Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled.
Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades.
“Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.
As Dulak rejects being part of a religious flock, he has plenty of company. He is a “none” — no, not that kind of nun. The kind that checks “none” when pollsters ask “What’s your religion?”
The decades-long rise of the nones — a diverse, hard-to-summarize group — is one of the most talked about phenomena in U.S. religion. They are reshaping America’s religious landscape as we know it.
In U.S. religion today, “the most important story without a shadow of a doubt is the unbelievable rise in the share of Americans who are nonreligious,” said Ryan Burge, a political science professor at Eastern Illinois University and author of “The Nones,” a book on the phenomenon.
People are tired of being controlled. In the US south you can’t spit without hitting two churches and they are all tax exempt and the majority of them don’t provide anything of worth. Add to that the abuse and the fact the preachers have no idea what they are preaching and its high time humanity starts moving on from these controlling organized bronze age religions.
The ones that operate soup kitchens and other forms of mutual aid definitely offer value to their communities.
Some do. Not enough
Imagine a world where the default image of “an American, Christian, religious organization” was Habitat for Humanity instead of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Wait, is Habitat for Humanity religious?
If so, that is the right way for religious organizations to do charity work!
Habitat is Christian; their first principle is “Demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ”. They are also specifically non-proselytizing.
Neat!
Not sure if they’re officially religious but they do work with churches. And Jimmy Carter is hella religious (though I understand he didn’t start the org)
They’re religious? What a shame…
Most of my friends who come from religious families rejected their family religion but 85% have adopted astrology or crystals to fill the vacuum. Strikes me as odd.
Never had an astrologist knock on my door or tell my wife she can’t get an abortion.
Unfortunately I have read about the results of parents that give their children homeopathic remedies to cure the flu and heavy metal chelation therapy to cure autism caused by nonexistent thermoseral mercury in MMR vaccines. That result is dead kids or sick kids that still have autism.
Being turned off religion by the endless hypocrisy (I recall reading some time ago that that was the leading factor in kids leaving their parents faith) doesn’t actually teach skepticism or critical thought.
It’s like chewing gum instead of smoking. Scratches the itch harmlessly.
Phenomenon they say, as if there’s no valid reason or it didn’t happen in Europe before. Actually, over here in Europe, I don’t even know a single religious person and have only met a selected few.
Why does the word “phenomenon” make you think that they think there’s no valid reason? All phenomena happen for reasons; it just means “a thing that happens.”
I may be wrong here, but I usually use “phenomenon” as “a thing that happens, which I cannot explain”.
Funny how modern countries say that the numbers of religious people are shrinking, but the backward ones say the number of non religious are growing 🤔
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I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to say here…
What’s to like about the American religious?
As an atheist, actually, there’s a lot. One of my favorite podcast hosts is a Marxist Catholic with religious views I would expect from a Christian. Similarly, one of my favorite rhetoricians wrote about White Evangelical Spiritual Narcissists. I’m certain that their versions of Christianity have a lot to offer everyone, even atheists.
But the most prominent aspects of them are morally depraved.
Evangelical Christians epsecially, falling short of the glory of God in every conceivable way, have turned vice to virtue. It’s the only way to make sense of compassion as Satanic:
The compassion of Satan presents human emotion or need above God’s Word, the Bible.
“‘none’ - no, not that kind of nun” really doesn’t work in print. Was this written by a.i. or the n.i.?
