When Americans are asked to check a box indicating their religious affiliation, 28% now check ‘none.’

A new study from Pew Research finds that the religiously unaffiliated – a group comprised of atheists, agnostic and those who say their religion is “nothing in particular” – is now the largest cohort in the U.S. They’re more prevalent among American adults than Catholics (23%) or evangelical Protestants (24%).

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“We know politically for example,” [Gregory Smith at Pew] says, “that religious Nones are very distinctive. They are among the most strongly and consistently liberal and Democratic constituencies in the United States.”

  • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
    11•9 months ago

    There are a few things contributing to this:

    1. The child molesting done by the Catholic church has turned a lot of people away from what used to be one of the biggest churches in the country
    2. The rise of evangelical churches and the hollowing out of mainline Protestant churches. Now if you go to church you either have to be a conservative or you have to risk being ostracized.
    3. It’s clear god has abandoned us.
    • GladiusB
      6•9 months ago

      God has abandoned us? Have you read of any history? Like there were many worse things happening in the 1000-1600s. Like everywhere. But I agree that the first two lead to the decline. I think it has more to do with a lack of proof the more and more we learn. If God does exist in some monitoring sort of way, they choose not to interfere and just observe. That’s a hard sell.

      • @MotoAsh@lemmy.world
        3•9 months ago

        I mean, some Christian sects teach that we’re here to be tested, right? What kind of good teacher slips you answers during the test?!

        It’s fucking never made sense. At all. Either we’re being tested or we’ve been abandoned, or it’s all just a misconstrued allegory about parenthood and authority and passing down good lessons.

        My money’s on the last. The overtly religious are all morons.

      • @Reptorian@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1•9 months ago

        Maybe, god works in mysterious ways?

        There’s also definition issue of god (I’m ignostic/igtheist), but honestly, I’d argue god is useless in any form.