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According to The Atlantic, there's but a few of us. Most of the "nones" are closeted believers:

First, researchers confirmed the widely known fact that, overall, Americans are much more religious than Western Europeans. They gauged religious commitment using standard questions, including “Do you believe in God with absolute certainty?” and “Do you pray daily?”

Second, the researchers found that American “nones”—those who identify as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular—are more religious than European nones. The notion that religiously unaffiliated people can be religious at all may seem contradictory, but if you disaffiliate from organized religion it does not necessarily mean you’ve sworn off belief in God, say, or prayer.

The third finding reported in the study is by far the most striking. As it turns out, “American ‘nones’ are as religious as—or even more religious than—Christians in several European countries, including France, Germany, and the U.K.”

“That was a surprise,” Neha Sahgal, the lead researcher on the study, told me. “That’s the comparison that’s fascinating to me.” She highlighted the fact that whereas only 23 percent of European Christians say they believe in God with absolute certainty, 27 percent of American nones say this.

[theatlantic.com]

Deiter 8 June 26
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20 comments

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0

I can attest to the first point in the article. I’m a former ‘relaxed’ Catholic from Spain and was taken aback by the extremism I encountered among U.S. Catholics. They scared me, their behaviour was akin to European Opus Dei adepts.

0

Could this be related to the fact that Europeans have had two world wars, esp #2, with camps and horrors of real evil.

After reading Eli Weisel, NIGHT, do think if not an atheist then certainly an agnostic. If anyone has a reason not to be "religious or a GOD, it would be the Jews after WW2 and many others forced into the camps, how could you believe in that kind of God??

if God in omnipotents then it is logic that God is also omni-vindictive!

Read David Hume on this subject.

I have studied religions, taught them, a religious scholar and bet on it I know that Bible, and I also know that on this site we are being spied on by these "fundamentalists" but also it has been my experience that people I have known that attended religious colleges often come out devout atheists!! Go figure!

In the South, a saying was, everybody felt sorry for preacher's kids!!!

IMHO most people just go to church cause everybody else does and it is good for social networking!! People will say and do anything to get ahead!

However, in the so called United States we do have this amendment called "SEPARATION OF STATE AND RELIGION", but no one is obeying it, so it appears no one is obeying the constitution and our rules and laws, so why not?

Also in science there is this law: LAW OF CONSERVATION OF MASS/MATTER: matter is neither created or destroyed it simply changes form.

dust to dust ashes to ashes!

NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING, SO I CAN BELIEVE IN A CREATOR, BUT NOT A GOD. BUT WHAT A CREATOR DOES IS MAKE THINGS,AND THE DNA EXPERIMENTS ARE RATHER SPECTACULAR AND HORRIFIC!

I think it has to do with having to deal with the Church for 2,000 years. Religion wars, persecutions, the Inquisition (and not just the Spanish one), religion allying with the power and not with the people...a long, long history. We tend to be very lax, as opposed to the U.S. population.

0

It's obvious they didn't talk to me.

1

You sound disappointed. Why?
I'm not. Open-mindedness about the existence of god is not the problem. The problem is organized religions. They are mostly death cults with strange and dangerous beliefs.

@Deiter We're the majority, as far as not being affiliated with churches.. Without churches of other gathering places for regular, mass meetings you can't usually have a CULT.
Atheists and agnostics SHOULD be better organized, but since we have no god or hell to fear, we're not particularly motivated, which is too bad when it comes to political action, because we let the Christian cultists rule the day and use our government against us.
WE SHOULD VOTE and put an end to this oppression, this oligarachial rule of the rich and powerful over us.

@Storm1752 what is got going on now is: that Catholic, Oliarchy from Mexico, and the Land of the Latinos!!

in less than 10 years they will be the majority in this country, they bring that Catholic crap with them, rich people of that church's views on everything.
have ye not noticed?

hope you realize they vote for His Orangeness, cause he is against everything those Catholics are against!!! also Pro-lifers, think about it!!

Fundamentalists literally drool over all of it! They believe it too! every single word of Catholic theology.

whoops except for their Idol Worship, they do not like this part.

this is the thing: did you notice at the dems increasing madness of debates of over 1000 candidates debating endlessly, and that guy Julio from Texas was speaking in Spanish in an United States debate

Booker and Warren were not very happy about that little espanol and saying Adios!! How dare he speak in espanol in the United States and running for President!!

If in the United States you speak English!! No one spoke in Japanese, or Mandarin or Hindi, did they?? and they are also immigrants to this country! Nor Gallic, nor German, not Italian, ad nauseum!

It offended me and them!!!

