Pharyngula

Posted by: scribe999 | December 30, 2009 9:30 AM

#30...Jersey needs to work on that. You think it'd be less, considering that the MTV show 'Jersey Shore' appears to be positive evidence of the non-existence of god.

Posted by: SC OM | December 30, 2009 9:34 AM

Go, New England, go!

Posted by: PaleGreenPants | December 30, 2009 9:38 AM

To say that religion is important in your life does not necessarily mean that you are a religious person.

Ohio is 25th.

Posted by: Martin | December 30, 2009 9:41 AM

Hmm, I'd have thought Idaho and especially Alaska (second to last!?) would have ranked higher, considering how conservative those states are. But then Idahoan conservatives are probably more of the Libertarian stripe than Republican.

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | December 30, 2009 9:42 AM

I'm guessing that ND and SD just didn't have large enough samples to separate us.

Apparently my neighbors don't pray as much as they go to weekly church services, dropping us down to 22nd.

That move across the river just keeps getting more and more appealing.

Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip | December 30, 2009 9:54 AM

Huh, Iowa actually came out a bit lower than Minnesota. Dunno why that surprises me; it's not like I see lots of overt religiosity here.

Posted by: Daniel de Rauglaudre | December 30, 2009 9:54 AM

Wow! Sarah Palin's state seems not to have followed her. Is it the reason why she resigned?

Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM, CR | December 30, 2009 10:00 AM

Re: NH

It's the "Old Man Of The Mountain" thing. Daniel Webster wrote "Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men."

Well, the Old Man collapsed in '03. Clearly, by Webster's reasoning, a sign that God Almighty had packed up and buggered off. No more reason for anyone to believe.

The 36% in "NH/Vermont" are all obviously from west of the Connecticut River. Damned Vermonters, messing it up for everybody.

Posted by: Don | December 30, 2009 10:03 AM

Time to move to Vermont, PZ. We really are a tad more rational than New Hampshire, I assure you. And we have elected the only nonreligious US Senator in Bernie Sanders.

Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | December 30, 2009 10:03 AM

According to the survey methodology, the sample size for Alaska (and Hawaii) was only 200, and was collected in a separate survey using different methodology... that might account for the result being so different from what most Alaskan's would claim to experience.

Posted by: Cory Meyer | December 30, 2009 10:10 AM

Wait, never mind. Alaska saves my hypothesis.

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | December 30, 2009 10:13 AM

Wait, never mind. Alaska saves my hypothesis.

North Dakota destroys it.

Posted by: jaranath | December 30, 2009 10:17 AM

Income is another general correlation.

Of course all that really proves is that money and knowledge corrupt, which is why heathen-state wimmin ain't fillin' their quivers for Jesus ASAP...or that religion has nothing to do with ignorance and want, it actually HELPS, and that's why those people turn to faith, and any day now they'll pass all those heathen states in the stats...or that we've got it all wrong, the real knowledge is the bible and the real wealth is in heaven...or...gag...

Posted by: Whore of All the Earth | December 30, 2009 10:23 AM

#22, in N. Dakota (lumped together with S. Dakota). Could be worse.

Posted by: Gus Snarp | December 30, 2009 10:29 AM

Well, of 5 states I have lived in, three are below the average and two are slightly above. My current state is below average, but barely. Funny, I've been thinking lately that I would like to live in Vermont. Hopefully there won't be a flood of people moving there, nothing would ruin Vermont faster than too many people.

Posted by: Richard Eis | December 30, 2009 10:37 AM

Wait, never mind. Alaska saves my hypothesis.

North Dakota destroys it.

Statistical fluke. Can be safely ignored.

(I was going to a "just do the nature trick: hide the decline" joke but too many people would have complained it didn't make sense... then corrected my grammar).

Posted by: Greginnd | December 30, 2009 10:39 AM

Yeah! ND squeaks by just below the national average.

Looks like an excellent correlation with red/blue states in the last election.

