barnson.org Half-baked opinions, served lukewarm.

I ran across a study today on people's answers to the basic question, "What is your religion, if any?".

Key findings:

• the proportion of the population that can be classified as Christian has declined from eighty-six in 1990 to seventy-seven percent in 2001;
• although the number of adults who classify themselves in non-Christian religious groups has increased from about 5.8 million to about 7.7 million, the proportion of non-Christians has increased only by a very small amount - from 3.3 % to about 3.7 %;
• the greatest increase in absolute as well as in percentage terms has been among those adults who do not subscribe to any religious identification; their number has more than doubled from 14.3 million in 1990 to 29.4 million in 2001; their proportion has grown from just eight percent of the total in 1990 to over fourteen percent in 2001
• there has also been a substantial increase in the number of adults who refused to reply to the question about their religious preference, from about four million or two percent in 1990 to more than eleven million or over five percent in 2001;
• Women are more likely than men to describe their outlook as "religious";
• Older Americans are more likely than younger to describe their outlook as "religious";
• Black Americans are least likely to describe themselves as secular, Asian Americans are most likely to do so;
• those who identify with one or another of the main religious groups are considerably more likely to be married than those who have no religion;
• Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and those with no religion continue to have a greater preference for the Democratic party over the Republican - much as they did in 1990. Evangelical or Born Again Christians and Mormons are the most apt to identify as Republicans. Buddhists and those with no religion are most likely to be political independents. In keeping with their theology, Jehovah's Witnesses disavow political involvement.

What do you think this means, if anything, for America? What do you think are the causes? The effects?