The Wisconsin State Journal has an article about the results of the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey which indicate that more and more Cheeseheads are not identifying themselves with religion.
Seventy-six percent of the state population identifies as Christian, down from 91 percent in 1990, according to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey. The percentage of Wisconsin residents who claim no religion jumped from 6 percent in 1990 to 15 percent last year.
On a national level, the study found:
"Asian Americans are substantially more likely to indicate no religious identity than other racial or ethnic groups."
and
"Only 1.6 percent of Americans call themselves atheist or agnostic. But based on stated beliefs, 12 percent are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unsure), while 12 percent more are deistic (believe in a higher power but not a personal God). The number of outright atheists has nearly doubled since 2001, from 900 thousand to 1.6 million. Twenty-seven percent of Americans do not expect a religious funeral at their death."
Why did reporter Doug Erickson feel the need to define atheist and agnostic? Are these terms really that esoteric for Madison area readers?
To the best of my knowledge, this was purely a survey and not a sociology study. Ergo it addresses what people believe but not why. A couple questions come to mind:
1) Why do only 1.6% of Americans who believe in no deities and/or are unsure if it's even possible to know if such things exist identify themselves as "atheists" or "agnostics"? Is there something dastardly about those terms? Are they too closely associated with Dawkins, Hitchens, etc.?
2) Secondly, are more Americans identifying themselves as having no religion because it is perhaps more socially acceptable or do more people genuinely not believe in deities?
I've listened to a couple interviews recently with people who have lost their religion - William Lobdell author of "Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America" (mp3) and John Loftus, a former minister and author of "Why I Became an Atheist". Hearing both of these men speak about their experiences reinforced the notion that you can't reason a person out of religion. Faith is impervious to arguement. They also reminded me that we really don't know why people acquire faith. Being brought up in a religious home surely has a role to play but that doesn't secure your fate as a believer.
My mother tried to raise me as a Catholic but failed. Indeed, both of her sons rejected it and religious faith generally. While my father was an atheist, I don't recall him ever working against my mother's desire to raise the kids Catholic. Indeed, he told me that, when my parents married, he agreed to let my mom do what she wished as far as raising us to be believers. So why did she end up with two godless heathens for sons?
I remember attending a religious pre-kindergarten program and leaving it with a "Jesus loves me" badge of some sort which I still have. But the whole concept of Jesus was just too incredible for me and I suspect it was just a jumble to my young mind. Some guy who died a long time ago is still around and, now that he's invisible, he watches everything we do. That dog won't hunt. My doubt was enough to prevent my mother from taking me to church but it wasn't until I was in the 6th or 7th grade that I was finally an atheist.
I wish I could remember the exact moment I understood myself to be a heathen but I cannot. I do remember being at school telling friends and a teacher, however. It just seems like, until that point, I had some "What if" and "how do I know" questions as well as a bit of fear of an omnipresent being that continually held me in judgement. Come on! We are talking about the god that turned a woman into a pillar of salt. Then one day all those questions and fears disappeared.
Why they all went poof! is beyond me. Personally, the best explanation of religion so far is Pascal Boyer's Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Foundations of Religious Belief. He views religion as a by-product of how the human mind divides the world into ontological categories and makes inferences with this data. It doesn't explain every detail about the phenomenon of religion but it's the best explanation of, as its title says, the foundation of religious belief. Granted, there are other books on the subject which means I've got more reading to do.
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