You're thinking along lines similar to mine. But I have a different take on who the "nones" are, and a pointed critique of the ARIS study too.

The ARIS pollsters, as their leading question, asked respondents "Are you religious ?". For respondents who answered "Not religious", that ended the questions and they were placed in the "none religious" category.

Problem is, over the last three decades there has arisen a whole new movement in Christianity, Third Wave Christianity, in which being "religious" has been highly stigmatized. In fact, to be "religious" is considered as being under the influence of a demonic spirit, the "religious spirit."

This idea is being pushed on a global scale and has been heavily promoted by Ted Haggard's former megachurch in Colorado Springs. One can get a sense of how culturally widespread this new understanding of what it is to be "religious" by doing a Google search on the term "Religious Spirit."

The "religious spirit" is held to be a demon spirit that promotes legalistic, ritualistic, pro-forma, "dead" faith.

by Bruce Wilson on Tue Sep 29, 2009 at 11:38:42 AM EST

The Dominionists (or whatever you call them) drove me from Christianity, but not from Christ.  Their attempts to control and dictate every aspect of my life AND their mental/emotional abuse is what did it- and there are MANY people like me (walkaways).  Some have been driven completely from religion, some changed religions, some (like me) rejected the brainwashing and micromanaging and walk our own paths in Christianity.

I will also say that liberalism and education have opened my eyes to the politics going on in the churches.

One more point- I walked from the Pentecostal/Dominionist/Fundamentalist churches around 27 years ago because of their evil- and walked away from the mainstream churches around here because they are so steeplejacked.  So it all points back to the same crowd- the Dominionists/Religious Right/whatever.  I think this is a common theme as well.

The behavior of those dominionists- not at all surprising.  I've been hearing a lot of anti-Muslim nonsense lately.

by ArchaeoBob on Tue Sep 29, 2009 at 06:18:11 PM EST

It's a common mistake to assume that the "nones" are secularists or religious skeptics. In fact, as the Trinity study shows, many of them are believers but aren't comfortable in established houses of worship. They practice a kind of "do-it-yourself" spirituality.

I have to disagree with you and Bruce.  I don't think the "nones" are hiding a subgroup of devoted Christians who have soured on organized religion.  While I am sure there are a few in amongst the sharp rise, I'm willing to bet that they are far outnumbered by those who still believe there is some sort of God but are no longer willing to accept that traditional Christianity has the right answer.

In other words they straddle the line between conventional faith and agnosticism -- primarily because they find the idea of there being no God, of there being nothing else beyond this life, too cold, too final to accept.

So, yes, comparisons with Thomas Jefferson are appropriate, but only up to a point.  I doubt that most of the "nones" consider the questions of faith as deeply as Jefferson did.  They're content to be skeptical of religion while believing that there must be something more, even to the point of offering up a prayer now and then when things get a little tough.  But in general they lead very secular lives and are hard to distinguish from true agnostics without sitting down and questioning them.

This has been my experience both in the UK and here in the States.  A couple of friends of mine (one an American conservative) fall explicitly into this category but as long as 30 years ago, as I was growing up in Scotland, many of my classmates would acknowledge that there "must be something out there" without feeling much need to explore the possibilities that Christianity and other religions have to offer.  I suspect few of them ever ended up joining a church after leaving school.

Furthermore, I'd be willing to bet that as it becomes more acceptable to be a "none", the trend will continue as the researchers predict, as more people, particularly conservatives who currently fear being ostracized by their religious friends and family, begin to feel more secure about their non-religious identity.

This may eventually show up as a drop in the number of children attending Sunday School.  One thing I have noticed since coming to the US is a good number of my friends who had nothing to do with church until their got married and started having children, obviously feeling that it's important (for whatever reason) to have their kids brought up in their own religious tradition.  This used to happen in the UK as well, back when I was a kid in the 60s and 70s.  You don't find that happening much at all these days.  There is a good chance that what's happening in the US today is what happened 40 years ago in Britain.

So I view this as an entirely positive trend and confirms to me that we are seeing the gradual secularization of belief, which has already been see in many Western European countries (decades ago in some cases).  Historical and political differences probably preclude the same levels of secularization being achieved in the long run, but any reduction decreases the sway the fundamentalists hold over the American political process, and that certainly will be a good thing.

by tacitus on Tue Sep 29, 2009 at 02:25:46 PM EST

I challenge atheists who say we just don't have our brains in gear:  166 years ago Abbott showed that contiguous geometrical worlds explain where God is and why we can't see him.  So we  wrote 'Techie Worlds' for mechanical people and did the scientific thing:  we looked at Christian teachings like the Trinity, like resurrection, judgment, the idea of a soul.  In contiguous geometrical worlds these things are logical and understandable, even though to 'this-world-only' atheists they are ridiculous imaginings.
   We see a lot of belief in devils, in miracles, in good and evil spirits.  Just talk with your friendly Wiccas and Satanists.  Their recognition of spirit worlds makes it more probable that our view of the world is correct.   Besides, there is Pascal's wager, pointing out that Christian belief can reward while atheism surely leads to death.  The labels: Thinking, Logical, Reasonable, Rational really belong to Christians more than to those proudly acclaimed agnostics.  Get a copy of  'Techie Worlds'  from www.amazon.com and see the reasonableness of Abbott's explanation.

GeorgeRic

by GeorgeRic on Sun Oct 04, 2009 at 09:49:21 PM EST