It all depends on how you ask the questions
13 May 2007 by Naomi
Department of ATW (all things wonky!)
There is no more complex organism than religion! Thanks to the nature of subjectivity and anecdotal responses, for every question asked of and answered by the respondents, more questions were needed to quantify and qualify the data…
We’ve heard various stats about how many atheists there are in America. The faith-side underestimates the number at +/-3%; atheists use the 10-16% figure. Of course, defining atheists is difficult; but if you include agnostics, humanists and passive unbelievers, the number increases.
But do you know where to get good statistics?
You can start here: The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). If you want to look at this yourself, go here for the Introduction or go right to the Key Findings; or you can download the entire report in a pdf.file. (This is a study I’d like done more often than at ten-year intervals…) But the next one, along with the 2001 study (which I quote here) and the 1990 one, will likely show trends that the faith-side will find very disturbing.
American religion has been widely perceived as leaning toward the more literal, fundamental, and spiritual. Particularly since the election in 1976 of President Jimmy Carter, a self-avowed Born Again Christian, America has been through a period of great religious re-awakening. In sharp contrast to that widely held perception, the present survey has detected a wide and possibly growing swath of secularism among Americans. The magnitude and role of this large secular segment of the American population is frequently ignored by scholars and politicians alike.
Under Religious Identification Among American Adults, Exhibit 1 (click on image to enlarge), while it appears that adult Christians have increased their identification/membership by 8 million, the adult US population actually increased by 32 million!
c. the greatest increase in absolute as well as in percentage terms has been among those adults who do not subscribe to any religious identification; their number has more than doubled from 14.3 million in 1990 to 29.4 million in 2001; their proportion has grown from just eight percent of the total in 1990 to over fourteen percent in 2001. (Click here for table; click on image to enlarge.)
Under Religious or Secular Outlook Among American Adults, (Exhibit 3, shown above), they note:
Our interviews on the question of outlook, as our questions on other matters of belief, generated a fair amount of ambivalence, which is reflected in the high proportion of respondents who fall into the category of “somewhat,” that is “somewhat secular” and “somewhat religious.” Certainty apparently is the possession of only a minority - though, to be sure, a larger minority among the religious than among the secular.
Exhibit 5 (click; click) shows that ages 18-34 have a higher percentage of non-believers (including “refused”, which was slightly higher in the +65 group) than in the general adult population: 30%!
In Exhibit 6, you see the non-belief breakdown as: Blacks: 19%; White: 23%; Hispanic: 25%; and Asian: 38%.
Age and Gender Patterns Among Selected Religious Groups finds “A number of the major Christian groups have aged since 1990, most notably the Catholics, Methodists, and Lutherans. Congregationalist/United Church of Christ and Presbyterian adherents show an older age structure with three times as many over age 65 as under age 35. Baptists also have fewer young adults than they had in 1990.” This, of course, is why they hate birth control and love the “quiverfull families”!
Under Political Affialiation, there were no surprises. And Exhibit 15 is a state-by-state breakdown.
Are your eyes glazed over and rolled back in your heads yet? I just thought you’d like a little good news. That should keep you busy while I find out if I’ve really been banned from posting and commenting on Talk2Action’s community blog…
13 May 2007, on 6:23 pm
I have long felt that the current religious mania in the US is the dying thrashes of meaningful Christianity in America. Amongst themselves — including across the Protestant/Catholic divide — religious groups in America have rallied around religion generally are are making one last push.
It won’t work for all the reasons why it isn’t working — religion is stupid. But for a while, so long as they can abide each other and until a majority of Americans gets disgusted with their antics, they can make it seem as if they’ve got a vibrant future.
They don’t. This is their last gasp, pretty much.
13 May 2007, on 8:58 pm
After reading this post I sat here and counted up my immediate family, all of whom are non-religious to some extent from my outright non-theism to others indifference. Just my immediate family is 11! I really hadn’t thought about it before! All but my idiot brother in law are Democrats, and he and his wife are actually apolitical. In that they don’t care if they ever vote. He listens to Limbaugh and his ilk all the time. But I realized the other day that it is because he is a long haul truck driver and they don’t have anything else but Republican propaganda and country music to listen to!!!!!! Interesting stats just relating to my family.
