Pew 2024 religious landscape survey

[Dutch Uncle]

I see the number one reason organized religion takes a hit is that whichever church is losing followers it has increasingly gone woke. That is, as Leftist ideas and ideology permeate a church, people in the church leave.

Because Jesus loves haters, bigots and pedophiles just like Trump? Interesting conclusion, Terry.

 

[Ross Dolan]

I think you're right, there is a trend to moving away from affiliating with a church or denomination.
But there seems to be a lot more stability in terms of the number of people who accept a belief in souls, a universal spirit, and a belief something spiritual beyond the physical world.

• 86% believe people have a soul or spirit in addition to their physical body.
• 83% believe in God or a universal spirit.
• 79% believe there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if we can’t see it.
• 70% believe in an afterlife (heaven, hell or both).

Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off

After years of decline, the U.S. Christian share now shows signs of leveling off. The new Religious Landscape Study explores trends in identity, beliefs and practices. Pew Research Center.

www.pewresearch.org

I wonder how the significance of these statistics would be impacted if the word "believe" in all those percentages were replaced with "blindly guess"...which would be a more honest rendition of what is being measured on issues as unknown (and possibly unknowable) as these.

• 86% blindly guess that people have a soul or spirit in addition to their physical body.
• 83% blindly guess that a God or a universal spirit exists.
• 79% blindly guess there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if we can’t see it.
• 70% blindly guess that there is an afterlife (heaven, hell or both).

To me, it just doesn't have the same ring.

 

[Cypress]

I see the number one reason organized religion takes a hit is that whichever church is losing followers it has increasingly gone woke. That is, as Leftist ideas and ideology permeate a church, people in the church leave.

Doubt that's a major factor. When people get pissed at their church becoming too progressive, they just splinter off and form their own religious faction, like what happened with the schism in the United Methodist Church.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Doubt that's a major factor. When people get pissed at their church becoming too progressive, they just splinter off and form their own religious faction, like what happened with the schism in the United Methodist Church.

Wow. Imagine those who follow Christ breaking from those who don't. Interesting.

Notice how often MAGAts quote the Old Testament and avoid quoting Jesus. Have you ever seen a MAGAt quote Christ's two commandments? The Sermon on the Mount? Any other "liberal" ideas like loving one another? Me neither. Not a single one.

 

[Cypress]

Agreed....not to mention the fact most educated people realize that our differences are cultural since there's no such thing as human races except for the one; the human race.

Speaking of education, the top three groups in America in terms of education are:

Have some college/bachelor's degree/or graduate degree:
Hindus: 70%
Jews: 65%
Agnostics: 53%

 

[Cypress]

Wow. Imagine those who follow Christ breaking from those who don't. Interesting.

Notice how often MAGAts quote the Old Testament and avoid quoting Jesus. Have you ever seen a MAGAt quote Christ's two commandments? The Sermon on the Mount? Any other "liberal" ideas like loving one another? Me neither. Not a single one.

Most right-wingers have committed to memory the one or two things the Bible says about same sex relationships, but they are hard pressed to summarize the Sermon on the Mount, the beatitudes, or the Sermon on the Plain.

 

[ThatOwlWoman]

Religious affiliation	Amount (%)​	Details​
Christians	62%	Evangelical Protestant 23%, Mainline Protestant 11%, Historically Black Protestant 5%, Catholic 19%, other Christian 4%
Other Religions	7%	Jewish 2%, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist 1% each
Unaffiliated	29%	Atheist 5%, Agnostic 6%, nothing in particular 19%
Considering oneself a ‘spiritual person’ by belief in God
Very spiritual	32%
Somewhat spiritual	42%
Not too or not spiritual at all	25%

Religious Landscape Study

Explore the 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study’s main report, interactive database, methodology, and more. Pew Research Center.

www.pewresearch.org

Interesting. I would have thought that the percentage of Jews in America was much higher. That's a remarkable drop in the number of ppl who call themselves Christian. For years it was 78% or higher.

 

[Cypress]

I wonder how the significance of these statistics would be impacted if the word "believe" in all those percentages were replaced with "blindly guess"...which would be a more honest rendition of what is being measured on issues as unknown (and possibly unknowable) as these.

• 86% blindly guess that people have a soul or spirit in addition to their physical body.
• 83% blindly guess that a God or a universal spirit exists.
• 79% blindly guess there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if we can’t see it.
• 70% blindly guess that there is an afterlife (heaven, hell or both).

To me, it just doesn't have the same ring.

I tend to think there is a middle ground between blind belief and rock solid proof; that is to say belief based on inference or circumstantial evidence.

