ABC News said atheists/agnostics are only 2% of population

[UTUSN]

*******QUOTE*******

http://ffrf.org/

The U.S. government should not be in the religion business.

Can the president set up an office in the White House to promote religion without court review or scrutiny? That is the question the U.S. Supreme Court will decide this year in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation. Oral arguments were held February 28.

Help FFRF with our vital challenges of the faith-based initiative and unbridled governmental action to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_From_Religion_Foundation

Freedom From Religion Foundation
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The Freedom From Religion Foundation is an American Freethought organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. Its purposes, as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the constitutional principle of separation of church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism. The FFRF publishes Freethought Today, the only freethought newspaper in the United States. The organization pursues public interest lawsuits and engages in public debates to further their goals. Since 2006, the Foundation has produced the Freethought Radio show, currently the nation's only radio program for atheists, agnostics, and other freethinkers.

The FFRF was co-founded by Anne Nicol Gaylor and her daughter Annie Laurie Gaylor. Annie Laurie Gaylor is the author of Women Without Superstition : No Gods - No Masters (ISBN 1-877733-09-1), edits the FFRF newspaper Freethought Today, and serves as co-president with her husband Dan Barker, author of Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist (ISBN 1-877733-07-5). Dan Barker is a musician and songwriter and a former fundamentalist Christian minister.

Formed in 1976 by Annie Gaylor Jr. and Sr., the foundation was incorporated nationally in 1978. It has grown ever since and is now supported by over 8,000 members. It is run out of an 1855 building at the corner of West Washington Avenue and North Henry Street in Madison, Wisconsin that once was a church rectory. With a minimum annual membership fee of $40, the foundation has saved over $3.3 million (US) and receives over $1 million in dues per year. The foundation primarily uses this money to pay legal fees in cases contesting the separation of church and state of various United States governmental organizations, but it also pays salaries to its staff of four, distributes advertisements and sends out news publications to its members.

********UNQUOTE*******

[Kelly Rupert]

1. The headline doesn't seem to have a whole lot in common with the post. n/t

[Kolesar]

2. ...and the thread title was an eye catcher! ... eom

[JackRiddler]

3. pls provide citation for absurd claim by ABC

Two percent - more like 20! And the majority don't participate in an organized religion. What vile propaganda.

[UTUSN]

4. Geez (how ironic) : Why is my thread being flamed? I said what ABC said

and posted effing LINKS that were referenced by ABC. You want me to do WHAT?? to VERIFY what ABC said?? I'm going to bed!!1

[Kelly Rupert]

6. Your snips also do not reference the number of atheists in America.

And I don't really feel like crawling through your links, especially since I would generally assume that if the links had relevent information, you would have posted that instead of the snips you did.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kelly Rupert]

10. ...dependent?

Dependent on what? Drugs? Alcohol? Love? Teddy bears?

I'll admit that usually when browsing forums, I am generally dependent on the ability of OPs to post meaningful topics for discussion. Generally, I assume that if an OP has a point, he will have made it in the OP. I do not assume that the content of the OP is actually a clever ruse designed to distract me from the link-hopping treasure hunt that has been laid out for me. And I usually do not assume that the OP will respond to requests for clarification by lashing out at "lazy flamers." So I suppose in those ways, I am lazily dependent, yes, and I apologize for it.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kelly Rupert]

17. Thanks for the analysis.

I said that the OP was not the same as the headline. That is not a flame. That is not an insult. The tone of my last post was insulting, yes. However, you had just called me a lazy flamer, so I would hope that I could be forgiven for that.

I am not entirely certain why you felt the need to ascribe bizarre pathological compulsions to me.

Goodnight.

[WI_DEM]

23. but if you are going to have that headline your post should have something to do with it.

[Kelly Rupert]

5. pls provide citation for claim by JackRiddler.

Seriously, I have no idea on the numbers. Any link?

[JackRiddler]

20. Me.

I say 20 percent are consciously agnostic or atheist, and more than half don't practice within an organized, traditional religion.

See "What is your religion," USA Today state-by-state poll, here:
http://www.usatoday.com/graphics/news/gra/gnoreligion/flash.htm

Surprising results. I also vaguely remember other surveys.

