Posted on 03/30/2006 9:45:17 PM PST by dangus
"OK, but what about us non-religious? Are we growing?"
http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions
apparently, you are growing ---
non-religious in 1990: 13,116,000
non-religious in 2001: 27,539,000
I wonder how they came up with those figures. I'm not all that surprised at the growth, I guess.
I only know a few of that 27,539,000, though.
agreed. I would be surprised if more than 33% of them are practicing Catholics.
I went and looked at that chart. Interestingly enough, the non-religious are the second largest group in the US, after Christians. I did not know that. Their projections into 2004 make the non-religious 13.8% of the US population.
That's a significant minority, I'd say.
Very significant minority. You probably also have a fairly respectable growth rate.
**Incidentally, all those Mexicans in the news lately are not counted as Catholics unless they are registered with their parishes, so they are not likely to be the predominant source of the Catholic Church's growth.**
Very good point. Registering in a parish means they have to overcome a language barrier unless the forms are also provided in Spanish. Secondly, not part of their culture. Their church support consists mostly of loose plate offerings -- not the envelope/tithing/offertory systems.
Please discuss the topic of the thread!
very significant growth since the 90's... (Clinton years by the way)...
If you watch TV you would think that 80% of the people are non-religious. I think that is partially fueling that growth.
"Where’s Farrakhan? These numbers aren’t true we need to march! (Sarcasm on)"
Holy smokes, Dangus. Will you turn your sarcasm switch
off? Everybody in town sounds like Howard Stern right now.
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I think that is part of the reason Catholicism is looking strong, that's why I mentioned it. People coming back to God generally are looking for clear guidance, not the "I'm OK You're OK" philosophy that too many allegedly religious institutions have adopted.
My mistake, I thought you wanted to talk about another subject. Please forgive me.
"Actually, as a percentage of the population your growing the fastest.
"
Yeah, but the non-religious don't make up any sort of voting bloc. They're all over the map, politically, so there's no way to manipulate them as a bloc.
I have to keep in mind that this data is from a fairly large poll, not from any actual membership stats. It's a large sample, though, so I suspect that its numbers are fairly close.
What I do? What I do? :^D
I neither posted, endorsed, or criticized that comment!
No forgiveness necessary, reviewing my original comment I can see how it can be misconstrued in good faith.
pun intended =)
The numbers of non-religious are exploding, but you'd have to really hate religion to be a happy conservative about that... We're not talking about people finding a system for maintaining and fulfilling a non-religion-dependent system of ethics. Mostly, we're talking about people who couldn't be bothered to think about right and wrong, and resent the people who do. I'd think for a non-religious conservative to cheer that would be like the religious right being happy about an explosion of goddess-worshiping, gay-friendly, Democrat-fundraising churches.
This can't be right.
Alternate answer:
I'm not sure. Have you registered with your absence-of-a-church? :^D Just teasing.
Dear John 6.66=Mark of the Beast?,
I don't think that the Charismatic Renewal, as it occurred within the Catholic Church, led to much defection of Catholics from the Church. What I saw during ten years of active participation (going back 30 years, now) was that it revitalized many parishes, and revitalized the personal Christianity (although not always the personal Catholicism) of many individuals.
By the early 1980s, a lot of the excesses of the movement had worked themselves out, and in many cases, Charismatic groups sought ever more orthodox expressions of Catholicism. The Holy Spirit used the Renewal to take many lukewarm Catholics, many Catholics with little knowledge or understanding of their faith, to draw them back to the Church as their Teacher and Guide.
Certainly, some Catholics left the Church via the Renewal, but this often happened for reasons unrelated to the Renewal itself (divorce and remarriage, and mixed marriages being two principal reasons).
As well, there were certainly some Charismatic communities where the wheels just about flew off the wagon. There was one community in the Washington, DC area that turned into quite a mess.
However, because the Catholic Church officially embraced the Renewal (tentatively, at first, and then more enthusiastically under Pope John Paul II), the Church was able to exert a little disciplinary pressure that helped guide the main part of the movement in an orthodox direction. As well, that embrace helped minimize defection from the Church because of participation in the Renewal. The Church did not ever take the position that one could be a good Charismatic, or a good Catholic, but not both. Just the opposite.
sitetest
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