Bill O'Reilly Has The Religion Study Sadz

According to Bill O'Reilly, the continuing decline in the percentage of self-identified Christians will bring about the collapse of the United States. Plus something something fall of Rome.

Glenn Beck Has The Religion Study Sadz

“You define yourself as a Christian and you’re going to be defined by society as narrow-minded, judgmental, hateful. Believing marriage is between a man and a woman [is] used as ammunition to say you hate gays. Teaching intelligent design is literally likened to child abuse now, mocked as ‘anti-science.’ Virginity is mocked. Being pro-life is being spun as a war on women. So growing up today as a millennial — that is damn near impossible. Who would intentionally put themselves in a crowd that society has deemed anti-gay, anti-women, anti-science?” - Glenn Beck, responding to yesterday's study by Pew Research.

Bill Donohue Has The Religion Study Sadz

"The bad news is already dominating media reports: more Americans are religiously unaffiliated than ever before. The ranks of Protestants and Catholics are declining, and the percentage of atheists and agnostics are increasing. This is true across age groups, though it is most pronounced among young people. Most of those with no religious affiliation are neither atheist or agnostic: the majority of them identify as 'nothing in particular' (some of whom are believers). They might best be called the 'Whatever' generation. Look for many of the 'Whatevers' to eventually get anchored, though a large number of them are lost souls." - Catholic League blowhard Bill Donohue, reacting to today's study by Pew Research.

The Rise Of The Nones: 23% Of Americans Now Atheist Or Unaffiliated With Religion

Via Pew Research:

Christians are declining, both as a share of the U.S. population and in total number. In 2007, 78.4% of U.S. adults identified with Christian groups, such as Protestants, Catholics, Mormons and others; seven years later, that percentage has fallen to 70.6%. Accounting for overall population growth in that period, that means there are roughly 173 million Christian adults in the U.S. today, down from about 178 million in 2007.

The decline of Christians in the U.S. has corresponded with the continued rise in the share of Americans with no religious affiliation (religious “nones”). People who self-identify as atheists or agnostics (about 7% of all U.S. adults), as well as those who say their religion is “nothing in particular,” now account for a combined 22.8% of U.S. adults – up from 16.1% in 2007. The growth of the “nones” has been powered in part by religious switching. Nearly one-in-five U.S. adults (18%) were raised as Christians or members of some other religion, but now say they have no religious affiliation.

There are clear differences between certain demographic groups when it comes to religious affiliation. For example, younger adults are far more likely than older Americans to identify as religious “nones,” and men are more likely than women to be religiously unaffiliated. But despite these differences, the major trends seen in American religion since 2007 – the decline of Christians and rise of the “nones” – have occurred in some form across many demographic groups, including men and women, older and younger Americans, and people with different levels of education and different races and ethnicities.

The study also shows that Muslims now make up 0.9% of the population.

UPDATE: The Center For Inquiry celebrates.

"America is transforming before our eyes," said Ronald A. Lindsay, President and CEO of the Center for Inquiry. "We are witnessing a tectonic shift from a nation nearly unified in its religiousness a generation ago, to an America where increasing numbers of Americans are rejecting religious doctrines and are living lives largely free of religious influence."

"While it's important to acknowledge that not all of the 'Nones' are nonbelievers, this sharp decline in religious affiliation points to a growing embrace of religious doubt among Americans," said Lindsay. "Whether they consider themselves spiritual or atheist, the willingness to inquire and question religious assumptions is a promising sign for our nation's future. We need critical thinkers, not followers."

Added Lindsay, "Millennials make up the most secular generation America has ever known, which means that year by year, the grip of religion on American policy and culture will only continue to loosen. And a more secular America will be one that is closer the America envisioned in our founding documents: a nation governed by reason, whose policies are not influenced by religious beliefs."

POLL: 7% Of All LGBTs Oppose Marriage Equality, 19% Of Gay Republicans Do Too

Via the Washington Post:

If you thought everyone in the LGBT community wanted gay marriage, you would be wrong. It's much more nuanced than that. A new chart from Pew, based on 2013 data, shows that 7 percent of LGBT Americans said they oppose same-sex marriage. And another 18 percent said they favor it, but that they didn't feel strongly. Perhaps most striking, 39 percent of the LGBT community said the marriage fight was taking focus off other issues of import to them. Opposition to gay marriage in the LGBT community, such as it exists, is driven by three groups: LGBT blacks, LGBT Republicans, and bisexual Americans. While 12 percent of the black LGBT community opposed gay marriage, nearly one in five (19 percent) Republicans did, too. Only 45 percent of LGBT Republicans said they strongly favored gay marriage -- the lowest of any group. Fifty-eight percent of LGBT blacks said they strongly favor it.

