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1 in 5 Americans is Religiously Unaffiliated

Slowing but surely the wheels of progress are turning. Religion is dying in the US, homophobia is dying. What will happen to the GOP? Will racism be enough?
 
I always find polls like this a little tricky. Many of those who are unaffiliated still consider themselves religious or "spiritual" in some way, while many others are atheist but still affiliated with a religion (as I am).

I will agree that at least anecdotally, though, that atheism has a much stronger foothold than it used to. There are far more atheist advocates speaking far more freely than ever before. There are still areas where atheists are not as well accepted, but it is improving.

Edit: All those proclaiming that ridding the world of religion will somehow eliminate bigotry and idiocy are in for a disappointment. Religion is an excuse for, not a cause of, these ails.
 
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zsdersw said:
My money is on fresh water being that "something else".
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That is a resource and I agree with you in the coming decades fresh water will become very valuable. But I am talking ideology\religion. Organized religion as we know it may go away completely but something else fill its void in the political landscape.
 
Genx87 said:
That is a resource and I agree with you in the coming decades fresh water will become very valuable. But I am talking ideology\religion. Organized religion as we know it may go away completely but something else fill its void in the political landscape.
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As long as its not being filled by nonsense that is unprovable i dont care what fills the void.
 
Genx87 said:
That is a resource and I agree with you in the coming decades fresh water will become very valuable. But I am talking ideology\religion. Organized religion as we know it may go away completely but something else fill its void in the political landscape.
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wall-e-fat-people-in-chairs1.jpg
 
soulcougher73 said:
Yes! We will rid the world of religion one day. Its a dying breed, thank god.
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At least until something else starts up, once people have forgotten about the problems it caused. Our species forgets things very quickly; sometimes not even a full generation passes. :\
 
It's kind of funny to see how some people think removing religion will fix anything. Human nature dictates a lot of how people behave. We are wired to do certain things and seek out certain things, and religion is just one manifestation of that behavior. If you could wave a magic wand and get rid of religion altogether, people would simply latch onto something else to find a way to justify their behavior and fight/discriminate/kill.

Religion is often used to justify all sorts of terrible things, but I think it's foolish to think that without religion those terrible things would not happen. They'd still happen, with some other justification.
 
PokerGuy said:
It's kind of funny to see how some people think removing religion will fix anything. Human nature dictates a lot of how people behave. We are wired to do certain things and seek out certain things, and religion is just one manifestation of that behavior. If you could wave a magic wand and get rid of religion altogether, people would simply latch onto something else to find a way to justify their behavior and fight/discriminate/kill.

Religion is often used to justify all sorts of terrible things, but I think it's foolish to think that without religion those terrible things would not happen. They'd still happen, with some other justification.
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I think making it more difficult to justify bad behavior is a good thing, regardless of whether or not you can eliminate it completely.
 
PokerGuy said:
It's kind of funny to see how some people think removing religion will fix anything. Human nature dictates a lot of how people behave. We are wired to do certain things and seek out certain things, and religion is just one manifestation of that behavior. If you could wave a magic wand and get rid of religion altogether, people would simply latch onto something else to find a way to justify their behavior and fight/discriminate/kill.

Religion is often used to justify all sorts of terrible things, but I think it's foolish to think that without religion those terrible things would not happen. They'd still happen, with some other justification.
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To me it matters less that there will always be something else to latch on to and more that we will have moved on to something else; it is the moving-on itself that is good.
 
PokerGuy said:
It's kind of funny to see how some people think removing religion will fix anything. Human nature dictates a lot of how people behave. We are wired to do certain things and seek out certain things, and religion is just one manifestation of that behavior. If you could wave a magic wand and get rid of religion altogether, people would simply latch onto something else to find a way to justify their behavior and fight/discriminate/kill.

Religion is often used to justify all sorts of terrible things, but I think it's foolish to think that without religion those terrible things would not happen. They'd still happen, with some other justification.
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This is very much the truth. It's in our nature to compete with each other for resources, for the opportunity to mate, for the ability to survive. It's going to happen regardless of religion. Religion just makes it easier to break things down into an "us or them" mentality.
 
dank69 said:
I think making it more difficult to justify bad behavior is a good thing, regardless of whether or not you can eliminate it completely.
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That's where I think most of you are wrong. It will in no way be more difficult to justify bad behavior. There will always be infinite numbers of ways to justify bad behavior, religion is not the cause of the bad behavior. Societies with little or no religious influence are no better than other societies where religion is more prominent. You'll find terrible places with no religion (north korea anyone?) and terrible places with religion (Iran).

Religion is not the cause of the bad things, and removing it would not fix anything.
 
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