Posted on 10/09/2012 10:17:04 AM PDT by Joseph Harrolds
The number of unaffiliated is now at its highest point ever and has increased 5% in the past five years,the Pew/PBS poll found.
More Americans than ever say they don’t identify with an organized religion — a trend that is growing among all segments of the population, a poll released Tuesday found.
One in five American adults, or 19.6% of the population, are now religiously unaffiliated, a Pew Center/PBS survey finds. Atheists and agnostics now make up about 6% of the U.S. population.
The number of unaffiliated is now at its highest point ever and has increased 5% in the past five years,the poll found.
Further, the 46 million Americans who no longer identify with a religion aren’t looking to join a different one.
“Overwhelmingly, they [the non-affiliated] think that religious organizations are too concerned with money and power, too focused on rules and too involved in politics,” the survey said.
But a vast majority of those who describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, 68%, still believe in God, the Pew poll found.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
The United States is still far more religious than any other first world country, but things are (slowly) changing. How will this impact society and elections in the future?
It is no coincidence that Obama announced his candidacy for president five years ago and each year more and more Americans have stepped away from their Christian faith.
And I guarantee that most of those a-religious people are liberals.
Yet 39 - 40 % of people attend church regularly according to numerous studies done recently (I had to research this issue myself an this is what the media is reporting. Obviously someone’s numbers are way off because 1 in 5 is 20% not 40%. if Obama or anyone connected to him issued these numbers I wouldn’t put too much stock in them.
Americans have been becoming less religious every decade-since at least the turn of the last century... and the future trend appears to be going the same route no matter who gets in office.
“And I guarantee that most of those a-religious people are liberals.”
You betcha. The same ass clowns who keep harping “Happy Holidays” when it should be Merry Christmas.
Reason #44,319 that we homeschool. The public schools are breeding farms for atheists and God-haters of every stripe.
I read this on yahoo or nbc I forget. Very very sad. Whats worse is all the comments cheering the fact that less people are religious. The Lord and His son Jesus have brought so much (not physical stuff)to my life.
It scares me almost as much as an Obama second term.
The under-30 crowd is absolutely rudderless.
I wouldn’t buy into media hype too much. If you’ll take a look at the news report PBS (a program liberals love but that Romney wants to pull the plug on) is associated with that poll. I think the report is to give the impression that the number of atheists is growing and influence others to do the same. Of course those atheists won’t vote for Romney. We call this “stirring the pot” where I com from; a propaganda move regularly exercised by socialized nations.
If anything I’m seeing more and more people turning to Christianity now than In a long time. The number of visitors at our church has increased dramatically in the past few years. As times get tough people are looking for answers and they can’t get them from the government or media.
Let’s see ... We’ve had an ENORMOUS, almost BLOATED amount of “TV preachers”, come into existence in the 20th Century, starting with Reverend Ike, in NYC. From that moment on, ‘religion’ became a flourishing ‘business’, to the point that some churches could not exist, unless they had their 503C paperwork, on the office wall. We have good ol’ Hollywood, making movies from novels like, “Elmer Gantry”, or that one offbeat one with Andy Williams. We allowed obscenity to become a business, period. We allowed too many skunk preachers, to get too close to our kids, knowing that the legal system would protect them from those offended parents. We allowed politicians to come speak within the walls of our houses of worship. The ‘churchy’ community has never policed its own, when it came to pastors, elders, and lay people doing things unspeakable. They just prayed that ‘someday’ those would be caught, in their actions. The ones doing the actions knew full well, that the ‘churchy’ community hadn’t the guts to police their own, so they just went taking care of business.
And all the while this is, and was, going on, those that were supposed to ‘see the light’ through the examples and actions of some of the folks, really walking and talking the walk, were being blind-sided by the actions of those skunks.
My ex-wife, when she was still yet my fiance, was diddled in one of many such closed-office ‘counseling sessions’, by a retired New York State police member, who was also one of the 5 pastors of a megachurch on Long Island, at the time.
Moving from one town to another, the joke was made about my ‘weekly donation’ (call it what you will), was going to be terribly missed. At the time, I was making in excess of $45,000.00 a year.
Sure, we are all human. But, to bemoan the idea as presented in the posted article, you have to look at what is really going on. I lived it all, saw a lot, saw things that can’t be explained, saw things that I could explain too easily.
Bottom line: I’m Libertarian (mostly), and I cannot join any Sunday morning or Saturday morning group, because I can’t trust y’all, after all that I have witnessed.
Those people are building their lives on shifting sand. Their house will fall. So goes our country.
This is terrible news. Look at what happened to Europe when they walked away from the church....the void was filled by Islam.
i have no specific religion and i am conservative. i have a strong belief in judeo-christian ethics and morality, believe in God and talk to Him everyday, and give up something for Lent every year. i am probably more God-fearing (in a positive way) than libtard JINOs and CINOs.
So, the study says 6% of Americans are atheists or Agnostic. I think an increasing number of Christians are non-denominational or independent.
It is a mistake to lump these people in with the 6% cited in the article. It’s possible to be irreligious and still be Christian. I am one of those. :)
I understand your point. I live in the northeast, so I see empty church after empty church. Once the formal gathering places (the church) starts to fade away the community suffers & many people drift away from religion without having a support system.
Not having an affiliation is a bad thing, even for believing Christians. We need that church community to keep us from going off into some small corner of scripture and believing that the few verses we have latched onto are the center of God’s message. We need the traditions that have formed over generation of thoughtful and prayerful study to keep us on track.
are they Deists or Marxists?
Who?
Thanks J! Interestingly I too have noticed more people turning toward Christianity. Each Sunday seems to get at least one more member or visitor to uor church as well.
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