According to a new Pew Research Center poll, non-religious people now make up about 20 percent of the US population and are rapidly expanding in numbers. A third of these people are under the age of thirty. In fact, the poll shows that the younger the people polled, the less religious they are. For example, 90 percent of those over the age of 65 are religious while only 67 percent of those aged 18-29 are religious. These non-religious people are more than twice as likely to identify as ‘liberal’ than ‘conservative.’ It’s also interesting to note that since 1972 the percentage of Catholics in the US population has nearly stayed the same, slipping just slightly from 26 to 25 percent (despite massive immigration from mostly-Catholic Latin America). Meanwhile, the percentage of the population that is Protestant has fallen rather dramatically from 62 to 51 percent. As well, the percentage of non-religious people has risen greatly from 7 to 18 percent. The poll reveals lots of fascinating information about the long-term trends going on in the United States and is worth studying for a glimpse of what the future holds.
This, along with many other things, has created the “dog eat dog” society in which we live.
Scary to think what the next 50 to 100 years will bring (Although I won’t be around to see it!)
Young people tend to be non-religious. …And?
I would think plenty of young people tend to be ‘spiritual’, or at least placing a generic religious belief in a ‘higher power’ of some sort. Perhaps an unidentified sort of Deism? Anyway, while I think we can tend to romanticize the Christian beliefs of our ancestors – western civilization in general during the nineteenth century did adhere to Christian truths, whether the people themselves were truly Christian or not. Venturing a guess, I’d think the Baby Boomer Generations was the first to revolt from the values of their parents, and the young people of today are merely a by-product, or out-growth of this initial movement. But certainly this is a substantial concern, as it clearly illustrates the threat of multi-culturalism (with Western people becoming indoctrinated with the belief that all beliefs have merit). Of course, we should know the destruction on our civilization that this is bringing about. However, non-religious or non-christian are two different things. In my belief, Western people are increasingly becoming more non-christian, which in turn spells the end for what has made our civilization great.
It’s a transition, for sure. In early days of the colonies it was New England which was most religious. The South was considered almost heathen and at best just culturally Christian. In the 1820s that changed. New England had been becoming less religious for some time and MacDonald King Aston says in ‘Yankee Babylon’ that by the 1790s the Yankee had replaced the Puritan there. But in the South a much more emotional form of Christianity became popular in the 1820s. Even Robert Barnwell Rhett gave up his more formal, conservative Anglican church for a more emotional one. In general, much of the South left the Anglican church of their ancestors and became Baptists and Methodists. As well, you had lots of Ulster-Scots Presbyterians filling up the backcountry in this era. Later, after the US conquest of the South, in the late 1800s you had the birth of Christian Zionism (with all the evil that has brought upon us) and Dispensationalism. This had become the main form of Christianity in the South today. And it offers our people very little. I’m not sad to see it go. I think it’s a plague upon us that should never have been accepted. But some form of Christianity is needed. I would love to see a revival of a much older and conservative form but I doubt that will happen. We’ll see though. Things change. That’s for sure. Religiously the South has gone through several such major changes. We could recover from any such change if we maintained ourselves. However, if we are replaced here, we will have no opportunity to do so – because we won’t exist. So whatever form of Christianity we embrace, I think we have to identify it with our culture and people (the way the Afrikaners once did with the Dutch Reformed Church, the English once did with the Anglican Church, the Irish once did with the Catholic Church, etc – lots and lots of examples).
Religion defines the South. That is why we are hated by the Yanks and the elites of Hollywood and DC.
I’d rather have Zionism over atheism anyday, and we can form Zionism in our own Southern image rather than settle for the Yank version.
The leftists have suckered us into believing that no religion is the way to go for the last fifty years.
The Marxists did that under the Soviet Union and look at the zombie like robotic ghouls they turned their populace into…..
They still haven’t fully recovered to this day (That’s why the Russian Mafia has been far more dangerous than the Sicilian Mafia. The Russians have no moral conscience whatsoever).
I’d be curious how defeat in the South (after the war) contributed to the spread of dispensationalism. In my experience, Dispensationalists seem to think everything is going to hell in a hand-basket, and are eager to see judgement come upon a wicked society (as well as escape to something better, and thus deny the difficult work in promoting Christian ideals in a decadent society). Possibly many Southerners with their homes and communities in ruins -hoped for Judgement on their enemies, and were more prone to accept the Dispensational view.
Wow!
80% of Americans have Faith!
This is awesome after all these years of culture wars, we’re winning and they’re scared.