Espanol indeed, with those endless pronouns of he/she, as does all romance languages!! Personal Pronouns, pay attention!! ALWAYS IN HE/SHE AND NOTHING ELSE IS ALLOWED.

speak whatever language you desire at home, but when speaking in public you speak in English, you adapt to this country we do not adapt to you!!

THEY CAN ADAPT TO US!! WE DO NOT ADAPT TO THEM! OTHERWISE WHY DID YOU COME??

ADAPT OR LEAVE AND GO BACK!!

@aahouck49 You come across as such an ignorant, hating, bigoted racist... What are you scared of? Did you forget that you are a product of immigration and your ancestors came to the land of the Native people? Did you know that the U.S. are called ‘the melting pot’ because there are so many different cultures in its society? Did you not know that those ‘latinos’ are descendants of the original American people, were always here and are more American that you’ll ever be? Did you know that Spanish was spoken in North America long before Anglo-Saxons arrived and that a big part of what is now the USA belonged to Spain and everyone spoke Spanish? People here speak whatever language they please among themselves, and politicians are just beginning to realize the importance of Hispanic/Latino immigration, so.... if you are so bothered by it, get used to the idea that they are here to stay. Or you can go someplace else (good luck finding an only-white country), or dig a hole and jump in, because the last thing we need in this country are people like you.

0

I think maybe Christianity Inc. in America has prolly caused most of the disparity? Plus the definition of "God" is becoming more subjective in Europe i think, whereas Americans really haven't got over the old white guy with a beard yet?

1

I don’t think I would put too much credence in this data. Personally, I don’t believe there can be too many closet believers amongst atheists, some who profess to be agnostic will be more likely to still believe, as agnosticism is often a halfway house for those who want to believe but know the evidence isn’t there. These people are not fully committed to their disbelief, but are living in hope that it will be refuted. I think that there is a far better chance of those who profess a belief in god to not be fully convinced, but due to the need to belong and not wanting be seen as going against the mainstream, they pay lip service and go through the motions of being a believer. There are undoubtedly differences in need of appearing to be religious between Europe and America, nobody in Europe would see the to need to let anyone else know whether they were religious or or not.

I've heard that bull crap over and over, atheists trying to tell agnostics what they believe! Why don't you just stick to what you don't believe and leave me and people like me out of it! I'm so sick of it. I think a lot of atheists are cynical, depressed LOSERS who have nothing better to do than start and fan all these endless "debates" about god or lack thereof. Nobody knows, chump! Get it? Whine on and on about it til you're blue in the face and it won't make any difference. YOU don't have any evidence there ISN'T a god either, ever think of that?

@Storm1752 Is there really any need for that diatribe and vitriol? What a rude tosser!. I never start debates about religion....because it usually ends up in someone like you losing the plot. You have made an assumption about me and my beliefs based on a few lines I wrote in response to a piece of journalism....it was an observation I am entitled to voice whether you like it or not.

0

Your lead in that most nones are closeted believers is false, your own quoted article says that only 27% of American nones say this vs 23% of Europeans, last time I checked 27% out of a universe of 100% nones can never be construed as "most."

@Deiter so you still think that your opener is truthful, because in any dictionary what is not true is false. I stand by my comment.

@Deiter damn straight!

sombody knows math!! yeeppe ke ye!! at last!!

as a formal teacher, my last profession: no one knows about ratio's or decimals or metrics!!

have been doing some lessons in math and science but in despair

just try this one: 1/3 or 1:3 or convert a fraction to a decimal point

as far as I know 100% is 100%, so kids these days have averages of 110%, how it that possible??

or it use to be if straight A's =4.0, not anymore, they can get 4.5 or greater, how is that possible?

whoops, it must be THE NEW MATH!!

this is hilariously funny except for the fact it is true, you cannot have more than 100% or have I been mislead??

0

My first thought is that it's because of Europe's past of having state religions and America's past of escaping that. Maybe the Europeans are used to not taking their religion that seriously while Americans were fervent about theirs.

0

I think a lot of people who leave organized religion may still believe in a spirit or deity. They just don't follow a traditional religion. And in a country like the U.S. where "do your own thing" seems to have more significance, there is a lot more variety in what people feel safe in believing.

0

According to the site there's 83,000 of us just here

lerlo Level 8 June 26, 2019
0

Okay, I am a little confused by the 3rd paragraph from the last in the article. The 2nd and 3rd paragraph before the last raise a serious question and expose a problem with this data.

This being, the survey did or didn't separate out the issue of, not believing in the jewdaic god, but still holding a belief in a god.

