Quote:
Originally posted by reconmike
Religions:
Protestant 56%, Roman Catholic 28%, Jewish 2%, other 4%, none 10% (1989)
This is from the CIA world fact book.
Lets see 84% Christian, kinda looks like a Christian nation to me.
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If this was a Christian nation then 100% would need to be Christian. Also I have seen figures as low as 58% Christian and as high as 93.5% all from supposed government sources (and within the las 2 years).
Here is a good article from a totally non-biased religious tolerance web site called the Ontario consultants on Religious Tolerance:
The shift away from Christianity and other organized religions:
The United States appears to be going through an unprecedented change in religious practices. Large numbers of American adults are disaffiliating themselves from Christianity and from other organized religions. Since World War II, this process had been observed in other countries, like the U.K., other European countries, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. But, until recently, affiliation with Christianity had been at a high level -- about 87% -- and stable in the U.S.
Polling data from the 2001 ARIS study, described below, indicate that:
81% of American adults identify themselves with a specific religion: 76.5% (159 million) of Americans identify themselves as Christian. This is a major slide from 86.2% in 1990. Identification with Christianity has suffered a loss of 9.7 percentage points in 11 years -- about 0.9 percentage points per year. This decline is identical to that observed in Canada between 1981 and 2001. If this trend continues, then by about the year 2042, non-Christians will outnumber the Christians in the U.S. 52% of Americans identified themselves as Protestant.
24.5% are Roman Catholic.
1.3% are Jewish.
0.5% are Muslim, followers of Islam.
The fastest growing religion (in terms of percentage) is Wicca -- a Neopagan religion that is sometimes referred to as Witchcraft. Numbers of adherents went from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001. Their numbers of adherents are doubling about every 30 months. 4,5 Wiccans in Australia have a very similar growth pattern, from fewer than 2,000 in 1996 to 9,000 in 2001. 10 In Canada, Wiccans and other Neopagans showed the greatest percentage growth of any faith group. They totaled 21,080 members in 1991, an increase of 281% from.
14.1% do not follow any organized religion. This is an unusually rapid increase -- almost a doubling -- from only 8% in 1990. There are more Americans who say they are not affiliated with any organized religion than there are Episcopalians, Methodists, and Lutherans taken together. 6
The unaffiliated vary from a low of 3% in North Dakota to 25% in Washington State. "The six states with the highest percentage of people saying they have no religion are all Western states, with the exception of Vermont at 22%." 6
A USA Today/Gallup Poll in 2002-JAN showed that almost half of American adults appear to be alienated from organized religion. If current trends continue, most adults will not call themselves religious within a few years. Results include:
About 50% consider themselves religious (down from 54% in 1999-DEC)
About 33% consider themselves "spiritual but not religious" (up from 30%)
About 10% regard themselves as neither spiritual or religious. 6
for the rest of the article:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac2.htm