Today, it came in the form of this Gallup poll showing that US Citizens are becoming less and less identified by a religion.
"The number of Americans with no formal religious identity began to increase in the 1970s, reaching 11% by 1990. After some fluctuations over the last two decades, 16% of Americans now say they have no religious identity or have an otherwise undesignated response."One of my growing interests is in the global concept of identity. What defines us? Certainly there are many things, but are there any commonalities that all humans everywhere use to define themselves as human? Identity is the search of the adolescent and this Gallup poll sheds light on to the change in United States citizens' take on what makes them who they are.
The other item of the study showed the relationship between whether religion is old/outdated or if it really can solve problems. There is a slow but steady climb is realizing that religion is out of date, but a very dramatic decline in believing that it can solve problems. Of course, the most dramatic dips in the latter comes through the Vietnam era and then again in 2001.
1 comment:
I find it interesting that 12% of Americans still identify as religious, but believe that religion is "largely old fashioned and out-of-date".
It's not clear whether or not the 16% includes "Other" - people like me, who are highly ambiguous but not explicitly nonreligious, but the difference is still interesting.
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