X-Message-Number: 30537
From: 
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:16:03 EST
Subject: religiosity in the U.S.

Content-Language: en

 
 
 
 
The  following is abridged from a NYT piece. I think it reinforces my 

perception that  reported beliefs are not necessarily very meaningful and 
"religion" 
is not a  major factor in the slow growth of cryonics. 

R.E.
 
 
 

 
 
By NEELA BANERJEE


Published: February 25, 2008
 
WASHINGTON     More than a quarter of adult Americans have left the faith of  
their childhood to join another religion or no religion, according to a new  
survey of religious affiliation by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public  Life. 
 
 
 

The report, titled    U.S. Religious Landscape Survey,    depicts a highly fluid
 and diverse national religious life. If shifts among Protestant 

denominations  are included, then it appears that 44 percent of Americans have 
switched  
religious affiliations. 



The report shows, for example, that every religion is losing and gaining  

members, but that the Roman Catholic Church    has experienced the greatest net

losses as a result of affiliation changes.    The survey also indicates that the
group that had the greatest net gain was the unaffiliated. More than 16 

percent  of American adults say they are not part of any organized faith, which
makes the  unaffiliated the country   s fourth largest    religious group.    
In the 1980s, the General Social Survey by the National Opinion Research  
Center indicated that from 5 percent to 8 percent of the population described  
itself as unaffiliated with a particular religion.  
In the Pew survey 7.3 percent of the adult population said they were  

unaffiliated with a faith as children. That segment increases to 16.1 percent of
the 
population in adulthood, the survey found. The unaffiliated are largely  

under 50 and male.    Nearly one-in-five men say they have no formal religious
affiliation, compared with roughly 13 percent of women,    the survey said. 
The rise of the unaffiliated does not mean that Americans are becoming less  
religious, however. Contrary to assumptions that most of the unaffiliated are  
atheists or agnostics, most described their religion    as nothing in 

particular.     While the unaffiliated have been growing, Protestantism has been

declining, the  survey found. In the 1970s, Protestants accounted for about 
two-thirds 
of the  population. The Pew survey found they now make up about 51 percent. 
Evangelical  Christians account for a slim majority of Protestants, and those 

who leave one  evangelical denomination usually move to another, rather than to
mainline  churches. 

   The trend is toward more personal religion, and evangelicals offer that,
   said Mr. Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, 
who  explained that evangelical churches tailor many of their activities for 

youth.     Those losing out are offering impersonal religion and those winning 
are 
 offering a smaller scale: mega-churches succeed not because they are mega 
but  because they have smaller ministries inside.    
The percentage of Catholics in the American population has held steady for  
decades at about 25 percent. But that masks a precipitous decline in 

native-born  Catholics. The proportion has been bolstered by the large influx of
Catholic  immigrants, mostly from Latin America, the survey found.  
The Catholic Church has lost more adherents than any other group: about  

one-third of respondents raised Catholic said they no longer identified as such.
Based on the data, the survey showed,    this means that roughly 10 percent of 
all  Americans are former Catholics.    
Immigration continues to influence American religion greatly, the survey  

found. The majority of immigrants are Christian, and almost half are Catholic.
Muslims rival Mormons for having the largest families. And Hindus are the  
best-educated and among the richest religious groups, the survey found. 









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