Posted by: Gus Snarp | December 30, 2009 10:48 AM

@Cory Meyer - Your hypothesis is an old one, and widely discredited. In the bad old days it was associated with environmental determinism and used to justify the behavior of European powers to their colonial subjects. Northern peoples were assumed to be smarter, harder workers, more active, better in every way than inherently stupid, lazy people from southern climes.

Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | December 30, 2009 10:55 AM

I decided to do a little cross-section chart with the data from this survey and the data from the survey that Abdul pointed out at #6... certainly interesting...

Posted by: Zeno | December 30, 2009 10:56 AM

California has a lot of Latino culture (both Hispanic and Portuguese) that revolves around religious holidays. I suspect that raises the state's religiosity quotient. A lot of us Californians could truthfully say that religion is very important in our lives because we love going to festas and fiestas (whether or not we remembered to attend the accompanying mass services).

Uma outra cerveja, por favor.

Otra cerveza, por favor.

Posted by: Aratina Cage | December 30, 2009 11:05 AM

The 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey has more pertinent questions for atheists:

http://religions.pewforum.org/maps

Select the topic "Belief in God or Universal Spirit" under the map of the USA on the right in the Beliefs and Practices box, then click on "Does not believe in God" under the Responses box. Then you can look at godlessness in individual states.

So, 5% ± 0.6% of the USA does not believe in God/Universal Spirit. The margin of error is too big in some individual cases: 9% ± 7.5% of Alaskans do not and 3% ± 4.0% of Minnesotans do not.

Posted by: tuckerch | December 30, 2009 11:09 AM

Happy to see the Commonwealth of Massachusetts so near the bottom of the list!

Posted by: Paul Burnett | December 30, 2009 11:15 AM

I'll have to compare that bar graph with my presidential election graph at http://www.paulburnett.com/toothless - but I won't be able to get at it until tonight. I would bet there will be as good a correlation (particularly at the bottom).

Posted by: Knockgoats | December 30, 2009 11:30 AM

Religiosity isn't one of the social ills Wilkinson and Pickett correlated with income inequality, but comparing the chart above with their graphs in The Spirit Level, it looks as though income inequality and religiosity would correlate quite highly, although there are exceptions (NY is at the top of their income inequality scale, but low on religiosity, for example). Of course this is correlation, not causation, I'd hypothesize that in a rich modern society, low income inequality is sufficient but not necessary for low religiosity.

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmrtYHNdrnh7qDMbxVkpx8PXx_Kof9ty0M | December 30, 2009 11:35 AM

I was, frankly, astonished to see NJ at #4 for smarts, as well as 30 for religiosity. From what I see, the first ranking's too high, and the second,too low. It's nice to see that my perceptions might be off on both counts. Let's see how it looks after Christie is done making Corzine look like the best Governor EVAR. . .

Posted by: TimJohnsonMN | December 30, 2009 11:37 AM

Happy to see my home state of Iowa in the bottom half. And just squeaking past my current state, too. Between legalizing gay marriage and more and more rankings like this, I'm glad Iowans are not living up to the stereotype people in other parts of the country seem to place on them.

Posted by: Kamaka | December 30, 2009 11:40 AM

@ 20

I say this half-jokingly, but I wonder if cold weather improves mental function.

@ 35

@Cory Meyer - Your hypothesis is an old one, and widely discredited. In the bad old days it was associated with environmental determinism and used to justify the behavior of European powers to their colonial subjects. Northern peoples were assumed to be smarter, harder workers, more active, better in every way than inherently stupid, lazy people from southern climes.

The "stupid, lazy" people of southern climes were suffering anemia from hookworm infection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookworm#History

Posted by: kilternkafuffle | December 30, 2009 11:52 AM

According to this VT & NH only have 54% believing in God. So if the trends continue in a few years they can claim that the majority rejects the belief in God in favor of either atheism, or more likely the belief in some ethereal spirit or force.

