More than 1 in 4 American adults identify as “religious nones,” meaning they consider themselves to be “atheist,” “agnostic” or “nothing in particular,” according to a report from the Pew Research Center released Wednesday.
According to the new set of data, 28% of Americans classify themselves as “nones,” 17% of whom identify as atheist, 20% as agnostic and 63% as “nothing in particular.” Most “nones” said they were raised to be religious, and the majority were raised in Christian households.
The data was mostly based on a Pew Research Center survey of 11,201 respondents that was conducted over the course of a week last summer. The report also drew on a few other surveys conducted in recent years and on Pew’s National Public Opinion Reference Surveys.
“When asked directly why they are not religious, two-thirds of ‘nones’ say they question a lot of religious teachings or don’t believe in God,” the report said.
For comparison: In 2022, 25% of Germans were members of the Roman-Catholic church, 23% were protestants. About 4% were other Christians. In Between 2019 and 2021, 3–7% were Muslims (depending on the survey). All other denominations sum to less than 1%, leaving some 40% without confession.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religionen_in_Deutschland
Note that these numbers are from different censuses in different years, and all are rounded, so they don’t add up to 100%.
The term I use to describe myself is Apathestic, which is not really believing or disbelieving in a god or gods because it is irrelevant to your life and not worth thinking about.
Thank god.
Removed by mod
I’m a Satanist so, same.
Damn I really thought it’d be more
I remember seeing a similar report 20 years ago and it was something like 4%, with something like 20% are agnostic.
Still too little of a percentage, in a country of religious estremists
While that’s good news overall, I’m unhappy to think that it means 75 percent of adults still believe in superstitious dark ages fictional nonsense. At least the upcoming generation seem to be smarter people and less apt to fall under the influence of the evils of religious belief.
It’s more healthy not to believe in a god, than to believe in one. And it’s more healthy to put your energy into human relationships that into fictional religious ones.
Keep in mind that 2/3rds of “nones” are theists.
That’s very depressing. I wish people would expend as much energy on helping other people as they do on their nutjob beliefs.
I have to agree with you on that one. Religion is a disease of the minds.
Religion is (I think Marx said) the “opiate of the people.” And always the poorest people with the least education seem the most readily duped by religious nonsense. And in my opinion, they’re the ones who can least afford it.
Alternate title: “3/4s of grown-ass adults still believe in magic”
Yeah I had to read the title twice; that’s an insanely low percentage for the modern era
Good. Religion is stupid in any capacity.
I don’t subscribe to that. I think weaponized religion is bullshit.
Pastafarians only bring fun into the world.
Followers of Jedi, live your best life.
Spiritual Buddhism folks, hell yeah.
There’s countries where your religion is no different from your preference to ketchup vs mustard. It’s just some countries and specific people are fucking assholes.
I still disagree. Using someone else’s philosophy on life to help guide your own defeats the purpose of experiencing said life. That’s me though.
I’m currently nonreligious, but there are hundreds of people that have influenced my personal philosophies. But despite the things I believe having come from or been influenced by other people, I still consider my beliefs to be my own. Why should the beliefs of religious or spiritual people be viewed any differently?
Of course you think they’re your own. It’s important to you to have that feeling of individualism, but you yourself said the opposite. You’ve been influenced by hundreds, right? How is any of your beliefs your own?
Using someone else’s philosophy on life to help guide your own defeats the purpose of experiencing said life.
This sounds a lot like “You don’t get to tell me not to touch the hot stove! I want to experience the burn!” – What’s wrong with listening to other’s look on life and see if and how that can benefit you?
Because some people don’t need to touch a hot stove to feel the heat from it. In your binary view of the world you’re either the burned or the observer.
If every human had to learn from step one we’d never progress. Taking lessons from past experiences is valid in many ways. The alternate side of that is many humans must make their own mistakes to learn those lessons. It’s why we rarely listen to our parents. And unfortunately many humans require a group to belong to, as our evolutionary history required the social collective to survive. Which is why religion has been so powerful, especially once the con men realized they could use that “flaw” in human evolution to manipulate people. So for sure we should always be skeptical about being led by others. But I’m afraid the “concept” of religion (groupthink) will likely never go away - it’s a huge part of what makes us social creatures. But I absolutely agree that “religion” as a generalization is fucked.
That’s not very much.
A lot of churches will not see this as a sign for self reflection and will instead blame “woke” whatever.
Strange how raping little children, embezzlement, hate speech, simulation of women and other abuses by various churches might convince people to not associate with a group that perpetuates that.
They literally are doing this to themselves and regularly fail to understand it like a Principal Skinner meme IRL.
I mean apparently most of the departures are coming from mainline denominations as opposed to the evangelicals that are actually growing in number if anything
Just look at Redeemed Zoomer, dude just officially announced a “Reconquista” campaign to take Presbyterianism “back” from “the unchristian liberals” because he thinks acknowledging gay people deserve rights means you don’t actually believe in anything Christian and are just peddling whatever is in vogue.
The Church has been left in the hands of its lowest common denominator in the west, and they’ve grabbed onto the power that offers with every intention to abuse the shit out of it.
Where previous social movements defined themselves around the church, the modern movements have defined themselves by rejecting it altogether, and in doing so have left the crazies with a controlling share of the leftovers.
Kind of a missed opportunity IMO, had movements like Social Gospel and Liberation Theology maintained a visible presence beyond history book footnotes, I could genuinely see modern generations bordering on organizing themselves under crusader iconography.
I personally don’t want to base my political activity on something I believe wholeheartedly to be a falsehood (specifically, the existence of a god).
There is such a thing as a christian atheist, someone who believes the philosophy espoused by Jesus but who rejects the historicity of the bible and even the existence of god.
An interesting philosophical exercise I suppose, but the core appeal of following Jesus (and indeed any reason for believing his methods would work) seem pretty linked to the existence of jawheh.
I haven’t met any Christian or Muslim atheists, whereas I have met several Jewish and Hindu atheists.
Think of it as someone who follows Christ by actions rather than by words.
Not a prayer on their lips but willing to give you the clothes off their back if they find you in need.
I think not enough people understand how important good works are supposed to be to the faith.
Saying you believe without backing it up by offering the help you have to give to the misfortuned around you is show you don’t actually believe in anything.
The southern Baptist church, the largest evangelical denomination in America, had it’s peak membership in 2006.
The Church has been left in the hands of its lowest common denominator in the west, and they’ve grabbed onto the power that offers with every intention to abuse the shit out of it
It has ALWAYS been this way. Difference is the freedom of choice. Of course these fukn assholes would love to have attendance, and especially tithing, legally compulsory. Their sociopathic brains can’t appreciate the supreme way that could backfire. Thankfully people with 100+ IQs can abstain and ignore, for now.
Anyway, guys like you mentioned are fukn grifters and clowns. Stupid people will always be used by evil people to accomplish their goals. If it wasn’t religion, it would be something else that offers the sheep easy answers with minimal cognitive commitment.
Christianity is dying at warp speed, being abandoned by the drones in favor of cryptofascism and stupidity-based nationalism. The evangelicals themselves are redefining the doctrines to include violent extremist ideology.
Donny easily meets the biblical Antichrist criteria without any use of imagination, and yet he is fully embraced by the holy moron community. Their principles have been fully compromised.
Stop waking up, sheeple
