America is a tremendously diverse nation, but whom do we have on the Supreme Court? Still mostly men (5). Mainly white (7). Mainly non-Hispanic (8). Exclusively elites (4 Harvard Law, 4 Yale, 1 Notre Dame). Heavily Catholic (6, plus 1 Episcopalian raised Catholic, to go with the token Protestant and Jew; 0 atheists, 0 Muslims, 0 Hindus, 0 Buddhists, 0 Confucians, 0 Mormons, 0 Sikhs, and 0 pantheists). Mainly East Coasters (3 from New York, 2 from DC, 1 each from New Jersey and Georgia, the other 2 from Colorado and Louisiana). 0 rurals. 0 foreign-born. All (probably) straight. Mainly married (7 + 1 divorced). Almost all millionaires (8).
Obviously, they’re all intelligent, well educated, articulate, and able-bodied, which one can hardly hold against them (unless you’re Roman Hruska), but it diminishes their chances of being able to empathize with millions of Americans who aren’t.
To be fair, I'm not sure a judge should empathize much. They are supposed to be paragons of reason. They are not supposed to be swayed by emotion, but by logical argument based on the law.
Of course, our current justices are ruled by emotion to the point of irrationality. Fear, hatred, greed.
Well... they're 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 all intelligent, well educated, and articulate. I'd question the validity of that statement where Rapey McBeerpong and Handmaid Ofdonald are concerned. Plus, another four of 'em 𝘢𝘳𝘦 those things, but in a Lex Luthor sort of way, and that makes me wish they 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 just gibbering idiots who couldn't find their own asses with both hands and a search party.
You wouldn't add Uncle Thomas to those other two? You're feeling a lot more generous than I am today.
Overall, I'd say it's inescapable that the Supreme Court is even more corrupt than congress. When you think about it, that take a hell of a lot of doing.
"Donald Trump and his right-wing Christian allies went all in on trying to build a border wall while downplaying his other racist remarks."
That's not all. He and his heartless idiots also destroyed the lives of Central American immigrant families by ripping children from the arms of their parents. aunts, uncles, and grandparents, placed them in cages on concrete floors, forced them to sleep under aluminum blankets, abused them, physically and sexually, and so much more atrocities that Stupid idiot and his cronies must pay dearly for.
I don't care what happens to the Catholic Church, just as long as they are banned from holding any kind of secular authority, anywhere on earth. They will survive in the market place of ideas, or they won't. As for Latinos becoming Protestants, who cares? That is definitely not my problem to have. People have been trading old nonsense for new for as long as there have been people. It's the nonsense I find discouraging.
I care about the RCC in as much as I want it to sell off it's properties and do the Christian thing with the money. "No, not that! The thing that Jesus actually said. Yes, to the poor." ;)
That reminds of one of the SA mayoral candidates talking about "vagrancy" downtown. He said something to the effect that some of these people don't want help. (SA doesn't appear to have primaries for local elections, so there are something like 7 assholes running against our incumbent mayor. Talking about "shameful" shutdowns and how the governor had to end mask and vaccination mandates. It's a real shitshow.
Howinhell, did Republicans get a greater share of Latinx votes in 2020? What about the Republican party did some Latinx look at and say, yes, that's for me? It makes even less sense than Caitlyn Jenner. At least she has money as an excuse.
Speaking of the Quisling, I don't know if my trans siblings ever feel this way, but sometimes I'm tempted to eject her from the tribe and go back to using her former name and pronouns.
Nah... the asshole she is, is the asshole she is. She was much 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳 before she came out, so deadnaming her would almost be like calling her harmless.
I'm 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 happy to let her find out what happens when someone made of meat gets too cozy with hungry leopards, though. If she thinks she's not on the menu, she's in for a very unpleasant surprise when the GQP decides they don't need her as a pet anymore. Zero tears will be shed, and zero fucks will be given.