It is unknown, but seems likely, most of the nones would survey as not believing in the jewdaic god at all, but some would hold the possibility of some other sky fairy who isn't created by ancient sheep herders.

It would be a real slam to the religious foundations had this survey actually done this. Agnostic.com's profile question has the same flaw.

It seems likely, there are probably many who sit in churches every Sunday who feel this way.

It is hard to imagine that their isn't at least 20 to 30 percent of people in church who are thinking to themselves, "oh this is complete bullshit". This, when it comes down to the logistics of Mary's immaculate screwing and Christ's forgiveness plan.

But, those people will still continue to go to church, even though they are agnostic.

How much damage does it do to the harmful religious institutions, if the article had been headlined, "The Nones believe in a god, they just don't believe in the Christian god."?

0

So after reading the post and the article, I can honestly say that I really don't care. They need to sort it out for themselves.

1

This life-long US Atheist has no ‘hidden belief!’

With no state or truly dominant religion, the USA has long fostered religious competitiveness; it’s not pretty. Then ‘we’ rallied ‘American’s’ to fight those ‘godless communists’ during the cold war with government sanctioned religion, and it’s never stopped.

God propaganda is now stamped and printed on our money, millions of ‘persecuted christians’ have been allowed to become US Citizens. ‘Blessing America’ has become a political prerequisite, and such trends are viewed by commercial entities as an opportunity to promote and sell more, in this case, religion..

I’m glad the civilized world is freer of this crap than my nation, gives me the occasional glimmer of hope for humanity ~

Varn Level 8 June 26, 2019
0

Some of this may be true. Wasn't there a famous non-believer who recently got baptized "just in case?" I'm trying to figure out how you would "go back" when you find that Jesus appears to be a conglomerate of several people and his big book of "how it all happened" seems to have been put together some 300 plus years after the times of Jesus. This is exactly why that book makes no sense and is contradictory. If a person knows this how can they believe the gospels were written by followers when the gospels themselves are so flawed? How does one know these things and pray and blubber "oh, Jebus, I am so sorry?" Why would you be sorry for finding the truth?

On the other hand, you could come to a truth that Saul of Tarsus is credited with writing two thirds of the NT and he never knew or met Jesus. Christianity follows him and this man never knew if he was "in or out of his body" when he got his revelations.

0

This will be a sociological question. This is, Americans are socialised into acting as Christian. From the most levels, Americans have 'In God we trust' on currency. Their Constitution includes God solidly as a part of it. Therefore, as part of just being an American, the carry over from primary and secondary agents of socialisation generate a commonality of behaviour which makes acting in a 'Christian' way is merely the social norm. I suggest reading C Wright Mills, Anthony Giddens, Michael Haralambos, as a start to understanding the statement on 'Nones'.

The US Constitution does not include God in it.

@bingst my apologies, I meant Declaration of Independence. The 'endowed by their creator' bit.

3

So basically they aren't really "nones" at all.
They're just fucking liars, calling themselves something they are not.

@Allamanda I don't like fads. I'd rather people just told the truth.

I think the opposite may be true--where many professing belief don't really believe. Hitchens used to point to the political grab for power over other people in the here and now, with no real concern about an "afterlife", as evidence of this. (The fear of death and the presence of intense grief also seems to be evidence in my mind that many don't really believe.)

@greyeyed123 I doubt that it's a lack of belief, or lack of fear of a "judgment".
I'm fairly certain that it's much more a case of self-justification, and "it can't happen to me".

5

I say rubbish. Unless they count praying as someone like me yells JESUS CHRIST or WHAT THE HELL all the time.

Jesus! Where are my keys?

Is not something I see as a prayer.

@BufftonBeotch One time I yelled FUCK ME JESUS. The Holy Ghost was inside of me within seconds! However when I'd pray about something serious in my life, nothing! Lawyer said I couldn't sue because it was "consensual".

@BufftonBeotch I find myself talking myself through problems that stump me, or giving myself encouraging words when things get tough, etc. There is research that says talking yourself through a difficult problem will produce better results than trying to work it out silently.

Whereas if you pray in the middle of a difficult or stressful problem...you are just wasting precious time in solving it.
[dailymail.co.uk]

0

I'm not surprised. I know a lot of people who don't go to church, consider themselves as members of a particular denomination, or call themselves spiritual; but can't even imagine that it's possible to not believe in god.

JimG Level 8 June 26, 2019
0

Wow

bobwjr Level 10 June 26, 2019
4

Well if you factor in the tendency of some "nones" in the US to believe in things like psychics and hauntings and crystals I can maybe see that.

But I don't believe any of that nonsense woo.,

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