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Vol.5 No.3
New Survey: Non-Religious on the Rise
Secularity continues to grow in strength in all regions of
the country, according to a new study by the Program on Public Values at
Trinity College. “The decline of Catholicism in the Northeast is nothing
short of stunning,” said Barry Kosmin, a principal investigator for the
American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS). “Thanks to immigration
and natural increase among Latinos, California now has a higher
proportion of Catholics than New England.”
Conducted between February and November of last year, ARIS
2008 is the third in a landmark series of large, nationally
representative surveys of U.S. adults in the 48 contiguous states
conducted by Kosmin and Ariela Keysar. Employing the same research
methodology as the 1990 and 2001 surveys, ARIS 2008 questioned 54,461
adults in either English or Spanish. With a margin of error of less than
0.5 percent, it provides the only complete portrait of how contemporary
Americans identify themselves religiously, and how that self-identification
has changed over the past generation.
In broad terms, ARIS 2008 found a consolidation and
strengthening of shifts signaled in the 2001 survey. 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. Given the estimated growth of the
American adult population since the last census from 207 million to 228
million, that reflects an additional 4.7 million “Nones.” Northern New
England has now taken over from the Pacific Northwest as the least
religious section of the country, with Vermont, at 34 percent “Nones,”
leading all other states by a full 9 points.
Read the full report here.
American Nonbelievers are now third behind Catholics and
Baptists
By John Shook
The 2008 American
Religious Identification Survey has just been released. Confirming
earlier trends, the fasted growing segment of the American population is
still the "Nones", especially in the Northeast. The Survey tables show how the 8.2% of Americans
in 1990 who declared their atheism, agnosticism, or lack of belief in any
religion has grown to 15% by 2008. Confirming this lack of belief in
religion is a new question asking people about their belief in
God. 2.3% answered "there is no such thing" as God, while
4.3% said "there is no way to know" and another 5.7% said
"I’m not sure." Adding together the atheists with the strongly
skeptical and the personally skeptical reaches 12.3% which is similar
measure of American skepticism and disbelief. With another 12.1% of
Americans who think there is a god but it isn’t a personal theistic god,
a grand total of 24.4% of Americans announce that the traditional
supernatural God of Christianity, Judaism and Islam doesn’t exist.
We can applaud surveys of American belief/disbelief that use
more nuanced questioning about what people actually do and don’t believe
in. So far, as indicated by this latest definitive survey, these lines of
questioning show that Americans are much more willing to express their
skepticism than they are willing to label themselves as
"atheist" or agnostic." The labels are holding people
back, as many have suspected for a long time. Isn’t this a good time to
remind everyone that the label of "skeptic" is perfectly
fitting and ready for use?
The dividing line between ‘atheism’ and ‘agnosticism’ got
too murky after the atheist was strategically defined as dogmatically
knowing that God does not exist. Agnostics too willingly stepped into the
new gray area between dogmatic belief and dogmatic disbelief. This verbal
tactic worked admirably. Friends of religion can portray atheists as even
more close-minded than they are (quite a feat in itself). Agnostics can
look more open-minded than really necessary. (Is "I’m just
agnostic" the trimmer hipper version of "I’m just
spiritual"?) But putting your faith in a label might not be working.
The portion of the Nones who label themselves as
"atheist" still remains small. But "agnostic" has not
fared much better. Surveys show that more and more people are willing to
express doubt about God, yet most don’t want to even call themselves
"agnostic" much less "atheist". Pundits and atheologists
endlessly debate what exactly is the big difference between an atheist
and an agnostic (after all, neither believe in God). New flavors of
‘negative’ or ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ or ‘positive’ atheism, and ‘negative’ or
‘weak’ or ‘strong’ or ‘positive’ agnosticism are test marketed to the
unfaithful. Which of these eight flavors is the most reasonable stance,
since traditional supernaturalism is unreasonable? Yet the American
people are leaving all that debate and semantics behind. Are the American
people wrong-headed about this?
Why not return to the original meaning of atheism: simple
skepticism. The most reasonable atheist is the skeptical atheist, unable
to believe because reasonable support for any religious claim is lacking.