Meh, leave her to sort things out, if she ever can. Disagree with her, but avoid practicing the same kind of persecution against her that we all should decry. People are complicated, and we often perplex each other. Our inner motives struggle back and forth for dominance. Some members of every type of minority there is will inexplicably favor politicians who work against those minorities. Go figure, go figure. Meanwhile, the strength or weakness of our commitment to freedom is measured in how well we support the freedom of people with whom we disagree.
Seems as though the growth of the nones isn't just among white folk, eh? Have to say, I was surprised by this article and very pleasantly so. Also noted that BIG BUMP in the 18-29 demographic, pretty much the same as the US in general at this point. Damned good news.
My question now is: What's up with African-Americans and faith? There is a wonderful documentary, made some years back by one Jeremiah Camara, entitled 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛: 𝐴 𝑄𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝐹𝑎𝑖𝑡ℎ, wherein he looks at Christianity and the black community and questions whether that faith has been beneficial to it. I think that a similar study looking at the American black community would be necessary at this point to get a fuller picture of where faith and atheism are going in the 21st century.
Isn't the Florida thing the result of Cuban and maybe Venezuelan immigrants? Rabid anti-Communist why guests would tend to vote Republican without thinking. The jerking aside it makes sense for Latins to vote against Republicans if not necessarily for Democrats. Although I guess in the US there isn't much choice.
Even though there are only two viable parties here and the voters pretty much have to keep ping-ponging from one to the other, Americans continue to believe that our "democracy" should be a beacon and a model to the rest of the world. Go figure.
They can't get past the word "socialism." They can't comprehend that European-style socialism is vastly different from the dictatorial socialist regimes in Latin America.
You know, you'd think if you hate something that much, you'd learn to recognize it when you saw it. How did they miss that the Republicans are the dictator-wannabes?
They come from South America – doesn't that have a tradition of dictators? I suspect that most extreme – ish right-wing people are okay with dictatorship as long as it's their dictator.
The Cuban thing isn't "without thinking." Cuban refugees who actually, both-feet make it to the US have a special immigration status; they won't be deported, they get an easy fast track to a green card, and they can in some cases even collect a temporary stipend from the federal government. If/when the US normalizes relations with Cuba, all that will go away. The Dems want to normalize relations with Cuba. The GOP wants to keep Cuba an enemy and maintain the status quo. So it is very much in the Cuban-American population's rational self-interest to vote GOP. It's the difference between their nephew or grandkid back home getting here illegally and then (a) being given instant legal residency or (b) being treated like a Mexican. They very rationally choose the former.
The optimist in me (such as it is) loves to see the influence of the RCC, that festering boil on the ass of human history, waning towards an inevitable and 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 overdue death of obscurity.
The pessimist in me wonders what fresh new brand of superstitious awfulness is going to take its place. I'd 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 to believe that religion in general is finally on its way out the door, but it's proven to be a tenacious beast, and I worry that it won't take much of a push to send most humans scurrying back under the skirts of their holy men as the rest of the world falls apart. I worry that, depending on what happens in the next few years, we may be frightfully close to finding out what the next Dark Age looks like. Hopefully all of our hard-won progress won't be undone, but I suspect that sentiment has been felt by far too many others who then had to watch it all come crumbling down around them...
I'm pessimistic about religion, because there seems to be something in many people that needs some sort of religion. I wouldn't care what replaces Catholicism or anything else, as long as it keeps its nose out of my business. That's basically my only beef with religion at all really. It's sad to see friends and relations believing in nonsense, but essentially that's up to them. Like many sex practices it's a consenting adults thing.
One of the things that seems to be replacing formal religion is new-age woo. Who knows what damage that does, but it seems a little less awful than Catholicism or Islam or Scientology. The field is open of course for cult figures, but it's always been that. And I doubt if they do a hell of a lot more harm than catholic priests have over the years. Maybe with the exception of Jim Jones. I was going to say L Ron Hubbard, but I'm never quite sure of the distinction between occult and religion.🥴
But my kid's school has an armed guard and half the teachers are packing, so they'll protect my kid from any lone-wolves. (Crossfire, what's crossfire?)
