There is a reckoning coming for evangelicals when considering what they have done to their god, they have saddled it with choosing Trump to lead the US. FFS, this is the best it could do? It chose this despicable putrid POS! They have done massively more harm to their god than anything any atheist could ever do. In the coming years, I really hope they well be reminded of this routinely, constantly, incessantly.
Hopefully their reckoning will be a realization that they have been conned since they were indoctrinated as a child into believing fiction and giving up their cognitive abilities to blindly follow lies that can’t be questioned.
It is astonishing to me that any educated person past high school would believe there is some being listening to them! ‘It” is Zooming in to hear their (usually) trivial prayers, while people/children around the world are starving, murdered, raped, bombed. But no…they’ll pray that grandson’s football team will be “blessed” with a win! Billions of people on earth…but some god zooms in on you!. What utterly arrogant absurdity!
As 64 year old former Catholic I was not contacted to participate in this survey.
I began drifting away from my strict Catholic upbringing in young adulthood. The final nail in the proverbial coffin was when I attended my very religious nieces church wedding about 10 years ago. In the wedding program on the inside was a statement that said something like, "If you are not in a state of grace with God please do not join in the communion procession."
That was that. I only set foot in a church two more times since, for two other weddings. I never left my seat except to leave.
Now, my only connection to religion is observing my ridiculously hypocritical family members supporting the hateful and deadly trump regime. Sheer insanity.
Looking at the inverse correlation of religiosity with age, reminds me Planck's principle, "Science progresses one funeral at a time". Scientific theories are not falsified, it's just that proponents of older theories die off, taking the theories with them.
The decline in religiosity among the general population is almost certainly one of the driving factors behind the religious right's all-out attempt to establish one-party rule and, with it, theocracy. They know they need authoritarianism to keep their superstition- and the power it feeds them- on life support for a few generations longer.
OT: I came here to share some memes, which I can’t find now, about Somalis trolling MAGAts. Referring to Minnesota as “the ancestral homeland” and saying God promised them Minnesota 3000 years ago. Naturally, some MAGAts fail to get the joke and are accusing Somalis of being low IQ.
The problem of every way of thinking on the far right, and perhaps to a lesser extent, to the far left, is that it begins to be impossible to distinguish satire from reality.. There is no theory or position so radical that somebody will not advocate for it, and think that they are justified. That's how we ended up where we are right now.
"That says a lot about the problems with conservative Christianity. If they can’t gain new converts at a time when they have disproportionate political power, unprecedented legal favoritism, and unbroken cultural visibility, then they have no hope. We know Americans can be duped into voting against their best interests, but the culture war bullshit eventually wears thin. And the longer conservative Christians align with cruelty, exclusion, and authoritarianism, the harder they’ll have to work to convince anyone they’re part of a club worth joining."
"And the longer conservative Christians align with cruelty, exclusion, and authoritarianism, the harder they’ll have to work to convince anyone they’re part of a club worth joining."
Which is one of the many explanations to why creationist "museums" and "parks" are poorly attended to and why creationist literature and media poorly sell in the market.
That’s why they’re so desperate to shove it into schools. Need to get to the kids before they learn to recognize how ridiculously moronic the stories are.
IMO creationists have identified their niche 'evangelical/deluded' market and actually do quite well selling their 'product' to this audience--which is why they're still in business. Same reason uber-Christians (including Catlicks) have such an outsized amount of power despite their relatively low numbers. There is no shortage of culture warriors, a.ka. suckers (with apologies to P.T. Barnum).
Human trends are rarely as simple as upward or downward in direction. Certainly, the movement was largely downward until about three years ago, and for myself, I put that down to the influence of people like Trump, Charlie Kirk, and those like them. Still, the wheels are beginning to come off the Trump train, and I suspect that, eventually, the kinds of attitudes represented by Kirk and his ilk will come under sufficient scrutiny to create issue for them as well.
Give it time. I fully expect the downward slide to restart, possibly as soon as the midterms.
"Still, the wheels are beginning to come off the Trump train"
Personally, I have to wonder whether it is a last hurrah, that the more moderate churches are fading away, leaving those led by people like Doug Wilson. They may have money and power, but given the vileness of their message, and the indifference of the young to sexuality or ethnicity one can hope for a turning away.
Same here Troublesh00ter. People don’t go from atheist to belief….ever. If they say they have…it’s a lie. One doesn’t see the truth, then decide to take the false belief as a better option.
