Topic: Non-Religious is now the largest religious group in America! (Read 332 times)

You may not be practising your religion but you need to follow one.

The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

I can't believe that people can live without an religion. You may not be practising your religion but you need to follow one. This shows that people are scared of the people who are following their religion. We need to leave them alone and let them lead their live with ease.

According to the latest British Social Attitudes survey, membership in the Church of England isn’t just dropping, it’s practically non-existent for the younger generation.

Only 2% (!) of people under the age of 24 belong to the Church, while approximately 70% of that same group claims no religious affiliation whatsoever. (Anglican? More like Anglican’t.)

    Roger Harding of the National Centre for Social Research, which conducts the BSA survey, said the figures showed “an unrelenting decline in Church of England and Church of Scotland numbers. This is especially true for young people where less than one in 20 now belong to their established church. While the figures are starkest among younger people, in every age group the biggest single group are those identifying with no religion.

    “We know from the British Social Attitudes survey that people’s views are becoming more socially liberal on issues like same-sex relationships and abortion. With growing numbers belonging to no religion, faith leaders will no doubt be considering how to better connect to a changing society.”

If it increases, it will only be because that is what God wants.

This will continue to increase not only in USA but globally .

Penn Jilette said it perfectly:


As Moloch has pointed out, over a third of Americans are not religious. Are these 100 million or so people all rapists and murderers? Of course not. So it is complete nonsense to claim you can't be moral without religion.

Indeed, the Bible teaches us to keep slaves and to stone homosexuals to death. The fact that we don't do these things means we have an internal moral compass, completely separate from religion, to guide us.

Something about religion that always gets to me is the fact people who believe it wholeheartedly seem to think that there's no way people could be moral without the promise of reward in another life.  That seems just, so beyond pathetic to me I don't even know what to say. 

The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what’s to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn’t have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine.

Actually, late Stephen Hawking explains in his book The Grand Design how universe came out of nothing without there having to be a creator. It is an interesting read, though if one is faint at heart, they should probably not read it.

I can not claim with 100% certainty that there is no creator, so I won't claim that. However since there is no evidence of a creator, I tend to believe there isn't one. I wish there was because it would make living easier in some aspects (but not all).

I think the non religious crowd will grow and when people stop commiting attocities in the name of religion, it will be a wonderful world.

you are right every religion says, in one way or another that only a false prophet would call another false. The loss of religion could be good since classic religion is merely worships buildings and rituals along with trying to mentally understand their creator which is impossible by definition.

Now days atheists thinks that everything came out of nothing, another concept we cant grasp mentally, and frankly just an excuse or another word for a creator. Without a creator we have no purpose and no reason to care about other humans really, which is strongly reflected in the world today. There are many atheists joining the agnostics, beveling in something unknown, which is very rational, again, since a potential creator could never be mentally understood.

I think casting away of the moral obligations that comes with beveling in a creator, is part of the problem in the world today, most humans know that they feed a war machine with their tax money, and eat suffering animals for lunch. They know they force poverty and suffering on other countries, by consuming 10 times more, but every one just silently obliges and continues to work and pay their taxes. This idle state, lack of moral and empathy sure could be caused by lack of meaning, lack of faith in a given code, the moral we have within.

We must admit that there is no "nothing" and that everything in existence as we know is, is created. There is no nothing, what is that? every attempt to explain existence from nothing implies giving it something, like quantum dynamics or other natural laws. Even virtual particles, which is fluctuations in something, there is no logic or rationality by dismissing a creator, not in science nor anywhere else, i would love to hear a rational explanation of how nothing gives birth to everything, along with a definition of nothing that enables this, good luck <3

Peace

you are right every religion says, in one way or another that only a false prophet would call another false. The loss of religion could be good since classic religion is merely worships buildings and rituals along with trying to mentally understand their creator which is impossible by definition.

Now days atheists thinks that everything came out of nothing...

It is nice to see this development. I don't speak against religion itself, but there will always be people interpreting and living too much after a book, which is written a long time ago. Religion is probably the number one reason for war besides fights about resources and territories. If it brings you peace and helps you through the day, really nice. But if you try to get someone else involved, then you think your religion is superior, you are already one step over the line!

Thirty-four percent of Americans surveyed said they were atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular,” according to the American Family Survey released today. (See here for the live stream of the launch event, kicking off at 9 a.m. EST.)

Taken together, this makes the unaffiliated the largest religious group in the study, having surpassed Protestants (33%) and Catholics (21%). There was also a smattering of other groups such as Muslims (2%), Jews (2%), Mormons (1%), Orthodox Christians (1%), and Hindus (1%), as well as those who said they were “something else” (4%).

The American Family Survey is the project of Christopher Karpowitz and Jeremy Pope, who teach political science at Brigham Young University, and is co-sponsored by BYU and the Deseret News. Now in its third year, it aims to uncover Americans’ attitudes on a broad range of issues, including politics, health care, immigration, and the challenges now facing the American family. This year had a special focus on comparing Clinton and Trump voters.

How respondents answered questions about challenges facing the family was the source of some of the surprises in this year’s study compared to 2015 and 2016, says Karpowitz.

“When we first started doing this study in 2015, more than two-thirds of our respondents picked at least one cultural issue as being one of the three most important issues facing American families. Now there’s been an 11-point increase in the percentage of people who say the biggest issues facing families are economic.”

Overall, economic issues increased in importance from 51% to 62%, while concern about “cultural” matters (e.g., the decline in religious faith or the increase in sexual permissiveness and drug use) decreased by 17 points, from 68% to 51%.

Basically, this shows that an increasing number of Americans are more worried about economic stresses than they are about traditional markers of moral decline.

What’s particularly surprising about this trend, says Karpowitz, is that “the economy seems to be humming along, and we’re not in a recession right now.” Various markers of economic health, such as low unemployment and a robust stock market, are already in place.

However, about four in ten respondents reported that they had put off going to the doctor when they were sick or experienced a time in the last year when they couldn’t pay a bill, showing that the economy’s health has not prevented many Americans from feeling a financial pinch.

There’s a religious divide in how Americans perceive which are the most pressing issues. Highly religious people are far more likely to point to cultural issues than are secular Americans, with 72% of frequent religious attendees and just 43% of non-attendees being concerned about things like sexual permissiveness or falling religious attendance. In contrast, nearly seven in ten secular respondents were concerned about the economy.

Faced with these polarizing differences, what can almost everybody agree on? There are two things.

First, “Everybody loves their own family, and there’s hope in that message—there’s a lot of commitment to family, across lines of political and religious difference,” says Karpowitz. Among parents, it doesn’t matter if respondents voted for Trump or Clinton, or did not vote at all; nor does it matter whether they consider themselves to be religious. Every group of parents sees the act of parenting as a fundamental, core part of their identity.

And second, Americans are concerned that kids need more discipline. “More than half of both very religious and nonreligious Americans say that parents not teaching or disciplining their children is one of the most important issues facing families,” says Karpowitz.

In other words: we all love our own kids to pieces, but we also think that other parents need to do a better job teaching theirs.