You're spot on there.
Not that I expect any of the reactionary ACs (who don't have enough courage of their convictions to even use a pseudonym) blathering on about things in which they have no intellectual grounding, but here are a few resources (as accessible starting points) that can give folks a better understanding of what Western Civilization was and is, which is important because it gives us powerful guidance on where it may be going:
Civilization: The West And The Rest [wikipedia.org], by Niall Ferguson
[TV miniseries [pbs.org]]
Guns, Germs And Steel [wikipedia.org], by Jared Diamond
The Western Tradition [youtube.com], by Eugen Weber
I can understand why folks with limited intellectual capacity wouldn't investigate and educate themselves. But there is no excuse for willful ignorance from those who should know better. More's the pity.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @05:32AM (3 children)
Hilarious that you think you are so much smarter than other people just because you quote from a different set of government funded holy books. And I am way more anti religion than you, I assure you.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday April 15 2019, @05:51AM
I don't think I'm so much smarter than other folks.
However, I'm not willfully ignorant and trollish like you. It's unclear as to whether your condition is a result of limited intellectual capacity, although I suspect it's more likely that you have Hunter S. Thompson Disease [harpers.org]:
And I don't really care what you think or believe. My suggestions weren't for you anyway, as explicitly mentioned in my post.
Have the courage of your convictions. Or don't. It's no skin off my nose either way,.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:18AM (1 child)
No, I piss farther.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @07:55PM
No, you don't. You are also more stupid. And you care less. And you smell bad. Trump voter.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 15 2019, @05:42AM (6 children)
Their problem is low WIS, not low INT. Basically, they're doing science bass-ackwards, starting with a conclusion and looking for supporting data (and no, the kinds of "scientific" racism we see here are NOT Bayesian methods...).
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday April 15 2019, @05:56AM (5 children)
I'm sure you have a wonderful point there Azuma. However, it was kind of spoiled for me without appropriate context.
What, pray tell, do the terms "WIS" and "INT" represent?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 15 2019, @06:12AM (4 children)
Ah, sorry. Funny for someone who's never played D&D to use so much of the terminology, huh? Basically, those are two separate stats, INTelligence and WISdom. I've heard it explained as "Intelligence is knowing a tomato is technically a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad despite knowing that."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday April 15 2019, @06:36AM (3 children)
Thanks! Things make a lot more sense now.
I don't disagree with you, but I long ago identified three broad groups:
1. Those who don't have strong intellectual capacity (not so smart);
2. Those who have a reasonable amount of intellectual capacity and use it learn, understand and interpret the world around them (smart);
3. Those who have a reasonable amount intellectual capacity, but for whatever reason choose not to learn or understand the world around them (willfully ignorant)
People in categories 1 and 2 are generally pretty decent folks. However, folks in category 3 are usually opinionated, closed-minded and generally unpleasant.
At the same time, your point brings to mind an insightful bit from The Books of Bokonon [wikipedia.org]:
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 15 2019, @06:18PM (2 children)
We are drowning in Type 3s. KHallow is one of the single worst offenders on the side; he seems to take some kind of perverse pleasure in refusing to use his considerable intelligence for the benefit of anyone but himself, and not even his own long-term benefit at that. He's convinced he's right about everything, which means he's stagnating; none of his base assumptions are open to change. From an impregnable fortress of ignorance (think "pillow fort made of his own compacted feces") he rains down bullshit on the rest of us.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:36AM (1 child)
You judge him as wrong, and thus willfully ignorant, ignoring that possibility that you are wrong and willfully ignorant.
FYI, about 80% of your opinions are clearly wrong. Much of the rest might also be wrong.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:15PM
Saying it doesn't make it so. I've pointed out where he is wrong, why he is wrong, and how he is wrong. While no one is perfect, and I would certainly never claim to *never* be wrong, I'm one king hell mountain of a lot less wrong than him.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @12:55PM
I'm sorry for the annoyance of not being able to launch personal attacks on one of us Anonymous Cowards. If it is any comfort we never get credit when we say something wise.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 15 2019, @02:41PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday April 15 2019, @03:37PM
Honestly, I haven't seen the television programs. That said, I'm sure plenty was left out. After all, it was just two programs.
I'm currently in the middle of reading the book, which also glosses over a lot, but I'm sure it's better than the television bit.