I think there is a danger in looking at a short period of time here. Trends have their ups and downs, but as Hemant said the overall trend is down and that's a good thing. I think one thing that might accelerate the downward trend would be to give Americans more certainty in their lives - it's a case for workplace legislation, trade unions, and free or subsidised medical care. I'm pretty sure that's what accelerated the decline in Europe. Where is everybody by the way?
What I see is serious growth in Christian Nationalist churches throughout Ohio in semi-rural towns. They are targeting children through LifeWise Academy and on-site inside playgrounds. And they are well-funded by wealthy businessmen and local charitable foundations. I’m not getting complacent, one of these churches has a stranglehold on my hometown and are gaining ground.
Authoritarian movements always lie about religious numbers. Inflating belief, exaggerating dominance, or claiming moral consensus is how they manufacture legitimacy. If they can convince people that “most believe this,” they can justify control in the name of a false mandate.
Ah, but the C of E is one of those wishy-washy Anglican type churches without the fire and brimstone. For a long time it was these mainstream churches losing parishioners who were going to more fundamentalist/evangelical churches. Now at least they're dropping out altogether, if not becoming atheists.
Even here in the heart of the Bible Belt most of the people publicly proclaiming their alignment with the current administration and professing their strong "Christian" faith don't attend any church regularly. When they do attend, to be sure it's the Evangelical Mega-Hate Circuses they haul their oversized pick-up trucks with giant flag decals to, packing their unvaccinated children into the cabs for their quarterly indoctrination against the actual message of the Jesus they claim to be follow. It's unfortunate I guess that it's only a matter of time before one of these major holiday trips to the God Mall results in a new measles outbreak. It's not their children's fault, but these people are so deluded and selfish it's not going to matter.
Those headlines were absolutely written with the idea of how to lie with statistics. There is a book I read, I’ve mentioned it before during the decade or so I’ve been with you all, that explains how people use statistics, graphs and charts to manipulate reality. The revival they see is some misleading extract from a study or graph that shows an uptick in church attendance or baptisms or something. Maybe it was only in a small area, or one month or something specific. Maybe young men did decide to go to church because Russel Brand found Jesus, now Joe Rogan did too, and they jumped on the bandwagon but quickly realized that the church was too much effort for the unrealistic promise of getting the control they are missing, so they leave quickly too. Maybe they realized that Brand was only using religion to buffer his despicable behavior (which makes me question what Rogan is hiding) and not because he really believes. The media picks up the influx of disaffected young men, but doesn’t bother to follow up a year later. The reality is as reported here, stagnation, sorry holding steady for now. Looking at the graphs over long periods show the trends with a smooth line, but when you zoom in on shorter time frames you will see plateaus, ups and downs, that is what we see now, a zoomed in picture of a smoother decline.
But now there are folks who benefit from saying there’s a revival, trying to manufacture a trend to see if it will inspire folks to jump on a bandwagon. It might have worked in the past, but it doesn’t seem to be working now. It could if they keep pushing, but Trump and the Heritage Foundation are undermining the whole plan.
Is the downward trend truly leveling off? Or is it just the normal statistical ups and downs in the short term?
I think it's the latter, similar to those decades long downward trend of violent crime. Although correlation dos not equal causation, the two trends seem to share this: desperate people are more likely to be religious, and more likely to be violent. Most of us here who are non-religious are also more likely to be nonviolent and more willing to help others.
There is a reckoning coming for evangelicals when considering what they have done to their god, they have saddled it with choosing Trump to lead the US. FFS, this is the best it could do? It chose this despicable putrid POS! They have done massively more harm to their god than anything any atheist could ever do. In the coming years, I really hope they well be reminded of this routinely, constantly, incessantly.
Every prosyletizer at me door gets a single syllable reply...'Trump', and a door closed in their face. Message sent, but almost certainly not heard
👏
Hopefully their reckoning will be a realization that they have been conned since they were indoctrinated as a child into believing fiction and giving up their cognitive abilities to blindly follow lies that can’t be questioned.
It is astonishing to me that any educated person past high school would believe there is some being listening to them! ‘It” is Zooming in to hear their (usually) trivial prayers, while people/children around the world are starving, murdered, raped, bombed. But no…they’ll pray that grandson’s football team will be “blessed” with a win! Billions of people on earth…but some god zooms in on you!. What utterly arrogant absurdity!
🤭🙄
As 64 year old former Catholic I was not contacted to participate in this survey.
