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Yes, stats are open to interpretation, not to say Question. The last Pew study was chewed over endlessly, but it was encouraging. These figures look even more encouraging. And denial that they show that irreligion is winning out just looks like - denial.
I don't find people abandoning the faith and taking the road that leads to eternal death to be anything to rejoice about. There is no hope in atheism. Absolutely none. Your happiness in this life could be snatched away in an instant.
But at any rate, your post proves nothing. My evidence showed that evangelical base has not been dropping. Church parking lots are still full.
But what is the point of false hope? How is it something to rejoice about?
Yes, it is true that my happiness in this life could be snatched away at any moment. That happens to people all the time. It is also true that it can happen to you at any moment. When you are dead, you will be every bit as dead as I will be when I am dead. We will both be just as dead as every other person who lived before either of us.
Jeff, I know you don't like to be told how science works, so I'll keep this to the point.
The first thing I do when presented with data (on any topic) is look at the source, with an eye toward potential bias. For example, if I was reviewing data about a new drug to treat cancer or heart disease, I would put more weight on a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), than on one conducted by the manufacturer of the drug in question, which has an inhererent conflict of interest (i.e., their primary mission is to sell more product).
In the same way, I would put more stock in the GSS report (the OP), which doesn't have any incentive to slant results one way or another. The link you provided has a mission (not unlike that drug company), which is quite naturally going to bias their interpretation of data ("Facts & Trends is designed to help pastors and other Christian leaders navigate the issues and trends impacting the church by providing information, insights, and resources for effective ministry. We see the church as God’s missionary agent.").
On the graph in question, I agree that it is not clear that evangelicals are declining dramatically (certainly not disappearing). They may have peaked in 1993, but we'll have to wait and see what the future holds. There are a couple longterm trends that are irrefutable. (1) Anybody with a ruler can lay it over the trend lines for mainline protestants and nones (no religion) and conclude that the former is experiencing a slow steady decline, while the latter is clearly on the rise. (2) For the first time, those claiming no religion have pulled even with evangelicals and catholics (there is no statistical difference among those three groups, which account for 3/4 of the sample). I make no claims that none = atheist.
That's what I can take away from the graph, without anyone's spin.
Jeff, I know you don't like to be told how science works, so I'll keep this to the point.
The first thing I do when presented with data (on any topic) is look at the source, with an eye toward potential bias. For example, if I was reviewing data about a new drug to treat cancer or heart disease, I would put more weight on a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), than on one conducted by the manufacturer of the drug in question, which has an inhererent conflict of interest (i.e., their primary mission is to sell more product).
In the same way, I would put more stock in the GSS report (the OP), which doesn't have any incentive to slant results one way or another. The link you provided has a mission (not unlike that drug company), which is quite naturally going to bias their interpretation of data ("Facts & Trends is designed to help pastors and other Christian leaders navigate the issues and trends impacting the church by providing information, insights, and resources for effective ministry. We see the church as God’s missionary agent.").
On the graph in question, I agree that it is not clear that evangelicals are declining dramatically (certainly not disappearing). They may have peaked in 1993, but we'll have to wait and see what the future holds. There are a couple longterm trends that are irrefutable. (1) Anybody with a ruler can lay it over the trend lines for mainline protestants and nones (no religion) and conclude that the former is experiencing a slow steady decline, while the latter is clearly on the rise. (2) For the first time, those claiming no religion have pulled even with evangelicals and catholics (there is no statistical difference among those three groups, which account for 3/4 of the sample). I make no claims that none = atheist.
That's what I can take away from the graph, without anyone's spin.
Thank you. That is exactly what the GSS report shows, and you have laid it out in much more detail than I did in the OP. I thought most of this was self-evident, however, apparently not. In fact, my first sentence was? "Just look at the trend line of "nones" (many,but not all, who are atheists) since 2010"
No one ever suggested that all the nones are atheists or even agnostics. However, of the 23%, about 8% fall in those two categories, or about 1/3 of the "nones". That's what surveys say, and I suspect the actual number is probably larger, as there still is a negative connotation to not being "christian", especially for those who come from a christian background.
That is changing, and apparently, rather quickly. Like a snowball, once it starts, it gathers steam, as the graph clearly shows.
Jeff, I know you don't like to be told how science works, so I'll keep this to the point.
The first thing I do when presented with data (on any topic) is look at the source, with an eye toward potential bias. For example, if I was reviewing data about a new drug to treat cancer or heart disease, I would put more weight on a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), than on one conducted by the manufacturer of the drug in question, which has an inhererent conflict of interest (i.e., their primary mission is to sell more product).
In the same way, I would put more stock in the GSS report (the OP), which doesn't have any incentive to slant results one way or another. The link you provided has a mission (not unlike that drug company), which is quite naturally going to bias their interpretation of data ("Facts & Trends is designed to help pastors and other Christian leaders navigate the issues and trends impacting the church by providing information, insights, and resources for effective ministry. We see the church as God’s missionary agent.").
On the graph in question, I agree that it is not clear that evangelicals are declining dramatically (certainly not disappearing). They may have peaked in 1993, but we'll have to wait and see what the future holds. There are a couple longterm trends that are irrefutable. (1) Anybody with a ruler can lay it over the trend lines for mainline protestants and nones (no religion) and conclude that the former is experiencing a slow steady decline, while the latter is clearly on the rise. (2) For the first time, those claiming no religion have pulled even with evangelicals and catholics (there is no statistical difference among those three groups, which account for 3/4 of the sample). I make no claims that none = atheist.
That's what I can take away from the graph, without anyone's spin.