This morning in my newspaper, there was an article about Florida (especially Fort Lauderdale) getting pummeled with heavy rains that trapped people in their homes and even their cars.
That rain was described as "biblical." Talk about FL being bible belted...
Given that the alleged events described in the bible happened in a region that is mostly arid, it probably didn’t take much rain for the writers of said events to be amazed. What I call “a nice soaking rain”.
I wonder how much of this is affected by the near shut down at the border? They talk about record numbers of immigrants trying to cross, but they also are not making it through the checkpoints. They’re being turned away and Mexico is having to handle them. Then there are the raids that ICE has done at businesses utilizing undocumented workers or transient folks, which have deported thousands.
If the Latino sand Hispanic immigrants are not making it into the country, they cannot be used for this poll. My guess is that many young people of all ethnicities who are 2nd and up generation citizens are less inclined to follow their religion, the newer immigrants are coming from more religious societies and therefore more likely to hold on to the religion than those who’ve been exposed to a less religious society. So the immigrants may be skewing the numbers from the past and the lack of immigration skews the number the other way now.
This is my guess from the knowledge I have, if there is something I missed or misunderstood I’m open to correction. There’s no animosity toward the immigrant population intended.
Hemant your analysis of Trump doesn't seem to be supported by the time data. Hispanics became *more* evangelical in the the early Trump years (2016-2018), not less.
Maybe there's a connection between Trump's harsh border policies and the large reduction in Hispanic evangelical numbers 2018-2021...but I'd probably chalk that up to Covid, not Trump hating on them. Intuitively, lack of in-person services is going to hurt the cults that rely on charisma and showmanship more than the others.
But all that is a quibble. The general observations 'nones growing hugely' and 'it's about the youth' certainly seems to be true. And not limited to hispanics :)
Catholicism still has a stranglehold on South and Central America. The old man with the white beanie and the guys with purple robes and pointed hats will never be out of a job.
Sometimes we can have surprises. From France, Spain was a heavily catholic country following franquism. Yet it was the third country to legalise mariage equality years before my more secular one.
America is a tremendously diverse nation, but whom do we have on the Supreme Court? Still mostly men (5). Mainly white (7). Mainly non-Hispanic (8). Exclusively elites (4 Harvard Law, 4 Yale, 1 Notre Dame). Heavily Catholic (6, plus 1 Episcopalian raised Catholic, to go with the token Protestant and Jew; 0 atheists, 0 Muslims, 0 Hindus, 0 Buddhists, 0 Confucians, 0 Mormons, 0 Sikhs, and 0 pantheists). Mainly East Coasters (3 from New York, 2 from DC, 1 each from New Jersey and Georgia, the other 2 from Colorado and Louisiana). 0 rurals. 0 foreign-born. All (probably) straight. Mainly married (7 + 1 divorced). Almost all millionaires (8).
Obviously, they’re all intelligent, well educated, articulate, and able-bodied, which one can hardly hold against them (unless you’re Roman Hruska), but it diminishes their chances of being able to empathize with millions of Americans who aren’t.
To be fair, I'm not sure a judge should empathize much. They are supposed to be paragons of reason. They are not supposed to be swayed by emotion, but by logical argument based on the law.
Of course, our current justices are ruled by emotion to the point of irrationality. Fear, hatred, greed.
And religion.
At this point, I'd say it's quite clear that SCOTUS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
(BTW, Gay USA this week reports that North Dakota's anti-trans legislation is the work of the bishops' cartel. And how many other states, I wonder.)
Well... they're 𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 all intelligent, well educated, and articulate. I'd question the validity of that statement where Rapey McBeerpong and Handmaid Ofdonald are concerned. Plus, another four of 'em 𝘢𝘳𝘦 those things, but in a Lex Luthor sort of way, and that makes me wish they 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 just gibbering idiots who couldn't find their own asses with both hands and a search party.
