A Miscellany 207
Organized Religion Losing Ground
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Several wrote this week with links to news reports about the results of the American Religious Identification Survey 2008. Overall, the survey finds that organized religion is losing ground. As for the nonbeliever community:
- Only 1.6 percent of Americans call themselves atheist or agnostic. But based on stated beliefs, 12 percent are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unsure), while 12 percent more are deistic (believe in a higher power but not a personal God).
It's an interesting finding, and to me it suggests that either people find the words atheist / agnostic / deist to have negative connotations, so won't apply them to themselves, or, they just don't know what they mean.
Thanks to Tweedy, Jorge, and Nigel for providing these newslinks to articles about the survey. They provide a selection of perspectives.
- USA Today: - Most religious groups in USA have lost ground, survey finds
- Yahoo News: - The coming evangelical collapse
- LA Times: - Americans becoming less religious, study shows
- The Associated Press: - More Americans say they have no religion