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Yes, its down. Yes, there are churches that are shrinking. But its still THE major religion of the United States. Nearly 3/4 of the country still considers itself Christian. Yet we have atheists/agnostics/anti-religious people claiming "Christianity is dead!" We are still a very "Christian nation." Many of the traditional denominations are shrinking in favor of mega churches and evangelical protestant denominations such as the Assemblies of God. Seriously, people around here and in the real world really over exaggerate. There are a ton of immigrants coming in who are Christians. I know a lot of younger people who are religious, so the notion that the millennials aren't religious is exaggerated also.
What are your thoughts?
3/4 of this Country calls themselves Christian, because it's what is socially expected of them. A very small percentage of them actually go to church or read the bible, let alone go regularly. America is trending towards the European version of irreligion.
3/4 of this Country calls themselves Christian, because it's what is socially expected of them. A very small percentage of them actually go to church or read the bible, let alone go regularly. America is trending towards the European version of irreligion.
Interesting thing, is the percentage may be down, but is the absolute number?
Quote:
The three countries in the Americas with the largest Christian populations also have the three largest Christian populations in the world: the United States (247 million Christians), Brazil (176 million) and Mexico (108 million).
The US is still by far biggest Christian population in absolute number. I'm willing to bet the number itself is higher than it was 50 years ago. So as the percentage goes down, the total remains huge. There's no way it is becoming like Europe anytime soon. That's what people want to think, but its more wishful thinking.
Interesting thing, is the percentage may be down, but is the absolute number?
The US is still by far biggest Christian population in absolute number. I'm willing to bet the number itself is higher than it was 50 years ago. So as the percentage goes down, the total remains huge. There's no way it is becoming like Europe anytime soon. That's what people want to think, but its more wishful thinking.
The United States has the 4th largest population in the world - only China, India, and Russia has a larger one. So it stands to reason that our Christian population is going to be large in terms of real numbers.
Add to the fact that we are geographically and culturally isolated and you end up with a nation that is religiously homogeneous ... especially when there is often a push-back against non-Christian faiths. Most of our immigrants come from Latin America and they are staunchly Catholic. It's not as though we live next door to a Muslim or Hindu nation.
A 2001 survey directed by Dr. Ariela Keysar for the City University of New York indicated that, amongst the more than 100 categories of response, "no religious identification" had the greatest increase in population in both absolute and percentage terms. This category included atheists, agnostics, humanists, and others with no theistic religious beliefs or practices. Figures are up from 14.3 million in 1990 to 34.2 million in 2008, representing an increase from 8% of the total population in 1990 to 15% in 2008.
Some surveys have indicated that doubts about the existence of a god were growing quickly among Americans under 30.
Now, I'm beginning to think that the lady doth protests too much. There is a decline in Christian religiosity in America and I think you can sense it. But I really don't care overmuch ... and I don't think a lot of other atheists do, either.
The only thing that matters to ME is that fundamentalism and evangelism disappears. Extremism in this day and age is nothing but a heaping helping of trouble. Moreover, arriving into the 21st Century with 40% of Americans still believing in Adam and Eve over evolution and that God magically created the universe without any science involved (i.e. no Big Bang, just God poofing it all here). A ridiculous number of people believe that angels are watching over them, too. I can't remember the percentage but it was frighteningly high.
It should be pointed out that no highly religious nation has ever been successful in the modern world. America is an anomaly in terms of industrialization and wealth vs. religiosity. No other 1st World nation has the degree of religiosity we do.
Well, guess what ... we managed to get away with it for awhile, mostly because of how the U.S. emerged from WWII as the only major nation left standing. But all of this religiosity, the superstition, the primitivism, an over-reliance on the Bible as a window into reality, and the divisive rhetoric that comes with fundamentalist beliefs ... all of it is going to start dragging us down. Just like it has to every other nation, without exception, that tried to hang on to extremist supernatural worldviews in the modern age.
The United States has the 4th largest population in the world - only China, India, and Russia has a larger one.
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No longer the case. Since fragmenting into all those Breakaway Republicstans, Russia without its USSR empire, has fallen to 9th place with 137 million.
It should be pointed out that no highly religious nation has ever been successful in the modern world. America is an anomaly in terms of industrialization and wealth vs. religiosity. No other 1st World nation has the degree of religiosity we do.
Well, guess what ... we managed to get away with it for awhile, mostly because of how the U.S. emerged from WWII as the only major nation left standing. But all of this religiosity, the superstition, the primitivism, an over-reliance on the Bible as a window into reality, and the divisive rhetoric that comes with fundamentalist beliefs ... all of it is going to start dragging us down. Just like it has to every other nation, without exception, that tried to hang on to extremist supernatural worldviews in the modern age.
No longer the case. Since fragmenting into all those Breakaway Republicstans, Russia without its USSR empire, has fallen to 9th place with 137 million.
The US trails only China and India.
USA! USA!
We're Number Three!
Ahh okay. I wondered about whether Russia was still number three after the demise of the USSR, but I was too lazy to look it up.
