New Study on "Rise of the Nones"

Jose Fly

Jose Fly

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The Public Religion Research Institute recently released a new study on the rapid rise of "nones" (people who claim no religion) in the US. Some of their findings...

First, "nones" have risen so rapidly they are now the single largest religious category in the US.

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This is amazing, given how just a few decades ago they were barely 5% of the population. If that's surprising, just wait! Among adults aged 18-29, 39% are nones.

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And where are these nones coming from? They are mostly former Catholics and white Protestants.

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Just who are the nones?

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Nice to see my group, apatheists, getting notice!

A couple of other interesting tidbits from the report include, 1) people are leaving their religion mostly because they just stopped believing it, and 2) these nones are far more likely to remain nones than previous generations (interestingly, almost 1/3 say they left because of their religion's treatment of LGBTQ).
 
Tyrathca

Tyrathca

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That's quite the demographic shift. I wonder what had changed to make it tip like this. Furthermore I wonder when it will reach a steady state and what will it look like (will in regress a little or keep growing? )

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Jamie Gigliotti

Jamie Gigliotti

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Everyone that I talk to about God that has opposition to God's existence cites evolution as it is taught in most public schools as knowledge and not the unproven theory that it is. It is deceiving many.
 
Tyrathca

Tyrathca

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Jamie Gigliotti said:
Everyone that I talk to about God that has opposition to God's existence cites evolution as it is taught in most public schools as knowledge and not the unproven theory that it is. It is deceiving many.
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And how many people do you talk to about these things and how do you end up talking to them about it? I can imagine there being a very strong selection bias in your sampling (particularly because i doubt most non-Christians would want to talk to you about it)

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Jose Fly

Jose Fly

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Tyrathca said:
That's quite the demographic shift. I wonder what had changed to make it tip like this.
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According to my kids it's the internet, and looking at the first graph I posted that looks consistent with the data. Basically they tell me that in general, religion is kind of a joke in a lot of the places younger people hang out on the internet.

Furthermore I wonder when it will reach a steady state and what will it look like (will in regress a little or keep growing? )
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If the internet (and its open, free flow of information and ideas) is a primary factor, I expect the trends to continue. You can't put that genie back in its bottle.
 
Jose Fly

Jose Fly

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Jamie Gigliotti said:
Everyone that I talk to about God that has opposition to God's existence cites evolution as it is taught in most public schools as knowledge and not the unproven theory that it is. It is deceiving many.
Click to expand...

First, you should look at the report. There is a section on why people are leaving religion.

Finally, I'd say that as the more mainstream Christian denominations lose their followers, Christianity starts to become more and more represented by right-wing fundamentalists (by default), which means Christianity becomes increasingly associated with things like anti-science, anti-LBGTQ, anti-multiculturalism, and so on. Couple that with the "internet factor" (open, free-flow of information and ideas) and suddenly Christianity isn't quite so appealing.
 
Tyrathca

Tyrathca

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Hmm... if it is the Internet you may be right. Perhaps it allows people to see they are not alone in their doubts, perhaps it means religions flaws are much more in their face that they are harder to ignore, maybe it's something else entirely. :)

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Jose Fly

Jose Fly

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Tyrathca said:
Hmm... if it is the Internet you may be right. Perhaps it allows people to see they are not alone in their doubts, perhaps it means religions flaws are much more in their face that they are harder to ignore, maybe it's something else entirely. :)
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I think it's all of those things. Before the internet, you had lots of young people who never had access to any of the counter arguments against religion, nor were they likely to encounter people from different faiths (or no faith)....at least until they got to college. And just a couple of generations ago a lot of Americans didn't go to college.

But that's all changed. Now young people are exposed to different arguments, different ways of thinking, and specific counter arguments against the faith they were raised in. And should they find them persuasive and decide to become a "none", it's not such an isolating experience as it was before. Now at the very least they can find solace in online communities.

I think the religious right senses this too. I often hear their talk show hosts lamenting kids' exposure to the internet, and advising their listeners to not send their kids to secular colleges. They see the trends too and they generally know what's behind them....but I don't think there's much they can do about it.
 
patrick jane

patrick jane

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Jose Fly said:
I think the religious right senses this too. I often hear their talk show hosts lamenting kids' exposure to the internet, and advising their listeners to not send their kids to secular colleges. They see the trends too and they generally know what's behind them....but I don't think there's much they can do about it.
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Yeah right, God can't do anything about it - :carryon:
 
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genuineoriginal

genuineoriginal

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The correlation between the rise of mental illness and the disbelief in God is a stronger correlation than the one between carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and temperatures.
 
Jose Fly

Jose Fly

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genuineoriginal said:
The correlation between the rise of mental illness and the disbelief in God is a stronger correlation than the one between carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and temperatures.
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Maybe you should look at the actual numbers on the graph you posted, and then you can explain how a 1.2% rise in ADHD medication use among 20-44 year olds produces an 11% increase in the number of "nones" in the entire population.
 
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genuineoriginal

genuineoriginal

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Jose Fly said:
Maybe you should look at the actual numbers on the graph you posted, and then you can explain how a 1.2% rise in ADHD medication use among 20-44 year olds produces an 11% increase in the number of "nones" in the entire population.
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"Correlation does not imply causation"
Repeat that ten thousand times, since you have apparently never grasped the concept.

The rise in ADHD medication correlates to the rise in the number of "nones", but that does not mean that one produces the other as you so erroneously claim.
However, the two graphs of two different types of mental illnesses rising at about the same rate over the same time period shows a correlation between the two that is statistically significant and indicates that this is not happening by random chance.

Statistically significant is the likelihood that a relationship between two or more variables is caused by something other than random chance. Statistical hypothesis testing is used to determine whether the result of a data set is statistically significant.​
 
genuineoriginal

genuineoriginal

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Jose Fly said:
Whaaaaa? I never made any claim like that at all.
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Yes, you did.
Here are your words that prove you made the claim.
Jose Fly said:
a 1.2% rise in ADHD medication use among 20-44 year olds produces an 11% increase in the number of "nones" in the entire population.
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Since I never claimed anything other than a correlation, it was you that claimed the causation.

There really is something fundamentally wrong with you, now isn't there.
 
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