 

[Bai Lan]

I'm a data guy.

Data can answer many questions.

The number of atheists and agnostics are pretty much holding steady, they are not increasing.

I was told atheism was surging.

The Evangelical Protestants continue to outperform the mainline Protestants.

The overwhelming majority of people maintain some kind of spiritual belief even though many people are unaffiliated with a religion or church.

Islam may be a fast growing religion in USA, but it's absolute numbers are miniscule.

There are about two billion questions that can be answered by this data.

you're a fucking idiot lost in the trees with no clue what a forest looks like.

 

[ThatOwlWoman]

The trend over the past few decades in most of the West is to move to a more "secular" society. We certainly see it in Europe. I don't know if it moves to a more "atheistic society" or just one where people have a sense of spirituality but they don't align with a given faith.

I think it's an obvious outgrowth of how society is changing. Education and increased knowledge push back more and more of the magical thinking and superstition. God becomes more of a concept and less of a "bearded guy in the clouds" as our collective musings on the nature of who and what God is grow and evolve.

It's easy to see that humans, given a concept, will build it out over time. That's why we have so many variants of Christianity (not to mention the even larger number of religions in general). People tend to take a God they are given and mold him to be compliant to our personal needs. With increased individualization we can expect people to retreat to an almost personal God. A world in which each individual worships God in their own unique way and no huge overarching "organized religion" garners significant plurality in the society.

America is also quite special in that we are still FAR more religious than most of western Europe (our peers in terms of economic development). America is a bit behind the trend.

What a pleasant and well-written comment. I see you're new here. Welcome! Hope you'll post more.

 

[Bai Lan]

I tend to think there is a middle ground between blind belief and rock solid proof; that is to say belief based on inference or circumstantial evidence.

how inspiring, Murder she wrote......

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Interesting. I would have thought that the percentage of Jews in America was much higher. That's a remarkable drop in the number of ppl who call themselves Christian. For years it was 78% or higher.

IIRC, the percentage of Jews has always been about 2%. Much smaller than the bigoted and antisemitic MAGAts would have Americans believe.

When reading JPP MAGAt posts it doesn't take long to start seeing the same old tropes from "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" popping up in their rhetoric.

Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fraudulent document that served as a pretext and rationale for antisemitism mainly in the early 20th century. Investigations found that the document was a forgery compounded by officials of the Russian secret poli

Protocols of the Elders of Zion | Antisemitism, Hoax, Summary, & Facts

www.britannica.com

Protocols of the Elders of Zion, fraudulent document that served as a pretext and rationale for antisemitism mainly in the early 20th century. The document purported to be a report of a series of 24 (in other versions, 27) meetings held at Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, at the time of the first Zionist congress. There Jews and Freemasons were said to have made plans to disrupt Christian civilization and erect a world state under their joint rule. Liberalism and socialism were to be the means of subverting Christendom; if subversion failed, all the capitals of Europe were to be sabotaged.

The Protocols were printed in Russia in abbreviated form in 1903 in the newspaper Znamia (“Banner”) and subsequently (1905) as an addendum to a religious tract by Serge Nilus, a tsarist civil servant. They were translated into German, French, English, and other European languages and soon came to be a classic of antisemitic literature. In the United States Henry Ford’s private newspaper, Dearborn Independent, often cited them as evidence of a Jewish threat.

The spurious character of the Protocols was first revealed in 1921 by Philip Graves of The Times (London), who demonstrated their obvious resemblance to a satire on Napoleon III by the French lawyer Maurice Joly, published in 1864 and entitled Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu (“Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu”). Subsequent investigation, particularly by the Russian historian Vladimir Burtsev, revealed that the Protocols were forgeries compounded by officials of the Russian secret police out of the satire of Joly, a fantastic novel (Biarritz) by Hermann Goedsche (1868), and other sources.

 

[Bai Lan]

The trend over the past few decades in most of the West is to move to a more "secular" society. We certainly see it in Europe. I don't know if it moves to a more "atheistic society" or just one where people have a sense of spirituality but they don't align with a given faith.

I think it's an obvious outgrowth of how society is changing. Education and increased knowledge push back more and more of the magical thinking and superstition. God becomes more of a concept and less of a "bearded guy in the clouds" as our collective musings on the nature of who and what God is grow and evolve.

It's easy to see that humans, given a concept, will build it out over time. That's why we have so many variants of Christianity (not to mention the even larger number of religions in general). People tend to take a God they are given and mold him to be compliant to our personal needs. With increased individualization we can expect people to retreat to an almost personal God. A world in which each individual worships God in their own unique way and no huge overarching "organized religion" garners significant plurality in the society.

