American Religious Identification Survey 2008 Results 2 of 2

The new ARIS data has been released and there are some interesting results.

These surveys are hard to give too much validity to as people are very sensitive about this info...especially on the non-theist side.

Nonetheless, check out these two articles on it and read up on the survey data itself if you like:

Click here to follow along with the 1990 vs 2008 data when the video gets to that point:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-09-ARIS-faith-survey_N.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=7041036&page=1

The actual survey:
http://b27.cc.trincoll.edu/weblogs/AmericanReligionSurvey-ARIS/reports/ARIS_R...

If statistics and data are boring to you...don't even bother watching this. Click on the links are go read the highlights...I went into much further detail than many will can about. Sorry.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• king
• heathen
• atheist
• atheism
• christianity
• bible
• jesus
• god

[HunterProvyn]

Thanks for your analysis and cheers to you for putting it out there for us. I didn't realize that we atheists actually had a chance until recently. Now I'm glued to all the videos. I'm glad the "nones" are up but we need to make more progress. I think that the movement will accelerate as it seems to me like the number of popular books about atheism are on the rise.

[KingHeathen]

it's not just books...

Atheism is getting a lot of publicity that isn't of the "going to hell" kind...

House (the character) is an openly atheistic doctor...and people LOVE THE GUY! I'll put it like this:

The gay movement gained huge ground when they started being portrayed in movies asking for tolerance and acceptance. In just a few years, they went from obscurity to having their own presidential debate at the same time as going from comedy relief to main character!

Coincidence?

[flurble33]

Didn't know House was atheist :D

[KingHeathen]

The actor that plays him is too.

[Castaa]

I would like to see more skeptics than anything.

I wonder why there is such an uptick in non-believers in the younger age group? And do younger non-believers return to a religious fold as they age?

[KingHeathen]

"And do younger non-believers return to a religious fold as they age?"

That is the real question...religious people, of course, claim they will and blame it on immaturity and ignorance. But we all know that the opposite is usually more accurate.

[ImaxDSHIFTJavier]

not rly. the most logical god belief would probably be a variation of pantheism, since, at that point, ud no longer be arguing the existence of god, but mere semantics. as i said, a VARIATION of pantheism. the most logical MONOtheistic belief, however, would probably be a very vague and loose form of simple monotheism, something that cannot be categorized any further.

[LordMalice6d9]

Well o be honest Deism is probably the most logical God belief there is.

[borgimplant]

That's a great point. I think that what happened for gays will also happen for atheists. There will be a precipitous shift of public opinion toward our favor. We just have to wait for the tipping point to occur. Once it becomes as socially convenient to accept us as to despise us, big things will happen.

[RPR1983]

I tend to think all those books written by Dawkins, Harris, Hitches etc were aimed at the quiet yet persistent population of nonbelievers out there.

The sort of "you are not alone" message the gay pride parades send to all there comrades in hiding.

[Singebuggercat]

Well, the aliens were only ever here to consult with the dolphins on what to do about the feral human population schmutzing up the planet anyways...

[Singebuggercat]

Being saluted with a pint of guiness and the words 'hey heathens' makes my day. I have no RL. :_(