Comments on: Churches most segregated places in the US: Fox News Minister Say’s that’s great.

By: Joshua Zelinsky

Joshua Zelinsky — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 03:30:51 +0000

Note that there’s very different demographics for those who self-identify as “non-religious” as opposed to “agnostics” and “atheists.” See for example http://pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx which shows that the non-religious generally know less about religion than the atheists and agnostics. I suspect that many of the people who call themselves “non-religious” or “no religion” are the sort who say that “I’m not religious but I’m spiritual” and things like that.

By: Anton Mates

Anton Mates — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:08:53 +0000

But half of those still identify as religious, and only 1.6% actually call themselves atheist or agnostics.

Ooops. I should have said, "Only 1.6% of the American population." That's about 15% of the population of nonbelievers.

By: Anton Mates

Anton Mates — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:06:17 +0000

There's a lot of confusion in these figures, of course, with people sometimes unwilling to accept the label despite their unbelief.

Yep. In fact, from the ARIS data, about 12% of the American population are declared nonbelievers (in either a personal or impersonal God). But half of those still identify as religious, and only 1.6% actually call themselves atheist or agnostics.

By: Nemo

Nemo — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 01:40:20 +0000

Five percent sounds like a low estimate for atheists.

I wish. You might be thinking of the studies that report 15-20% of Americans as “no religion”. But the number willing to call themselves “atheists” is more like 2.5%, last I heard. Which is still a huge increase from what it was only a few years ago.

There’s a lot of confusion in these figures, of course, with people sometimes unwilling to accept the label despite their unbelief.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 02:51:38 +0000

Rob, who cares? Teabaggers make up everything they say. I chose to create my own mythology about them and they have to live with that. Indeed, they don’t even call themselves teabaggers. And, to put a finer point on it, they claim to be old fashioned patriots, so the tebaggers go way back a couple of hundred years.

By: Rob (a different one)

Rob (a different one) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 01:10:27 +0000

@elspi:

Is he a teabagger? I’ve seen that image around a lot longer than I remember teabaggers.

By: elspi

elspi — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 22:43:42 +0000

Budbear
They know how it is spelled
They are making fun of the teabaggers
In particular this guy:
http://tinyurl.com/24w97f4

By: Budbear

Budbear — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:29:34 +0000

As a recovering RC, I can assure you that his vacuous blather was not atypical of what the church passes off as theology. As far as the two nodding nitwits sitting there with him go…well, it is Fox News after all. Idiocy to the 3rd power.
Pedantic moment: it’s spelled m-o-r-o-n, folks. Sorry. Pet peeve.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:44:06 +0000

Five percent sounds like a low estimate for atheists.

By: Nemo

Nemo — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 19:34:34 +0000

I assume the remaining 5% are atheists. But the “Distant God” answerers, those would be Deists — I think we can count them as on our side for many purposes.