The number of Americans who never go to a church, synogogue or mosque is at a record level -- 22%, according to a survey done for the Southern Baptist Convention. The attitude toward religion also isn't very friendly among these so-called "unchurched": 72% say the church is "full of hypocrites" and 44% agree with the statement, "Christians get on my nerves." The survey was done last spring and summer. I doubt it looks much better (for the Baptist Convention, that is), today.
22% would be a much higher number for non-believers than any other survey and indeed, these aren't all non-believers. But they aren't mainstream, either:
Just 52% agree on the essential Christian belief that "Jesus died and came back to life."And 61% say the God of the Bible is "no different from the gods or spiritual beings depicted by world religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.," although Buddhist philosophy has no god and Hindus worship many.
[snip]
Non-churchgoers "lean to a generic god that fits into every imaginable religious system, even when (systems) contradict one another," [survey director Ed] Stetzer says. "If you went back 100 years in North America, there would have been a consensus that God is the God in the Bible. We can't assume this any longer.
"We no longer have a home-field advantage as Christians in this culture." (USA Today)
Home field advantage? HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE? Pardon me for thinking this is borderline hilarious.
So 10% of the population doesn't believe in a basic Christian tenet (that Jesus died and came back to life). 15% of the population think the church is full of hypocrites. Lots of people who might describe themselves as religious or spiritual have only a vague, "generic" version of God. It's not my thing, but beliefs like that don't bother me. They are private and nobody's business but those that believe them. It's like believing in the Green Bay Packers. And I agree with the surveyed unchurched on two important matters of docgtrine: the church is full of hypocrites and Christians (and Jews and Muslims) get on my nerves.
Meanwhile, the Packers beat the Seahowks in the second round of professional football play-offs. Praise the Lord.
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The Packers got first possession, turned it over, and allowed the Seahawks to score 7 points only 20 seconds into the first quarter. Praise Jebus! The Seahawks scored again on a turnover, leading the Packers 14-0. Holy Shit!
The Packers shrugged it off and came roaring back. 28-17, Packers, at the half. 42-20 at game's end. Bret Favre, our Lord and Saviour!
Lots of non-church goers are believers of a sort (I keep forgetting that and get in trouble sometimes when I trash Christianity to a non church goer) but lots of non-believers go to church - my favorite non-believer friend goes to the church in her hometown, plays the organ, directs the choir - money, family, friends are all inducements. Most like many more non-believers in the churches than one thinks - probably some are even pastors, priests, ministers etc.
K: Thanks for reminding us all of that. I suppose they would qualify in some books for being hypocrites in the church, I don't think those were the kind that drew the fire of the unchurched.
Objection: Buddhist philosophy is not actively theistic, but many of the subgroups of Buddhist theology are, but many folk-Buddhist practices explicitly acknowledge the existence of gods.
Buddhism does not require gods, and so is atheistic in that sense, but it is in no way incompatible with them.
If I know anything about how large organizations respond to strong disapproval ratings, I fully expect the Southern Baptist Convention will view this as a communication problem, and that the way to get people into church is to be more proactive in communicating to the unchurched that they are all going to hell.
Also, I suspect they will stress the importance of plastic hair and unctuous grins.
Caledonian: If you read the link, you will see an acknowledgement of this. But the argument here is doctrinal or theological. It is sociological.
HP: The link implies you are exactly correct.
Here in the Netherlands 1/6th of all protestant ministers is not sure about the existence of God. An openly athe�stic one has currently a huge bestseller with "Believing in a god that does not exist - manifest of an atheist minister"
I'd like to know what research led them to even phrase a question as "Christians get on my nerves". I am much amused by that.
Carlie: It was a "agree or disagree" with the statement question. As HP commented above, I believe it was an attempt to "hone their message."
It should not surprise any scientist that a person can attend an event (church pew, library fiction section, or movie theater) which depicts an illogical line of thought. How can they believe in such crackpot ideas? As other commenters have suggested, they don't believe (except maybe young children). They simply use the mechanism contained in our wonderful brain...'suspension of disbelief'. We all do it! It happens all the time, in every corner of the world, in every culture. We 'feel' (for lack of a better word) that we are part of the reality depicted. Moreover, we humans actually derive pleasure from such suspension of disbelief! Suspension of disbelief is what the movie industry is all about. Fiction books would cease to exist without it.
Psychologists have been trying for decades to determine how this process works and why, from an evolutionary perspective, we needed it to begin with. Beginning with research in hypnosis and suggestibility, evidence has steadily accumulated that some persons have more of this ability (evangelicals?) and some persons have less (scientists?). It may be that the answer to why some people can continually suffer the outrageous illogic of religious dogma may be partially (if not mostly) due to the human brains ability to suspend disbelief. But the research is as yet not definitive, or even very clear.
Therefore, since they (high disbelief suspenders) may be in a similar position as the mentally ill, having little choice in the matter, 'free will' could potentially be eliminated as a controlling factor for these persons. We scientists might consider giving them a break by not categorizing them all to be voluntarily stupid.
Many church goers like myself do not believe in any of the dogma and make no pretense about it to anybody. I attend an Episcopal church for the social gathering. We eat and talk after mass. We do not discuss religion.
I am a former Catholic (by birth), and most Catholics I knew were atheists or agnostics. Maybe I only hung out with the heretics.
