Reading Time: 3 minutes It’s been common knowledge since the coronavirus pandemic arrived in America several years ago that empty pews have sharply increased, as churches, often controversially, closed their doors to protect congregants from spread of the deadly disease among their flocks. But in reading some year-old statistics on the pandemic’s effects on religious ritual, I was surprised […]
nones
Posted inPolitics
Secular and blue? How the religiously unaffiliated could be significant in the upcoming elections
Reading Time: 4 minutes The heavy Democratic lean of the nonreligious vote presents both an opportunity and a problem for the party.
Posted inReligion
The evolution of religion and the rise of the nones
Reading Time: 4 minutes The decline of Christianity in the United States does not mean that “religion” is dead or dying. News of the death of religion may excite humanists, but it is unlikely to go extinct. Religion is an adaptable social phenomenon. Religious beliefs and behaviors have always evolved. In a free country, this evolution will continue. Secularism […]
Posted inNews
New research: The future of religion might just be no religion at all
Reading Time: 2 minutes The long-term future of Christianity is looking pretty grim. At least that’s what the data from a recent Pew Research Center study is showing. According to their report, Christianity continues to shrink as a share of the US population as more people engage in religious switching. In this report, “switching” is defined as “a change […]
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
21 reasons why God is unconvincing to atheists
Reading Time: 9 minutes 1. God as an old white man in the sky is unconvincing. Depictions of God as a human-like (called ‘anthropo-morphism’ = in human form), both in physical shape and in emotional dispositions, have been considered incredible since ancient times. Rendering God as a male humanoid replete with human emotions, even the bad emotions like anger and envy and […]
Posted inThe Secular
The secular corner of South America
Reading Time: 8 minutes In recent years, international scholars have been developing new methods to understand two challenging belief categories: religious believers without affiliation to any religious institution, and those who define themselves as unbelievers—the “nones.” Several quantitative studies have reported clear disparities among the countries in Latin America. This article explores the characteristics of these two groups based […]
Posted inReligion
Will American religion one day mirror Norwegian godlessness? We should be so lucky
Reading Time: 4 minutes Norwegian godlessness today just might resemble American religion tomorrow. I was thinking this as I read an essay in TheHumanist.com decrying America’s nouveau-traditional National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 3 featuring President Joe Biden’s keynote call for unity. The United States, with its quasi-sacred religious freedom and church-state-separation ethos, does not have an officially designated national […]
Posted inNonreligious News
Survey says: A record number of Americans have no religious affiliation
Reading Time: 4 minutes This massive shift away from organized religion has been taking place for years.
Posted inEthics and Morality, Religion, The Secular
Armstrong’s Bad Sociological Claims: Religion Makes You a Better Person
Reading Time: 12 minutes Dave Armstrong has recently been involved with me in a protracted debate about the unequal distribution of evidence for God’s existence, and God being unfair. Within the debates was a side point about whether this unequal evidence is of benefits in our earthly existences or whether it is just rebalanced in an afterlife. Armstrong takes […]
Posted inPolitics, The Secular
Nonreligious Americans Are A Growing Political Force
Reading Time: < 1 minute I posted from a recent written article that touched on this, the other day. Here’s a very interesting podcast discussing the political importance of the nonreligious demographic in US politics.