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American Religious Identification Survey 2008 results

post #1 of 7
3/9/09 at 10:20pm
Thread Starter 
http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/

The big story, quoted from the highlights below: secularism continues to grow in strength in all regions of the country.

Quote:
The American population self-identifies as predominantly Christian but Americans are slowly becoming less Christian.

• 86% of American adults identified as Christians in 1990 and 76% in 2008.

• The historic Mainline churches and denominations have experienced the steepest declines while the non-denominational Christian identity has been trending upward particularly since 2001.

• The challenge to Christianity in the U.S. does not come from other religions but rather from a rejection of all forms of organized religion.
Quote:
The U. S. population continues to show signs of becoming less religious, with one out of every five Americans failing to indicate a religious identity in 2008.

• The “Nones” (no stated religious preference, atheist, or agnostic) continue to grow, though at a much slower pace than in the 1990s, from 8.2% in 1990, to 14.1% in 2001, to 15.0% in 2008.

• Asian Americans are substantially more likely to indicate no religious identity than other racial or ethnic groups.
Quote:
One sign of the lack of attachment of Americans to religion is that 27% do not expect a religious funeral at their death.

Based on their stated beliefs rather than their religious identification in 2008, 70% of Americans believe in a personal God, roughly 12% of Americans are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unknowable or unsure), and another 12% are deistic (a higher power but no personal God).
My personal feeling is the Internet has been a catalyst. I think there's a lot of "Oh, there's other people who feel the same way I do?" and start to embrace it. Y'know. Like furries.
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post #2 of 7
3/9/09 at 10:30pm
England's still got us beat in Jedi, huh?
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post #3 of 7
3/11/09 at 5:23am
Yeah, but 2010's fast approaching!
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post #4 of 7
3/11/09 at 5:43pm
I would say that the #1 reason is the corruption in US churches. Churches or at least big churches are just to much money orientated. these things happen every so often
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post #5 of 7
3/11/09 at 5:57pm
I think PMR was actually on the right path when he/she said the Internet. I think that is giving these fancy tubes a bit too much credit, but the idea is correct. Information is how I would put it. There is just so much information available these days (yes, via the Internet mostly) that people have the chance to expand their minds and viewpoints more easily.

Take your average small town flyover state American. Odds are they used to always live in the same town as their parents, marry their cous..er, neighbor and live within the same 10 mile radius their entire life. Now, they can read news from around the world, discuss things via Facebook with an online friend 3,000 miles away, easily move to a bigger city or state, etc. When they do these things it challenges their identity and beliefs and part of that growth is a less dogmatic view of religion in general.

But I do think eenin is right also. I know that personally I really soured on the Catholic Church with their horrific cover-ups of the molestation charges and the subsequent weak apologies and actions.
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post #6 of 7
3/16/09 at 2:58am
I think Church corruption (both on a macro and micro level) is probably the main culprit. If you look, the numbers for self-identified atheists are still relatively low (about 6% when seperated from agnositcs), so this seems to indicate an abandoning of organized religion more than it does an abandoning of religious thought.

The slowdown in those identifying as "nones" in this decade is also sort of interesting. It seems that whatever was the driving force in the 90's seems to have lost some steam.
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post #7 of 7
3/21/09 at 11:21am
Corruption, and the Bush years. Under Bush, fundies ran rampant, especially 2003-2006. America's youth is becoming increasingly tolerant of gays and other things disapproved of by religious groups. And, well, when there's churches burning Harry Potter books and Pokemon toys, and the Westboro nuts, it tends to accentuate for kids the problems with Christianity, which they later realize is systematically flawed. I know multiple people who have quit or considered quitting their church because they have gay friends, and their church takes an offensive stance on that issue. Not to mention the creepy associations between American Christianity and blind jingoism these days.
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