Poll: Is the 'No Religion' Boom in America a Good Thing?

I know that online polls like this are not accurate. Still, I find it heartening that this many people think reason instead of blind faith (pardon...blind faith is a redundancy) is a good thing. I think it's a positive step that fewer and fewer people even bother to argue with "Intelligent Design" proponents, just like no astronomers bother to argue with "flat-Earthers".

Faith and Religion are anti-reason and dangerous. The sooner we're free of the old superstitions the better.

Robert of AZ 3:05PM October 05, 2009

First to Jeannie, believing the Bible has some moral lessons is not the same as believing all of it is true. Many stories have moral lessons, but the Bible also has many immoral things like slavery, stoning people, mass murders, hating homosexuals etc. People are making an educated decision, people have studied the Bible, and they reject it..that is why people are more and more becoming non-religious. People can be moral without fear of God. This is why I am a fan of secular humanism. While I dont deny that religion has some moral guidance to offer, the strings attached are too much, and are too irrational to be reconciled. One does not need to be religious to be moral.

To Terri, you have no way of knowing if your prayers actually do something, and there is no evidence to support they will. Saying you will pray for non-believers is merely passive agressive tactic and does not help support your claim. Keep you patronizing, passive agressive and completely ufounded prayers to yourself. You pray for yourself, I'll think for myself, and we can call it even. By the way, your grandchildren will be fine, calm down, this type of hysteria is one reason religion is a problem. It is used to control people and keep them in line with fear. We don't need "God Fearing Americans" we need freethinking Americans.

To LBERNA, Yes religion played a significant role in this country's founding. But it is also seperate from the government and people should respect eachother's religions, or lack thereof. As George Carlin pointed out, this country was not founded with especially consistent moral beliefs considering it was founded by a buch of slave holders who wanted to be free.. religion sure made those guys moral didn't it?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSJmYnHdvsc&feature=related

Paul of NY 4:31PM September 29, 2009

"Here's hoping that by the time I die those same 95% will be saying that they, themselves, have been atheist since before they can remember; that they only went to church to humor their grandmother or their mother. That they thought their children needed a chance to choose for themselves."

As a youth indoctrinated into Catholicism I only went to church, catechism, etc. to humor my mother, who made me go. Yes, I seriously wondered about (if only privately) the supernatural feats, ideas such as wiping out life on the entire planet save for some on a boat etc. and ritual mumbo-jumbo each step of the way. I subsequently gathered that less ritualistic forms of religious thought and behavior still bore the same problems at their core. I now work to ensure that my daughters have an understanding of the non-supernatural universe in which we live, and that they are aware of, and comfortable with the fact that they can choose for themselves in the face of even more fervent attempts at indoctrination into religious thinking by their southern belle grandmother and a mother who partially buys into it and mostly just goes along with it. Now, if I can only get them to stop claiming the girls are Republicans... (Just kidding.)

"...most of what we currently hold sacred is not sacred for any reason other than that it was thought sacred yesterday. Surely, if we could create the world anew, the practice of organizing our lives around untestable propositions found in ancient literature--to say nothing of killing and dying for them--would be impossible to justify. What stops us from finding it impossible now?" -Sam Harris

Steve of IL 12:26PM September 29, 2009

Only in America can you make the statements that people have made concerning this survey.....and how did this come to be. Only in America... but let's see what you'll be able to "blog" about 10 to 20 years from now when we have atheists and "free thinkers" in positions of power in government. History tells us that the civilizations that worshipped pagan gods such as zeus and oden didn't exist for 2000 plus years but the Jews and Christians have. Also we have the ancient scrolls which is considered genuine documentation to prove the existence of Jesus to support the testimony of the books of the Bible. My final word is simply for anyone who truly wants to test God just ask our Lord and Saviour to prove Himself to you and He will. After all, even a conservative can be lacking knowledge if they choose to close their mind to the truth. PS- I can handle it....lesser of three evils...atheist, agnostic or satanist.

Terri Walker of NC 10:10PM September 27, 2009