People in the U.S. are leaving and switching faith traditions in large numbers. The idea of “religious churning” is very common in America, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
It finds that around one-quarter (26%) of Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated, a number that has risen over the last decade and is now the largest single religious group in the U.S. That’s similar to what other surveys and polls have also found, including Pew Research.
Remember that most of these identify as “nothing in particular”. Self identification of atheist/agnostic groupings are still quite small. What the Nones believe is highly varied. They may believe in some kind of god, but don’t like organized religion in general.
Religion itself tends to become more entrenched during hard times. If you believe that the US is going down a path of economic stagnation, devastation from global warming, and increased war around the world in general, then we might expect that religion will grow again. It might not be traditional Christian denominations, though. I suspect we’ll see a revival in paganism derived from pre-Christianized Europe (though far from identical to what they were historically).
I wonder where groups like the Satanic Temple are placed in studies like this (or if they’re even counted at all) since they’re an activist group that’s legally classified as a religion.
Tbh I find them annoying because they’re keeping stupid myths alive because of their existence (because their name is a foil), and acting as a fuel for motivating the religiously minded. Organized religion as a whole needs to die in a civilized society context, and that cannot happen if we keep ideas like “Satan” alive in any context.
Oh boy. Who decided you get to be the arbiter of what people do with their lives? Shouldn’t a civilized society let people believe what they want provided they are tolerant toward others?
This isn’t my perspective, but something many share. Tbh, I am okay with keeping religion as a private affair. But the problem is that such ideology can often instill self-righteous attitudes, which can become dangerous on a societal level. See all of history, for example!
I hope not? Those types of ideologies were even more backwards than the Abrahamic faith ones, and the good parts were all rolled up into Judaism or Christianity. I am not sure if I misremember, so let me know otherwise. I remember movies like Midsommar as a good example of this type of ideology at an extreme/cult level.
Anything where you’re believing in some woo woo as an organization, or even as a small group, is just a bad idea for societal development. I just want people to move away from mythology based origin stories, or explanation for known or unknown phenomena 😭