The skeptical atheist only need worry about countering given evidence and
arguments for gods with skeptical complaints. “Disproving god” once and
for all is never a clear or attainable goal. (How many possible
divinities would have to be proven non-existent?) Fortunately, this goal
is entirely unnecessary for the atheist who avoids distractions. The
skeptical atheist is not dogmatic, and not a ‘weak’ or ‘negative’ atheist
– or some kind of agnostic. Such fine distinctions must be discarded. The
skeptical atheist claims the strongest possible position concerning the
existence of god: no one should believe that any god exists because of
insufficient reasonable justification for belief. More and more Americans
are coming to agree. The Nones are simply skeptical, and that’s atheism enough.
John Shook is Vice President
and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Inquiry/Transnational, where
he directs CFI’s educational programs.
America, Land of the Free Thinkers
By Tom Flynn
Meerkat or ostrich, what's your style? Consider the meerkat,
standing vigilant astride its burrow. Then the ostrich - well, everyone
knows what ostriches do. Two long-running studies of Americans' religious
alignment exemplify these styles. Which is doing the better job of
capturing today's religious landscape?
Standing with the meerkats we find Barry Kosmin and Ariela
Keysar of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and
Culture at Trinity College. Since 1990 they've helmed the American
Religious Identification Study (ARIS). The third of their massive,
methodologically consistent surveys was released this week. ARIS 2008
finds Roman Catholicism in near-collapse across the Northeast. The church
of Rome now draws its numbers largely from Hispanics across the South and
West. Denominational Protestantism, too, is in decline. Mainline
Protestant denominations claimed 17.2 percent of Americans in 2001, just
12.9 percent in 2008. Even Baptists declined as a portion of population.
In their place have surged generic or nondenominational evangelical
Christian groups (for example, megachurches): 5 percent of Americans in
1990, 11.8 percent today.
Meanwhile, America's fastest-growing religion is ... no
religion at all. In 1990, 8.2 percent of ARIS respondents claimed no
religion; in 2001, 14.2 percent; in 2008, 15 percent. This trend is
confirmed in other studies. A 2004 Pew Center/University of Akron study
using different methodology found 16.1 percentage claiming no religion.
Meanwhile the share of Americans identifying as Christian declined from
86.2 percent in 1990 to just 76 percent today.
Continue reading the full "On Faith" article
on the Washington
Post/Newsweek Website
Tom Flynn is executive
director of the Council for Secular Humanism and editor of Free Inquiry
magazine.
Action on the Hill: OPP at Work
February may be a short month but was action-packed as the
Obama administration charged onward and Congress ran to catch up. The
Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA) was passed, which ensures that all employees
will not suffer pay discrimination. Toni Van Pelt, the Office of Public
Policy’s government affairs director visited senators and prepared
letters and faxes in support of the act. The PFA was passed in the House
of Representatives at the same time as the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
Our efforts and those of our coalition partners have increased the number
of co-sponsors to thirty senators, so we’re hoping for some floor action
by the time spring begins in mid-March.
The OPP sent a blast fax urging them not to reduce funding
for science, research, and medicine in the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (the stimulus bill). They didn’t: when the bill was
signed by President Barack Obama on February 16, it not only retained the
science funding, in some cases it was increased. This money is in
addition to the regular annual appropriation for such agencies as the
National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, so we can expect an increase in scientific research that
was stalled during the previous administration. With our coalition
partners, we sent a thank-you letter to the House and Senate leadership.
In the OPP office, Dr. Stuart Jordan continued The
Credibility Project, which is examining the credibility of the 650 global
warming deniers cited by Oklahoma Senator James M. Inhofe in a speech
last year. With the assistance of volunteer Thomas O’Brien and
CFI/DC executive director Anna Holster, Dr. Jordan is listing the
credentials and publication history of all 650 deniers. He will
publish a CFI position paper, prepare talking points and slides for a
possible briefing to Congress, and publish information on the OPP website
(http://www.centerforinquiry.net/opp)
and our blog (http://cfidc.wordpress.com).
Also, the OPP began the process of commending members of
Congress who furthered aspects of the CFI agenda in the 110th Congress,
2007-2008. The committee we asked to help included two sterling
volunteers, Beth Bernath and Brian Engler, and OPP’s fundraising
consultant, Elizabeth Daerr. In late March, we will be giving foot-high
crystal towers to Democratic representatives Diana DeGette, Brian Baird,
Eddie Bernice Johnson, Henry Waxman, Michael Honda, and Republican Vernon
Ehlers. We’re hoping that we can make this an annual award.
