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Hello everyone, I'm new and hope I'm in the right forum for my question.
I've been using city-data for over 8 years to check out demographics on various occasions for myself, family, and friends. It is an invaluable tool so thank you city-data!
I always check the religious makeup of a place. I see it as important. Very recently there has been a big change: a tremendous increase in the % categorized as "none" (no religion).
Does anyone know what this is all about? Have they lumped several "other" religions into "none"? Surely that many people cannot have suddenly become "none". ??
Please help if you can solve this mystery. Thank you all.
When you are religious and surround yourself with your church and other religious people it can be very easy to assume everyone must be the same.
At least looking around in Chicago I would say a very high % of people are non-religious. I don't know any of my friends here that are religious. I've worked multiple jobs in downtown Chicago over 14 years now and I can't remember a single time that anything religious ever came up.
I wouldn't be offened or worried just because people moved on. It doesn't mean anything against their nature or their character. Religion has nothing to do with if a person is "good" or moral. Religion is normally seen as being moral, but that doesn't mean that people who aren't religious are any less "good" or moral - maybe times I've noticed they are much less judgemental and open minded about those different them themselves.
Thanks for replying, Chicago, your points are well taken, but apparently I didn't word my question clearly enough. I check the religion section of city-data because I feel it's important to get a flavor of the community, not because I am not worried or offended about what religion other people are or even if they are "none."
What I am very seriously wondering is -- WHY has city-data suddenly changed this? I do not believe that many people can have changed in the last several months. It has gone from anywhere from 15 or 20% "none," to 50% or over "none." There is some other reason that these statistics or proportions have been changed.
Does anyone know why this has been done? I also note that there are some religions they are no longer listing at all, which also doesn't make sense.
Yes I remember there were less unbelievers in Christ a few years ago and some of the threads where a religious discussions , and a very few questions against the post , were today the challenge of the atheist can confuse religious discussions and get sidetrack on belief in God on most threads or posts ....... But Christians just need to keep any pride out and rail road right through any confusion in the discussions ......... Still I remember the post years ago which got to hot when hell was discussed and temporary rules got put on the poster , see it changes from time to time ....... From a understanding from Jesus spirit The atheist and agnostics posters are all welcome , as maybe they will learn something of God, as Jesus has a plan
The term "nones" is used in religious surveys to lump the irreligious together. These include atheists but are not limited to them. They include:
1) "Spiritual but not religious" doing a "roll your own" religion or not conventionally observant (do not belong to some kind of church or synagogue or attend one) and do not accept a label for their belief
2) Agnostic theists -- people who suspect there may be a deity but aren't very sure about it (sometimes mislabelled simply "agnostics")
3) The religiously and metaphysically indifferent -- people who are incurious about religion and don't much think about it. These people don't disbelieve -- they don't CARE enough to even form a belief or unbelief.
I think the OP was asking about the City-Data demographic info about the general population living in any city in the US -- not necessarily just members. For example, I can look up Yankton, SD and see what perscentage of people there identify as Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic, or "none".
I think you're largely right though, in that religion is declining. And on top of that, mainstream religions are seeing a decrease, so you're seeing people that identify as "none of the above". Maybe they have a religious belief, but it doesn't fall into a category or into whatever church or religious institution is in their area.
Yes, I appreciate these comments and see the point of them all, and yes, Vizio, I was referring to the general population as reported on City-Data.
What has perplexed me about this, is that it seems to have happened ONLY VERY RECENTLY. I cannot say for sure, but within less than a year. I also note that some of the religions previously reported have also gone missing during this time period.
Any thoughts on that?
I have actually emailed City-Data about it and am hoping for a response, which I will post here in case anyone else is interested.
Yes, I appreciate these comments and see the point of them all, and yes, Vizio, I was referring to the general population as reported on City-Data.
What has perplexed me about this, is that it seems to have happened ONLY VERY RECENTLY. I cannot say for sure, but within less than a year. I also note that some of the religions previously reported have also gone missing during this time period.
Any thoughts on that?
I have actually emailed City-Data about it and am hoping for a response, which I will post here in case anyone else is interested.
The data on religion is taken directly from a survey that was done by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. You may want to contact them through their contact form at U.S. Religion Census | Religious Statistics & Demographics. City Data did not conduct the survey, so they are not likely to know about why the results of the survey has changed so much between 2000 and 2010.
The methdology of the survey, at least for 2010, is that they are counting people who are formally church members, as well as the minor children of those church members (if the children aren't already counted as members). This seems like a reasonable way to do it, at least on some levels. Of course, you may be a church member but rarely show up on Sundays; this may be particularly true for Catholics because if you are a confirmed Catholic and you move to a new area and sign your name on a card you are considered a church member-- but you may only attend services a few times a year.
Church membership for Protestants seems to be a more intentional act. On one hand people may still go through the process of becoming members, but after a while they don't stay as involved in the church.
On the other hand, people may attend services and volunteer quite often but not go through what may be a more intensive process to become a church member. These people, who attend services, but don't become formal church members, would technically be counted as "none" even though they may identify as Christian. (Edit: I just looked at the page again. It says they also count people who regularly attend services; however, I'm not entirely sure how they could do this accurately without double counting people.) I am just using Christianity as an example because that's what I'm most interested in-- it would be the same for other religions. In fact, if you go to the site where you can generate reports from the data (The Association of Religion Data Archives | Maps & Reports | Select Report) they list them as "unclaimed" instead of "none" because it's not that you have that many people who affirmatively claim atheism, it's just a measure of how many people don't show up on the membership rolls.
The hope, I suppose, is that the people who attend but aren't members, and the people who are members, but don't attend, will roughly cancel each other out so that the data will still be useful.
Getting back to your other question, OP, I think there actually has been a huge change just between 2000 and 2010 in the social acceptability of identifying as an atheist, and not attending or otherwise being involved in a church. But there has been perhaps less change in how people actually think. There probably were a lot more people who attended church in the 80's, 90's, etc. who "went through the motions" because they felt they had to in order to be accepted socially. Now, those people would feel more free to stop attending church and identify more openly as atheist or "spiritual but not religious." So it's possible that there are fewer people who attend church regularly but the ones who still do, are on average more engaged with community service and studying the Bible than the average church attendee in decades past.
Last edited by badgers54; 12-20-2015 at 06:22 PM..
Reason: Correcting an error
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