I put the links to the TV stuff because, sadly, so many folks just don't read books anymore.
As I mentioned in my comment, the links I provided are accessible starting points not intended to be really comprehensive.
Guns, Germs and Steel is likewise not comprehensive and focuses on specific historical and technological areas which are both interesting and provides some context around western domination of the world.
Both Ferguson and Diamond attempt (and somewhat successfully -- at least in their books) to elucidate how the west managed to dominate most of the rest of the world starting around the fifteenth century. They're attempting to address specific areas of western culture, technology and political thought using a narrative format that (IMHO) makes it more accessible to the lay person.
Likewise, The Western Tradition, which is also not meant to be comprehensive, gives a broad brush across the last 7-10,000 years. It does (again, IMHO) give a really nice overview (in 52 ~30 minute episodes) of western civilization. As a broad, but shallow exploration, it's rather well done.
I'm sure your g/f would agree that if you really want a deep dive into the history of western civilization, you'll spend years reading dozens, if not hundreds, of books of the academic variety.
Based on your usage (not just in this comment, but others I've seen as well), I suspect you're in the UK (or if not, are from there). I'm not sure how much history is taught there, but in the US, history education is abysmal. That's why I suggested these works. Shamefully, most Americans have a really poor understanding of the cultural, political and philosophical underpinnings of our society. More's the pity.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @06:34PM (1 child)
Guns, Germs, and Steel is jew propaganda against the Aryan, so STFU.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @12:54AM
Nope. Not gonna be quiet.
You ignore science, rationality and the evidence of your own eyes.
As such, I look forward to the day when you are replaced. Hopefully with some hot Asian, African or Hispanic girl.
Keep tilting at windmills moron. The *human* race has no use for scum like you.
And since you're probably too stupid to understand what I'm saying, I'll use small words so you'll be sure to understand, you warthog-faced buffoon:
We will replace you. And the sooner the better, asshole!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday April 15 2019, @12:30PM (5 children)
You're over-simplifying some things, and ignoring others to support your contention that all cultures are equal. The information the Muslim Caliphates transmitted to Europe was originally Greek and Roman for the most part, and was preserved while Europe experienced its Dark Ages. They did invent algebra, though, which the Europeans ran with.
Likewise you're conveniently leaving out the Reformation and the Enlightenment, which were very much based in Christianity. If you've ever been to the Uffizi in Florence the place is replete with a million depictions of the Crucifixion. The Sistine Chapel is in the Vatican, for Pete's sake, and its focus is God passing the divine spark to Adam.
Newton and Adam Smith, two towering intellects often cited by science and capitalism fans, were devout Christians. Those are just a couple examples.
I find it regrettable that academia has made such an effort to ellide all those facts, to scrub Europe and its history of its Christianity in order to serve its current secular agenda. It's false, and intellectually bankrupt.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 15 2019, @02:48PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday April 15 2019, @03:40PM (2 children)
Right, so no credit to the Muslims for building the House of Wisdom, preserving Greek and Roman sources while the Christians were burning them in Alexandria, and carefully ignoring their contributions to astronomy and other sciences in addition to mathematics. Heck, many Soylentils make their living thanks to the work, in part, of al-Khwarizmi. I don't think I'm the one being selective here about who did what. Also, I didn't get into this, but it's not like China and India didn't play a big role as well, both in science and technology. For example, those guns we all seem to like wouldn't have happened without Chinese experiments with explosives.
I'm not concerned with declaring all cultures equal. I am concerned that declaring one culture as inherently superior to others is usually the prelude to "Our culture is superior, so we can and should do whatever we want to other cultures, including rape, pillage, enslave, or murder everyone in them". Even if you don't give a damn about the people in the other cultures, that's still going to entail losses on your side as well as losing a great deal of whatever knowledge those other people might have had.
And you still haven't explained what exactly you mean by "Western Civilization". Who's in, and who's out? What portions of the former Byzantine Empire count? How about the Egyptians, without whom the Roman Empire could not have functioned? Where do the north Africans such as the Moors fit into this? How about the Russians, and if they're in how come the Mongols aren't? When it comes to the Levant and Jerusalem in particular, when is that part of Western Civ and when isn't it, and why?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 17 2019, @10:41AM (1 child)
Your premise was to excise Christianity as a motivating force in the development of Western civilization, and to cast it as something that had to be fought and eliminated in order for human progress to be achieved. Finally, you concluded with cultural relativism.