Tony Perkins will surely rush out a fevered press release. (Tipped by JMG reader Homer)

Same-Sex Marriage Rights Timeline

Pew Research has posted a 20-year timeline on the history of bans on same-sex marriage and the subsequent state-by-state wins. Hit the link and drag the timeline bar to the right. (Tipped by JMG reader Lynda)

Pew Ranks "Trusted" News Outlets

From the Pew Research report:

Those with consistently conservative political values are oriented around a single outlet—Fox News—to a much greater degree than those in any other ideological group: Nearly half (47%) of those who are consistently conservative name Fox News as their main source for government and political news. Far fewer choose any other single source: Local radio ranks second, named by 11%, with no other individual source named by more than 5% of consistent conservatives. Those with mostly conservative views also gravitate strongly toward Fox News – 31% name it as their main source, several times the share who name the next most popular sources, including CNN (9%), local television (6%) and radio (6%) and Yahoo News (6%).

On the left of the political spectrum, no single outlet predominates. Among consistent liberals, CNN (15%), NPR (13%), MSNBC (12%) and the New York Times (10%) all rank near the top of the list. CNN is named by just 20% of those with mostly liberal views, but still tops their list, followed by local television (11%) and NPR (9%). Both MSNBC and Fox News are mentioned by 5% of those who are mostly liberal. Those in other ideological groups name the New York Times, NPR and MSNBC less frequently as top news sources.

Respondents with a roughly equal mix of liberal and conservative values also have a diffuse mix of news providers. CNN (20%) and local television (16%) are the most frequently-named top sources, with a long list of other news sources named by fewer than one-in-ten. Fox News (8%) is among the most-named sources in this “long tail,” along with Yahoo News (7%) and Google News (6%), both of which primarily aggregate and highlight news produced by other outlets.

For the record, I highly trust last place Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner.

POLL: Support For Gay Marriage Dips

Via the Associated Press:

A survey released Monday from the Pew Research Center indicates American support for same-sex marriage could be leveling off after several years of dramatic growth in acceptance of equal rights for gays and lesbians. The study's authors caution it's too soon to draw any definitive conclusions. But the new poll released Monday found a 5 percentage point drop since February, from 54 percent to 49 percent, in Americans who want legal recognition for same-sex relationships. The percentage of those opposed increased during that same period, from 39 percent in February to 41 percent last month. The poll of 2,002 adults, conducted Sept. 2-9, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. "Since we've seen this upward trend for so long, we're cautious because it's too early to say what this means for long-term trends," said Jessica Martinez, a researcher in Pew's Religion and Public Life Project. "As we continue to ask this question in other surveys, we'll keep an eye on where this moves."

In addition to the dip in support for same-sex marriage, the percentage of Americans who consider homosexuality to be a sin increased by five points to 50%. Stand by for cartwheels from the right on both issues. The poll also suggests that Americans are more inclined to approve of mixing religion and politics.

Nearly three-quarters of the public (72%) now thinks religion is losing influence in American life, up 5 percentage points from 2010 to the highest level in Pew Research polling over the past decade. And most people who say religion's influence is waning see this as a bad thing. Perhaps as a consequence, a growing share of the American public wants religion to play a role in U.S. politics. The share of Americans who say churches and other houses of worship should express their views on social and political issues is up 6 points since the 2010 midterm elections (from 43% to 49%). The share who say there has been “too little” expression of religious faith and prayer from political leaders is up modestly over the same period (from 37% to 41%).

Religion Maps

Via Pew Research:

Earlier this summer, on World Population Day, we explained that half of the world’s population lives in just six countries. In many cases, the world’s major religious groups are even more concentrated, with half or more of their followers living in one or a handful of countries. For several years, demographers at the Pew Research Center have been studying the demographic characteristics of eight groups: Buddhists, Christians, adherents of folk religions, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, the religiously unaffiliated and followers of other religions. While Christians and Muslims are more widely distributed around the world, the other groups have a majority of their populations in just one or two nations, according to 2010 estimates from our Global Religious Landscape report.

While there continues to be much attention paid to the growth of the religiously unaffiliated population in Europe and North America, more than half (62%) of the world’s 1.1 billion unaffiliated people live in one Asian country: China. China also is home to 50% of the world’s 488 million Buddhists and 73% of the 405 million global adherents of folk religions. Since China is the world’s most populous nation, it may not be altogether unexpected that it has a lot of people in a variety of categories. While China accounts for 19% of the world’s overall population, it is home to majorities of all Buddhists, unaffiliated people and adherents of folk religions.

