Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
His Vanity Fair article about his book tour:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/f...?currentPage=1
You hear all the time that America is an intensely religious nation, but what you don't hear is that there are almost as many religions as there are believers. Moreover, many ostensible believers are quite unsure of what they actually believe. And, to put it mildly, the different faiths don't think that highly of one another. The emerging picture is not at all monolithic.
People seem to be lying to the opinion polls, as well.
Could there be a change in the Zeitgeist coming on? I think it's possible. A 2001 study found that those without religious affiliation are the fastest-growing minority in the United States. A generation ago the words "American atheist" conjured the image of the slightly cultish and loopy Madalyn Murray O'Hair. But in the last two years there have been five atheist best-sellers, one each from Professors Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett and two from the neuroscientist Sam Harris. As the author of the fifth of these books, I asked my publishers to arrange my book tour as a series of challenges to the spokesmen of the faithful, and to send me as far as possible to the South. The following is an account of some of the less expected moments of the trip.
I discover something that I am going to keep on discovering: half the people attending had thought that they were the only atheists in town.
Are atheists ready to come out of the closet? Are their numbers greater than estimated before?
http://outcampaign.org/ |
That's a great article. I personally think that there are more agnostics than anything else, and a lot more who just couldn't care less. Its a very interesting topic to me though, and always has been!