Christianity both opposed, and promoted progress in the West, depending on exactly, who, when, and where we're talking about. But it absolutely cannot be excised as a motivating force, and it's reductive and intellectually suspect to cram it into a negative one. It smacks of an agenda driven not by cold, factual historical analysis but by an ideological one. It has the stamp of post-Modernist academe all over it.
Cultural relativism is another fad that has had its day, but we can let the discursive tides wash it back out to sea like the intellectual flotsam and jetsam it is. Cultures are not all equal. Some produce better material outcomes than others. Western culture has produced far better material outcomes for the world. Its products, democracy, science, medicine, industrialization, and many others have made it possible for billions of people to even exist in the rest of the world. Japanese bushido, as intricate and interesting as it is, has not done so. India's yoga, as great as it is, has not done so. In fact it's thanks to the superior outcomes made possible by Western culture that those elements of Japanese and Indian culture (and others, of course) are even known to the rest of the world, so not only has Western culture proven its superiority through its direct aid, but by amplifying the impact of other, local, non-Western cultures.
Now, Western culture has not always been superior, because it wasn't. Nor may it always be, because things change. And saying its superior now does not mean that no other cultures have value and are not worthy of preservation or existence. But it for sure says that Western culture is worthy of defense, that it ought not be pooh-poohed, denigrated, or torn down by hapless youths who have no conception of the vast inheritance they sit atop.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:26PM
Again, you have refused to define "Western culture". Either you don't know what it is you're trying to defend here, or you don't want to say what it is.
But more to the point: I have several people in my own family tree that are legitimately notable enough to merit Wikipedia articles. Some of them even played significant roles in human history. And do you know what that means for me and my legacy? Jack squat! My legacy is my own actions, my own work, and my own accomplishments. If I'm not claiming credit for their actions (and I shouldn't - I had little to nothing to do with their actions), why the heck would I claim any kind of legacy for what people far less connected to me did centuries ago? Your defense of the "inheritance of Western culture" is all about claiming some sort of connection to the actions of people you've never met and had no influence over. Being born a European-descended English-speaker in the United States doesn't suddenly mean that you are strongly connected to Charles Martel's victory over the Muslims in the Battle of Tours in 732 CE.
If you want to claim a "vast inheritance", why not go with "I'm human, humans have done a whole lot of cool things over the centuries that have enabled me to live a much better life than my ancestors did"? That gives you a much larger group of giants on whose shoulders you can stand.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Monday April 15 2019, @03:57PM
And you're not giving the Islamic world enough credit. Although they did preserve much Greek and Roman knowledge, they took that knowledge and synthesized significant new knowledge (algebra, as you mentioned -- without which Newton and Liebniz could never have formulated the calculus), as well as significant medical and astronomical discoveries.
And it's true that after centuries of advancement and independent thought, the Islamic world turned away from science toward a worldview quite similar to the Christian, anti-science worldview.
That the Islamic world turned away while the Christian world began to embrace science and independent thought was due to many complex factors, most of which were political and economic in nature, rather than religious.
Academia has done no such thing. There is still plenty of good history that has been and continues to be done by academics.
The problem is that the the *teaching* of history has been severely devalued and the quality of such teaching is horrible. As you make abundantly clear.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @10:05AM
Cowpox may protect you from smallpox, but there are better ways to protect from smallpox that don't involve the side effects of cowpox.
So maybe a vaccination with a healthy dose of rationality and scepticism would be better than infecting people with another form of religious fundamentalism.
No. I prefer Norway.
If you think Christianity prevents rape, there are some altar boys who might disagree.
Except that hardcore Christians don't do that. Rather they fight against the achievements of Western civilisation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:00PM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:11AM (23 children)
Fake gods and goddesses that represent various natural forces/events? No thanks.
I create meaning in my own life. Passing that buck to nonexistent constructs is moronic.
As such, it's likely that the non-religious are much less easily led than those who already believe blatant and easily debunked lies.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 15 2019, @01:16AM
Long time passed - no longer burning the offering to gods, now there's the very-much-existing churches as the constructs to take care about your buck.
Can't blame you for your naive hopes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:21AM (12 children)
I would dispute that.
