Joanna
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>> [lbo-talk] RE: An Appeal to Ignorance
>> Marvin Gandall marvgandall at rogers.com
>> Tue Jun 14 16:52:42 PDT 2005
>
> <snip>
>
>> My apologies if this has already been canvassed on this long thread -
>> I've dipped in and out of it - but isn't the more important
>> distinction for our purposes not between athiesm and religion, but
>> between liberals and conservatives within the religious communities?
>
>
> Surely the main religious division is one within religion (which cuts
> across denominational boundaries) -- between liberal and conservative
> faiths. The question is whether liberal faiths can successfully
> compete with conservative ones.
>
> On one hand, those who might have joined and become active in liberal
> faith communities (had they been born earlier) are increasingly
> choosing "no religion": "One of the most dramatic changes recorded by
> the survey is the sharp increase in the number of Americans who do not
> subscribe to any religion (a category that includes atheists,
> agnostics, humanists, secularists and those who do not identify with
> any religion). Their number has more than doubled from 14 million in
> 1990 (8 percent of the total population) to 29 million in 2001 (14
> percent), and seems to be trending further upward. Of those professing
> no religion, 35 percent are between the ages of 18 and 29, while only
> 8 percent are over the age of 65. Looks like the next generation isn't
> only choosing their religion, their losing it as well" ("One Nation,
> Under God? - U.S. Religious Demographic Information," American
> Demographics,
> <http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_2002_Jan_1/ai_82264532>,
> 1 Jan. 2002). If they are inclined to "spirituality" at all, they are
> probably like Chris, Joanna, and Dennis here, who aren't joiners and
> would rather go mushrooming (cf.
> <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050613/012450.html>)
> on their merry individualist ways. :->
>
> On the other hand, liberal faiths, which sharply limit their
> epistemological claims to coexist with science and restrain their
> socio-political ambitions within the scope of political liberalism,
> are hardly distinguishable from secular humanism in practice -- hence
> they fail to attract those who want religion in a robust sense
> (without being able to intellectually satisfy "atheists, agnostics,
> humanists, secularists and those who do not identify with any
> religion" enough to lead them to join them) . That failure shows as
> net losses in their membership:
>
> <blockquote>EXHIBIT 7
> Number of Adults by Current and Prior Religious Identification, 2001
> (Weighted Estimate)
> Name of Group Current Net Gain
> Number (Loss)
> Catholic 50,873,000 -9%
> Baptist 33,830,000 -1%
> NO RELIGION 29,481,000 23%
> Christian 14,190,000 11%
> Methodist 14,140,000 -7%
> Lutheran 9,580,000 -1%
> Presbyterian 5,596,000 -2%
> Protestant 4,647,000 -14%
> Pentecostal 4,407,000 16%
> Episcopalian/Anglican 3,451,000 5%
> Jewish* 2,831,000 -4%
> Mormon 2,787,000 0%
> Churches of Christ 2,503,000 -2%
> Non-denominational 2,489,000 37%
> Congregational/UCC 1,378,000 -6%
> Jehovah's Witnesses 1,331,000 11%
> Assemblies of God 1,105,000 7%
> Muslim/Islamic 1,104,000 8%
> Buddhist 1,082,000 12%
> Evangelical/Born Again 1,032,000 42%
> Church of God 944,000 241,296 5%
> Seventh Day Adventist 724,000 11%
>
> *NOTE: Only Jews by religion are included in the analysis.
>
> ("The American Religious Identification Survey 2001,"
> <http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf>, 19 Dec.
> 2001, p. 24)</blockquote>