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All saw this? [religionnews.com]evangelicals-catholics-in-the-us/
Nones now as big as evangelicals or catholics in the US!!!

Allamanda 8 Mar 22
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I personally know several people who don't have religious affiliation and yet are religious. They just got screwed by a church but are still believers in god. I would be much happier if 23% were non-believers. I still have hope that younger folks will keep their non-belief as they age.

gearl Level 8 Mar 22, 2019
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The only thing I find less than encouraging here is that this doesn't, from the chart, look like it's much at the expense of evangelicals or protestants, but rather, at the expense of mainline denominations (or, if you prefer, liberal Christians). So for example Episcopalians no longer care to attend those stem-winding Eucharists anymore, or simply couldn't keep the doors of their shrinking parish open, and just said fuck it. This is hardly an ideological revolution.

Also, look at the mirror image of that same trend earlier -- nones were declining at the same time mainline denominations were ascendant -- up to around 2004, when trends reversed. Apparently those nones got restless, tried liberal Christianity, and then after kicking the tires, left.

This does not suggest to me a big increase in skepticism, reason, or atheism or even agnosticism ... it suggests a fluid group of people with rather loosely-held beliefs who occasionally dabble in the less strident forms of organized religion.

Of course there is a gradual decline in evangelicals and Catholics, particularly from the mid-1990s on. But it's kind of like waiting for Republicans to turn on Trump, it doesn't seem like it's ever going to happen, relative to how pathetic the situation is for them ... the pedophile priests, the televangelistic scandals, etc., don't seem to produce the disillusionment you'd think they would.

@Allamanda Maybe, but you have to remember that while people age out, others age in. If a social group is skewed toward oldsters it is tempting to assume its days are numbered, but it may simply mean that the group appeals to people as they age or mature or acquire the taste or have the money or free time to spend or whatever. So long as there are 55 to 60 year olds coming into the group at the same rate 75 to 80 year olds are dying off, it is not necessarily a fatal problem.

For example, as you age, you tend to have more time, interest and need for community, particularly if you don't have a big extended family or attentive and involved [grand]children who love and respect and care about you. And church is one of the big ways to get community, particularly if they are mostly older folks like yourself. It's a way to band together in common cause around a shared experience or belief. It's a way to gain social capital so that people will have a reason to care about and for you as you become weaker.

And as society gets "grayer" we may be seeing more and more of such phenomena.

@Allamanda That's a good point. There is reason for hope ... just tempered with the need for patience and persistence (and endurance). I do believe for example that Fundamentalism is a self-limiting problem, that it is intellectually and morally bankrupt, and cannot long endure.

There was supposed to be this thousand-year reich in Germany, and it only lasted about 12 years in power, and had a spectacular discrediting collapse. So that's true of the GropenFuhrer, too. Authoritarianism is not a sustainable system.

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Keep up the good work, all of you diligent dragon slayers . . . .

THHA Level 7 Mar 22, 2019
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More people must be stepping back and saying "hmm... This doesn't make much sense" when religion is presented to them.

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