13 May 2007, on 11:31 pm
Chris: I, too, have been saying that “the thrashing and shrieking” we hear from the religionistas are the death throes of a beast that knows it is dying and is angry (Stage Two of both grief and terminal illness; Stage One, of course, was denial). Stage Three, bargaining, is next.
They puff up their numbers, over-reporting the faithful. However, that doesn’t account for the fullness of the coffers of the MegaWealthy MegaMedia-owning, MegaChurch-building “elders”, like the tripartite Jerry Dobertson. I wonder where all that money comes from…
Betsy, I thought they did a thorough job of pinning their respondents down. Most polls only ask something innocuous like, “What religion are you?”, or “Are you a xian?” - if you don’t go deeper than that, many people will respond like Pavlov’s dogs with “Xian!” and “Yes” reflexively.
My siblings and I were raised in an atheist home; however, it was never talked about. No discussions of gawd or jeebus - nothing! It was only after my father’s funeral three years ago that we realized this. But we still don’t know what each believes. They now know I’m an atheist; but there’s been no backlash. One brother’s wife is devout Methodist. And one sister isn’t much of anything but says she still talks to Dad periodically (wtf?)…
I think, under the social-veneer or social-camouflage that claiming to be a xian gives one, that there are many more unbelievers than we know. And that gives me hope!
14 May 2007, on 12:30 am
Naomi,
The money is reasonably easy to explain. Religion represents the establishment. They’ve got a lot of cash. PLUS, the people who are pro-religion at this point are the True Believers. They’re pretty committed.
You can see the same sort of nonsense with every other dying ideology, like monarchy or slavery. As disproportionately represent the conservative classes, the RICH classes, they get moolah.
14 May 2007, on 12:32 am
Good news, indeed. Although one might cynically wonder if the interviewees actually knew what “secular” meant.
One problem I think with getting an accurate count is word definitions. I had a neighbor tell me he was “agnostic” although he believed in a higher power. So obviously he did not understand the meaning of the word!
And the youngest segment, in my experience, is the worst educated….
14 May 2007, on 5:34 am
Words encumbered by societal value judgments are meaningless .. in surveys and in pews. Actions speak louder!!
Let’s take this survey — simple straight forward — we can make sure clearly understood, and best of all, we can test results by empirical observations to test validity. Here is the magic question:
“In the absence of any law or any other coercion that might influence or command your action one way or the other; that is, if you are completely free to choose a course of action and take it with no restrictions (save for the restrictions inherent in the situation), what would you do in this situation?
Somehow it is determined that your beloved beautiful 6 year old girl, your only child, has cancer, and somehow you are informed by some atheist expert that with medical care the cure rate is high, but without modern medical care death is painful and certain.
You have access to two things: to all the medical care needed, or to the WHOLE WORLD SINCERELY PRAYING ON YOUR DAUGHTER’S BEHALF.
You must choose and take ONE and ONLY ONE course action given two choices: turn your daughter’s fate over to the medical community (and all prayer for your daughter must cease and desist), or turn your daughter over to the gigantic prayer circle (and all medical help must cease and desist).
Note well: in answering this question you are condemning your children and your children’s’ children to this course of action if ever such a situation arises!!! So answer this question: Prayer Course of Action or Medical Course of Action? ”
My contention is that actions speak louder than words; sane, knowledgeable people know what course they’d choose. One has only to go to a children’s hospital, or any other hospital for that matter, and witness all the “devout whatevers” seeking or getting modern secular medical treatments!!
Sane and knowledgeable people are ATHEIST under the hood .. they just cannot admit it to themselves, or bring themselves through a discovery process to reveal it to themselves. I say REAL believers should trust in god ONLY – no apologies or alternate courses needed.