I guess I am posting this because I resent being categorized here as a hypocrite.
I suspect many or most church goers and clergy don't believe the dogma, and many may be agnostic or atheist.
It's a tax free club house.
I always reflect what the difference of 'creative minority' is (CM) from 'self-righteousness'(SR), especially in dealing with spiritual things, there are two areas that I refer to:
1. Ascending skills in performances: to be in creative minority (CM), you need constantly think and upgrade your skills, it is a hard work. 'self-righteousness'(SR) is proud to announce that they are good enough, they are good to criticize others. CM is very humble to improve self.
2. Open-minded to maintain creative tension: to be in CM, they need maintain alert and sane to the reality and the ideal, to be in SR, they are paranoia to stick to one set of reference and dogmatic, either theism or atheism.
Religious truth and scientific truth are similar, they are not voted by majority. Truth is truth itself, no matter who and how you say it, or how many people say it.
Does poll or fashion help you find the truth? Perhaps YES
And NO. Look, you let everyone enrolled in Howard or Princeton, can they all graduated?
What is the point to point others hypocrite and..., look at self first, am I/are you in CM or SR first of all?
The only people they quote in it are some Christians and a religious studies guy, who appears to be sympathetic to religion. Why not interview any atheists or agnostics or other non-church-goers? Why not find some of these people who expressed these views, rather than merely filtering these views through the views of the people at the Southern Baptist Convention? So this is supposed to be an article about the views of people who don't go to church, but all the views are presented by and interpreted by the Southern Baptist Convention and a religious studies professor. Lame.
Also, this:
That's the fault of the people who phrased the question in a misleading way, not of the people who answered as best they could. But they phrase this as if it somehow reflects on those who answered the question.
USA Today irks me.
I am suddenly reminded of something my non-believing organist told me. A friend of hers said "Please try to believe - it might be true". So we have those who suspend disbelief, those who go for social or political reasons, and those who want to cover all bases in case there is an after-life. And of course those who actually believe without any qualms or questions.
Well actually for those who don't attend the deadly boring mainline churches, there are those who go for entertainment, and in the pentecostal churches excitement. My sex abstaining grandmother I suspect got her jollies being slain to the floor and rolling around while screaming "oh jesus". (not sure what my grandfather got except to go with grama to church meant he didn't get totally henpecked)
JameLS says: Therefore, since they (high disbelief suspenders) may be in a similar position as the mentally ill........................
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Mental ill is a grand topic to talk about.
No one will disagree that a person's mental health is much related to one's family. Do we need to keep family as an institute perhaps is the same question that we will ask in religion area?
Ironically religion is supposed to deal with mental health issue, to be alert to the sin( un-precise status) and to heal it. But we have been disappointed at large about what they could have offered today. To demolish religion? Can we do it to family?
The difficulty so far has reflected the challenge as it is. So many people decide to avoid the pain and reluctant to invest their energy to develop it. But if we consider that a sound mental health is a core value for us to be a human being, then we need to re-invent religion as well as we need to do in family.
Talking about mental health in terms of responsibility,
1.People after age of 40 at last, preferably of 20, he/she is responsible for their own mental health; they can not blame for their parents anymore, independent enough to act against the script. I notice that religious background has negative script, but the responsibility is on own hand. " without your consent, no one can hurt you, so to speak." You assume the full responsibility to keep and leave the influence. You want totally deny it that is your decision. But I believe the wise way is you can tell which part is conducive, which part is harmful, and move on.
2.The depth of dialogue. To maintain and develop own mental health, people has to invest enormous energy, time and skills of reflection, it is a hard work. In general, the mental ill is relating to laziness, they have no doubts and no seeking and no thinking, basically. Look, transference, symptom of depression/ schizophrenia is all lacking of deliberate thinking capability.
3.Responsibility of study: To become a good musician, perhaps need to spend 20,000 hours, to be proficient a foreign language takes 10,000 hours. What much the time needed to develop spiritual growth? At least to understand the background and the Scripture properly. In Internet era, to study by depth is very easy, just depend on a person's willingness. Listen to a superficial comments on Bible is just like listen a poor music performance so ..............
The term "suspension of disbelief" is part of the reason why the underlying phenomenon has proven elusive: it's inelegant, akin to saying "nondisorder," and it tends to mislead, akin to calling marijuana a "narcotic." More useful to start from the idea of "willingness to believe."
Also more useful to view belief systems as similar to states of consciousness, whereby most individuals are seen to have a repertoire and utilize each for specific purposes.
We look at states of consciousness as configurations of attention, perception, cognition, emotion, memory, and so on. We can view belief systems as configurations of meaning, feedback, definitions of truth, types and degrees of reasoning, and so on.
Beyond that, the entire idea of a unitive self doesn't stand up to the data. What people consider to be "the self" is also a varying configuration of components, whose two most stable elements are the ability to observe and the ability to exercise will. And the human brain is not well-equipped to perceive negatives, by which I mean "the absence of something" as contrasted to "the presence of something." Consider the famous detective story whose conclusion hinged on the unexpected factor of "the dog that did not bark." We don't often notice when we are not paying attention or not observing or not exercising will, until prompted to notice by some external or internal feedback system.
I don't have a conclusive answer for you about "suspension of disbelief" or "willingness to believe," except to say that it probably follows a normal distribution in the population.