You wouldn't add Uncle Thomas to those other two? You're feeling a lot more generous than I am today.
Overall, I'd say it's inescapable that the Supreme Court is even more corrupt than congress. When you think about it, that take a hell of a lot of doing.
America is NOT a diversed country, it is two continents with app. 50 countries. I guess you meant the (un) United States of (nothern) America.
Anyway, people leaving organised religion is mostly fine. Their supreme court are a catastrophe already.
"Donald Trump and his right-wing Christian allies went all in on trying to build a border wall while downplaying his other racist remarks."
That's not all. He and his heartless idiots also destroyed the lives of Central American immigrant families by ripping children from the arms of their parents. aunts, uncles, and grandparents, placed them in cages on concrete floors, forced them to sleep under aluminum blankets, abused them, physically and sexually, and so much more atrocities that Stupid idiot and his cronies must pay dearly for.
"brainwash them, forced them to get adopted in White Christian homes, forced them into human trafficking, sexual slavery"
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b8ac53a3d9b81fd1b2c997fce5f96e6f78952969dcc50c018b72efe3182efe6e.png
Comment edited for clarity.
👍
I don't care what happens to the Catholic Church, just as long as they are banned from holding any kind of secular authority, anywhere on earth. They will survive in the market place of ideas, or they won't. As for Latinos becoming Protestants, who cares? That is definitely not my problem to have. People have been trading old nonsense for new for as long as there have been people. It's the nonsense I find discouraging.
I care about the RCC in as much as I want it to sell off it's properties and do the Christian thing with the money. "No, not that! The thing that Jesus actually said. Yes, to the poor." ;)
That reminds of one of the SA mayoral candidates talking about "vagrancy" downtown. He said something to the effect that some of these people don't want help. (SA doesn't appear to have primaries for local elections, so there are something like 7 assholes running against our incumbent mayor. Talking about "shameful" shutdowns and how the governor had to end mask and vaccination mandates. It's a real shitshow.
Howinhell, did Republicans get a greater share of Latinx votes in 2020? What about the Republican party did some Latinx look at and say, yes, that's for me? It makes even less sense than Caitlyn Jenner. At least she has money as an excuse.
Speaking of the Quisling, I don't know if my trans siblings ever feel this way, but sometimes I'm tempted to eject her from the tribe and go back to using her former name and pronouns.
Nah... the asshole she is, is the asshole she is. She was much 𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳 before she came out, so deadnaming her would almost be like calling her harmless.
I'm 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 happy to let her find out what happens when someone made of meat gets too cozy with hungry leopards, though. If she thinks she's not on the menu, she's in for a very unpleasant surprise when the GQP decides they don't need her as a pet anymore. Zero tears will be shed, and zero fucks will be given.
I won't dead name, it's rude to those folks who matter to me.
Meh, leave her to sort things out, if she ever can. Disagree with her, but avoid practicing the same kind of persecution against her that we all should decry. People are complicated, and we often perplex each other. Our inner motives struggle back and forth for dominance. Some members of every type of minority there is will inexplicably favor politicians who work against those minorities. Go figure, go figure. Meanwhile, the strength or weakness of our commitment to freedom is measured in how well we support the freedom of people with whom we disagree.
I support her freedom, but, yes, I want to hurt her the way she has hurt so many I care about. I haven't, but that doesn't mean I don't *want* to.
I fully understand. I struggle with that kind of inner tug-of-war very often. In the end, we are what we do, not what we think or feel.
Seems as though the growth of the nones isn't just among white folk, eh? Have to say, I was surprised by this article and very pleasantly so. Also noted that BIG BUMP in the 18-29 demographic, pretty much the same as the US in general at this point. Damned good news.
