“Over the past half-century, as the number of Americans with no religious affiliation has gone from 5 percent to nearly 30 percent, the emphasis has often been on what they were leaving. A report released Wednesday on the “nones” finds that they are diverse, young, left-leaning and may offer clues to the future of making meaning in a secularizing country.” “More Americans are nonreligious. Who are they and what do they believe?” Washington Post, January 24, 2024
This may or may not be behind a pay wall, depending on how many times you view the WaPo. It’s about a recent Pew study on “nones”.
here are some other snippets:
“The report, from the Pew Research Center, is one of the biggest yet on the nones, and it adds detail to this constituency that has been growing across a wide variety of demographic categories, including age, race, political leaning and education level. As the nation’s fastest-growing segment of religion (or nonreligion) in recent decades, the nones may reflect the front line of future spirituality. Fifty-six percent say they believe in “some higher power” aside from the God of the Bible; 67 percent say they believe that humans have a soul or spirit, and majorities say they believe that nonhuman animals and parts of nature can have spiritual energies.
The Pew findings seem to debunk, or at least complicate, the idea that people who leave religion are hostile toward it. The overwhelming majority of nones say religion causes division and intolerance and encourages superstition and illogical thinking, but 58 percent also say religion helps society by giving people meaning and purpose.”
“Cragun said he subscribes to a theory of Swiss sociologist Jörg Stolz that a key driving force behind religion’s decline is “the culmination of growing autonomy in society. People don’t like being told what they should do or what they should not do, especially when the teller isn’t especially qualified. Increasingly, people are saying, ‘Why do I need a pastor to tell me what to do? What makes them any more insightful than this academic journal?’ The rise of the nones is the manifestation of a move toward greater autonomy of individuals.””
Club Schadenfreude 
Good news, but the beliefs in “some higher power” and “the soul” among supposed atheists are worrying.
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I suspect it is more that they cling to those silly ideas out of habit, and misplaced hope.
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God was in another place when I, a 4-year-old girl, was sexually abused by a grown man. And God was elsewhere this this man continued to abuse me until I was 10 years old. I cannot forgive that man, who I believe is dead, because my unconscious censored everything because the pain was atrocious and I was never able to get justice and I still have a lot of suffering caused by those childhood traumas. I do not forgive God for what he puts children and adults through. Lu, if he were really as powerful as they say, would stop cruel men, pedophiles and serial killers. But God does not exist because hatred and violence are the only real thing on this earth. 😟
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I’m sorry you suffered so much. Have you tried therapy? It does help, though it’s hard to decide to go for it. And there is love and peace, they are just sometimes hard to find.
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I think: Ultimately, most religion, organized or not, makes little sense. Generally, it is harmful, but the religious (the believers) are incapable of seeing this because of that belief.
While I get it and I’ve certainly had it, I am happy that I am over it.
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