so i'm posting this because a while back yet another news article was posted that drones on about
the religiosity of america's national character. i realize that the article says this is a bad thing, but it floors me whenever "the religiosity of our national character" is said with zero ironic intent.
i got news for you, america's religious fervor is flying out the window. the above article talks about the religiousity of america as opposed to the secularism of europe. it then talks about how intellectuals in europe have noticed the decline of religion in europe over the past 200 years or so. this makes sense, religion is a powerful psychological force, it would take many generations to secularize a country. which is why i am floored at the rapid rate of the secularization of america. america has become noticeably less religious in my lifetime. anyone who can't see this must be freaking blind.
let me direct you
here.
now scroll down to the table that is labeled "religious affiliation". the percentage of total christians in america is given as 79.8% as of 2001. that's a freakin' lot, and a clear majority. but look over to the left, the percentage of americans who were christian in 1990 was 88.3%. an 8.5% drop in eleven years? that doesn't seem like a good sign to me. sure doesn't look like our "national religiosity" is holding up there. but i digress, america is an immigrant nation, perhaps america is just being flooded with muslims, hindus and buddhists. hey the soviet union collapsed back around '90 and we saw an influx of jews who were persecuted under communism, remember?
well that idea is bunk. scroll down that page. while the total number of non christian adherents is up to 5.2% from 3.5%. that's a big increase, but pretty negligible in the over all scheme of things. a 1.7% increase isn't an answer to the 8.5% drop in christian adherents.
i wonder where all those believers are going? haven't they heard about the religiosity of our national character and all? maybe we can find these people if we scroll down the page a little lower. oh, here they are. a whopping 15% of america is listed as "no religion/atheist/agnostic". from here on out, i'll just refer to this segment as "none".
now i know what you're saying, " kiche, while 15% is a sizeable minority, it's dwarfed by the 79.8% of americans who are christians." to which i say, take another look at the chart, my friend. none has jumped from 8.4% in 1990 to 15% in 2001. that's quite a leap. in fact, none is presently the third largest religion in america
AND the fastest growing religion in america.
in fact, the second fastest growing religion in america is "christian - no denomination supplied", up to 7.2% from 4.7%. in fact "christian - no denomination supplied" is tied for fourth place with the methodists. this is also bad news for our "national religious character" (can you feel the sarcasm?). religion is an organized structure, belief is a spiritual concept. this is a growing demographic of people who have rejected organized religion despite sharing their spiritual beliefs.
but this should be hardly surprising news, if it weren't for the delusion faithfully reported in the media that we are a church going nation. jeez, i've seen report after report in the media dutifully report high church attendance numbers. it's a standard media delusion that
40 to 50% of americans attend church weekly. even though, study after study reports that
half that amount attend church weekly. christ, what fucking planet do the media live on anyway? 40% church attendance? i grew up in a freaking swamp in mississippi. 400 people lived, there. high, high church attendance compared to the rest of america. i can guarantee you that the population didn't even hit 40% religious attendance. media pollsters, morons that they are, would probably return with a 100% weekly church attendance rate. fuck. they probably only got 40% attendance for easter and christmas. in fact, my mom worked for a catholic school where the priest gave the same homily for ten years. and that homily was "if ya don't go to church every sunday, you're gonna burn in hell!" way to go media. maybe we should chunk the figures the state collects on how often people vote and use the polling data of how often people
say they vote. apparently you think that's the more reliable figure.
one thing, i just completely cannot get over is how the hierarchy of the catholic church is looking at the political rise of the religious right in america and licking it's chops greedily. as the popular delusion goes, the rise of the right wing in american christianity has filled up churches to the point of bursting. i mean, just look at the baptists. they've been swinging right for 20 years. in the past ten they've gotten rid of women pastors, endorsed creationism over evolution and declared that all of the jews are going to hell. it's done wonders for them. they've gone from
19.8% of the population in 1990 to 17.2% in 2001. yeah, that's a great model. it's possible to go decrease as a percentage of the populace while still increasing your numbers as a religion because of population growth; but the baptists have managed to bleed enough members to actually decrease in raw numbers. this is a religion that actively recruits and has regular converts. this means that they lose enough people on a regular basis to have a steady influx of people coming in and still wind up with less people than they started with. man, that's a fucking model for success. i am absolutely certain that "none" will be america's second largest religion come the 2020 census.
it's mind blowing that the catholic hierarchy would want to follow these guys straight down the toilet. they only lost 1% of the populace from 1990 to 2001. but something tells me that's gonna change in the next 25 years or so (note to anyone from the catholic hierarchy that ever happens across this post, let me give you a short math lesson: [massive pedophilia scandal and cover up] + [appointing a former nazi as your leader] =
DEATH). although, the catholic church's contingency plan of launching an
an inquisition to eradicate homosexuals and liberals from it's already dwindling priesthood may stop the looming exodus of the faithful.
and another thing about this whole "religious right strategy". from the crap flying around the news media you'd think that 100% of church going christians were down with the republican party and that their biggest concern was cutting the capital gains tax. i can't link to any stats on this, but it's been my experience that there are a lot of christians out there who aren't exactly card carrying republicans. maybe i'm just completely out of touch with the mainstream; but don't you think that if the overwhelming majority of christians in america were down with the republican agenda bush would have gotten a whole heck of a lot more votes back in november than 50.8%? hey, i've got an idea, if you want to reconnect with people why don't you read the bible and see what jesus actually had to say? he's the guy that made you popular, not p.r. firms and right wing jackasses.
