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%).
Atheism is much more specific than what they consider to be, ‘none’.
Pew asked respondents what – if anything – they believe. The research organization found that Nones are not a uniform group.
Most Nones believe in God or another higher power, but very few attend any kind of religious service.
They aren’t all anti-religious. Most Nones say religion does some harm, but many also think it does some good. Most have more positive views of science than those who are religiously affiliated; however, they reject the idea that science can explain everything.
No, agnosticism is a whole other issue from any of this. Agnosticism, technically speaking, is the position "it is impossible to know whether a god or gods exist." That's a separate position from "I do not believe that gods exist", "I believe that gods do not exist", and "I believe that gods exist." You can be an agnostic theist or a non-agnostic atheist. They're along two different axes, like the Dungeons and Dragons alignment system with the law/order and good/evil axes.
Unfortunately the term has gained some additional meanings in common parlance, where it can commonly mean "I'm an atheist/theist but I don't want to say that because it gets me in trouble." Or "I'm not sure what I think so I'm going with the option that sounds the most unsure."
It's led to a huge mess when trying to categorize belief systems in polls like this one.
Scratch an agnostic and you find an atheist. If I ask you if you BELIEVE in god you answer yes or no. If You answer I don’t know, you are not answering the question. If you answer no, you are an atheist, its that simple bub. Being an agnostic doesn’t enter the equation.
however, they reject the idea that science can explain everything.
I am an anti-theist and I reject that idea too, doesn’t mean I think religion can explain anything though. In fact I would go so far as to consider that deliberately obscure phrasing in the poll.
I fall into the None category. Even if I wanted to be religious, the time, social requirement, and built-in costs just wouldn’t work for me around work, school, daily shit that needs to get done. I don’t know how people with lower incomes do it.
I think it’s time we addressed the War On Nothing that’s happening every year.
I demand to be greeted with “Hi how are you” in late December, not “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”.
This sounds like a potential disaster waiting to happen for child sexual abuse.
When the only protective filter to children in schools is ‘they passed a background check’, that is just asking for trouble.
That is not to say all these ‘untrained Christian chaplains’ will be sexual predators; by and far, I’m sure most of them will be fine people, albeit a bit religiously zealous, but that doesn’t mean it wont happen.
Passing a background check doesn’t mean you’re not a sexual predator, it just means you haven’t been caught yet, or you haven’t been put in a position that you would act on those impulses yet if you have them. It doesn’t matter the profession, this is always a risk, but at least limiting the pool of applicants to professionally trained personnel limits the risk.
I feel like this is one of those things that people will shout ‘how could we have known’, when it was obvious from the start. If this passes, and an incident occurs, those pushing the bill, and that voted for it should be held legally liable for child endangerment, and any reparations for harm caused. It’s just bad policy.
“ Most Nones believe in God or another higher power, but very few attend any kind of religious service.
They aren’t all anti-religious. Most Nones say religion does some harm, but many also think it does some good. Most have more positive views of science than those who are religiously affiliated; however, they reject the idea that science can explain everything.”
I mean, not really. If you built a wall of kryptonite Supes would never get through. But many religious pass through a wall of evidence and never even notice it’s there.
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