Religious 'Nones' in America: Who They Are and What They Believe | Hacker News Reader

Religious 'Nones' in America: Who They Are and What They Believe

pewresearch.org

12 pointsgmays20 comments

One field that I am not sure is being studied as much as it should be is the recent resurgence of American 'folk' belief. Things like astrology, witchcraft-but-not-actually-Wicca, and other similar traditions have become extremely popular, especially among younger people. I don't know that 'religion' as a whole is going away - I think it's more that the form of faith is changing. The survey even nods to this:

> Most “nones” believe in God or another higher power. But very few go to religious services regularly.

Does anyone know of any scholarly (or not) investigations into this?

I'm trying to find the sample size, and where the studies took place, but am having trouble pinning it down.

I'm certain that unless the sampling was large, and spread-out, you'd get skewed results.

My gut feeling is that "Or another power" is wrongly correlated in the conclusion, and it shouldn't have been part of the same statement or question. I know there's all kinds of higher powers than me, but I don't believe in a surveillance sky dad. There's real ones that are man-made.

The sample size is over 5,000 people -- more than sufficient if the selection methodology is good.

They describe their selection methodology at length:

https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/wp-content/uploads/sites...

You make a great point. Personally, I'm Christian. And I've seen a surge in interest within Christianity (online, at least) concerning many of those topics. Maybe not with the end in mind; Christians aren't trying to learn witchcraft to practice it, but stronger attention is now paid to the sections in the Bible that mention astrology, other types of beings, the spiritual realm, and alternate dimensions.

Whatever your inclination, I recommend listening to Timothy Alberino and Michael Heiser.

The article doesn't mention what might be the primary driver causing people to reject organized religion: increased exposure to people from different backgrounds.

When a child is brought up in a devoutly religious family, where their entire world is populated by siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles, teachers, friends and acquaintances all with a similar belief system, it will be rare for that child to reject all of that.

The child is like a fish that doesn't know what water is because it doesn't have an alternate point of reference. The child may never deeply interrogate their beliefs, or consider whether they should choose a different belief system.

Its a rare culturally insulated child who will manage to seriously consider other belief systems, and even then they will find it incredibly difficult to switch, since that would sever many of their social connections and support systems.

Generations of increasing urbanization mixed people of different backgrounds together. The internet and social media have only accelerated the mixing and exposure to a wide variety of cultures and beliefs.

When a person understands, accepts and befriends others from different backgrounds, it can get pretty difficult to continue believing that the religion of your childhood is the one true religion.

Crystals, tarot, angels, and reiki have become practically the "default" non-religious belief in my (east coast US) social circle, particularly among women ages 18-60 not in tech fields. Often but not always mixed with bits of Christianity.

(Myself and nearly all my tech friends are atheist-raised-Judeo-Christian.)

it's so disappointing otherwise sane people cling to that nonsense, I've seen first hand people reach for homeopathy and crystals over getting qualified physician advice (and suffering the consequences), it's sad

They are avoiding potential iatrogenic consequences.

I've never met anyone who has (openly) subscribed to homeopathy. And most use I've seen of energy methods is to treat the psyche, not physical illnesses. (Not that people don't -- it's just not something I've observed in the trend I noted.) Not too different from mainstream religions to be honest.

The complexity of today's religious landscape may be attributed to the increasingly à la carte approach to spirituality, where individuals pick and choose beliefs that resonate with them, rather than adhering to the fixed menu of traditional organized religions. This trend is acknowledged by some organized religions, such as Unitarian Universalism, which seek to accommodate a wide range of spiritual perspectives, including those of individuals who might otherwise identify as atheists. Consequently, those who classify themselves as "nones," signifying no affiliation with organized religions, might still engage in spiritual practices, thereby crafting their unique forms of spirituality outside conventional religious frameworks. This indicates that the "nones" are not a uniform group but rather a collection of individuals each with their own micro-religions.

This concept finds a parallel in Japan, where a significant portion of the population identifies as non-religious yet actively participates in celebrations and rituals derived from various world religions, albeit in a secular context. This juxtaposition highlights the fluid and personalized nature of spirituality today, suggesting that religious identity and practice are far more nuanced and individualized than traditional classifications might suggest.