My question now is: What's up with African-Americans and faith? There is a wonderful documentary, made some years back by one Jeremiah Camara, entitled 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛: 𝐴 𝑄𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝐹𝑎𝑖𝑡ℎ, wherein he looks at Christianity and the black community and questions whether that faith has been beneficial to it. I think that a similar study looking at the American black community would be necessary at this point to get a fuller picture of where faith and atheism are going in the 21st century.
Are even nuns becoming nones?
When nuns fly.
New TV show: Flying Nuns Nones.
OT
Pentagon leaker is a christer, and a racist.
https://www.joemygod.com/2023/04/feds-target-air-national-guardsman-in-pentagon-leak/
"...a christer, and a racist."
But you repeat yourself.
He also sounds like a wanna-be.
"He also sounds like a wanna-be."
Now I've got both that Offspring tune (Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)) and Weird Al's White and Nerdy song stuck in my head.
I really prefer Al's version over Offspring's. But then most of the time I prefer Al's version over the original.
Pretty Fly (For a Rabbi)? It's a goody, but I think he took flack over it by Orthodox Jews who thought he was mocking them. He wasn't, of course.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=49FB9hhoO6c
Where is yours* ?
* Rethorical question.
KEXPs John Richards plays this one on The Morning Show a lot. :)
I was listening music on YouTube and I found a new earworm you will love to hate 🙂
Like most other groups, the sane ones eventually figure it out.
Isn't the Florida thing the result of Cuban and maybe Venezuelan immigrants? Rabid anti-Communist why guests would tend to vote Republican without thinking. The jerking aside it makes sense for Latins to vote against Republicans if not necessarily for Democrats. Although I guess in the US there isn't much choice.
Even though there are only two viable parties here and the voters pretty much have to keep ping-ponging from one to the other, Americans continue to believe that our "democracy" should be a beacon and a model to the rest of the world. Go figure.
They can't get past the word "socialism." They can't comprehend that European-style socialism is vastly different from the dictatorial socialist regimes in Latin America.
You know, you'd think if you hate something that much, you'd learn to recognize it when you saw it. How did they miss that the Republicans are the dictator-wannabes?
They come from South America – doesn't that have a tradition of dictators? I suspect that most extreme – ish right-wing people are okay with dictatorship as long as it's their dictator.
They came here to escape from dictators, and yet they support those who want to establish a fascist dictatorship here.
Sounds like extremist Muslims who emigrated to other countries, then tried to set up the very thing they escaped from.
They don't even realize just how many things in this country are socialist by their very nature.
They have no idea what socialism is or how many different types of socialism there are,
The Cuban thing isn't "without thinking." Cuban refugees who actually, both-feet make it to the US have a special immigration status; they won't be deported, they get an easy fast track to a green card, and they can in some cases even collect a temporary stipend from the federal government. If/when the US normalizes relations with Cuba, all that will go away. The Dems want to normalize relations with Cuba. The GOP wants to keep Cuba an enemy and maintain the status quo. So it is very much in the Cuban-American population's rational self-interest to vote GOP. It's the difference between their nephew or grandkid back home getting here illegally and then (a) being given instant legal residency or (b) being treated like a Mexican. They very rationally choose the former.
"Wet Foot Dry Foot" ended in 2017.
The optimist in me (such as it is) loves to see the influence of the RCC, that festering boil on the ass of human history, waning towards an inevitable and 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 overdue death of obscurity.
The pessimist in me wonders what fresh new brand of superstitious awfulness is going to take its place. I'd 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 to believe that religion in general is finally on its way out the door, but it's proven to be a tenacious beast, and I worry that it won't take much of a push to send most humans scurrying back under the skirts of their holy men as the rest of the world falls apart. I worry that, depending on what happens in the next few years, we may be frightfully close to finding out what the next Dark Age looks like. Hopefully all of our hard-won progress won't be undone, but I suspect that sentiment has been felt by far too many others who then had to watch it all come crumbling down around them...
Console yourself, that you and I probably won't live long enough to see the worst of it.
Religion, like a wounded animal, will continue to lash out until it finally succumbs to its injuries.