The only thing that matters to ME is that fundamentalism and evangelism disappears.
We've all heard stories of someone's grandparent awaking from a coma or otherwise regaining some lucidity just before passing away. When the endangered nature of something becomes apparent there will always be a reaction to try to bolster it. It is likely that what we're seeing today with mainstream and evangelical Christianity is something akin to that. But Christianity is a brand worth too much to go away completely. It is worth so much, and there is no legitimate means of protecting the brand from being co-opted by opportunists, that we can rest assured that we'll see it continue long after we're all dead.
The question is how many Christian churches a hundred years from now will be simply faith communities built around a covenant of secular values the members treat as sacred. Religion does provide a valuable service. The petty tunnel vision of dogma doesn't. The literalist and inflexible interpretations of the Bible don't. But the binding together of people to care for one and other and for the world around them, to support each other's search for truth and meaning, to foster moral values grounded on the ethic of reciprocity which has been the foundation of practically every religious belief system since well before the invention of Judaism... that is of value. There is nothing, except atheistic overreaction (a charge I can make since I once was a transgressor in that regard, myself), that regards that kind of religion as anything other than a positive influence on its members and on society overall.
Well, both side are putting their arguments and the Op makes the case that the demise of Christianity is exaggerated. Well it is, but only for the purposes of the OP - a strawman easier to knock down that the real case - that a change is happening.
All the arguments about it is never going to go away, young people in megachurches, all this is just denial. Because there really nothing they can do about it. The process that has started will go on and more people will be prompted to question and doubt.
Of course religion won't vanish. Look at scientology - a tiny player on the religious stage, but with tremendous clout. But even they can't intervene in politics the way religion can, though they could stand them off over the tax thing not too long ago.
So it is more an increasing disaffiliation to religion and less ability for the religious tail to wag the political dog. Even the death of religious political influence has been greatly exaggerated, but what I am seeing is rather the gradual elimination of a viral infection from the US body politic which will be the healthier the more it is eradicated.
The United States has the 4th largest population in the world - only China, India, and Russia has a larger one. So it stands to reason that our Christian population is going to be large in terms of real numbers.
Add to the fact that we are geographically and culturally isolated and you end up with a nation that is religiously homogeneous ... especially when there is often a push-back against non-Christian faiths. Most of our immigrants come from Latin America and they are staunchly Catholic. It's not as though we live next door to a Muslim or Hindu nation.
A 2001 survey directed by Dr. Ariela Keysar for the City University of New York indicated that, amongst the more than 100 categories of response, "no religious identification" had the greatest increase in population in both absolute and percentage terms. This category included atheists, agnostics, humanists, and others with no theistic religious beliefs or practices. Figures are up from 14.3 million in 1990 to 34.2 million in 2008, representing an increase from 8% of the total population in 1990 to 15% in 2008.
Some surveys have indicated that doubts about the existence of a god were growing quickly among Americans under 30.
Now, I'm beginning to think that the lady doth protests too much. There is a decline in Christian religiosity in America and I think you can sense it. But I really don't care overmuch ... and I don't think a lot of other atheists do, either.
The only thing that matters to ME is that fundamentalism and evangelism disappears. Extremism in this day and age is nothing but a heaping helping of trouble. Moreover, arriving into the 21st Century with 40% of Americans still believing in Adam and Eve over evolution and that God magically created the universe without any science involved (i.e. no Big Bang, just God poofing it all here). A ridiculous number of people believe that angels are watching over them, too. I can't remember the percentage but it was frighteningly high.
It should be pointed out that no highly religious nation has ever been successful in the modern world. America is an anomaly in terms of industrialization and wealth vs. religiosity. No other 1st World nation has the degree of religiosity we do.
Well, guess what ... we managed to get away with it for awhile, mostly because of how the U.S. emerged from WWII as the only major nation left standing. But all of this religiosity, the superstition, the primitivism, an over-reliance on the Bible as a window into reality, and the divisive rhetoric that comes with fundamentalist beliefs ... all of it is going to start dragging us down. Just like it has to every other nation, without exception, that tried to hang on to extremist supernatural worldviews in the modern age.
I often wonder about that though. I rarely come across anyone that that believes in either angels or that evolution is fake, and I interact with a varied group of people. The same thing goes with belief. A good chunk of people I talk to are either agnostic of atheist. Much higher numbers than what you tend to get in polls. It's long been known that most Americans exaggerate their Church attendance along while they will down play other bad qualities such as how often they drink. Seems to me that the amount of non believers would actually be higher then.
Very likely. I tend to suspect that the claims that, apart from the poll results people are a lot more religious - believers than the results would suggest, is confirmation bias and denial and actually people are a lot more irreligious than the polls would suggest, and a bit more thinking about their beliefs and a bit more listening to what the goddless are really like as opposed to the terrible press the churches have been dishing out for the last fifty years, and these suspected tendencies would be come apparent in the polls.
At the moment, they are not, so this remains only a suspicion. For me at any rate. The believers seem to feel quite entitled to claim what they hope is true as reliable fact.
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