Assumption: Those who are less religious are
a) more likely to cover it up by naming their nominal religion, especially if it's one of those you get automatically when you were born;
b) far more likely to hang up the phone when the pollster calls, especially when they hear it's about religion.

In addition: Long personal experience based
a) on the number of people I've met who weren't religious (weighing those outside my social circles more heavily) and
b) the number of people who were nominally religious but admittedly never go to church/temple or do anything relating to their supposed affiliation.

Of course, there is a question whether we should count certain ideologies and lifestyles as forms of religion. (Examples: "Salvation through Sales" and its cousin, Positive Thinking. Nationalism. Scientism and the related belief in perpetual technological progress. "Fitness-ism." "Gaia-ism." Radical free market ideology.)

As for ABC: when claiming a source said something unlikely-sounding, it's the custom to provide a link.

[JackRiddler]

21. prior thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x331686

[papau]

7. MSM seems to get little correct - atheist have been a steady 4% for 75 years of

survey taking - even up to 6% in some surveys. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_4_27/ai_104733222

Agnostic is around the same based on the 2003 Harris survey above.

Other Non-Christian/and non-Jew other reduces Christian to 80 to 85% with many of those not church or synagogue going on a monthly or better basis.

In the EU that doubles and in a few countries triples as I recall - there is an atheist site that has a list of surveys, some of which are from solid organizatoions and all of which give higher results than 2%.

But who cares about numbers - the question before the court should be either can the government hold meetings with faith based organizations and exclude any group - as in excluding an atheists' group that might want to attend, or can the government even spend any money meeting with faith based organizations. But in this case, the only question is can a taxpayer that can not show financial harm have standing in Court to prevent an expenditure by the government- and that looks like a slam dunk for the governments faith based office based on the only 2 USSC prior cases in this area.

It will be interesting to see if the USSC reverses it's prior attitude and agrees with the appeals court that gave standing to the tax payer that objected to money spent on meetings with faith based organizations.

[magellan]

9. I heard that too and thought WTF

Happened to have ABC on while cleaning, the former activity being far rarer than the latter. lol

2% atheist/agnostic in the US is BS. I'd like to know how they worded their poll.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[tkmorris]

11. Most sites seem to reference US census figures

I contend that these figures are problematic because when asking about people's religion, the census offers Atheist, Agnostic, and another possibility labeled simply "No Religion". Atheists and Agnostic only make up about 1% of those surveyed but when the "No Religion" category is added in the total is 15%.

http://www.answers.com/topic/demographics-of-the-united-states

[Kelly Rupert]

15. The "no religion" types are problematic.

You can't sort out the ones who vaguely believe in "God" or an afterlife but don't subscribe to any creed from those who are actual atheists/agnostics.

[pop goes the weasel]

18. when asked my religion

I always say "none." Atheism isn't a religion, though some religions are atheistic.

[Jamastiene]

13. Well, they didn't ask me.

I wonder how many people they missed. That's an odd statistic. The FFRF should win this case. This so-called faith based initiative has been all about favortism and not about letting good faith based groups help people, IMHO.

[Ellipsis]

16. This is a good break out on religions in the US.

They only state no religion ... not agnostics.

http://www.usatoday.com/graphics/news/gra/gnoreligion/flash.htm

[cgrindley]

22. Agnosticism is a cop out

It's like pretending that you have a chance to win Powerball. Yeah. Sure you do.





PS you really don't, you know. You're not going to win Powerball. And there aren't any gods.

[JI7]

19. yet some religious keep claiming they are being persecuted

by the "non believers".

[Atman]

24. So it's okay to ignore and belittle the beliefs of 6,000,000 Americans?

Hmm. Even if that number is correct (I think it is very low, because most people are still afraid to say they are "atheist" to a pollster, or even admit it to themselves -- they just call themselves whatever Mom and Dad told them they were when they were kids), I don't understand the point. So the fuck what? 6,000,000 Jews died at the hands of Hitler, but no one said it was "only" 6,000,000. That's a shitload of people any way you try to minimize their value as citizens.

.