May as few people as possible be in range of its claws.
I'm pessimistic about religion, because there seems to be something in many people that needs some sort of religion. I wouldn't care what replaces Catholicism or anything else, as long as it keeps its nose out of my business. That's basically my only beef with religion at all really. It's sad to see friends and relations believing in nonsense, but essentially that's up to them. Like many sex practices it's a consenting adults thing.
One of the things that seems to be replacing formal religion is new-age woo. Who knows what damage that does, but it seems a little less awful than Catholicism or Islam or Scientology. The field is open of course for cult figures, but it's always been that. And I doubt if they do a hell of a lot more harm than catholic priests have over the years. Maybe with the exception of Jim Jones. I was going to say L Ron Hubbard, but I'm never quite sure of the distinction between occult and religion.🥴
OT - See, it is biblical
https://image.cagle.com/273591/750/273591.png
But my kid's school has an armed guard and half the teachers are packing, so they'll protect my kid from any lone-wolves. (Crossfire, what's crossfire?)
I didn't know you have a goat.
This morning in my newspaper, there was an article about Florida (especially Fort Lauderdale) getting pummeled with heavy rains that trapped people in their homes and even their cars.
That rain was described as "biblical." Talk about FL being bible belted...
Given that the alleged events described in the bible happened in a region that is mostly arid, it probably didn’t take much rain for the writers of said events to be amazed. What I call “a nice soaking rain”.
The flood myth found in the babble come from Mesopotamia "The land with 2 rivers". 2 rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, who were know to flood regularly.
"And it rained 40 days and 40 nights. In Ireland, we call dat da fekkin' summer!"
-- Agnes Brown, to 2 Mormon missionaries
You should post something that's humorous instead of that gut-level realism.
I wonder how much of this is affected by the near shut down at the border? They talk about record numbers of immigrants trying to cross, but they also are not making it through the checkpoints. They’re being turned away and Mexico is having to handle them. Then there are the raids that ICE has done at businesses utilizing undocumented workers or transient folks, which have deported thousands.
If the Latino sand Hispanic immigrants are not making it into the country, they cannot be used for this poll. My guess is that many young people of all ethnicities who are 2nd and up generation citizens are less inclined to follow their religion, the newer immigrants are coming from more religious societies and therefore more likely to hold on to the religion than those who’ve been exposed to a less religious society. So the immigrants may be skewing the numbers from the past and the lack of immigration skews the number the other way now.
This is my guess from the knowledge I have, if there is something I missed or misunderstood I’m open to correction. There’s no animosity toward the immigrant population intended.
I read somewhere that 25% of Muslims who migrate to the US leave the religion within a year or so. Again – I presume the younger ones.
It’s almost like they come to America for religious freedom.
https://friendlyatheist.substack.com/p/anti-trans-christian-lawmaker-says
New!
Just commented.
Bueno. Muy bueno.
Hemant your analysis of Trump doesn't seem to be supported by the time data. Hispanics became *more* evangelical in the the early Trump years (2016-2018), not less.
Maybe there's a connection between Trump's harsh border policies and the large reduction in Hispanic evangelical numbers 2018-2021...but I'd probably chalk that up to Covid, not Trump hating on them. Intuitively, lack of in-person services is going to hurt the cults that rely on charisma and showmanship more than the others.
But all that is a quibble. The general observations 'nones growing hugely' and 'it's about the youth' certainly seems to be true. And not limited to hispanics :)
Catholicism still has a stranglehold on South and Central America. The old man with the white beanie and the guys with purple robes and pointed hats will never be out of a job.
Take what good news you can get and console yourself that Catholicism *used* to have a stranglehold on a lot of places (like Ireland)
Then again, Ireland used to be heavily Catholic. They are now the fastest-growing country in the world to cast off religion, right behind Vietnam.
Sometimes we can have surprises. From France, Spain was a heavily catholic country following franquism. Yet it was the third country to legalise mariage equality years before my more secular one.