The numbers of non-religious are exploding, but you'd have to really hate religion to be a happy conservative about that... We're not talking about people finding a system for maintaining and fulfilling a non-religion-dependent system of ethics. Mostly, we're talking about people who couldn't be bothered to think about right and wrong, and resent the people who do. I'd think for a non-religious conservative to cheer that would be like the religious right being happy about an explosion of goddess-worshiping, gay-friendly, Democrat-fundraising churches.
"We're not talking about people finding a system for maintaining and fulfilling a non-religion-dependent system of ethics. Mostly, we're talking about people who couldn't be bothered to think about right and wrong, and resent the people who do. I'd think for a non-religious conservative to cheer that would be like the religious right being happy about an explosion of goddess-worshiping, gay-friendly, Democrat-fundraising churches.
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You make two mistakes here, I think. First, I'm not particularly cheering the growth of the non-religious population. It doesn't really matter all that much to me, since I'm not part of any non-religious groups.
Second, it's really impossible to characterize the non-religious, since they don't fit any particular model. As you can see here on FR, there are non-religious conservatives. In fact, in my lifetime, I've met non-religious folks of pretty much every political stance.
Non-religious merely means that the persons doesn't profess any particular religious beliefs. Even people who are simple deists might self-identify as non-religious.
It's a mistake to assume that non-religious people do not have a highly-developed ethical and moral foundation. You'd probably not be able to detect any difference in the ethics and morals of non-religious people in general from the population which espouses some religious belief.