Rapid rise of Nones in America, joining other developed nations.
According to a survey released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center, this group — commonly known as the “nones” — now constitutes 29% of American adults. That’s up from 23% in 2016 and 19% in 2011.
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Even in their personal philosophies, America’s nones vary widely, according to a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. For example, 30% say they feel some connection to God or a higher power, and 19% say religion has some importance to them even though they have no religious affiliation.
About 12% describe themselves as religious and spiritual and 28% as spiritual but not religious. More than half describe themselves as neither.
"Power is a poison well-known for thousands of years. But to the human being who has faith in some force that holds dominion over all of us, and who is therefore conscious of his own limitations, power is not necessarily fatal.
For those, however, who are unaware of any higher sphere, it is a deadly poison. For them there is no antidote."
And iirc he offset that remark with the observation that those who believe they’re doing the right thing have no limit on the evil they might inflict on others, perhaps more so than those who might believe in nothing at all.
However, the US does seem to have invented a new religion to replace the religion they discarded. And I’m not sure that it’s an improvement over the original.
Pretty much. On the bright side, a nuclear war or zombie apocaslypse will probably get the believer stats back up (one thing I bitched about The Walking Dead was the absence of End of the World cults
Not sure what particular insight Dawkins has, but I think the Pew poll I linked above shows that 4% say they are atheist and 5% agnostic, so that leaves 20% who are not adherents of any particular religion (nones), yet not atheist or agnostic. That leaves a lot of ground for all kinds of beliefs or disbelief. The change is still significant though.
“Higher sphere” and “holds dominion” over us is just basic science. in this respect every atheist, and for sure all us agnostics, are rounded up into such groups.
Perhaps another way of differentiation is the sphere/dominion that holds us captive is sentient or not? Still seems a bit simplistic, but perhaps a step in the right drection?
Agnostic = not adhering to any given standard, but being open minded about any of them until proven otherwise. No? Agnostic is a term used for essentially being unbias about something and willing to see the evidence…the none thing seems strange, but i havent read into it much yet.
Well, “agnostic” means “not knowing” literally. Different people tend to understand it/identify with it somewhat differently, but “I don’t know if there are gods or not” is the basic idea.
Well, first of all, it’s unclear if the rest of the nones do or do not believe. Surely some do and some don’t. The clear change is the number of people who claim to belong to the established religions. If the trends are carrying on the mainstream Protestant denominations are seeing the largest losses. Catholicism and “others” are being boosted by immigration, and I believe Evangelicals have been relatively consistent.