I began drifting away from my strict Catholic upbringing in young adulthood. The final nail in the proverbial coffin was when I attended my very religious nieces church wedding about 10 years ago. In the wedding program on the inside was a statement that said something like, "If you are not in a state of grace with God please do not join in the communion procession."
That was that. I only set foot in a church two more times since, for two other weddings. I never left my seat except to leave.
Now, my only connection to religion is observing my ridiculously hypocritical family members supporting the hateful and deadly trump regime. Sheer insanity.
You know who could stop the downward trend? An omnipotent god.
Odin? No way...he doesn't give a crap.
For what I know of Odin, he had a lot more sense in his head than Yahweh ever had!
Also never impregnated any virgins that I can recall.
Every time you type Yahweh I wanna tell you to cover your mouth when you yawn.
😝😝😝😁😁😁
Looking at the inverse correlation of religiosity with age, reminds me Planck's principle, "Science progresses one funeral at a time". Scientific theories are not falsified, it's just that proponents of older theories die off, taking the theories with them.
I love that principle. “Science advances one funeral* at a time.”
*might be death rather than funeral.
That gets a WOW from me!
The decline in religiosity among the general population is almost certainly one of the driving factors behind the religious right's all-out attempt to establish one-party rule and, with it, theocracy. They know they need authoritarianism to keep their superstition- and the power it feeds them- on life support for a few generations longer.
OT: I came here to share some memes, which I can’t find now, about Somalis trolling MAGAts. Referring to Minnesota as “the ancestral homeland” and saying God promised them Minnesota 3000 years ago. Naturally, some MAGAts fail to get the joke and are accusing Somalis of being low IQ.
I'd say pot/kettle but that might be a bit on the nose.
The problem of every way of thinking on the far right, and perhaps to a lesser extent, to the far left, is that it begins to be impossible to distinguish satire from reality.. There is no theory or position so radical that somebody will not advocate for it, and think that they are justified. That's how we ended up where we are right now.
I've been hearing about these and I want to see them too!
Superb analysis once again, Hemant!
"That says a lot about the problems with conservative Christianity. If they can’t gain new converts at a time when they have disproportionate political power, unprecedented legal favoritism, and unbroken cultural visibility, then they have no hope. We know Americans can be duped into voting against their best interests, but the culture war bullshit eventually wears thin. And the longer conservative Christians align with cruelty, exclusion, and authoritarianism, the harder they’ll have to work to convince anyone they’re part of a club worth joining."
"And the longer conservative Christians align with cruelty, exclusion, and authoritarianism, the harder they’ll have to work to convince anyone they’re part of a club worth joining."
Which is one of the many explanations to why creationist "museums" and "parks" are poorly attended to and why creationist literature and media poorly sell in the market.
That’s why they’re so desperate to shove it into schools. Need to get to the kids before they learn to recognize how ridiculously moronic the stories are.
IMO creationists have identified their niche 'evangelical/deluded' market and actually do quite well selling their 'product' to this audience--which is why they're still in business. Same reason uber-Christians (including Catlicks) have such an outsized amount of power despite their relatively low numbers. There is no shortage of culture warriors, a.ka. suckers (with apologies to P.T. Barnum).
Human trends are rarely as simple as upward or downward in direction. Certainly, the movement was largely downward until about three years ago, and for myself, I put that down to the influence of people like Trump, Charlie Kirk, and those like them. Still, the wheels are beginning to come off the Trump train, and I suspect that, eventually, the kinds of attitudes represented by Kirk and his ilk will come under sufficient scrutiny to create issue for them as well.
Give it time. I fully expect the downward slide to restart, possibly as soon as the midterms.
"Still, the wheels are beginning to come off the Trump train"
Personally, I have to wonder whether it is a last hurrah, that the more moderate churches are fading away, leaving those led by people like Doug Wilson. They may have money and power, but given the vileness of their message, and the indifference of the young to sexuality or ethnicity one can hope for a turning away.
Same here Troublesh00ter. People don’t go from atheist to belief….ever. If they say they have…it’s a lie. One doesn’t see the truth, then decide to take the false belief as a better option.
I was raised secular by an Atheist mother. I am a Pagan since I was 25 years. Sorry. I am wrong, I am actually a liar from your comment.
I think there is a danger in looking at a short period of time here. Trends have their ups and downs, but as Hemant said the overall trend is down and that's a good thing. I think one thing that might accelerate the downward trend would be to give Americans more certainty in their lives - it's a case for workplace legislation, trade unions, and free or subsidised medical care. I'm pretty sure that's what accelerated the decline in Europe. Where is everybody by the way?