14 May 2007, on 12:11 pm
CJ: your “question” proves the title of the post - It all depends on how you ask the question. (Excellent question, by the way!)
Perhaps all this survey really shows us is that a shift away from gawd-belief is going on, after all. Four percentage points in ten years seems small - but this is the first time in history that we’ve had surveys for the purpose of drawing metrics. We may never entirely rid ourselves of gawd-belief but we can marginalize or isolate it.
Now, if only we could rehabilitate our MSM…
14 May 2007, on 1:40 pm
People answer these questions quickly with no thought to what they are actually saying.People know that whatever they say there are no consquences.As an example I could run a survey at the Talledega Raceway.I am sure I could find many people who support Judge Roy Moore and his ten commandment foolishness.If I then followed up with the statement that NASCAR racing should be shut down on Sunday afternoon I might possibly find myself in a very precarious situation.These people would have no problem supporting the idea of a holy sabbath as long as it was only an abstract.As a practical matter they would run someone trying to enforce this crap out of town on a rail.Preachers are fond of saying that ye shall know them by their works.Hypocrisy in religion is rampant.Let them thunder in their pulpits for the rule of god,but also tell their followers they are going to shut down the NFL on Sunday.If they had to preach the consquences of their ideas they would fast become a disappearing minority.
14 May 2007, on 6:05 pm
I think spartanrider has a major point there. This may not be universally true, but in my experience the more devoted a person is to their religion, the higher the chance that they will end up embracing hypocrisy instead of honesty.
Religions are generally based on “absolute values”. Any sane person can tell you, if they are being honest, that when you subject “absolute values” to the reality of life, all that’s left is “absolute bullshit.”
But that just shows why people lie in these kinds of studies, generally skewing said studies toward a “more religious” outcome. As far as what the numbers themselves signify, I am encouraged. Even as good ol’ American anti-intellectualism swallows the republican party whole, taking much of the middle classes with it, there is a backlash that has been growing for years, of which I am a proud part.
With or without greater knowledge, many of us are just sick of the scam and not emotionally needy enough, not raised to be obedient enough, to just shut up and fall in line. Once you kill the need in the individual, the trappings start to dry up and whither away.
14 May 2007, on 6:48 pm
^ Ramen, Neil!
15 May 2007, on 1:50 pm
I second Eve’s Ramen.
Yeah…Religion…the oldest, and I’d say…#1 racquet (business/institution?) in humanity’s vast arsenal of bullshit!
Let’s see; what’s that other popular one?…erm…Prostitution?…at least that entails a good deal of fun attached to it.
Come to think of it Religion is just another form of prostitution…i.e….mental prostitution…or…mind fucking?
Sexual prostitution may have inherent elements of Sado/Masochism; but nothing compared to Religion.
I’m also reminded of that famous George Carlin…erm…”standing in awe of the bullshit” routine:
Just for a reminder of a genuine classic comedy routine?…
“George Carlin on religion” [10:12]:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uBAPbOWLxc
I just heard about Falwell’s death.
Ummm…No comment?
15 May 2007, on 4:10 pm
ChuckA: no comment.
Momma always said (as most mothers do): If you can’t say something nice about someone…
I will say this: Who is his successor? As in most authoritarian regimes, the Crown Prince is usually only a pale copy of the original…
15 May 2007, on 4:18 pm
Well, we still got Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts (or is he dead, too?), Phyllis Schafly’s boy (the one who founded Conservapedia) - did Falwell have kids?
15 May 2007, on 4:23 pm
^ According to Falwell’s entry on answers.com, “there are hints that the youngest of his three children, Jonathan, may someday assume [his father's church's] pastorship. The younger Falwell was appointed administrator of the church in 1995; his brother Jerry Jr. serves as in-house counsel for his father’s projects, and Falwell’s only daughter is a surgeon in Richmond, Virginia.”
10 June 2007, on 12:10 am
[...] Naomi from God is for Suckers with a nice clarification of secular demographic trends. It’s like I’ve always thought: atheism is severely underreported, especially among the young. Keep up the good work, Naomi! [...]