Americans aren’t as religious as they pretend to be

[cleanhippie]

It’s well-known that a lot of church-goers don’t really believe what their pastors preach. This is probably especially true among teenagers. Twenty minutes at the Atheism sub-Reddit will convince you that there are plenty of young people being forced by their parents to attend church who don’t believe a lick of it, and I’m sure that many of our own members (myself included) continued attending church long after they stopped believing in gods. On occasion, I still attend church, to see old friends and hear the music. Not to generalize, but there is a lot of social pressure in this country to be seen at church, especially in the South and Midwest, to the point that it’s become a cliché for Southerners, women especially, to “dress up for each other” (to quote John Mellencamp) – witness “church hats” and “Sunday best.”

What isn’t as well-known is that Americans are even less religious than this. We’re so far just talking about people who actually attend churches. What about people who only pretend to attend? Data show that Americans, when polled, tend to exaggerate their church attendance by about 200%. That is, about 40% of Americans, when polled, say they attend church every week. But if you actually go around to churches and count heads (as researchers have done), that number is closer to 20%. Another, more-recent study with a different methodology shows that the attendance gap is between 10-18%, but still extant.

--snip--

It’s like the joke about when you ask an American what religion they are, and they answer, “None,” the next question you’re supposed to ask is, “What church do you go to?” A surprisingly large proportion of people who answer “None” to the first question have a ready answer to the second one. Many millions of Americans don’t actually want to be religious; they just want to appear religious, for whatever reason. I think that’s sad.

--snip--

So what does all of this mean for atheism activist? It means that not only are church-going people not as religious as they, for whatever reason, want to appear to be, but non-church going people aren’t, either. To quote Alan Harvey, “Every day the voice of atheism grows louder, more confident, backed by ever increasing evidence, reason and logic. Every day the religious respond by sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting ‘Lalalalala!’” The number of self-reported atheists and non-religious people is increasing every year, especially among people under 30. The seed of rational thinking is planted, and it’s growing. It is finally becoming socially acceptable, at least in cities and especially on the coasts, to be “out” as an atheist. The internet is fueling this even faster in other areas. I am so excited to be in on the ground floor of atheist activism, so to speak. But there is more we need to do.

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/oncampus/blog/entry/muscato_religious_as_they_pretend_to_be/

[valerief]

1. We atheists have known this since forever. nt

[dmallind]

2. I'd like to accept this, but am troubled by the metric

Church attendance is a poor proxy for US religiosity on all but the bluntest level. How many religionists of the wackiest stripe insist on self-led doctrine for example? How many times have we hear ultra-fundies tell us REAL Christianity is not a religion but a relationship with Jesus? This measure would be hopeful in, say, Brazil or Mexico where a nearly universally homogenous religion was predicated on routine attendance, but in a country like the US which is dominated by thousands of fundamentalist Protestant denominations including lots of home-based splinter groups not so clear.

[MemeSmith]

9. In this relationship with Jesus

When he whispers in your ear, does he have a Middle Eastern accent?

[Silent3]

3. Brand loyalty or tribal identification seem to me...

...to have an awful lot to do with the way many Americans identify with their professed faiths, rather than deep belief in the particulars of those faiths. Projecting the necessary loyalty, however, often requires paying lip service to church doctrine.

Some people can get pretty fierce about defending church doctrines (to the extent they even accurately know their church's doctrines) when they feel like "their own" are being attacked or challenged, then lazily return to ignoring those doctrines when external threats subside.

[cleanhippie]

4. +1

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. I think it has more to do with cookies in the church basement.

"Fellowship" is for grownups what teens call "hanging out".

Most other opportunities for "fellowship" involve spending money (which gets disapproval from the SO) drinking (equally subject to disapproval) or work.

[yodermon]

5. ..and to the fundies, this is prima facie evidence of the pending apocalypse. fun for all!

[onager]

6. Good collection of REAL surveys on church attendance

That is, going into the Spookeries and counting noses:

How many North Americans attend religious services (and how many lie about going)?

Hadaway, Marler, and Mark Chaves counted the number of people attending four Protestant churches in Ashtabula County, OH, and in 18 Roman Catholic dioceses throughout the U.S. In their 1993 report they stated that actual attendance was only about half of the level reported in public opinion surveys: 20% vs. 40% for Protestants, and 28% vs. 50% for Roman Catholics.

They later returned to Ashtabula County to measure attendance by Roman Catholics. They physically counted the number of attendees at each mass over several months. They concluded that 24% of Catholics in the county actually attended mass. They then polled residents of the county by telephone. 51% of Roman Catholic respondents said that they had attended church during the previous week.

Apparently, most were lying.

:rofl:

It gets worse.

Sociologist Stanley Presser of the University of Maryland and research assistant Linda Stinson...found that many Americans were not at church when they claimed to be. Their best estimates are that the percentage of adults who actually attended religious services during the previous weekend dropped from 42% in 1965 to 26% in 1994.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_rate.htm

[Manifestor_of_Light]

7. Must be the Catholic church my aunt went to in Ashtabula.

Hmmm.

[_ed_]

10. Just walk around any town on any Sunday morning in America

Are 90% of people in church? Of course not. The proof is in behavior.

[laconicsax]

11. Most religious people are functionally atheists.

They live their lives as though there are no gods.

[trotsky]

12. But don't you dare point that out to them! n/t