Christianity continues its rapid decline in U.S.

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The religious landscape of the United States continues to change at a rapid clip. In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009.

Both Protestantism and Catholicism are experiencing losses of population share. Currently, 43% of U.S. adults identify with Protestantism, down from 51% in 2009. And one-in-five adults (20%) are Catholic, down from 23% in 2009. Meanwhile, all subsets of the religiously unaffiliated population – a group also known as religious “nones” – have seen their numbers swell.
 

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The only problem with these kinds of polls is they just sort of discount that a lot of non-traditional religious/spiritual people are usually recorded as 'none' because they aren't one of the major religions... otherwise, yeah, not surprised.
 

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The only problem with these kinds of polls is they just sort of discount that a lot of non-traditional religious/spiritual people are usually recorded as 'none' because they aren't one of the major religions...
They're not discounted, they're just lumped into "other" - with us totally faithless. :kittyball:
 

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Thanks for this, I needed good news today!

I wonder how much of the “gender gap” is just the fact that the Silent Generation is mostly women, and women should be older on average than men. If age was accounted for, I don’t think it would be as large.
 

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I also wonder about accuracy on these polls because I feel like a lot of people, in the US especially, answer even if they are really not something. Basically, they don't want to admit they are not religious.

Like I would often answer this sort of thing as "I grew up Catholic". The reality is, I have not regularly attended church in the last 20+ years, which is close to half my life. The reality is, I am not anything, though I would probably get ticked as being "Catholic".
 
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I also wonder about accuracy on these polls because I feel like a lot of people, in the US especially, answer even if they are really not something. Basically, they don't want to admit they are not religious.
So you think a more accurate survey would have the numbers RE: official religious denominations show even less than what they got? I'm down with that.
 

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I also wonder about accuracy on these polls because I feel like a lot of people, in the US especially, answer even if they are really not something. Basically, they don't want to admit they are not religious.

Like I would often answer this sort of thing as "I grew up Catholic". The reality is, I have not regularly attended church in the last 20+ years, which is close to half my life. The reality is, I am not anything, though I would probably get ticked as being "Catholic".

The poll doesn't just ask what religion you hold. They also ask how many times you have gone to church(or whatever) in the past year. So people like you would be identified as not really affiliated. Attendance has been going down about as fast as affiliation, by the way. The other thing I will note is that both affiliation and attendance are going down about as fast as old people are dying off. So the shift can be entirely explained as generational.
 
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I also wonder about accuracy on these polls because I feel like a lot of people, in the US especially, answer even if they are really not something. Basically, they don't want to admit they are not religious.
That's a bit like my mother. She does not believe in God, she's never read the bible (afaik), she never goes to church, she never particpiates in any relgiious related activities and she believes that the people who actually believe in Jesus are a bit ... well a bit thick. Yet she insists she is a Christian. ;)

Me, I just hope the people who loose their religion find some other anchorage for their lives. We all need that.
 

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I also wonder about accuracy on these polls because I feel like a lot of people, in the US especially, answer even if they are really not something. Basically, they don't want to admit they are not religious.

Like I would often answer this sort of thing as "I grew up Catholic". The reality is, I have not regularly attended church in the last 20+ years, which is close to half my life. The reality is, I am not anything, though I would probably get ticked as being "Catholic".
I’ve been known to tell the Evangelicals I’m a Mormon, tell the Mormons I’m Queer and tell the Queer folks I’m an atheopagan/TST. Some people just aren’t cleared for the details. I’d tell the pollsters the details and they’d probably still put “none.”
 

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I can never remember what I answer I gave for the census and often the answer I give depends on who's asking.

Conversations with some who assume since I'm obviously of European descent that I'm Christian...
 
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Brenda Archer

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I can never remember what I answer I gave for the census and often the answer I give depends on who's asking.

Conversations with some who assume since I'm obviously of European descent that I'm Christian...
That assumption drives me batty, I must admit.