Church. They're all in church, eating the potluck garbage.
What I see is serious growth in Christian Nationalist churches throughout Ohio in semi-rural towns. They are targeting children through LifeWise Academy and on-site inside playgrounds. And they are well-funded by wealthy businessmen and local charitable foundations. I’m not getting complacent, one of these churches has a stranglehold on my hometown and are gaining ground.
Authoritarian movements always lie about religious numbers. Inflating belief, exaggerating dominance, or claiming moral consensus is how they manufacture legitimacy. If they can convince people that “most believe this,” they can justify control in the name of a false mandate.
That’s why trump’s most used lie is “Many people say…”
The finest people, the best people, people with tears in their eyes, yada yada yada.
It's a fairly simple set of statistics, I think a deeper dig might be useful.
How are numbers for hatch/match/dispatch ceremonies holding up. This article from the UK National Secular Society notes that Church of England marriages have dropped 9% since 2023, baptisms by 10% and funerals by 8%. Christmas attendance is down by 5% - https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2025/10/cofe-marriages-and-funerals-in-decline-church-data-shows
I particularly like the paragraph that indicates the average CofE church has 36 attendees on a Sunday, one wedding and six funerals.
I have to wonder whether the same pattern is happening in the US. Captain Cassidy has figures for the Southern Baptists - https://www.patreon.com/posts/stories-hiding-143554893
Ah, but the C of E is one of those wishy-washy Anglican type churches without the fire and brimstone. For a long time it was these mainstream churches losing parishioners who were going to more fundamentalist/evangelical churches. Now at least they're dropping out altogether, if not becoming atheists.
I suspect that the end result may not even be atheism. I think it will be a very healthy dose of " I have other things to do!"
God doesn't become nonexistent, he becomes simply irrelevant.
"God doesn't become nonexistent, he becomes simply irrelevant."
My suspicion is that most of the population of the UK is apatheist.
"one wedding and six funerals." - Didn't that movie star Hugh Grant and Andie McDowell?
Even here in the heart of the Bible Belt most of the people publicly proclaiming their alignment with the current administration and professing their strong "Christian" faith don't attend any church regularly. When they do attend, to be sure it's the Evangelical Mega-Hate Circuses they haul their oversized pick-up trucks with giant flag decals to, packing their unvaccinated children into the cabs for their quarterly indoctrination against the actual message of the Jesus they claim to be follow. It's unfortunate I guess that it's only a matter of time before one of these major holiday trips to the God Mall results in a new measles outbreak. It's not their children's fault, but these people are so deluded and selfish it's not going to matter.
Those headlines were absolutely written with the idea of how to lie with statistics. There is a book I read, I’ve mentioned it before during the decade or so I’ve been with you all, that explains how people use statistics, graphs and charts to manipulate reality. The revival they see is some misleading extract from a study or graph that shows an uptick in church attendance or baptisms or something. Maybe it was only in a small area, or one month or something specific. Maybe young men did decide to go to church because Russel Brand found Jesus, now Joe Rogan did too, and they jumped on the bandwagon but quickly realized that the church was too much effort for the unrealistic promise of getting the control they are missing, so they leave quickly too. Maybe they realized that Brand was only using religion to buffer his despicable behavior (which makes me question what Rogan is hiding) and not because he really believes. The media picks up the influx of disaffected young men, but doesn’t bother to follow up a year later. The reality is as reported here, stagnation, sorry holding steady for now. Looking at the graphs over long periods show the trends with a smooth line, but when you zoom in on shorter time frames you will see plateaus, ups and downs, that is what we see now, a zoomed in picture of a smoother decline.
But now there are folks who benefit from saying there’s a revival, trying to manufacture a trend to see if it will inspire folks to jump on a bandwagon. It might have worked in the past, but it doesn’t seem to be working now. It could if they keep pushing, but Trump and the Heritage Foundation are undermining the whole plan.
Exactly what I was trying to say, except that you actually said it. I promise I won't sue for nonexistent plagiarism.
You should, and ask to be compensated with coffee.
Is the downward trend truly leveling off? Or is it just the normal statistical ups and downs in the short term?
I think it's the latter, similar to those decades long downward trend of violent crime. Although correlation dos not equal causation, the two trends seem to share this: desperate people are more likely to be religious, and more likely to be violent. Most of us here who are non-religious are also more likely to be nonviolent and more willing to help others.
Two weekend posts! Hemant is getting into the Christmas spirit with all this generous posting!
Of course – I had completely forgotten Sunday where you are.