This is simply NOT true!
I see that you're as reliable/knowedgeable about religious issues as you are about scientific issues:
From http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.htmlUnlike some countries, the United States does not include a question about religion in its census, and has not done so for over fifty years. Religious adherent statistics in the U.S. are obtained from surveys and organizational reporting. Largest Religions in the United States
In February and March 2002 the Pew Research Council conducted a survey of 2,002 adults. Questions about religious preference were included. The results are below: U.S. Religious Affiliation, 2002
(self-identification, Pew Research Council)
Religious Preference % June 1996 % March 2001 March 2002 Christian 84 82 82 Jewish 1 1 1 Muslim * 1 * Other non-Christian 3 2 1 Atheist * 1 1 Agnostic * 2 2 Something else (SPECIFY) * 1 2 No preference 11 8 10 Don't know/Refused 1 2 1 This table was published in a study titled "Americans Struggle with Religion's Role at Home and Abroad", released on March 20, 2002.
The authors listed are:
Andrew Kohut, director of The Pew Research Center For The People & The Press
Melissa Rogers, executive director of The Pew Forum on Religion & Public LifeMethodology:
"The nationwide survey of 2,002 adults, conducted Feb. 25 - March 10 by the Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life..."Page 49:
Now,a few questions about your religioius affiliation.
Q.18 What is your religious preference -- do you consider yourself Christian, Jewish, Muslim, other non-Christian such as Buddhist or Hindu, atheist, agnostic, something else, or don't you have a religious preference?Christian includes Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox, and other, including non-denominational. Christian respondents were further broken down into branches. See below.
The largest, most comprehensive surveys on religious identification were done in sociologists Barry A. Kosmin, Seymour P. Lachman and associates at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. Their first major study was done in 1990: the National Survey of Religious Identification (NSRI). This scientific nationwide survey of 113,000 Americans asked about religious preference, along with other questions. They followed this up, with even more sophisticated methodology and more questions, with the American Religious Identity Survey (ARIS) conducted in 2001, with a sample size of 50,000 Americans.The ARIS data is published online at: http://www.gc.cuny.edu/studies/aris_index.htm
The following three tables comes from the NSRI and ARIS data:
Top Twenty Religions in the United States, 2001
(self-identification, ARIS)
Religion 1990 Est.
Adult Pop.2001 Est.
Adult Pop.% of U.S. Pop.,
2000% Change
1990 - 2000Christianity 151,225,000 159,030,000 76.5% +5% Nonreligious/Secular 13,116,000 27,539,000 13.2% +110% Judaism 3,137,000 2,831,000 1.3% -10% Islam 527,000 1,104,000 0.5% +109% Buddhism 401,000 1,082,000 0.5% +170% Agnostic 1,186,000 991,000 0.5% -16% Atheist 902,000 0.4% Hinduism 227,000 766,000 0.4% +237% Unitarian Universalist 502,000 629,000 0.3% +25% Wiccan/Pagan/Druid 307,000 0.1% Spiritualist 116,000 Native American Religion 47,000 103,000 +119% Baha'i 28,000 84,000 +200% New Age 20,000 68,000 +240% Sikhism 13,000 57,000 +338% Scientology 45,000 55,000 +22% Humanist 29,000 49,000 +69% Deity (Deist) 6,000 49,000 +717% Taoist 23,000 40,000 +74% Eckankar 18,000 26,000 +44%
Top Ten ORGANIZED Religions in the United States, 2001
(self-identification, ARIS)
[Nonreligious, Atheist, Agnostic have been dropped from this list.]
Religion 2001 Est.
Adult Pop.% of U.S. Pop.,
2001Christianity 159,030,000 76.5% Judaism 2,831,000 1.3% Islam 1,104,000 0.5% Buddhism 1,082,000 0.5% Hinduism 766,000 0.4% Unitarian Universalist 629,000 0.3% Wiccan/Pagan/Druid 307,000 0.1% Spiritualist 116,000 Native American Religion 103,000 Baha'i 84,000
Ten Largest Religions in the United States, 1990
(self-identification, NSRI)
Religion Estimated
Adult Pop.Estimated
% of Adult Pop.Christianity 151,225,000 86.2% Nonreligious 13,116,000 7.5% Judaism 3,137,000 1.8% Agnostic 1,186,000 0.7% Islam 527,000 * 0.5% Unitarian Universalist 502,000 0.3% Buddhism 401,000 * 0.4% Hinduism 227,000 * 0.2% Native American Religion 47,000 -- Scientologist 45,000 -- * Islam, Buddhist, Hindu figures in table have been adjusted upwards by Kosmin to account for possible undercount.
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
Christianity. Note that in the NSRI and ARIS studies, based on self-identification, Christianity includes: Catholic, Baptist, Protestant, Methodist/Wesleyan, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Pentecostal/Charismatic, Episcopalian/Anglican, Mormon/Latter-day Saints, Churches of Christ, Jehovah's Witness, Seventh-Day Adventist, Assemblies of God, Holiness/Holy, Congregational/United Church of Christ, Church of the Nazarine, Church of God, Eastern Orthodox, Evangelical, Mennonite, Christian Science, Church of the Brethren, Born Again, Nondenominational Christians, Disciples of Christ, Reformed/Dutch Reformed, Apostolic/New Apostolic, Quaker, Full Gospel, Christian Reform, Foursquare Gospel, Fundamentalist, Salvation Army, Independent Christian Church, Covenant Church, Jewish Christians, plus 240,000 adults classified as "other" (who did not fall into the preceding groups).
