PZ Myers, who for the record I do think has a profound sense of humility and care for this planet and human welfare, once again acts not like a very good scientist with respect to what data regarding religion actually says. His quote from an article is titled with "Happy News!" I think for him this is another dose of wishful thinking on the overall effect of atheism on American religiosity.
New research shows young Americans are dramatically less likely to go to church — or to participate in any form of organized religion — than their parents and grandparents.
"It's a huge change," says Harvard University professor Robert Putnam, who conducted the research.
Historically, the percentage of Americans who said they had no religious affiliation (pollsters refer to this group as the "nones") has been very small — hovering between 5 percent and 10 percent. However, Putnam says the percentage of "nones" has now skyrocketed to between 30 percent and 40 percent among younger Americans.
This does not show that "they are leaving the whole rotten shebang altogether."You need to compare these data with other indices such as belief in God, prayer practices, etc. That gap is more closely related to what Grace Davie argued is the case in Europe, namely, that generations following the post war generations are less inclined to associated with a "traditional" religious institution, but are not becoming less religious. Her term is "believing without belonging" and it is a trend also observed by Wade Clark Roof in his examination of post World War II "seeker" behavior among the religious. Triangulating this against GSS data among other indices shows this correlation and scholars like Wuthnow, Norris & Inglehart, Greeley & Hout among others generally agree with this.
This would all but eliminate the hypothesis that secularist activism is having the desired effect that Myers quite ignorantly speculates. Rather, this more or less supports Putnam's theory of a declining social capital which is why he might be so apparently gleeful at the report. And yes, it does make a nice advertisement for Putnam's new book. This is not to discourage Putnam, but to beg that if an atheist is going to be such a good little skeptic, that he would do well to be that way consistently.
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I don't take anything PZ Myers has to say on the subject of religion very seriously, since he just comes across as an arrogant and intolerant twit, but in any case, I think the comparison with Europe is an interesting one, because I think Europeans are more religious than their church attendance would lead one to believe, and I suspect there has really been less of a difference between the US and Europe on this score than many might think. A couple of years ago I wrote in my blog a reference to a NY Times article in which included the following quote:
"The interesting fact is that people responding to questions about religion lie in both directions,” says the Spanish sociologist José Casanova, who is chairman of the sociology department at the New School for Social Research in New York and an authority on religion in Europe and the United States. “In America, people exaggerate how religious they are, and in Europe, it’s the other way around. That has to do with the situation of religion in both places. Americans think religion is a good thing and tend to feel guilty that they aren’t religious enough. In Europe, they think being religious is bad, and they actually feel guilty about being too religious.”
I agree. And Casanova is one of the 5 or 6 authorities on secularization theory, so take his word as a reliable one!
I agree. And Casanova is one of the 5 or 6 authorities on secularization theory, so take his word as a reliable one!