Even in the USA, religion loses ground
A new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) has found that almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.
Some excerpts from this article (emphasis added):
So many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists. In a nation that has long been mostly Christian, “the challenge to Christianity … does not come from other religions but from a rejection of all forms of organized religion,” the report concludes.
“religion has become more like a fashion statement, not a deep personal commitment for many.”
Ex-Catholic Dylan Rossi, 21, a philosophy student in Boston and a Massachusetts native, is part of the sharp fall in the state’s percentage of Catholics — from 54% to 39% in his lifetime.
Rossi says he’s typical among his friends: “If religion comes up, everyone at the table will start mocking it. I don’t know anyone religious and hardly anyone ’spiritual.’ “
The original ARIS survey in 1990 was based on 113,000 interviews. 50,000 interview were conducted in 2001 and a further 54,000 in 2008. Because the U.S. Census does not ask about religion, the ARIS survey was the first comprehensive study of how people identify their spiritual expression.
A shorter article on the same topic here:
“They’re not thinking about religion and rejecting it; they’re not thinking about it at all.”
(If only a few more of them would “not think about it”, then a few more of us (who are concerned about religious interference in politics and education) could “not think about it” too! What a relief that would be.)