Islam. Muslim leaders in the United States optimistically estimate that there are approximately 6.5 million Muslims in the country (Aly Abuzaakouk, American Muslim Council, 1999). More recent newspaper accounts (2001) frequently refer to an estimated 8 million American Muslims. This would equate to 3% of the U.S. population, or roughly 1 in every 33 people in the country. No comparable figure has been confirmed by independent research similar to the Kosmin or Glenmary studies, or the Gallup, Harris, Barna. polls. Currently, surveys consistently report less than 1% of people surveyed identify themselves as Muslims. Muslim community leaders say that many American Muslims are relatively recent immigrants who either do not have telephone service, or do not participate in surveys. Researchers generally agree that the estimate of 300,000 Muslims in the Kosmin study (1990) and Kosmin's adjusted estimate (to 500,000) are too small to reflect current (year 2001) numbers of American Muslims. The latest edition (2000) of the annual Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches estimates 3,950,000 Muslims in America. According to a study released by the American Jewish Committee in October 2001, the highest possible realistic estimate for the current number of Muslims in the United States is 2.8 million.
Jews and Judaism. The American Jewish Identity Survey of 2000, conducted by Barry Kosmin, Egon Mayer, and Ariela Keysar at the Center for Jewish Studies at the City University of New York's Graduate Center, concluded that there were 5.5 million Jews in the United States. Of these, 1.4 million were aligned with a religion other than Judaism, 1.4 million were secular or non-religious, leaving 51% of American Jews (just over 3 million people) whose religion was Judaism. The study surveyed 50,000 randomly selected adult Americans. More.
Baha'i. Some representatives of the Baha'i Faith have questioned their omission from the 1990 NSRI "Top 10" list. The NSRI study indicated there were 28,000 self-identified Baha'is in the United States in 1990, making them the 11th largest religion in the country. If one excludes the "nonreligious" and "agnostic" categories from this list, then the Kosmin study would place Baha'is as the 9th largest religion in the U.S.
Although the Kosmin study is well-respected, it should be noted that even with a random sample of such unprecedented size (113,000 respondents), the practical margin of error for this study was high for relatively smaller groups -- those with less than 300,000 individuals. In this study, there were a few more respondents who said they were Scientologists or Native American religionists than said they were Baha'is. But given the margin of error, it is possible that in 1990 there were actually more Baha'is. This would be the case especially if, as some Baha'is suggested in response to these findings, there were a high proportion of Baha'is who lived communally and did not have phones for each family, or were recent Iranian immigrants reluctant to identify their Baha'i affiliation over the phone because of past persecution. In 1990 the Baha'i world faith itself claimed 110,000 adherents in the United States. If there were 110,000 self-identified Baha'is in 1990 they would have ranked as the 9th largest U.S. religion (assuming that the other Kosmin figures are accurate).
It is quite possible that growth within this group during this last 9 years has outpaced growth of some other groups, and that Baha'is are now among America's ten largest religions. But this proposition has not been verified empirically and similar claims of recent growth have also been made by the other groups. Current official estimates from the Baha'i National Spiritual Assembly for the U.S. Baha'i population are about 130,000, or about 0.05% of the U.S. population. On 31 March 2000 received information from the U.S. National Spiritual Assembly listing the number of U.S. Baha'is at 133,709. A non-Baha'i historian from the University of Michigan who has scrutinized American Baha'i statistical practices has estimated a current (1999) figure of about 60,000 self-identified Baha'is in the U.S. But, with the ARIS survey now estimating 84,000 adult self-identified Baha'is in the U.S. in the year 2001, it appears that that historian's estimate is too low. If children are included and a slight undercount assumed, it is quite possible that there were closer to 100,000 (perhaps more) Baha'is in the U.S. in 2001.
It may also be noted that Baha'is are ranked as one of the world's ten largest international religious bodies and are among the top ten largest organized religions in the world, based on their current reported estimated membership.
Neo-pagan/Wiccan: There were 768,400 Neo-pagans (largest subset were Wiccans) in the U.S. in the year 2000, according to the Wiccan/Pagan Poll, conducted by the Covenant of the Goddess (CoG) beginning in late July, 1999. [Online source: http://www.cog.org/cogpoll_final.html] The Covenant of the Goddess (CoG) poll methodology is not comparable to methodology used in the Kosmin NSRI/ARIS studies, Harris Poll, Gallup polls, or Glenmary study.Another source, published before ARIS data was available:
According to the 2001 edition of David Barrett's World Christian Encyclopedia, the largest non-Christian organized religions in the U.S. are:
- Jews: 5.6 million
- Muslims: 4.1 million
- Buddhists: 2.4 million
- Hindus: 1 million
I guess it depends on how you define "Christian."
Uh huh -- Bill Clinton, is that you?
I see a "No True Scotsman" type of reply coming your way...