On 30/08/2019 13:56, trader_4 wrote:
On Friday, August 30, 2019 at 8:37:31 AM UTC-4, Bod wrote:
On 30/08/2019 12:39, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Friday, August 30, 2019 at 6:56:11 AM UTC-4, Bod wrote:
On 30/08/2019 11:40, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Friday, August 30, 2019 at 12:37:11 AM UTC-4, Bod wrote:
In recent years much has been written about the rise of the
€œnones€�€”people who check the box for €œnone€� on surveys of religious
affiliation. A 2013 Harris Poll of 2,250 American adults, for example,
found that 23 percent of all Americans have forsaken religion
altogether. A 2015 Pew Research Center poll reported that 34 to 36
percent of millennials (those born after 1980) are nones and
corroborated the 23 percent figure, adding that this was a dramatic
increase from 2007, when only 16 percent of Americans said they were
affiliated with no religion. In raw numbers, this translates to an
increase from 36.6 million to 55.8 million nones.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ion-is-rising/
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Bod

That doesn't necessarily mean they don't believe in God. Just that they
don't belong to a church.

Cindy Hamilton

I assume then, that a lot of the "not affliated to any religion"
probably means they believe in a deist god....yes?

Yes.

Cindy Hamilton

In that case, a deist god is the same as no god, inasmuch that a
deist god does not intervene at all. It supposedly just creates the
world and then lets Earthlings sort themselves out.

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Bod

I think what Cindy is saying is if you want to know if people believe in
God or not, then that's the question you need to ask. And it would also
be helpful to see the actual survey question and choices. Just because
someone is not 'affiliated' with any church, doesn't mean that they don't
believe in god, deist or otherwise. There are plenty of people who believe,
but haven't been to church in decades. How would they respond? Choose
the church they were affiliated with at birth, when they were a kid?
Or say no affiliation. A survey should include a choice for agnostics too.


Good points.


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Bod