There was some back-and-forth about a few statistics in a previous post, so I thought I’d clarify via the US Census:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/06statab/pop.pdf
| 2001 | (in thousands) |
| Adult population, total | 207,980 |
| Total Christian | 159,506 |
| Total other religions | 7,740 |
| Nonspecific (including atheist, agnostic and humanist) | 29,481 |
| Refused to answer | 11,246 |
Those of you into Jewish conspiracies should note their number has gone DOWN 300,000 since 1991. Muslim/Islamic believers have risen more than 550,000, as have buddhists and the hindu population.
The most amusing numbers?
Wiccans – from 8 to 134.
Druid – from n/a to 33, Santeria’s at 22, and the general Pagan population is at 140.
What in hell *heh* is Ethical Culture? And for that matter, what do the “Foursquare Gospel” do with their free time?
So that puts Christianity at 76%, down from the 80-85% I’d last heard.
And yes, Jews constitute approximately 1% of the population. While conversion rates are rising, birth rates are below the American average.
Interestingly, in a survey I’ll now have to look up for exact data just because I’m annoyed that I don’t remember, Americans were questioned as to what percentage of the population they thought blacks, Hispanics, and Jews constituted. I remember that the average American believed that blacks constituted ~30% of the population (actual number was closer to 13%), and that Jews were a whopping 10% of the population. As opposed to 1%.
Regarding your icon
I really don’t think you should turn your back on Sauron like that.
Re: Regarding your icon
But his eye is giving me a headache.
Can’t… breathe…
Too… funny!
Take a look at Table 71
It says that Jews are less than 1% in most states, and they top out at 8.7% in New York. It also puts Christians at just 47.4% overall. How does that reconcile with the 76% number cited earlier in the report?
I dunno. Weird.
But divide the adult Christian population by the adult population and you get ~76%.
Heh, look at that, self-identified Wiccans outnumber self-identified Fundamentalists.
Meh. “Fundamentalist” isn’t a useful category. Fundamentalism is a movement across denominations; adherents would self-identify themselves as “Baptist” or “Lutherans” more likely.
Or “evangelicals.”
Possibly. “Evangelical” is also a cross-denominational movement, but there are at least some churches with the word “Evangelical” in the name.
Yes, and “evangelical” works well as a grouping for most of the non-denominational or “free” churches.
I’d like to see a breakdown of denominations within the general Christian faith… the term ‘Christian’ is tossed around so much these days it’s hard to know what group is specifically referred to… and easy to get offended as one or by one because of that… being a Christian these days almost assumes a predisposed stereotype rather than a specific belief… and the range of Christian belief has widening in recent years.
You might say fundamentalists are the ones who are changing the least, in many cases offensively so. But the farther you get to the liberal end, the more controversy you see as whether they are truly Bible believing Christians. I prefer the middle ground :)
Feel free to read my later journal entry, where I link to US Census statistics that include the very information you’d like to see.
hey…. my sister converted, but she moved to Paraguay.
Well tell her to come back, already! :-)
she’ll be back in a couple yeaers – she joined the peace corps
Good. :-)