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interesting graphic.
it's hard to interpret this sort of thing. first for me at 11:43 am on friday the 13th of july---for some reason, i couldn't move back from the graphic link to the source material, so i dont know what the data is--i assume it's based on the last census.
if so, then ticking off a box that identifies you with a particular religion doesn't really say terribly much about you: nothing about what that identification means, nothing about degree of participation, nothing about the political orientation of the denomination, etc.
that the states is full of people who process via religion is not news---tocqueville worried about the implications of this for democracy in america after 1830, when it plausibly existed. that said, the graphic is very cool to stare at.
aside: i still dont think atheism is on the rise--i think the term atheism is more prominent because it was a rhetorical device that the protestant right used to "explain" the collapse of the political coalition it was part of. from my wayward youth involvement with a pentacostalist group, i dont remember much latitude in far right protestant discourse for explaining defeat except attributing it to the rise of the Forces of Evil, Satan and his Minions, which obviously include those nasty demonic forces called atheists.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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