Charlie

I was wondering..
Are christians really still the majority like they love to boast? I heard stats saying something like 87% of the US claim to be christians? It just blows my mind that so many believe? Haven't we come to the point where science and logical thinking, as well as many christians actually reading their bible and scratching their heads with more and more questions, is beginning to change the tide to more liberal thinking and non-belief?

Is there a way we, or this wonderful secular site, could put on a challenge vote, online, to the US public (or perhaps even the world)? Drum it up as the "Atheists vs Christians" or more mild "Non-Believers vs Believers"! Annouce it to the world! The news media would eat it up! This website would get so much free publicity! It would perhaps inspire many more non-believers to wake up, join this site, and stand up for their right to have freethought! I also realize that it would also inspire christians to come forth for the challenge. But that's the beauty of it, we the non-believers are already the underdog, therefore we have nothing to lose and everything to gain! Even if we only squeek out another percentage point or two in our favor.

Do you think this could be done? ..and with accurate results?
Do you think this should be done?
What do you think the outcome would be (nonbelief vs belief)?
Do you think it would help the secular cause or hurt it?

(btw, if this has already been done and I was the only fool that didn't know about it, then sorry for this thread my first day here)
Charlie

fishbulb

Yes, but not everyone who self-identifies as Christian is recognized as being Christian by everyone else who self-identifies as Christian.

These are beliefs that have been ingrained in society for millenia. It is going to take a little more than three centuries of science and rationalism to eradicate them. In the late 19th Century, pagan and superstitious beliefs were very common among the nominally Christian, Chuch-going population of Europe. Even today, my grandmother still holds on to superstitious beliefs about throwing salt over one's shoulder to avoid bad luck, and I even know many people from my own, post-Moon landing generation, who still believe in astrology and other ancient beliefs, despite being Christians themselves. The number of people who are taken in today by the likes of John Edward and Mistress Cleo is staggering, and they aren't even very good charlatans.

In the late 1800s, the Church tried to discourage these beliefs, but they were unsuccessful. (In fact, the late 19th Century was a time of strongly renewed interest in the occult.)

You won't change most people's minds by conducting a full frontal assault on their core beliefs. Rationalism may win the day, but it will be a slow process. Europe was nominally fully Christianized about 1000 years ago, but to this day more ancient beliefs poke through the veneer of Christianity. Rationalism hasn't had nearly as much time, and has the disadvantage that you have to actually understand it in order to appreciate it; it will take some time before it supplants religion or superstition as the primary way of thinking.

Charlie

Thank you for the response Fishbulb!

I see your point and of course I have to agree with it. I can relate somewhat as my own father believes in a "Universal Conciousnes" and my mother believes in the paranormal, supernatural and the like... I guess I'm just frustrated with what humans are capable of believing and how so many can believe. I guess it's the human way. Humans "want" to believe in something.

Also it would be nice to see the progress in terms of percentages of people that "do not believe" vs "believe". And yet, I guess it really doesn't matter how many believe and do not believe. Like you said it's going to take a great many years.. we are just a few rational thinkers on a very small rock in a very large universe.
Thanks, Charlie

Aravnah Ornan

Hi, and welcome.

On the other hand, many evangelical Protestants love to say that committed Christians are a small minority and that most self-identified Christians are only nominally so. Of course, Christians often pick one to be true when arguing that religious minorities should just sit down and shut up and the other one to be true when arguing how horribly oppressed real Christians are.

Mageth

Do you think this could be done?

Do I think an online poll could be done? Yes, of course one could be done.

and with accurate results?

I seriously doubt it. Online polls are notoriously unreliable. As your second paragraph illustrates, they're more of publicity stunts than accurate measuring techniques.

Do you think this should be done?

By this site? IMO, no. One reason is practical - if such a poll did drum up more "business" for the site, the servers we currently have are barely abkthe load we currently have. Another reason, as indicated above, such a poll is pretty much useless. Yet another reason, I don't think this site's intention is to perform such publicity stunts - IMO, it wouldn't fit well with the mission of the Secular Web. Still yet another reason, there are more reliable, more scientific polls and surveys already available by which one can gauge religiosity in the U.S. and the world.

What do you think the outcome would be (nonbelief vs belief)?

Who knows?

Do you think it would help the secular cause or hurt it?

I personally don't see how it would particularly help the secular "cause" (if there really is such a "cause" outside of making people aware of our existence and the fact that we're not monsters as proclaimed by many TV and radio preachers, and in preventing religious zealots from running roughshod over the U.S. Constitution and the laws of other countries).

MortalWombat

It depends on whom you ask and under what circumstances. If it benefits them to be a persecuted minority (like when they are fund-raising), they will claim they are a minority. If it benefits them to be a majority (like when they say the non-religious minority should "sit down and shut up" about the Pledge issue), they will claim they are a majority.

SecularFuture

Nope. Only about 33% of the world's population is Christian.
http://www.noharmm.org/religiouspop.htm

Rational BAC

Great thread. I really like this one. Am sure it has been done before, but can be done many times and still be worthwhile.

One tremendous problem I see (and probably a very understandable problem. ---I have come to learn through this forum that there are large areas of the USA that are almost totally fundamentalist Christian----it must scare the hell out of many atheists and give them the very false notion that the whole US of A is like that) is that so many atheists feel they are surrounded by Fundies. A very false picture I think of a true grasp of the reality of Christianity in this nation.

Secular---------I think we all know that only 1/3rd of the world is Christian. We also know that it is by far the largest single religion on this planet. We also know that approximately 85% of Americans call themselves Christian.-------------The fact that only 1/3rd of the world is Christian does not help anyone to really understand reality in the USA-----------which is what we all have to live with on a day to day basis.

Aradia

From http://www.religioustolerance.org

Christianity has been largely abandoned in Britain and the rest of Europe. It has partly faded in Canada, where only 10% of adults attend church regularly. In about the year 1990, it started to fail in the U.S. The percentage of American adults who identify themselves as Christians is dropping by about 10 percentage points per decade. If these trends hold, then sometime during the 2020's, Christianity will become a minority religion in the U.S. North America is rapidly becoming more religiously diverse. But there may not be a strong enough foundation of religious tolerance to support this future diversity without massive conflict.

Rational BAC

Not to be too picky, but I think Church attendance has little or nothing to to with Christianity. Actually I think that lack of church attendance is a definite sign that many Christians have decided to find their Christian God outside of organized religion. -----------------
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-------But they are still Christian--and probably better Christians for that.