More maps are at the link.

STUDY: Church Attendance Is Exaggerated

Via the New York Times:

A new study, released Saturday, suggests that the gradual secularization of the nation has not eliminated the perceived social desirability of going to church, and the result is that Americans exaggerate their religious behavior. That exaggeration is more pronounced among some groups — Catholics, mainline Protestants and, strikingly, the unaffiliated, meaning that even people willing to say they don’t belong to a religious tradition still feel compelled to exaggerate their attendance at worship services.

The study, by the Public Religion Research Institute, used an intriguing method to try to measure exaggeration: It asked the same set of questions in telephone interviews, and in an online survey, and compared the results. Researchers say that online surveys, with their lack of human questioners, significantly reduce “social desirability bias” in polling — the tendency of people to exaggerate behaviors that they think will impress others. In this study, the group that took the online surveys reported much lower levels of worship attendance than those interviewed by telephone.

Pew Issues Global Morality Survey

Pew Research has issued a report on a "global morality survey" they conducted last spring. As you can see above, homosexuality averaged out to be somewhat more acceptable than adultery and gambling in the 40 countries surveyed. In the USA:

An overwhelming majority of Americans said extramarital affairs were morally unacceptable. But fewer Americans said that abortion was unacceptable (49%), with 17% saying abortion was morally acceptable and 23% saying it was not a moral issue. Meanwhile, less than four-in-ten Americans are strongly opposed to homosexuality (37% unacceptable), premarital sex (30%), gambling (24%), divorce (22%) and alcohol usage (16%). For these issues, a majority of Americans said that they were either morally acceptable or not a moral issue. And when it came to the issue of contraceptive use, only 7% said this was unacceptable.

There's an interactive chart on the homosexuality question. The "acceptable" responses seem rather low, especially for the United States and Canada. The shaded percentage column below is "unacceptable." Hit the link for the full list of countries. The top five surveyed nations most accepting of homosexuality: Czech Republic, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Chile.

Pew Research Poll: Majority Of Young Republicans Support Same-Sex Marriage

From a Pew Research poll:

Today, 61% of Republicans and Republican leaners under 30 favor same-sex marriage while just 35% oppose it. By contrast, just 27% of Republicans ages 50 and older favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry. This generation gap among Republicans comes against a backdrop of rapidly changing public opinion overall on the issue. More than half the public (54%) now favors allowing gays and lesbians to legally marry, a record high in Pew Research surveys, in keeping with findings from other recent polls. Democrats and Republicans remain on opposite sides of the issue, with 69% of Democrats and Democratic leaning independents favoring same-sex marriage compared with 39% Republicans and Republican leaners.

Only 18% of the polled young Republicans say that gay parenting is a "bad thing."

Bitter Tea

Pew Research reports:

The Tea Party’s favorability rating has fallen across most groups since June, but the decline has been particularly dramatic among moderate and liberal Republicans. In the current survey, just 27% of moderate and liberal Republicans have a favorable impression of the Tea Party, down from 46% in June. The decline in favorable views of the Tea Party over the past four months crosses party lines – Republicans, independents and Democrats all offer more negative assessments today than in June. For Republicans, the decline is steepest among those who describe themselves as moderate or liberal. Today, Moderate Republicans Less Positive toward Tea Partyonly about a quarter (27%) of moderate and liberal Republicans have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party movement, down 19 points from June. Yet the Tea Party’s ratings have also declined among conservative Republicans, from 74% favorable in June to 65% now.

(Tipped by JMG reader David)

Global Homosexuality Acceptance Map

Via Policy Mic. (Tipped by JMG reader Eric)

Pew Research Survey: 48% Of LGBT Americans Have No Religious Affiliation

In another release from the latest survey from Pew Research, we learn the unsurprising news that gays are more than twice as likely to be atheists or religiously unaffiliated.

When it comes to religion, the LGBT population has a distinctly different profile than the general public. Fewer LGBT adults have a religious affiliation. About half of LGBT respondents describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or having no particular religion (48%)─more than double the portion of the general public that is religiously unaffiliated (20%). Young LGBT adults are particularly likely to have no religious affiliation, a pattern that is also found among the general public. However, compared with the general public, a higher share of LGBT adults are unaffiliated across all age groups. For example, among adults ages 18 to 29 in the general public, 31% are religiously unaffiliated, while roughly double that share (60%) are unaffiliated among LGBT adults of the same age. And roughly one-in-eight adults ages 50 and older in the general public are unaffiliated (13%), compared with about four-in-ten (39%) of older LGBT adults.