-RRH-

What complicates stuff for us is all those people who say, "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual," when they really mean, "I don't like going to church."

They might choose to identify themselves as "non-religious" even if their beliefs largely fall in the "christian" camp.

CX

You say that like it's a bad thing. Who doesn't like his friendly neighborhood "goth looking kitten eating freak"?

Undercurrent

I might be so bold as to say that there's probably a good fraction of the population, probably even a majority, that a functionally atheistic, but write on surveys the religion they were rasied in.

m.

Jamie_L

I agree. I know a fair number of people who never go to church, never pray (except in dire circumstances), never give much thought to God at all, but who consider themselves Christian because they were raised as such and have never questioned it (even though they also never "use" it).

Jamie

Splat

The CUNY ARIS survey includes a pretty wide range of pigeonholes, including non-denominational xian. It isn't clear to me whether people picked from a list or if it was a write-in thing, which probably makes a difference. (I should look at the methods section again...)

Still, the 14% figure is bolstered by the data on religious vs. secular outlook: 16% consider themselves either secular (10%) or mostly secular (6%).

And in terms of countering the claim that everybody in the US is religious, only 37% described themselves as "religious" in outlook.

I'd be more comfortable if they included some confidence intervals in their data, but I trust this more than I do the Gallup polls on religion.

Buffman

Want to play with statistics? Just imagine what each biased side could do with these.

<a href="http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html" target="_blank">http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html</a>

It isn't so much what one believes or doesn't believe within the privacy of their own mind. It is how they apply those beliefs to social circumstances that actually determine the ethical/moral values of those beliefs. Are they positive and productive, or negative and destructive? Just about every forum here is aguing that issue in one form or another.

There have been, and are, many major religious sects. Which was, or is, the most positive and productive? There were, and are, many denominations within these major religious sects. Which was, or is, the most positive and productive. What causes new sects and denominations to be formed? Only other Sects and denominations really care. Atheists don't give a damn just as long as the theist group is positive, productive AND "tolerant." So why are theists so fearful of atheists that are positive, productive AND tolerant of them? Could it be that they are being forced to look closer at the basis of their private beliefs than they might otherwise be forced to look...and privately recognize their beliefs are founded on a house of cards...and this scares the daylights out of them?

Are theists unknowingly fearful that the scientific method of inquiry will be focused on their structures and find them wanting, inaccurate and without evidenciary merit? That has been happening ever more frequently in the last few centuries. To a small degree, it might account for why the most rabid theists have been attempting to prostitute science to their own dogma, while the more thoughtful theists are attempting to find an accommodation with the scientific method.

In the case of believer/non-believer statistics, it is little more than modern alchemists attempting to turn lead into gold, or gold into lead. Telephone polling is hardly filled with scientific accuracy. It tends to be a one time snapshot of a generalized impression about an unknown opinion. To use the statistics derived from such surveys/canvases as bludgeons to validate one's pre-conditioned beliefs, is about as ridiculous as arguing which supernatural God is the real one. The one of the Holy Bible or the Koran, or the Book of Mormon, for that matter. (These are my "public" opinions.)

ohwilleke

I suspect that the "no religion" crowd includes a significant number of deists who would never call themselves that and Christians who aren't evangelical and don't have strong ties to any denomination. I also suspect that the mostly secular outlook crowd includes a significant number of liberal Christians.

The ARIS study is good as far as it goes, but could really have used some focus groups or two levels of survey (in depth and short) to address what is going on with nebulous issues like "no religion". ARIS also has some garbage out, garbage in problems -- for instance, it does not distinguish between African American Baptist denominations and predominantly white ones, even though there are huge differences in practice and theology between the two.

A particularly interesting case in point on the non-religion issue is the question of secular vs. religious jews.

Thus, about 20% of ethnic Jews claim no religion, which is a statistic I am inclined to believe, since it would be easy to identify as religiously Jewish if you were, and I doubt that many people who are Christian in outlook, but ethnically Jewish would claim "no religion."

The evidence that 19% of people with "no religion" attend religious services (and certainly some atheists do at a spouse's insistance or at a UU or some such) is consistent with a pretty "pure" no religion group as well.

[ July 16, 2002: Message edited by: ohwilleke ]

[ July 16, 2002: Message edited by: ohwilleke ]</p>

Arrowman

Absolutely. Societal pressure is very strong, even when filling out a confidential survey form. For this reason I think one can justify the 14% (16% in Australia) as probably an understatement of the number of "functionally atheistic" (good term, Michael) people, whereas the number who identify themselves as "Christian" is clearly an overstatement (or there'd be a lot more parking problems at churches). A good proportion of the "Christian majority" are probably "apatheistic".

As to the "speaking on behalf of the 14%" - I largely agree. Atheists have only one thing in common - and although that may lead to other things (eg feelings about church-state separation) not all atheists necessarily feel the same way on such issues. I am sure there are many atheists in America who really don't care about the wording of the Pledge, for example.

Here in Adelaide we get the occasional letter to the editor from a gentleman who identifies himself as the local secretary of "Australian Atheists". I don't feel comfortable with that - with the implication that he is somehow speaking on behalf of a group of people in society. (Even though I usually agree with what he says - but not always.)

NOGO

I guess we can resolve such issues by creating a church of atheism but that would take all the fun out of it. We would be caught defending creed etc.

Splat

Good points Buffman & ohwilleke (et al.; thanks for the link to the Pew study ohwilleke--quite a pile o' stats, that one).

I agree that telephone surveys and other methods of gauging public opinion are fraught with problems, which leaves the results mushy. (As such, I'm a little puzzled why more social scientists don't use Bayesian methods?). But as broad approximations, surveys do pretty well.

There's a general agreement between the Pew and CUNY studies that around 80% of Americans consider themselves some flavor and degree of "chrisian", a little less than 10% who favor some other religion, and a little over 10% who don't put much stock in religion at all("ambitheists"?). The fact that the 'importance of religion in your own life' percentages have stayed fairly constant over the past 3 decades (and two different polling orgs) argues for some degree of robustness and validity.

I don't know what good any of these would be as bludgeons, but I'd take even social science data over a holy book any day.