Bozur
Amicus
Posts: 5,515
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Post by Bozur on Mar 14, 2009 2:25:11 GMT -5
The Silent Minority: The Non-Religious
huffingtonpost.com — There is a minority group in America that is a bigger percentage of the country than blacks or Hispanics. But they are often ignored or derided in public. Almost no politician would ever admit to being one. And they are given no voice in the public arena. They are the non-religious. More… (World News)
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There is a minority group in America that is a bigger percentage of the country than blacks or Hispanics. But they are often ignored or derided in public. Almost no politician would ever admit to being one. And they are given no voice in the public arena.
They are the non-religious. A new comprehensive study by The Program on Public Values at Trinity College shows that this group is now a whopping 15% of the country. Mormons by comparison are a puny 1.4% of the population, and people can't shut up about the Mormons. The Senate Majority Leader is a Mormon, one of the top Republican presidential candidates was Mormon and even HBO has a whole show devoted to them.
Even though the non-religious are more than ten times larger, other than Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), not one member of Congress would even admit to being in the dreaded minority of non-believers. They are almost never accounted for in any political discussion of religion in the country. The devout view them as amoral at best and destined for eternal damnation at worst. Yet, this kind of abuse and scorn is widely accepted and expected.
And, if God forbid, they should ever fight back and forcefully present their opinions, they are often considered rude and offensive.
I've always been amused at the idea that a religious person can say that an atheist will burn in hell as a result of their beliefs, and that is not considered offensive; but if an atheist says that believing in God makes no sense, that is considered deeply offensive. One person is charging the other with faulty logic; the other is charging them with a base immorality that warrants eternal torture. How is the former even vaguely more insulting than the latter?
I have a confession - I am in that 15%! Gasp, shriek. I, too, am in the unspeakable minority. The minority that is not silent by choice but by decision of the people in power. They say we don't merit a seat at the table. That our views are offensive to the majority, so they cannot be countenanced in polite company, or more importantly, on the Sunday morning talk shows.
But we shall be silent no more! Rise up, my non-religious brothers and sisters. Agnostics, atheists, deists and the religiously indifferent can all join hands, stand up and be counted. Time for the silent minority to roar!
Or in lieu of that, can someone please just recognize that we exist, that we are a legitimate force in American discourse and politics? And for the love of God, stop ignoring us. www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/the-silent-minority_b_173354.html
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Bozur
Amicus
Posts: 5,515
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Post by Bozur on Mar 14, 2009 2:36:23 GMT -5
15 Percent of Americans Have No Religion
washingtonpost.com — The percentage of Americans who call themselves Christians has dropped dramatically over the past two decades, and those who do are increasingly identifying themselves without traditional denomination labels, according to a major study of U.S. religion being released today. More… (Political News)
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15 Percent of Americans Have No Religion Fewer Call Themselves Christians; Nondenominational Identification Increases
By Michelle Boorstein Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, March 9, 2009; Page A04
The percentage of Americans who call themselves Christians has dropped dramatically over the past two decades, and those who do are increasingly identifying themselves without traditional denomination labels, according to a major study of U.S. religion being released today.
Report: American Religion Identification Survey (PDF) www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/documents/aris030609.pdf
The survey of more than 54,000 people conducted between February and November of last year showed that the percentage of Americans identifying as Christians has dropped to 76 percent of the population, down from 86 percent in 1990. Those who do call themselves Christian are more frequently describing themselves as "nondenominational" "evangelical" or "born again," according to the American Religious Identification Survey.
The survey is conducted by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and funded by the Lilly Endowment and the Posen Foundation. Conducted in 1990, 2001 and last year, it is one of the nation's largest major surveys of religion.
The increase in people labeling themselves in more generic Christian terms corresponds strongly with the decline in people identifying themselves as Protestant, the survey found. People calling themselves mainline Protestants, including Methodists and Lutherans, have dropped to 13 percent of the population, down from 19 percent in 1990. The number of people who describe themselves as generically "Protestant" went from approximately 17 million in 1990 to 5 million.
Meanwhile, the number of people who use nondenominational terms has gone from 194,000 in 1990 to more than 8 million.
"There is now this shift in the non-Catholic population -- and maybe among American Christians in general -- into a sort of generic, soft evangelicalism," said Mark Silk, who directs Trinity's Program on Public Values and helped supervise the survey.
The survey substantiated several general trends already identified by sociologists: the slipping importance of denomination in America, the growing number of people who say they have "no" religion and the increase in religious minorities including Muslims, Mormons and such movements as Wicca and paganism.
The only group that grew in every U.S. state since the 2001 survey was people saying they had "no" religion; the survey says this group is now 15 percent of the population. Silk said this group is likely responsible for the shrinking percentage of Christians in the United States.
Northern New England has surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious section of the country; 34 percent of Vermont residents say they have "no religion." The report said that the country has a "growing non-religious or irreligious minority." Twenty-seven percent of those interviewed said they did not expect to have a religious funeral or service when they died, and 30 percent of people who had married said their service was not religious. Those questions weren't asked in previous surveys.
The survey reflects a key question that demographers, sociologists and political scientists have been asking in recent years: Who makes up this growing group of evangelicals? Forty-four percent of America's 77 million Christian adults say they are born again or evangelical. Meanwhile, 18 percent of Catholics also chose that label, as did 40 percent of mainline Christians.
"If people call themselves 'evangelical,' it doesn't tell you as much as you think it tells you about what kind of church they go to," Silk said. "It deepens the conundrum about who evangelicals are." www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/08/AR2009030801967.html?referrer=digg
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Bozur
Amicus
Posts: 5,515
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Post by Bozur on Apr 5, 2009 11:43:28 GMT -5
Meacham: The End of Christian America | Newsweek Religion
newsweek.com — The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now and what, as a nation, we are about to become. More… (World News) www.newsweek.com/id/192583
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