At the end of February, the administration announced its
plans for dealing with the abhorrent “provider refusal” regulation put in
place at the very last minute by the Bush administration’s Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS). The “provider refusal” regulation
required written assurance from organizations (hospitals and clinics
primarily) receiving federal dollars that they would permit reproductive
health professionals to refuse their services on religious or ideological
grounds. The Obama administration’s HHS leadership issued a new
regulation rescinding the Bush rule, but it requires a public comment
period of thirty days. The OPP will be asking CFI members and friends to
send comments supporting the rescission as soon as the rule is published.
Not all the news was positive in February. On February 5,
President Obama signed an executive order establishing the White House
Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, without clearly
outlawing hiring discrimination. The OPP published a position paper
(available at http://www.centerforinquiry.net/opp)
clearly stating our position opposing the use of federal funding for
religious organizations as a violation of church-state separation:
Safeguarding Religious Liberty in Charitable Choice and Faith-Based
Initiatives.
A tip of the hat and thank you to OPP analyst, strategist,
and scribe Ruth Mitchell, the woman who among other important
tasks, keeps our Web site, blog and e-letters current, fresh, and
up to date.
Much of the action begun in February will be continued in
March. Stay tuned!
Obama Takes Steps to Restore Scientific Integrity
The Council and the Center for Inquiry (CFI) applaud
President Obama’s executive order reversing the 8-year-old ban
on federal research funding for stem cell lines created after August
2001.
“The federal government has been a critical source of funds
for health care research in many areas, and it is unconscionable that
progress in stem cell research has been adversely affected for eight
years by objections that reflected little more than religious dogma,”
said Ronald A. Lindsay, CFI president and CEO. “We are very pleased that
President Obama has decided to support this research that is likely to
provide substantial benefit to millions of
individuals.” Lindsay is the author of the 2006 CFI position
paper, “Stem Cell Research: An Approach to Bioethics Based on
Scientific Naturalism,” produced by the Center for Inquiry’s
Washington D.C. Office of Public Policy to clarify the scientific
standing on the ethics of stem cell research.
The reversed Bush Administration restriction previously
forced scientists receiving federal monies to limit stem cell research to
a pre-approved pool of less than two dozen viable lines of nearly
decade-old cells. Hundreds of viable lines have been created since 2001,
but research on them was sharply limited by reliance on private
donations.
Paul Kurtz, CFI founder and chairman, stressed the
significance of opening up access to fresh lines of stem cell for broad,
federally funded research. “If we are going to make significant progress
in developing cures and therapies, researchers have to be able to utilize
all avenues of study—and funding for these studies must be available to
the wider scientific community,” he said. “Our brightest minds should
never have been limited in their access to breakthrough medical
technologies, which essentially allowed the research of our global
competitors to progress with an 8-year head start. Reversing the funding
ban is a move that most in the scientific community welcome as long
overdue.”
Although critics point to advances in the research of
“reprogrammed” human somatic cells, which offer hope as an alternative to
embryonic stem cells, Lindsay notes that any research gains require study
of different types of stem cells, as embryonic stem cells can have
properties different than stem cells created from reprogrammed somatic
cells. “There is promise in many alternative areas of research, but it’s
imprudent to dismiss research on embryonic stem cells simply to appease
opponents whose dogmatic insistence that an embryo is the moral
equivalent of an adult human has no basis in science.”
The Council and CFI also support wholeheartedly the president’s accompanying memorandum assuring the
scientific community freedom from political ideology. In a statement to
reporters, Obama science advisor and past National Institutes of Health
director Dr. Harold Varmus said the president was acting on campaign
promises to return the state of science research to its pre-Bush
prominence. Echoing CFI’s 2006 Declaration in Defense of Science and Secularism,
Varmus said, “Public policy must be guided by sound scientific advice.”
Campaign for reason: CFI takes the lead in the atheist
campaign in the Netherlands
By Floris van
den Berg
The success of the atheist bus campaign in London, initiated
by Ariane Sherine and supported by Richard Dawkins, has inspired atheists
around the world to organize campaigns to advertise unbelief, reason and
atheism. The London slogan is:
There is probably no god
Now stop worrying
And enjoy your life.
CFI/Low Countries, joined by freethinkers and Enlightenment
humanists, has taken the lead in organizing an atheist campaign in the
Netherlands. We changed the second sentence of the slogan, because
disbelief in gods is no guarantee of tranquility. Some problems will
vanish, but, for example, we will all (believers and nonbelievers alike)
be stuck with the consequences of climate change—reasons enough to keep
worrying. Instead, we inserted the adagio of the Enlightenment as
proposed by Immanuel Kant: Dare to think. Thus the Dutch slogan is (in
English translation):
There is probably no god
Dare to think for yourself
And enjoy this life.
