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While it may be a significant factor in the upcoming 2024 election cycle, I do not think religiosity (measured here by whether one shows up on the membership role of any church -- a reasonable but imperfect proxy of devoutness) tracks directly and cleanly with voting or other behaviors.
As I'm sure the "spiritual but not religious" will hasten to point out, there's no reliable way to determine one's internal beliefs and how they influence one's beliefs about human relationships, politics, etc. That 11% more folks have given up on religion COULD at least in PART be because they have transitioned to a deeper, more meaningful private religiosity. To what extent, who really knows. But apart from the indoctrination machine of organized religion, the homogeneity of beliefs and practices goes out the window. You could be a theist, but you might be more likely to be okay with any number of things that theists in this country have been more uniformly against, for instance.
My own intuition is that devoutness (the degree to which religious thinking and practice permeates every aspect of life) can only decrease apart from the formal mechanisms for nurturing and sustaining it. I do not think a firm majority of religious people who leave formal religion still maintain a substantive private practice thereof, and it might even be a pretty small minority. They will cling to belief in god, because that's still a bridge too far (for them, but probably not for their children) but the god they believe in becomes more and more nebulous and less ambiguously interventionist and proscriptive.
I see this as heading in the "right" direction; of course others will not, or will discount it.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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While people associate right wing extremism with the devote religious, there are plenty of conservatives that have no church affiliation. There are also very religious liberal democrats. The issues of abortion, birth control, and transgender are especially associated with religion, but there are still a significant percentage of exceptions on both sides. I see the drop in church attendance as just another sign that younger generations are intentionally abandoning the habits of their parents. This has been going on since the 1960s, and every year more and more are dropping out, with those just hitting their 20s even less religious than ever. When I got my first car at age 16 I stopped going to church, and of my parents and 8 siblings, eventually only my father and one sister continued going.
While people associate right wing extremism with the devote religious, there are plenty of conservatives that have no church affiliation. There are also very religious liberal democrats. The issues of abortion, birth control, and transgender are especially associated with religion, but there are still a significant percentage of exceptions on both sides. I see the drop in church attendance as just another sign that younger generations are intentionally abandoning the habits of their parents. This has been going on since the 1960s, and every year more and more are dropping out, with those just hitting their 20s even less religious than ever. When I got my first car at age 16 I stopped going to church, and of my parents and 8 siblings, eventually only my father and one sister continued going.
When I was about eight years old I made the determination that church was pretty boring. Seems like the creator of the Universe would have come up with something less boring.
When I was about eight years old I made the determination that church was pretty boring. Seems like the creator of the Universe would have come up with something less boring.
I actually had that pegged at about the same age, but it wasn't a thinkable / allowed thought so I went the "fake it 'till you make it" route, believing that it SHOULD be interesting and if it wasn't, it was something wrong with me. Eventually (WAY TOO eventually) I figured out that it wasn't me, but the actual lack of a viable value proposition.
While people associate right wing extremism with the devote religious, there are plenty of conservatives that have no church affiliation. There are also very religious liberal democrats. The issues of abortion, birth control, and transgender are especially associated with religion, but there are still a significant percentage of exceptions on both sides. I see the drop in church attendance as just another sign that younger generations are intentionally abandoning the habits of their parents. This has been going on since the 1960s, and every year more and more are dropping out, with those just hitting their 20s even less religious than ever. When I got my first car at age 16 I stopped going to church, and of my parents and 8 siblings, eventually only my father and one sister continued going.
Yeah, but, statistically, irreligion correlates with being left-of-center. According to Pew, ~69% of sampled atheists lean Democratic or are Democratic, ~17% have 'no lean' and are moderate, and ~15% are Republican or lean Republican. If you scroll down like 30 graphs from the top, you'll see that even among that Republican-leaning 15%, 42% identify as conservative while 43% call themselves moderate (and 13% call themselves liberal, lol)
I'm probably biased, but what I see is that more and more people are are coming to view the world as scientists do. Mostly not in a very sophisticated way, but, for instance, when you get cancer, you're mostly looking for the doc/clinic who has a good record of treating that kind of cancer. You may ALSO pray, but the search for the best treatment comes first. You're not relying on prayer to drop that doc/clinic in your lap.
Gradually, it becomes more and more difficult to shoehorn modern life into bronze age beliefs. This results in the rather vague "I'm spiritual, not religious" mode of thinking, which can become that ragbag of new age beliefs, which is ultimately as nonsensical as genesis. But it does at least lead to the weakening of some nasty organizations.
I am convinced that a lot of what we are seeing right now on the part of the religious right is a last gasp scenario. Not that I think they can't politically win - they can - but the cat is already out of the bag. Barring some truly drastic end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it catastrophe, it won't go back into the bag.
In Iran, women are rejecting the hijab. And the government is treading pretty warily.
I'm probably biased, but what I see is that more and more people are are coming to view the world as scientists do. Mostly not in a very sophisticated way, but, for instance, when you get cancer, you're mostly looking for the doc/clinic who has a good record of treating that kind of cancer. You may ALSO pray, but the search for the best treatment comes first. You're not relying on prayer to drop that doc/clinic in your lap.
Gradually, it becomes more and more difficult to shoehorn modern life into bronze age beliefs. This results in the rather vague "I'm spiritual, not religious" mode of thinking, which can become that ragbag of new age beliefs, which is ultimately as nonsensical as genesis. But it does at least lead to the weakening of some nasty organizations.
I am convinced that a lot of what we are seeing right now on the part of the religious right is a last gasp scenario. Not that I think they can't politically win - they can - but the cat is already out of the bag. Barring some truly drastic end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it catastrophe, it won't go back into the bag.
In Iran, women are rejecting the hijab. And the government is treading pretty warily.
Unfortunately, I think the resulting dynamic in the US is just ever-increasing polarization, with no real end in sight. I don't think the religious right will relinquish their nonsensical beliefs soon or ever, and so the divide among the 'two Americas' just continues to widen. No matter how untenable such beliefs are or may be in light of modern scientific knowledge, these people rely on intellectual gymnastics or outright dismissals of knowledge to stave off cognitive dissonance and maintain their archaic worldviews. For every mordant who escapes the clutches of evangelicalism (and even that escape required how many decades of lived experience, mordant?), there are going to be many more who remain imprisoned by dogma for life.
I think that a significant factor in these changing numbers is a willingness to self-report more accurately. In short, the political incorrectness that has long come with disavowing religion, either emphatically or more subtly, is rapidly fading. There are fewer consequences, both perceived and real, in terms of social disapprobation from articulating a lack of belief or even explicit disbelief. So I think that while religiosity is certainly in decline, you also have a portion of the populace that no longer feels compelled to conceal their lack thereof.
I think that a significant factor in these changing numbers is a willingness to self-report more accurately. In short, the political incorrectness that has long come with disavowing religion, either emphatically or more subtly, is rapidly fading. There are fewer consequences, both perceived and real, in terms of social disapprobation from articulating a lack of belief or even explicit disbelief. So I think that while religiosity is certainly in decline, you also have a portion of the populace that no longer feels compelled to conceal their lack thereof.
Yes. And the 'level of devotion', for wont of a better term, is very different than when I was young. To quite a degree, many christians are nominally so. Many.
Yes. And the 'level of devotion', for wont of a better term, is very different than when I was young. To quite a degree, many christians are nominally so. Many.
It is actually a relief to know that nobody will be all over your behind for being a "lukewarm" atheist.
Good to see that you perceive that "nuisance" Christianity is tapering off in some circles.
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