Also, I think I would support the instinct to move to the less religious states rather than to try to bring down other states' religiosity by moving there, because the irreligious are already dispersed widely enough. According to the data here (http://religions.pewforum.org/maps), the "Unaffiliated" are the biggest constituency after Evangelicals and Mainline Protestants, but they wield nowhere near the same political power because they are spread thinly like butter across the states, whereas the Jews can influence New York and the Mormons can dominate Utah completely while being tiny minorities overall.

Overall religiosity should fall with education and with the formation of alternative communities and humanistic philosophies brought on by higher income and the memes of the time. All these largely depend on national policies, which the irreligious could only hope to influence by being a bigger player that can actually claim direct political influence. Concentration would also allow the pooling of money and man-hours, building new charitable and educational organizations etc.

Therefore I recommend, whenever it is possible to choose, that all the godless Americans move to Minnesota, New England, or California =)

Posted by: tdcourtney | December 30, 2009 11:57 AM

I am definitely confused that Alaska is so low. How did they vote for Palin? Do you just have to shoot things from a helicopter to be Alaska's governor?

Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | December 30, 2009 12:04 PM

I would like to see religiosity vs quality of life for each state.

Well, there are lots of different surveys out there with varying definitions of "quality of life"... but if you were to use this 2007 "Most livable states" survey and again make a cross-section with the religiosity survey, the results are again really interesting...

Posted by: vanharris | December 30, 2009 12:21 PM

Kamaka,#53, that theory goes back to Sir Francis Bacon in the last decade of the 16th C. Bacon speculated that it was either cold, or the difference in size of Northern versus Southern continents, or the different stars (!), that was responsible for the greater success of northern flora & fauna, when it came to invading the other's territory.

Darwin picked up on this, with respect to plants, & attributed it to the greater size of the Northern continents, & their greater diversity. This was unchanged from the the first to the last edition of The Origin, with respect to plants, & later editions referenced it to 'terrestrial animals & marine productions'.

Posted by: mechanoid | December 30, 2009 12:27 PM

@CanonicalKoi – You forget that Californians plague us both in Washington and Oregon – and I definitely mean in a biblical sense.

Toads and Locusts? Meh...

But Californians??? Truly frightening.

It is my opinion that with both of our states afflicted, Oregon clearly is the more rational state.

This native Oregonian is proud to live in a state where religiosity is in the minority. Now all we have to do is increase that margin. Huzzah!

Posted by: Larry | December 30, 2009 12:32 PM

Vermont and New Hampshire, FTW!

Posted by: Aratina Cage | December 30, 2009 12:37 PM

I am definitely confused that Alaska is so low. How did they vote for Palin? Do you just have to shoot things from a helicopter to be Alaska's governor? -tdcourtney

Palin challenged an unpopular Republican governor who had just recently increased taxes but called them "user fees", had eliminated welfare payments to elders, and had appointed his own daughter to replace his US Senate seat. Basically, she challenged a crooked politician in her own party and won the primary. Then she went up against another perpetual Democratic politician who had long ago worn out his welcome (trying to become governor for the third time by sitting out one term). I believe it was the easiest election to win ever in Alaska's history. Religion was not a key factor in her win.

Posted by: 朴競花/박경화 (Gyeong Hwa) | December 30, 2009 12:47 PM

But Californians??? Truly frightening.

Don't be surprised by us Californians. While, overall, we are more liberal than most states there are still a lot of pockets of religious conservatism here and there. I think that most central Californian counties are very religious and conservative.

Posted by: Volcanon | December 30, 2009 12:55 PM

ND/SD evidently are the same state now!

We did, however, score admirably for the number of rural farming religious folk around.

The results are about what I'd expect, my experience suggests that it's basically a coin toss around here whether or not a person cares about religion.

Posted by: Trug | December 30, 2009 12:57 PM

Man, I really need to work on getting stationed back up in New England... Texas just is NOT cutting it.

And the winters really weren't that bad. Get yourself a broadband connection at home and just sit back and watch the snow. Telecommuting is the way to go, if you can swing it.