I thought that when I was younger, but I see people believing some pretty obviously ridiculous and downright suicidal things (for society and individual lives) these days. If people don't get their direction for what is important from church, then they get it from popular media, corporate agendas, and the echo chambers of social media / internet.
Frankly, even if you don't believe at all in the supernatural, the lessons for how to live your life are much healthier coming from the church than from outside it. Secular culture is simply infantile self-gratification and consumption. Jesus knew it, the Buddha knew it, and I'm sure other religious traditions knew it too. Our circumstances may change, but human nature never does.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @02:17AM (2 children)
99% of the lessons from churches are absolutely toxic, and the remaining 1% are obvious to anyone with a brain.
Yes, how dare people actually enjoy their lives, rather than just religious leaders who benefit from others' stupidity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @03:59AM (1 child)
Sorry but your understanding of Christianity is totally superficial and not accurate. Did you form it from sound bites and bumper stickers, or did you actually attend church and take part in church volunteering?
Look, the loudmouths get all the attention, but what do you know about the quiet Christians? Nothing, from your response. You're just a hater.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @05:58AM
Different AC. In my experience the intent of individual <insert name of religion here>s is good. The intent of organized <insert name of religion here> is self-serving and questionable. The larger the religious organization the more greed, corruption, politics and hypocrisy they practice.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday April 15 2019, @05:03AM (7 children)
An interesting, if flawed argument. Yes, some folks aren't so bright and are often led astray by those who would manipulate them, for money, power, self-aggrandizement or some combination thereof.
However, using demonstrably false belief systems as a structure for society is lunacy in a world that now has a much better understanding of the universe in which we live.
This [youtube.com] provides some context:
We are no longer hunters and nomads. No longer awed and frightened, as we have gained some understanding of the world in which we live. As such, we can (aside from fiction and fantasy to tickle our imaginations and stretch our ideas of what is possible) cast aside childish remnants from the dawn of our civilization.
Failing to do so does no service to those who are easily swayed or manipulated. Rather, it just perpetuates magical thinking and intellectual maturity.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday April 15 2019, @05:17AM (2 children)
Argh! That should read:
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 15 2019, @04:20PM (1 child)
> I'd argue that there is much evidence for the existence of a God.
Pics or it didn't happen.
-- Tom (/. uid 822)
I don't recall Sagan ever having conducted television services on Sunday
morning, and I know that Stephen Jay Gould never rang my doorbell asking
me for a few minutes of my time, and for the life of me I can't remember
Bertrand Russell ever coming up to me on the street and asking me if I
had let Reason into my heart. -- cje (/. id. 33931)
I do not think, therefore He is.
-- Noughmad on /.
Religion is the best way to heal a world deeply and violently divided by religion
-- DannyB on SoylentNews (2018/11)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday April 15 2019, @04:29PM
Fabulous! Thanks!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 15 2019, @03:13PM (3 children)
Beautifully worded - may I snarf that, with attribution of course, for rotation in my usenet .sig file?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday April 15 2019, @04:04PM (2 children)
You certainly may. And thank you!
However, I'd point out that I was inspired by this [youtube.com], so some credit should be given to Eugen Weber [wikipedia.org] as well.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 15 2019, @04:13PM (1 child)
If as we watch it I spot a sufficiently similar soundbite, then I will "-- Eugen Weber, via NotSanguine on SoylentNews" it, else I will "-- NotSanguine on SoylentNews, after Eugen Weber" it.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday April 15 2019, @04:24PM
Something about the comment to which I was replying made me think of the Weber quote (which immediately precedes the bit you like):
I used it to compare where we are now to how we began with this:
There is, perhaps, more of Weber in that than there is of me. As such, I would much prefer that you include him in any attribution.
FYI. The quote above contains the first three sentences of the first episode of the series. As such, you won't have to wait long to find it. :)
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday April 15 2019, @05:30AM
Many forms of Buddhism aren't exactly religious, more philosophical. OTOH, lots of groups took the Buddhist philosophy and turned it into a religion, or, more precisely, merged it with their local religion without giving up belief in spirits, etc.
OTOH, if you follow most of these forms of Buddhist spiritual beliefs closely enough, it turns into psychology, or at least it *can* turn into psychology. Read C. G. Jung on mandala symbolism.
