America's amusing smorgasbord of religious, social, and political beliefs according to Real Clear, ranked, annotated

Percent who believe in, believe that, say that, are, et cetera, per Real Clear Opinion Research, here:

 

Religious freedom is a fundamental human right 93.8 (this idea was foreign to ancient Israel, Greece, Rome, Christian Europe, and the era of the Muslim conquests, to name just a few)

 

God 85.4 (name not indicated)

Heaven 84.7 (John Lennon most hurt)

Healthcare is a fundamental human right 83.7 (the propaganda of the ObamaCare era worked)

Miracles 83.0 (Justin Amash fooled the people 5 times, Peter Meijer only once)

"In God We Trust" 83.0 ("In Fiat Money We Trust" was too long)

Jesus is God or Son of God 80.3 (thanks to not being aborted by the Holy Virgin Mary)

 

Hell 72.4 (San Francisco, New York City, Portland, et cetera)

The Devil 70.3 (yeah baby, drugs, sex, and rock and roll)

 

A woman and her doctor should get to decide whether to have an abortion 63.4 (vaccination highly recommended)

Ghosts 61.4 (unstated whether they are tiny baby ghosts or not)

 

Aliens 56.9 (oddly explains the southern border)

God is male 50.0 (Jesus is shocked, shocked, I tell you)

 

Reincarnation 47.7 (belief in Hinduism is dead last 0.5% ha ha ha ha ha, see below)

Witches 45.8 (strongly believed in Michigan methinks)

Prejudice against Jews is a very serious problem in the US 42.6 (because the Jews run everything)

 

2020 Joe Biden 38.6 (voting by mail multiple times or in person not specified)

Protestant 36.3 (prejudice problem 17.3)

2020 Donald Trump 34.6 (not everything deserves a comment)

Democrat Party 33.6

Republican Party 32.8

 

Never attend religious service 29.2 (makes sense given these results)

Prejudice against Muslims is a very serious problem in the US 29.1 (because of what they did on Oct 7)

God is neither male nor female 27.5 (0.9% of respondents also neither male nor female)

2020 didn't vote 24.8 (thank God) 

Catholic 22.0 (prejudice problem 14.9)

Independent party 21.4

 

Attend religious service once a week 19.5 (as good as it gets for category)

No religion 19.4

Prejudice against Evangelical Christians is a very serious problem in the US 17.3

Prejudice against Hindus is a very serious problem in the US 16.2 (but, but reincarnation)

Prejudice against atheists is a very serious problem in the US 15.7

Prejudice against Catholics is a very serious problem in the US 14.9

God is female 14.1

Not registered to vote 12.1

Atheist 3.8 (prejudice problem 15.7)

Agnostic 3.7

Other religion 3.3

Islamic 3.2 (prejudice problem 29.1)

Mormon 2.9

2020 voted for other 2.0

Judaism 1.9 (prejudice problem 42.6)

Buddhist 1.6

Orthodox 1.3 (Rod Dreher)

Hindu 0.5 (prejudice problem 16.2)

 

People clearly believe that some groups, to paraphrase Barack Obama in 2012 about the Danes, the Dutch, the Norwegians, the Irish, and the Filipinos, seem to get punched far out of proportion with their weight in the culture. 

 

Results discussed here, where this is surely wrong, leaving out the little word "not" in a crucial spot at the end:

Most Americans also remain deeply respectful of the country’s religious roots. A strong majority of respondents – 83% – believe the phrase “In God we trust” should remain on U.S. currency and coins, compared to 17% who back the phrase’s removal.

“Republicans felt more strongly that the phrase should remain compared to Democrats, with 91% believing the phrase should [not] be removed, compared to 78% of Democrats,” Kimball said.     

In 2011 former Republican Justin Amash (MI-3) joined eight Democrats to vote against "In God We Trust", which in his first term was a sign of things to come in his last.

 

 

Expert on moral decline who says there isn't any says eternal questions of right and wrong are for pedants

  If you think same-sex marriage is immoral, you certainly think the US is far less moral than it was before 2015. ... We can settle eternal questions of right and wrong later. For now, we only care about the parts of morality where pretty much everyone would agree ... things that we can all agree are bad.

Okay, goodbye, pedants! Onward to the science.

This is what passes for serious religious discourse at Real Clear Religion. 

In 2001 just 40% of Americans thought same-sex relations were acceptable. In 2023 it's 64%, but down 7-points from last year, according to Gallup.

The overall increase is indeed a measure of moral decline, but The Science™isn't particularly interested in that, nor in why millions of people suddenly changed their minds about it again in 2023.

 

 

Gay man conducts online poll with a good number of queer respondents asking why they're leaving Christianity, finds LGBT discrimination is the main reason

I'm shocked, right?

But why does this get treated as legitimate by Real Clear Religion when it's obviously biased and skewed?

Why Are People Leaving Christianity?

Brandon Flanery, Baptist News Global

Nothing is sacred

 

When you hand the religion beat to the libertarians

 

Monastic rules, the second law of thermodynamics, and post-modernism

Homer, Martin Luther, and the wisdom of beer

Just kidding.

Everyone has their hand out, everyone wants a bailout, everyone wants a piece of the action, including the nation's clergy

America as I've always known it is dead. Well and truly dead.

Relief Funds Should Benefit Clergy, Too:

Clergy can, and must, receive CARES Act funds.

More evidence religion is inherently violent: Hindu fundamentalists are killing more and more people suspected of eating cows, especially Muslims

Story here.

The answer is: Either Florida, or to write for Charlie Hebdo

And I Love Not Hearing You

Who Needs REAL CLEAR RELIGION?

I can go weeks without reading it and not miss a thing, kind of like this blog.

In the Name of the Infantilis, the Jejunus, and the Holy Puerilis

The otiose David Warren dissects our Atheocracy here. The best thing about it is that it can't last too long, because it won't reproduce itself, and is defenseless. The point of having a "quiver" full of sons, after all, is to have your own army to defend the gate. Happiness is both that easy, and that hard:

[W]e have an upside-down religion, in which there is no God, but that "Not God" commands an obedience more absolute than God ever required, stipulating everything from the sanctity of antinomian sexual behaviour, down to how we should sort our garbage.

It rides upon an inexhaustible series of mildly fluctuating, but invariably self-contradictory moral and epistemological premises (or more precisely, conceits); and because everything is "relative," nothing may be challenged. It is ... a religion for which an extremely arid Darwinist materialism provides the founding cosmological myth. And abortion is its principal sacrament.

Or to put it another way, a religion that is not going to last forever, but has nevertheless been growing at an accelerating pace for more than 200 years. Moreover, a religion not without some real appeal, to a society of nearly pure consumers. ...

I once commissioned an essay from the estimable Eric McLuhan, expounding the philosophy of Peter Pan. It was a subject I even began drafting a book upon, myself: about the ease with which people may be ruled, once the faith of Peter Pan has been accepted. According to that faith, those who age will die. The secret of immortality is thus to remain perpetually a child, wishing perpetually upon a star. It requires some Nanny, to fulfil all the wishes.

Hence, our theocracy.

Children, we, of a lesser god.

The Launch of Real Clear Religion

What took them so long?

From Reason Magazine, here:

Real Clear Religion Launches

Brian Doherty | October 18, 2010

The Real Clear campaign of conquering all fields of human thought and endeavor continues apace, with the public launch of Real Clear Religion, edited by former Reason intern and sometime Reason contributor Jeremy Lott. Keep up with the news of all the Gods and all their sayings and all the human hugger-mugger that arises and froths around all that, daily.