Posted by: airbagmoments | December 30, 2009 1:05 PM

Vermont! We're #1! We're #1! We're #1!!!

Posted by: Gus Snarp | December 30, 2009 1:08 PM

So how much snow do you get in Vermont?

Posted by: skylyre | December 30, 2009 1:13 PM

Go MA! Another reason to love it here. I have added "not too many religious wackos" to the list of things I like about MA along with beautiful seasonal changes, gay marriage and wicked awesome chowdah.

Posted by: skylyre | December 30, 2009 1:20 PM

What does it say that the region of the country with the least religious people is also the region that was founded by some of the most wacky religious people originally?

They learned their lesson the hard way?

Posted by: Larry | December 30, 2009 1:29 PM

I'd like to see a overlay onto this chart showing literacy rates, per capita income, teen pregnancy rates, NASCAR viewership, or any other social statistic you care to name.

I'm guessing it would reveal some interesting comparisons and that the rankings would be quite similar.

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkL6rop7ope6a9ysVWsdSU1FNTAQmmW9gw | December 30, 2009 1:41 PM

At #42 I'm glad to share with Rhode Island, a man who founded his own state after the Pilgrim/Puritan theocrats made Massachusetts unbearable due to religious intolerance.

Just don't ask about vampires. We know they are real.

Posted by: Thorne | December 30, 2009 1:49 PM

No surprise to see SC at #6. Except that I might have guessed it would be closer to #3.

When my kids were young we used to play a game while driving around the state. Try to guess whether there would be more churches or fast-food restaurants along the way. The (unscientific) results were generally a toss-up.

Of particular interest were the churches which were in building which used to be fast-food places. And, of course, Italian restaurants counted for both (Praise FSM).

Posted by: Caine, ghetto féministe | December 30, 2009 2:15 PM

No surprise North Dakota is 22, even though everyone I've ever known since I moved here spends much more time in a bar than a church. Here, religious affiliation is the "done thing" whether you're actually religious or not.

Posted by: Endor | December 30, 2009 2:25 PM

"So how much snow do you get in Vermont?"

"All of it."

No way. WNY gets all of it. VT, et al, get whatever was left over.

Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | December 30, 2009 2:30 PM

*** Nods in agreement after yet another miserable week of driving up snow-riddled I-81 every damn day***

Posted by: NewEnglandBob | December 30, 2009 2:41 PM

Way to go, New England states!

I might have a small bias :)

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | December 30, 2009 2:49 PM

Notice how all the crappy states are also the most religious.

Where are you from Jackass?

Posted by: Gus Snarp | December 30, 2009 3:04 PM

OK, since I couldn't get a straight answer, I went to the font of all accurate knowledge, Wikipedia, which tells me that Vermont gets from 60 to 100 inches of snowfall per year. I expect that there's very little melting of snow from December through February based on average temps, so you end up under about three feet of snow for most of winter? Still would probably be worth it if I could just make a living there.

Posted by: KillJoy | December 30, 2009 3:33 PM

My home state of New Mexico is 29th, and my adopted state of Washington is 36th. I must say, I'm a little surprised NM did as well as it did. But then, I've not especially been aware of the religious/political climate there in like say, oh..10 years or so.

Posted by: toth | December 30, 2009 4:11 PM

#44! Way to go, MA! Sometimes I love my godless liberal state.

Posted by: bpesta22 | December 30, 2009 4:22 PM

I have a paper using the Pew data here, but focusing only on questions relating to fundamentalist beliefs (the bible is literally true; my prayers are answered).

Still, my rankings are probably very close to what you reported here.

The interesting thing is the nexus of crap that religiosity predicts across the 50 U.S. states (always that more religious equates to negative outcomes). More religious states have:
Lower IQ, lower education, higher crime, poorer health, more poverty.

The correlations are substantial in most cases. Religiosity also predicts odd things like:
the % of gun owners in a state;
the Starbucks to Walmart ratio in a state;
percent voting for obama or mccain (go figure);
divorce rates; teen pregnancy rates; infant mortality;
whether a state has amended its constitution to ban gay marriage;
the % of people who drive solo to work.