That said, naive materialism is just as blatantly and clearly wrong as naive spiritualism. The world is a projection of the mind, and the senses are not direct maps from the external reality into what we perceive as reality. If I say "All is Maya", or "Maya is the great magician" I'm saying words that mean precisely what the second sentence of this paragraph said, but more concisely, and, if you understand what Maya means, equally precisely. Normal scientific description of reality when applied to a person tells you what someone else would be able to detect. But red is red, and that it matches a particular group of electromagnetic wavelengths doesn't tell you as much what it looks like to the perceiver as saying "it's red".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:22AM (2 children)
<smirk>That's OK. You can go on believing that, if it makes you feel better.</smirk>
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Monday April 15 2019, @02:27AM (1 child)
The OP probably meant less easily lead by common religious idiots, the kind that try to convert you to their religion. Once one realizes there is not a magic sky being, it is hard to go back to thinking down to that level.
But indeed there are entire corporations that revolve around controlling people and altering the way they think. Usually to sell a product, service, or influence politics. But if they could create an entire religion (for example, like the Cult of Steve Jobs) they would.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @05:14AM
OP here.
That's a reasonable interpretation of my point, although I'd also say that those who aren't taught to believe in magical thinking are much more likely to look skeptically at things in other areas of their lives.
As to resisting the influence of "surveillance capitalism," modern marketing methods and their ilk, not promoting magical nonsense is just the first step. Teaching critical thinking skills, encouraging intellectual curiosity and calling out attempts at manipulation for what they are is important as well.
Given that (at least in the US), quality education has been steadily harder to come by for those with less economic means is troubling. This, by the way, isn't an accident of history. Rather, it's been a goal of those who wish to control the majority through manipulation.
By limiting quality education, those they wish to demonize have fewer resources to fight back, and those they wish to manipulate for their support don't have the resources to see or understand the bankruptcy of the messages presented by such people.
It's rather depressing, actually. Sigh.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday April 15 2019, @06:02AM (1 child)
Passing that buck to nonexistent constructs is moronic.
On the believers' part, yes, you would think, but it's perfect for absolving oneself of all blame. His god forgives his lying, cheating, stealing, killing. And for the Pharisees, it is the best method of crowd control to date. Religion makes a very good hammer.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @06:57AM
Unless you're the nail. And when you're a hammer *everything* looks like a nail.
No thanks.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 15 2019, @02:52PM (3 children)
I have to disagree.
Having religion allows me to be able to look down upon and to judge everyone else -- just as Jesus taught.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 15 2019, @03:36PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Monday April 15 2019, @03:40PM
As it is written in the book of Mattheus chapter 7 verse 5 [wikipedia.org] ... or maybe slightly differently...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday April 15 2019, @05:17PM
I guess I needed a /sarc tag on that.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Informative) by looorg on Monday April 15 2019, @01:29AM (13 children)
That is a fairly odd way of counting and dividing things into groups. The CNN headline (There are now as many Americans who claim no religion as there are evangelicals and Catholics, a survey finds) was even worse, it made it sound like the no religion group was equal in size to Christians -- which just isn't true.
As far as I know Evangelicals are Christians and it's a form of Protestantism, yet the survey make them into a class of their own. What makes it even more odd is how they keep downsizing it even further, if one follows the link to the guy that made it all he apparently splits all religion into Evangelicals, Catholics, No religion, Mainline (Protestantism), Black Protestants, Other faiths and Jews. So apparently if you are a Black Protestant you are not worthy of hanging out with the other protestants but if you are a black catholic that is just Catholicism? Really? OK. Perhaps all the "No Religion" people are not the same group either but a combination of little groups of different type of non believers. But who knows, the important thing here is apparently to peddle the message of that No Religion is just as valid or large as Christianity. Which it turns out was completely not true.
Even from his data we can see that Protestantism is about 44%, Catholics are 23%; ie Christianity is at about 67% which is quite a bit more then No Religion at 23%. Apparently Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam make up only about 6% or so combined and Jews are around 2%.
A generation? More like a fraction of a generation, there might be an age group where they are actually more even but overall they are not. Just like you can find with more age groups and something such as political affiliations etc. But if one just divides and stuff I'm sure the "No Religion" group is much larger then say Left Handed Red Headed Catholics to. I just have to adjust my data a bit and I'll prove that in a jiffy. Here I thought that Dawkins and his (non-denomination) followers was all about science and logic and not picking goals and adjusting the numbers until they fit some expected outcome or theory.