How is it that a decline of one million Southern Baptists (primarily fundamentalists) is not significant for evangelicals? They even recognize that their emphasis on "religious" social policy is part of their problem.
Quote:
The Southern Baptist Convention, one of the more conservative evangelical Protestant denominations, has lost more than a million members over the past decade. Still the largest single Protestant group in the nation with more than 15 million members, its network of churches nevertheless haven’t baptized so few a number of people in 70 years, the denomination’s research shows.
Today, however, there are signs that many of the same trends that decimated mainline Protestantism over the past few decades are now at work among evangelical denominations as well. According to a massive study by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released in September, the number of white evangelical Protestants fell from about 23 percent of the US population in 2006 to 17 percent in 2016.
The finding, based on a survey of more than 100,000 Americans, “provides solid evidence of a new, second wave of white Christian decline that is occurring among white evangelical Protestants just over the last decade in the US,” said Robert Jones, head of the PRRI, after the study was released. “Prior to 2008, white evangelical Protestants seemed to be exempt from the waves of demographic change and disaffiliation that were eroding the membership bases of white mainline Protestants and white Catholics.”
No, look at the graph, thete has been a downward trend for the last 20 years. Yes it is a gradual downward trend but downward it is. Drawing a trend line over the last 20 years would show that I believe. So the article you linked to bragged that mainstream protestants were decreasing faster, does chanel the numbers. And full parking lots in some churches in some parts of your country doesn't mean that church attendance is not declining. I can easily go to ghost towns and towns of declining population in nearby Montana but would be wrong to say that the population of the States is dropping, not when the stats say different.
The article says there has been virtually no change in evangelical base for the past 20 years. Period. Stop trying to distort the truth. We are not going away any time soon. I find it hypocritical that you will accept this kind of evidence WITHOUT QUESTION yet similar evidence that shows suicide rates skyrocketing with the increase of nones is completely rejected. Until you dig into the reasons for the decline or increase then there is nothing to conclude here.
I find it hypocritical that you will accept this kind of evidence WITHOUT QUESTION yet similar evidence that shows suicide rates skyrocketing with the increase of nones is completely rejected.
We DO question this, as we did with your claims. NOWHERE did your link say suicides rocketed, or were huge. And it was talking about unaffiliated people, which included the religious who do not attend church.
But why bother looking at the evidence you provided when you can just ignore it, inventing evidence that is not there?
The article says there has been virtually no change in evangelical base for the past 20 years. Period. Stop trying to distort the truth. We are not going away any time soon. I find it hypocritical that you will accept this kind of evidence WITHOUT QUESTION yet similar evidence that shows suicide rates skyrocketing with the increase of nones is completely rejected. Until you dig into the reasons for the decline or increase then there is nothing to conclude here.
Jeff, the ONLY trendline that is going up is the "nones", of which at least 1/3 are atheists/agnostics. The only flatline group is Jewish (no surprise) and somewhat surprisingly, to me at least, is Black Protestant, although even they have a slight downward trend.
Repeat. Only the "nones" are increasing. Irrefutably.
The article says there has been virtually no change in evangelical base for the past 20 years. Period. Stop trying to distort the truth. We are not going away any time soon. I find it hypocritical that you will accept this kind of evidence WITHOUT QUESTION yet similar evidence that shows suicide rates skyrocketing with the increase of nones is completely rejected. Until you dig into the reasons for the decline or increase then there is nothing to conclude here.
Up to a 2 percentage points drop in those 20 years or up to a 8% drop in numbers going by the graph. They state that numbers have been stable at between 23 and 27 percent which means fluctuations of up to 20%. Do you think something that changes up to 20% is stable.
I admit that the article seems to be claiming that their numbers have not dropped in the last 20 years which seems to be not totally correct and they certainly have dropped over a 25 year period.
The overall thing I got from this article is how they are bragging why evangelicals are doing better than mainstream protestants, which I mentioned in my earlier post. I doubt any of the religions will totally disappear over the next 50 years but do suspect that the USA may become more like Canada in that religion places a much minor role in the public sphere, especially in politics. For example we have a provincial election next week and I have no idea of what if any religion any of the half dozen candidate has. And of the two front runners I have personally know one for 4 years and the other for 26 years. And furthermore unless they happen to push a religious agenda I don't care if they are an atheist or a devout believer of any faith. Would you be able to say the same. Federally my representative is a Mormon unfortunately he represents a party which no longer reflects my values.
As far as rates of suicides it is you jumping to conclusions. I mentioned the dropping of the rates after prayer was removed from the schools, compared the rates of different and amongst different countries. The was nothing in the article you presented nor in the numbers which related increase suicide rates to decrease in religion. States that have higher religious populations were in both the top and the bottom of the suicide rates and in countries with the highest religion pop. their suicide rates were in the top and the bottom. I simply rejected your claim that the two were tied together. Even the article did not blame lack of religion on the increase in rates.
I had already agreed that the rates of suicide had gone down and the rose. And the rate of those with religion has gone down, more in some faiths than in others and the rate. If you charted the NYE for the last ten years you would see it rising as the number of nines has increased. I think that both of us will agree that ithere is no relationship between the two. The article you cited did provide some reasons that the decline of evangelicals is not steep like with the other faiths and I never once attempted to refute their reasons.
You provide credible evidence that the reason for increased suicide rates is the rise of nones and I will examine that. But you make a claim without any evidence but your say so I will not accept it. 8f I remember today's rate is now at the same level as in the 60s when the nones were much lower. We should both throw out a claim that suicides were more common back then because people were more religious.
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