America is turning secular much faster than we realise

[cronus]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peter ... e-realise/

America is turning secular much faster than we realise

Next week Jesus gets the full Hollywood treatment with the launch of Son of God, a movie biopic that Christian groups are determined will take America by storm, much like the HBO mini-series on The Bible did last year.

From Los Angeles to Houston multiplex cinemas have been block-booked for the February 28 premiere, in what promises to be a stark display of mega-church muscle.

On days like that, it feels hard to argue that religion in America is really on the decline, but after our recent piece on secular groups in Virginia, I've been delving further into the data.

The decline of mainstream Protestantism in America over recent decades has been well documented, but for much of that period Evangelical Christianity appeared to be immune to that wider trend, as mega-churches continued to grow and George W Bush took the White House.
But now, according to Mark Chaves, a divinity and sociology professor at Duke University and author of "America Religion: Contemporary Trends", it seems that Evangelicals are now succumbing to the same forces of secularization.

Using data from the University of Chicago's General Social Survey, Chaves discovers that among White Evangelicals born in the decade 1981-90, some 22 per cent now say they have no religion, a figure is close to the 24 per cent of mainstream Protestants born in the same decade who say the same.
What is interesting, is that if you go back a decade and look at White Christians born 1971-80, just 12 per cent of Evangelicals say they have no religious affiliation, compared with 19 per cent of mainstream Protestants: the secularisation trends are clearly converging.

This tallies with the anecdotal evidence that we picked up in Virginia that suggested that non-belief was rising among the young Christian community much faster than headline polls suggested.

After several decades of doubt over the data, says Chaves, it is now clear beyond reasonable doubt that America is secularizing, but that doesn't answer a much trickier – and more interesting question: how far, and how fast?

America still feels highly religious on the surface, but is it possible that attitudes to religion in the US could undergo a sudden shift – as they have, say, on gay marriage – or is religion so fundamental to the US that any change will continue to be incremental?

Right now, the shift in attitudes to religion is, according to the famous "nones" Pew survey, driven by so-called "generational replacement" – ie the younger generation slowly becoming less religious and their attitudes filtering into society and the polling data, as their parents and grandparents die off.

(continued)

[Svartalf]

the religious are such a pain I doubt Merka is secularizing all that fast... they still have the power.

[cronus]

The danger is replacing one lot of idiots with another. A militant 7.0 atheist is no better than a religious fundy when you want to chill-out with a beer. Instead of priests teling you right from wrong, health fascists....no difference.

[DaveDodo007]

The danger is replacing one lot of idiots with another. A militant 7.0 atheist is no better than a religious fundy when you want to chill-out with a beer. Instead of priests teling you right from wrong, health fascists....no difference.

This is bullshit. Please explain to me the difference in danger with the terms between:

A, 7.0 there is definitely no god/s

B, 6.9 there is no evidence for a god/s.

There isn't any. You are equating the human capacity to adopt ideology (whether atheists/agonostic or religious) with levels of atheism and there is no link to justify this assertion.

[cronus]

The danger is replacing one lot of idiots with another. A militant 7.0 atheist is no better than a religious fundy when you want to chill-out with a beer. Instead of priests teling you right from wrong, health fascists....no difference.

This is bullshit. Please explain to me the difference in danger with the terms between:

A, 7.0 there is definitely no god/s

B, 6.9 there is no evidence for a god/s.

There isn't any. You are equating the human capacity to adopt ideology (whether atheists/agonostic or religious) with levels of atheism and there is no link to justify this assertion.

Must be true, it's numbers.

[Robert_S]

What about people who are militantly 4.0?

[JimC]

The danger is replacing one lot of idiots with another. A militant 7.0 atheist is no better than a religious fundy when you want to chill-out with a beer. Instead of priests teling you right from wrong, health fascists....no difference.

In a world with little or no religion, a "militant atheist" would no longer have anything to be militant about, and could turn to a more worthwhile hobby, like collecting gin bottles from around the world...

[JimC]

What about people who are militantly 4.0?

They're the worst of all, the smarmy moderate wish-washy cunts!

[Robert_S]

What about people who are militantly 4.0?

They're the worst of all, the smarmy moderate wish-washy cunts!

Second only to militant anti-agnostics!

[Brian Peacock]

The danger is replacing one lot of idiots with another. A militant 7.0 atheist is no better than a religious fundy when you want to chill-out with a beer. Instead of priests teling you right from wrong, health fascists....no difference.

In a world with little or no religion, a "militant atheist" would no longer have anything to be militant about, and could turn to a more worthwhile hobby, like collecting gin bottles from around the world...

What is a 'militant atheist' anyway? Someone who agressively refrains from preaching disbelief on street corners, someone who cheers people as they enter abortion clinics, someone who terrorises people by reading a Dawkins book on the bus, or who flies to their holdiay destination and wilfully resists hijacking the plane and flying it into an office block?

For 'militant atheist' just read 'vocal atheist', or 'an intellectually honest atheist' who doesn't shirk from expressing their point of view in the face of religious jibber-jabber.

[mistermack]

''kill all the warmongers''

''SMASH violence''

''Be here Sunday man, we'm avin a peace riot''

. . . . . . .
fred wedlock.

[Hermit]

Fight for peace!

[FBM]

"Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity." George Carlin

[Svartalf]

Fucking for virginity... that's a cause I could join

[klr]

"Some people don't hate nothing at all except hatred ..." - the Zim