America is also quite special in that we are still FAR more religious than most of western Europe (our peers in terms of economic development). America is a bit behind the trend.

Europe has been importing religious radicals.

what are you talking about?


you must be fucking dumb.

 

[Cypress]

Interesting. I would have thought that the percentage of Jews in America was much higher. That's a remarkable drop in the number of ppl who call themselves Christian. For years it was 78% or higher.

I've always kind of known Jews are only a couple percent of the population.

Yes, in the past few decades the percent that actively practices Christianity has substantially dropped.

I always wanted to sleep in on Sundays, and one of the first decisions I made as an autonomous adult in my 20s was to stop going to Sunday service!

 

[Cypress]

IIRC, the percentage of Jews has always been about 2%. Much smaller than the bigot and antisemitic MAGAts would have Americans believe.

When reading JPP MAGAt posts it doesn't take long to start seeing the same old tropes from "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" popping up in their rhetoric.

Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fraudulent document that served as a pretext and rationale for antisemitism mainly in the early 20th century. Investigations found that the document was a forgery compounded by officials of the Russian secret poli

Protocols of the Elders of Zion | Antisemitism, Hoax, Summary, & Facts

www.britannica.com

Protocols of the Elders of Zion, fraudulent document that served as a pretext and rationale for antisemitism mainly in the early 20th century. The document purported to be a report of a series of 24 (in other versions, 27) meetings held at Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, at the time of the first Zionist congress. There Jews and Freemasons were said to have made plans to disrupt Christian civilization and erect a world state under their joint rule. Liberalism and socialism were to be the means of subverting Christendom; if subversion failed, all the capitals of Europe were to be sabotaged.

The Protocols were printed in Russia in abbreviated form in 1903 in the newspaper Znamia (“Banner”) and subsequently (1905) as an addendum to a religious tract by Serge Nilus, a tsarist civil servant. They were translated into German, French, English, and other European languages and soon came to be a classic of antisemitic literature. In the United States Henry Ford’s private newspaper, Dearborn Independent, often cited them as evidence of a Jewish threat.

The spurious character of the Protocols was first revealed in 1921 by Philip Graves of The Times (London), who demonstrated their obvious resemblance to a satire on Napoleon III by the French lawyer Maurice Joly, published in 1864 and entitled Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu (“Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu”). Subsequent investigation, particularly by the Russian historian Vladimir Burtsev, revealed that the Protocols were forgeries compounded by officials of the Russian secret police out of the satire of Joly, a fantastic novel (Biarritz) by Hermann Goedsche (1868), and other sources.

My experience is that because of immigration patterns in the 19th and early 20th centuries, most Jewish people were concentrated in the cities of the Northeast and mid Atlantic.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I've always kind of known Jews are only a couple percent of the population.

Yes, in the past few decades the percent that actively practices Christianity has substantially dropped.

I always wanted to sleep in on Sundays, and one of the first decisions I made as an autonomous adult in my 20s was to stop going to Sunday service!

IMO, the drop in those attending Christian services is a move away from dogmatic religions, especially those that preach fire, brimstone and bigotry. All three go against Christ's words of love and redemption.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

My experience is that because of immigration patterns in the 19th and early 20th centuries, most Jewish people were concentrated in the cities of the Northeast and mid Atlantic.

...and, according to both Mel Gibson and Haley Joel Osment, in Hollywood.

 

[ThatOwlWoman]

I think you're right, there is a trend to moving away from affiliating with a church or denomination.
But there seems to be a lot more stability in terms of the number of people who accept a belief in souls, a universal spirit, and a belief something spiritual beyond the physical world.

• 86% believe people have a soul or spirit in addition to their physical body.
• 83% believe in God or a universal spirit.
• 79% believe there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, even if we can’t see it.
• 70% believe in an afterlife (heaven, hell or both).

Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off

After years of decline, the U.S. Christian share now shows signs of leveling off. The new Religious Landscape Study explores trends in identity, beliefs and practices. Pew Research Center.

www.pewresearch.org

I wonder if these percentages are worldwide among humans in general, or specific to the U.S.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I wonder if these percentages are worldwide among humans in general, or specific to the U.S.

It varies a bit by nation...and also on how its counted, but generally the drop is similar in all industrialized, modern nations while Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. Especially in Africa. Two main reasons about religious growth are developing nations and education.

https://www.worldatlas.com/feature/reasons-why-muslims-are-the-world-s-fastest-growing-religious-group.html

 

[Cypress]

I wonder if these percentages are worldwide among humans in general, or specific to the U.S.

It's for the United States in this survey