The list goes on and on. The article just happens to be open access in the journal for this month (mine is #17 here):

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01602896

Bryan

p.s.

Minnesota ranks 5th in global well-being; 14th in religiosity (where 50th, Mississippi, is the most fundamentalist state); 40th in crime; 9th in education; 3rd in health; 7th in income and 5th in IQ.

I have correlations between % godless people in a state and about 50 other variables if anyone's interested.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM | December 30, 2009 4:49 PM

I've heard that North Dakota does not actually exist.

This is true. That area is now called "Baja Manitoba".

Posted by: Thomas F. Shamma | December 30, 2009 4:55 PM

I live in NH, and most of the time it's awesome - but I do have the problem of many of my secular friends and family not seeing religion as a serious problem. A mild annoyance, though, and I'm proud to be counted in one of the two tied-for-most-secular states.

Posted by: bpesta22 | December 30, 2009 5:02 PM

Sorry for the typos above; I was replying to someone that hypothesized religiosity and IQ might vary by state temperature...

Posted by: joe.bussen | December 30, 2009 5:21 PM

There is a bit of innumerancy in this list; there ARE 50 states, right? If the last ranked is a singleton, surely it ranks 50th? The problem is the ties, of course. If the Dakotas tie at 22, then Hawaii is not 23, but 24. There are four ties, so all low ranking states are 1, 2, or 3 ranks lower than indicated.

Posted by: T. Bruce McNeely | December 30, 2009 5:42 PM

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2006001/9181-eng.htm

You can compare the results to Canada's using the above website. I'm speculating that a "high level of religiosity" in the Canadian study would correspond pretty closely to "religion being very important" in the US study.
In Canada, there's a steady drop in religiosity from the East to West coast, with BC showing 25% highly religious, vs. 36% in the Atlantic provinces. The exception, of course, is Quebec, with a high level of only 24%. Canada overall is at 29%, below even Vermont/New Hamshire.
In the new nation of PASTOR, the South will still be the Bible Belt (WA 48% OR 46%).
Just sayin'.

Posted by: krc [clowersnet.net] | December 30, 2009 6:35 PM

I don't understand way a copy/paste of the post title should result in the icon becoming the text "Author Profile Page". I guess it picks up the alt text...

Posted by: skylyre | December 30, 2009 7:52 PM

@MAJeff

Ah yes... the drivers. No wonder 40% of people here are religious, they're praying for their life.

Posted by: Orson Zedd | December 30, 2009 9:18 PM

Mississippi native here. We're doing the best we can. It's going to be a long fight, especially for me to get a date.

Posted by: Richard Eis | December 31, 2009 5:07 AM

but if you were to use this 2007 "Most livable states" survey and again make a cross-section with the religiosity survey, the results are again really interesting...

Thanks Celtic. I knew there would be a correlation...but the amount of red in one big lump is pretty hard to ignore. Shame the livability data was a bit weak. But not much we can do about that.

Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | December 31, 2009 9:08 AM

...the amount of red in one big lump is pretty hard to ignore. Shame the livability data was a bit weak. But not much we can do about that.

Indeed... it was an interesting endeavor to try to find a balanced "quality of life" survey... the first thing I noticed is that one of the most commonly found surveys if you do a google search lists "spirituality" as a factor for determining quality of life... others similarly use religious affiliation as a "positive factor" in determining quality of life.

This, of course, is ridiculous, so I tried to find one that used as many economic, educational, and environmental factors as possible without consideration for anything so vapid and impossible to measure as "spirituality". The one I used, while still a bit weak, did at least provide a wide range of factors (44 in all) and gave no consideration to supernatural mumbo-jumbo.

Posted by: bpesta22 | December 31, 2009 1:46 PM

Celtic- you may have missed it but the study I linked to uses 30 variables assessing exactly what you seem very interested in assessing. If you did see it, my apologies for being an attention whore by pointing it out again.