There has been some discussion about the word 'probably';
many freethinkers are quite sure there really is no god. But of course,
it is logically impossible to prove a negative. In interviews we explain
that probably means almost certainly. Why do we use only the word 'god'
and not Allah, Yahweh, or any other god? We use the word god as a blanket
term for all deities ever invented, including the Flying Spaghetti
Monster.
The media was immediately interested in the idea of a public
campaign for atheism and Floris van den Berg was interviewed by many
radio stations and newspapers. He was even invited to participate in a
debate on national television. When organizing lectures or symposia, like
the CFI/Low Countries Darwin Day congress on evolution and ethics in
Amsterdam, which was well-attended, the media did not show up. But the
idea of buses or billboards with a simple atheist slogan on it creates
tremendous media interest.
We are now running the atheist campaign for several weeks
and have collected about 10.000 Euros in donations. Without using even
one billboard or bus with an atheist slogan, our campaign has been a
success. Most Dutch newspapers have run stories and commentaries about
us. CFI/Low Countries has now become visible as a secular humanist think
tank. One of our goals is to rehabilitate the word atheist. We want it to
become normal and positive that people identify themselves as atheist, as
in, "I'm an atheist." The number of hits on the Dutch word for
atheist has increased tremendously during the last couple of weeks. In
interviews and on our Web site we want to make it clear that we are more
than just a slogan. We are organizing an atheist meeting in June.
In the Netherlands, it isn't likely we'll see public buses
with atheist slogans because it is illegal to advertise political or
religious slogans. But we will advertise our slogan on billboards.
There is a lot of positive response to the atheist campaign.
Of the hundreds of emails we have received, there were just two people
praying for us. Many people support the positive, colorful campaign for
reason. The Dutch atheists have taken off their cloak of invisibility.
Floris van den Berg
(florisvandenberg@dd.snl)
and Annemarieke Otten
are the executive directors of Center for Inquiry/Low Countries and are
leading the campaign for reason. Their Web site is www.atheismecampagne.nl.
Religion Runs Amok Again,
Still
By Sheldon F. Gottlieb
Religion, like politics, is an endless source of
humor. Unfortunately, in religion and politics there could be
drastic consequences for people deriving from the actions of
practitioners – this is especially true when there is an almost Gordian
Knot-like entanglement of both. Recently, Saudi Arabia's religious
police – the Muslim kingdom's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and
Prevention of Vice – detained two male novelists for questioning after
they attempted to obtain the autograph of a female writer at a book fair
in Riyadh. The Commission is composed of several thousand religious
policemen charged with, among other things, enforcement of dress codes,
mandatory observance of prayer times, and segregation of the sexes.
Because of its adherence to Wahhabism – a strict form of Islam, Saudi
Arabia punishes unrelated men and women who are caught mingling in
public.
Meanwhile, police in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, arrested a young
woman in her 20s for violating the country's ban on women driving.
Women are barred from driving in most of Saudi Arabia, rural areas being
a possible exception. Whether to allow women to drive has become a very
controversial issue for Saudi Arabia. Women's rights activists in the
country have been openly campaigning for the right to drive. Many high
ranking officials maintain that the question of women driving is a
societal issue and will be resolved only when Saudis feel the time is
right. That these incidents occurred in Saudi Arabia is not surprising
since Wahhabism is not just a strict form of Islam but is also noted for
teaching and preaching terror and recruiting terrorists. Saudi
Arabia admitted to spending over $87 billion in the last decade to help
spread Wahhabism.
These incidents are reminders of what is in store for the
Western world in its culture war with Islam. The West had best wake
up to Islam's threat to Western civilization and take action to prevent
this threat from becoming a reality. Religion is a source of
humor. But, as one of the most deadly ideological influences in society,
its intrusion in the political sphere must be guarded against zealously.
Sheldon F.
Gottlieb, PhD
is the author of The Naked Mind. E-mail: shellyeda@gmail.com
Media Desk:
Secular Humanism Online News is edited by Nathan Bupp, Vice
President of Communications for the Council for Secular Humanism and the
Center for Inquiry. nbupp@centerforinquiry.net
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