Surveys on church attendance are wildly exaggerated versus data collected from actual attendance rates.

Since there is a positive correlation between poverty and religion, I would suspect that if you mean "wealthy" by advanced, the overall rates of religion are lower.

On reflection, I would say it's a country whose motivations are more tied to science than dogma. One wonders if "wealth" is the cause or the effect, or both.

--imm

I've never seen that kind of breakdown. What about places like India, which have relatively high levels of both science and religion?

If by dogma, you mean religion, than the question has really answered itself with your definition.

....but inequality and religiosity as well.

America may be among the wealthiest countries in the world, but a great deal of that wealth is concentrated in a rather small part of the population. The disparity between the enriched upper classes and everyone else-in terms of access to quality health care, education, building family wealth, maintaining a high standard of living, not going into great amounts of debt, not being nearly at risk of losing a job and benefits, etc.-has grown to an incredible level.When your daily life becomes more of a struggle, when your future has become more uncertain, then religion appeals to you more, as a general rule (not a hard rule, granted, but...).

I also think there's a definite correlation between the growth of religious fundamentalism and an increase in economic hardship (due to neo-liberalism and austerity measures at all levels of government) for the majority of Americans.

The least religious tend to be male, making good money, young and live in the richer parts of the country.

Which is awesome.

I am not sure you can equate "no religious affiliation" with religion not being important.

Though they haven't done the kinds of breakdowns that would be helpful, at least some of the nones describe themselves as religious or spiritual, just not affiliated.

In addition, the data I have seen generally shows a lower level of religiosity in the young with a trend upward as age groups progress.

I don't think this represents hope as much as it indicates change. And I do think the change will be good.

No dogma baggage.

In fact, I can recall no fights with any, in my life over line-item issues.

associated with their beliefs.

There is also tremendous variation across different affiliations. The more dogmatic, the more difficult to really have a productive discussion, imo.

I'm not sure what "line-item issues" are.

I've disagreed with unaffiliated religious people. Usually we discuss it into a position where they just don't like or prefer it or see it as a negative, but wouldn't ban it. Because their faith isn't linked to any commandments or anything that can be interpreted as strictly anti-abortion.

I can co-exist with people who do not prefer abortion as a solution to unwanted pregnancy. Especially if they don't oppose better measures, like contraception.

anti-abortion. I don't think she falls into the category you describe. OTOH, there are many religious people who are personally against abortion but still support choice.

But the monkey-shit-flinging fights over it only occur with religious people of a organized nature.

I've encountered anti-abortion atheists before. I've never had trouble reasoning them back into that position of 'I don't prefer it', without a huge fight.

Well, one guy admitted he was special pleading, and couldn't offer a reason for it. But for the most part, their position is malleable when you bring logic and evidence to bear.

would probably take the same route as a fight with a religious person that holds the same POV.

If she supports choice (which isn't really clear from the article), her being personally against abortion become her individual choice.

Your experience is your experience, but anyone who is anti-choice is the same in my book. They want to control others.

There is no reason to think that a non-believer with that position is going to be any more reasonable than a believer.

Certainly there are those that want to control. Totally with you there. I define that as 'hard' pro-life.

I think there's a legit case for people who don't prefer it, or see it as a failure of some sort. Personally I do, to a degree, insofar as I think family planning of all sorts should be so accessible and so freely available, and the education so clear that abortion only arises as a question at all in some tiny infinitesimal percentage of cases.

People who occupy that space of thinking it's a negative, may, without explicit religious dogma of their own, adopt a 'hard' anti-stance toward it, but I find that when you start raising the facts of the matter, they DON'T go nuclear on the issue, can be reasoned down. There's no hard ideological basis for their position, and they recognize that.

So, at least in my experience, I certainly see a delta between the two groups.


I agree, that anti-choice is an attempt to control, but I think some of the people who hold that position don't want to control per se, but rather have adopted ideology proffered by the people who DO want to control. They are not cognizant of the control aspect at all.

There are serious issues about access to reproductive services, particularly for poor women. And, sadly, there are still cultures in which men feel they really have not responsibility for birth control.

I have sympathy with those that have strong personal beliefs about abortion, particularly when they are presented with a situation in which is should be an option on the table. I think that their beliefs are often very sincere.

But I have no sympathy for those that want to make that choice for me. They may not recognize it as control and they often make all the the arguments that woman made in the other article. They see themselves as the voice of the voiceless and refuse to recognize that others see things differently.

The future truly does rest in the hands of our children, a that future looks bright!