If one follows the other link in the CNN article over to Pew and their comparison of Congressmen they also there in the table mention the % of the population. Those numbers are fairly close (+-5% or so) on the Christians that come in at about 71%, Jews still at 2%, No Religion at 23% but Hindu, Buddhists and Muslims only make up about 3% in their data. So if anything he has just found that group (since it's apparently just one giant group of god lovers combined) are showing a massive growth potentially doubling their numbers.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @01:50AM (5 children)
What you wrote is correct, for now. But looking at the chart in TFA, it appears that No Religion has been growing at about 6% or 7% every 10 years, starting in the early 1990s. No sign of that red curve changing slope for the last ~15 years. If the trend extrapolates for another 10 years, No Religion will be about 30% by 2028. This is pretty remarkable given that this fraction was ~stable at 5%-7% for the first 20 years of this survey -- 1970-1990.
The big gains seem to come from the group labeled Mainline Protestant, with smaller losses by Evangelical and Catholic.
This looks like good news to me, I'm the resident post-theological AC, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201102/being-post-theological [psychologytoday.com]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday April 15 2019, @02:03AM (2 children)
It's clearly growing quite fast and if that continues they could become an important bloc. But possibly not, I somehow doubt that they are a coherent and unified group. For all we know it could contain everything from atheists (god deniers) to agnostics (spiritual seekers) and possibly people that believe in something not-mainstream possibly of some kind of pagan or new-age ideas/nature.
But mostly I find how he divided the groups oddly disturbing, all the other groups can be split into minor groups to but he chooses to only do it for Protestantism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @03:13PM
i never quite understood why people that do not believe in organized religion, or the choices a voting poll about organized religion have presented, always need to be neatly identified into some group.
just call them the Other and fear them like most organized religous groups tell people to do, if saving their condemed souls isn't working, you're supposed to burn them at the stake.
i guess I understand now that I wrote about it. if you can't neatly identify them, which witch do you burn? i guess some reglious types choose to burn all the heretics instead of just the obvious ones; willful ignorance works with extremes, too.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 15 2019, @03:55PM
Which of course means that hopeful atheists who see the growth of "None" and extrapolate it to the future in terms like "grown by X%" may be very disappointed. Firstly, it will be a logistic curve, not an exponential one (they start off looking identical, which is why people confuse them), and secondly, the space into which it's growing may only be a small subset of the whole - the Mainliners presently. Of course, when there's enough traction (acknowledgement that they exist in numbers by the tv and other media, and by politicians), new subsets may begin to crack, but if so, that would be a separate wave. And of course, there's nothing so say the switchers might not be switched to something else, like new ageism, if culture pushes things back that way.
Let's wait and see.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday April 15 2019, @02:36AM (1 child)
I addressed this a bit in another reply, but I think some of this trend (perhaps most of it) has to do with more people being more honest and actually admitting they aren't affiliated, rather than claiming to be a "member" of some church they haven't attended in years or only go along with their mom two days per year or whatever. (Note that in polls the number of people who identified as "not very religious" or "not religious" or those who claimed little attendance at religious services trended up more quickly and earlier.)
Also, as I noted elsewhere, be very careful interpreting "No Religion" here -- I wasn't able to find the wording of the question for this poll quickly, but in most such polls, it's about affiliation. The number of people actually claiming to be atheist/agnostic is always a LOT smaller than the numbers discussed here. The recent polls I could find in the past couple years say that 85-90% of Americans still say they believe in God, even though (as TFA notes) a not insignificant proportion of that number must be identifying as "No Religion" in these polls.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday April 15 2019, @04:00PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday April 15 2019, @02:10AM (1 child)
CNN is in a TOTAL MELTDOWN because their ratings are tanking since election and their credibility will soon be gone. Their organization's terrible. They are fake news!!!!
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @02:22AM
Why do you hate America?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday April 15 2019, @02:24AM
Agreed, but it's pretty standard for these religion polls in the U.S. For historical reasons, Catholics tended to be segregated in their own group, for example, and the polls generally have kept the question the same for the past several decades to keep data collection consistent.
I agree the headline is misleading. I also would argue that the timing of this is interesting -- often around Easter season, there tend to be headlines both for and against Christianity every year.