I'm in the middle of reading Nonverts by Stephen Bullivant, about the variety of people who grew up in a religion and "converted" to no religion. He makes the argument that it's incredibly difficult (bordering on pointless) to make sweeping generalizations about all of them at once. His book is sectioned by which religion these non-believers came from, suggesting that their religious background accounts for a lot of who they are without religion.

What persuades me the most is the fact that 99.99% (or however else you want refer to "essentially everyone") of members of every organized religion are members only by chance of birth.

Every Christian is only a Christian because he/she was born and raised Christian. Every Jew is only a Jew because he/she was born Jewish. Every Muslim is only a Muslim because he/she was born Muslim.

Yet how many wars and killing has taken place in history because these "members" claim to be "devout" in their beliefs? ... when the fact is that every Jew who had instead been born Muslim would hold entirely opposite views (and vice versa for the Muslims ... and Christians).

So, if membership in every organized religion is based solely upon what his/her parents believed and has nothing to do with anything else; and that every member of every religion would in fact hold entirely different beliefs had he/she been born into a different religion ... then ... how can such a belief system hold up to scrutiny of any kind?

And then consider the violence that has been perpetrated by members of organized religion ... and put it into the context of the odds of birth generating such violent beliefs.

My own path moved from there ... to wondering why a Loving and Just God would reward people being born into one religion and not another (each claiming to the exclusive word of and path to God. Common sense provides the answer. Organized religions do not - indeed, logically cannot - have anything whatsoever to do with God. Organized religions are manmade institutions that have to do with one and only one thing: power by virtue of their ability to control large groups of people.

In my view, if there is a Just, Loving God, the first and certain condemnation of such a God would be people and institutions falsely claiming some special connection to God for the purpose of obtaining earthly power. There could be no higher evil.

You're especially correct when it comes to the Jews: they actively discourage converts. They don't believe that their deity condemns people for believing wrong, and Judaism is a duty rather than a reward.

They are also, unsurprisingly, by far the smallest of the three groups you mention. But if you're trying to understand the impact of religion, you should also look outside of the Abrahamic faiths. They do comprise about half the religious believers in the world, but you're missing a lot of people if you exclude the Hindus and Buddhists.

There are also a great many Shintoists, Sikhs, Jains, etc. Each religion is comparatively small, but they represent a very wide diversity of what "religion" can mean.

The Christians and Muslims do seek converts and do think that people who don't convert are punished. (Depending on sect; there's a wide variety of approaches.) A lot of people outside those religions would see that as self-serving, but it does hold a certain internal logic: "God wants everybody to be this religion to avoid whatever punishment, and sent me to make sure it happens."

That's not a particularly compelling argument to me, but it does attract billions of adherents, so it's can't be dismissed trivially.

> Most “nones” believe in God or another higher power

this is

1) a bit misleading to call them "nones"... what about the actual nones who simply don't believe anything at all?

2) disappointing and fundamentally different from eg northern europe where it's fine and common to simply not believe in anything at all, without feeling any huge need to "correct" that

They're called "none" because that's how they categorize their religion: "none", when surveyed. This has been a group that has been watched and talked about this way for at least a decade, the "nones" have been growing.

You're thinking of agnostics/atheists. Having no religion is different from not believing in a god.

Those who don't believe in anything at all are atheists.

atheist noun a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.

Also

antitheist

a person opposed to belief in god or gods.

In this day and age many atheists feel the need to be antitheist.

Do they? I haven't run into this attitude organically outside of HN in years at this point. I mean a new cohort of 15-year-olds is always discovering richard dawkins. But the most ferocious organized online atheists seem to have realized they share a lot of values with the new far right and reached a sort of quiet compromise about the religion thing.

> Those who don't believe in anything at all are atheists.

We atheists believe things. We just don't believe in gods.

You can find spiritual atheists and superstitious atheists and atheists who are flat earthers. All manner of nonsense. But they don't believe in gods.

Some people use "nihilism" to mean belief in nothing, but there are self-proclaimed nihilists who are offended at that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com