Poll: 15% of the US has no religion

ARIS poll:

The percentage of Christians in America, which declined in the 1990s from 86.2 percent to 76.7 percent, has now edged down to 76 percent. Ninety percent of the decline comes from the non-Catholic segment of the Christian population, largely from the mainline denominations, including Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians/Anglicans, and the United Church of Christ. These groups, whose proportion of the American population shrank from 18.7 percent in 1990 to 17.2 percent in 2001, all experienced sharp numerical declines this decade and now constitute just 12.9 percent.

Christianity as a whole has declined. The mainline churches are collapsing, leaving evangelicals and megachurch members as the dominant form of non-Catholic Christianity in the US. *shudders*

The percentage of Americans claiming no religion, which jumped from 8.2 in 1990 to 14.2 in 2001, has now increased to 15 percent.

I seem to recall a few years back when atheism was allegedly in sharp decline and a "religious resurgence" was happening and/or nigh. How's that working out for them?

The states with the highest increase in the No Religion category are from the Northeast or Western regions. North Carolina trails the pack with +5% no-religion.

There's something interesting about the 15% no-religion category: a large percentage of them have had little/no contact with religion their entire lives.

•40% say they had no childhood religious initiation ceremony such as a baptism, christening, circumcision, bar mitzvah or naming ceremony.

•55% of those who are married had no religious ceremony.

•66% say they do not expect to have a religious funeral.

A great many of them are what I call "natural atheists" - they didn't have religion to begin with and they don't have it now, unlike deconverts, who all had to climb their way to godlessness, which can sometimes be a arduous process for one raised in an extremely religious household.

Many Americans say other religions can lead to eternal life

Pew Polling Results

While this isn't exactly earth-shattering news per se (the U.S. has a history of ecumenism and inclusivism, almost to the extent that one can be considered a "person of faith" in good standing and pray to a beached sperm whale), exactly which other religions Americans give high marks to is interesting.

Here's the crunch:

80% of Christians identified at least one non-Christian religion as granting eternal life (that number is surprisingly high even among evangelical Christians at 72%)

The non-christian religion most favored is Judaism (69%), followed by Hinduism (53%), which just barely edged out Islam (52%). Dead last (pun, get it? bah) are atheists (42%), which somehow managed to be less of a route to eternal life than not being religious at all (56%). I guess they didn't realize that a lot of atheists would fit very comfortably in the non-religious category as well. Or maybe it's just good ol' fashioned fear of atheists.

But how exactly does one obtain eternal life? Beliefs. No, actions! *gets dragged into theological debate with both views seemingly supported in the Bible* Each view enjoys about 30% popularity.

And unsurprisingly, views on exclusivity are linked to church attendance. As church attendance goes up, exclusivity goes up and as attendance goes down, exclusivity goes down. If they go to church at least once a week, 42% say that their religion is the only path to eternal life. If they go less than once a week, that number changes to 18%. (Evangelicals are 60% to 30% respectively, while Catholic numbers don't change much at all, from 85% to 84%)

What does this poll tell us? Judaism rocks. Granted, the other "religions" on offer are kind of weaksauce: Islam, Hinduism, atheism, and no religion at all. No deism, pantheism, Buddhism, Taoism, Baha'i, or any pagan religion. I'm really surprised Buddhism in particular didn't get on the ballot, considering that the Dalai Lama is one of the few non-Christian religious leaders that Americans are likely to be familiar with. Maybe next time, they'll increase the ever-widening net of interreligious inclusiveness and endorse my beached whale religion as a path to everlasting life just as valid as whatever crazy religion they believe in. For the sake of tolerance, let's all pray for it, towards whatever human (or whale) died for our sins. Ramen.

New Poll: Americans believe in God, UFOs

New poll results under the unintentionally hilarious headline: Belief in God, UFOs prevail

• 80% believe in God (98% among regular churchgoers; not too many atheists in the pews)

• 75% believe in miracles

• 73% believe in heaven

• 71% believe that Jesus is the Son of God

• 71% believe in angels

• 70% say Jesus Christ rose from the dead and that the Bible is, all or in part, the "Word of God."

• 68% believe in the "survival of the soul after death"

• 62% think that hell actually exists

• 61% believe in the Virgin Birth

• 59% believe that the devil exists.

Essentially, 60-75% of my fellow Americans are completely out of their gourd. I can see the God stuff - belief in God is relentlessly indoctrinated and also has the advantage of an (incorrect) association with goodness. But Hell and Satan? That's just plain crazy. People who truly believe that there's some horned demon prancing about, tricking poor souls into believing the great lie of evolution (a joint atheist-jewish-communist-nazi conspiracy, so I'm told) - that's insane.

Now we get to the bumpy part of the ride, the (unbelievably popular) fringe beliefs:

• A third are evolution denialists (compared to 47% who aren't creationists and 22% who apparently haven't figured it out yet)

• 40% believe in creationism, though the question did not elaborate on exactly what that term meant.

• 44% believe in ghosts

• 36% believe UFOs are real (trick question: UFOs are known to exist; alien spaceships aren't)

• 31% believe in both witches and astrology.

• About a quarter believe in reincarnation, or "that you were once another person,"

Wow. Witches and astrology? That's quite the combination. Great, so out of the aforementioned 65-70% crazy religious people, I have to deal with the ~30-40% crazy supernatural/superstitious people. I'm sure there's a substantial amount of overlap, but still, that doesn't leave many level-headed people left.