And there's nothing really new here. Here are Gallup results [gallup.com] from 2017, which show basically a tie among Catholics, Evangelicals, and "none." Here are Pew results [pewforum.org] that show the same. Here's an ABC poll [go.com] from last year with basically the exact same argument as TFA here. And here's one talking about the rise of the atheists [scientificamerican.com] published -- again, I'm sure not coincidentally -- on Easter Sunday 2018.
It's pretty much an annual tradition in the news media for someone to promote the rise of atheism around Easter. (For the record, although I tend not to talk much about my own beliefs, I've been a skeptic since I was in middle school. However, I also note the annual opportunism of non-Christians in the media around Easter.)
So no, there's not much to discuss here. The numbers have been trending the same for quite a few years. The fact that one poll finally registers that those with no affiliation are a "bigger" (though statistically insignificantly bigger) group than the arbitrary divisions of Christians in these polls... well, it's just an excuse to publish another headline.
Also, I question the meaningfulness of these numbers. The numbers of Americans identifying as "non-religious" or "not very religious at all" or "don't attend religious services/church" have trended up a LOT faster than those who claim "no religious affiliation." I think there are many people who are loathe to admit to being non-religious, since in many communities, religion is still the default. I suspect many of these recent polls how people simply being a little more honest, rather than pretending to remain with some vestigial church affiliation even though they haven't gone in years.
Lastly, note that most of these surveys are NOT about "no religion" -- they're about no religious affiliation, which is a significant difference. Those admitting to be atheist or agnostic still are a small minority of these "no religious affiliation numbers," as the Pew survey I linked above notes, generally in the 5-7% for both atheist and agnostic together.
So, I'm not sure this is necessarily a cause for celebration among skeptics. Polls consistently reveal very high numbers of Americans believe in religious things (like angels, the virgin birth of Jesus, an afterlife, etc.) even if they don't identify as being very religious. I don't have time to find the link right now, but I remember reading a couple years ago about a poll that showed only ~70% of Americans identifying as Christian (and >30% saying they aren't very religious at all), but something like 85% of Americans saying they believed in the virgin birth of Jesus. Yeah, ponder that for a second.
Not to mention all the other weird crap Americans admit to believing in in polls... supernatural phenomena, etc. The number in TFA is probably most meaningful to those concerned about local churches dwindling in members and closing because of non-attendance. I don't know that American society is overall becoming more skeptical in a scientific sense or stopping believing in weird crap.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday April 15 2019, @02:13PM (2 children)
It is wishful thinking and serves as an apt example of how people use statistics to lie. Atheists and anti-Christian haters of every variety would like to paint a rosy picture of their own prospects, and downplay those of Christians. It's propaganda.
The rest of us should pause, think about what they're claiming for 500 milliseconds, and throw it on the rapidly growing trash heap of more lies the mainstream media has told in the last
ten yearsyearweektwenty-four hours.Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @03:17PM
what difference does it make if no one believes? well I mean besides the end to religious atrocities and stuff
you make atheists seem bad, but there are no athiest priests molesting children. usually, its the weird trailor park guy, or a repressed conservative somwehere--repressed because of religion.
liberals that have weird tendencies tend to come to an agreement with other weird liberals and keep the kids and vulnerable populations out of it. they hardly make the news unless they are political donors or live near a school. but priests--there seem to be too bad ones to count. even ex pope benedict came out swinging saying women should wear burkas because too many women are making men horny by having been born after the 1950s.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:58PM
Ah, yes, it's the evil atheists (?) doing propaganda again. Good thing religious people would never do that.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday April 15 2019, @03:53PM
One thing to bear in mind is that "Christians" as some sort of ecumenical umbrella isn't always an accurate depiction of things. The Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox are generally mostly cool with each other now, but that's definitely not always been the case historically speaking, and Christians have slaughtered each other in the name of religion (e.g. the Fourth Crusade, the French Wars of Religion, the English Civil War, and even to some degree the Napoleonic Wars). One of the major practical reasons for the religious freedom aspects of the US's First Amendment was that it would have gotten really nasty had the founders had to choose between the Anglicans that dominated Virginia and other southern colonies, the Puritans that reigned supreme in Massachusetts and much of the rest of New England, and the Quakers who controlled Pennsylvania, all of which saw the other 2 as false religions.
Right now, the various Christian-types tend to see themselves as more-or-less unified. Give actual temporal political power to Christianity, and I can guarantee you that will change really really quickly.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.