The "myth" of the dying church

[Minimalist]

Here's one xtian asshole who saw the light.

https://relevantmagazine.com/culture/hil...ian-faith/

Hillsong Songwriter Marty Sampson Says He’s Losing His Christian Faith

Time for some real talk. I’m genuinely losing my faith, and it doesn’t bother me. Like, what bothers me now is nothing. I am so happy now, so at peace with the world. It’s crazy.

This is a soapbox moment so here I go … How many preachers fall? Many. No one talks about it. How many miracles happen. Not many. No one talks about it. Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it. How can God be love yet send four billion people to a place, all ‘coz they don’t believe? No one talks about it. Christians can be the most judgmental people on the planet—they can also be some of the most beautiful and loving people. But it’s not for me.

The FSM loves a moron who comes to his senses!

[Paleophyte]

again polls mean nothing compared to the census. we have 2 modern data points and we need the 2020 census to be certain.

You have no Census data. That's a survey you're citing.

https://www.census.gov/library/publicati...ation.html

so no census data can be found on census.gov?

Sure it can. So can other data. This is other data. It did not come from the US Census. It says so right on our copy-N-pasta:

"The methodology of the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2008 replicated that used in previous surveys. The three surveys are based on random-digit-dialing telephone surveys of residential households in the continental U.S.A (48 states): 54,461 interviews in 2008, 50,281 in 2001, and 113,723 in 1990."

"Source: 1990 data, Barry A. Kosmin and Seymour P. Lachman, "One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society, 1993"; 2001 data, Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, Religion in A Free Market: Religious and Non-Religious Americans, Who, What, Why, Where, 2006; 2008 data, Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, Trinity College, Hartford, CT."

ARIS is a Trinity College survey, not the US Census. Three phone surveys of 50,000 to 120,000 individuals is not the US Census. If you continue to try and misrepresent this as the US Census it will be due to dishonesty rather than dismal reading comprehension.

and the census is a survey so yeas i do have census data and yes I have survey data.

The survey that you're citing isn't the US Census. A thousand time thou shalt write out:

"[b]Therefore, the U.S. Census Bureau is not the source for information on religion, nor is the Census Bureau the source for information on religious affiliation."[/b]

Then a thousand more:

"Trinity College's ARIS is not the US Census."

[Paleophyte]

And according to the authors of the 2008 ARIS, Drich's source:

Generation X Becoming Less Christian, Less Republican; Catholic and Baptist Losses feed Religious Polarization

"Members of Generation X – the 35 million Americans born between 1965 and 1972 – have become less Christian and less Republican over the course of their adult lives, a new study by Trinity College shows. Striking declines in the number of Catholics and Baptists combined with sharp increases in the number of non-denominational Christians and those claiming no religious affiliation (Nones) show increased religious polarization in this generation, even as its political re-orientation towards the Democratic Party has been accompanied by modest growth in the number of political independents."

2008 study.  11 years old.  Not exactly a current survey.

Not intended to be. Just a lovely example of the authors of the data that Drich is citing disagreeing with his assesssment.

[Free]

It would appear that this thread has served the purpose of demonstrating as factual that Christianity is dying in the USA, much the same way it has been dying in other civilized democracies. People are simply getting too smart for religion anymore. I mean seriously ... a talking snake and a talking ass? Flying chariots? Anyone been inside the belly of a whale lately? How about that Jesus guy raising people from the dead, and then picking somebody's ear up of the ground and sticking it on somebody's head as if to say, "I think you dropped this?"

It's all insane. The world simply could never go forward when all religion ever tried to do throughout history is hold it back with crazy tales and rules that we can't do this or that because it will make Jesus cry. Well despite that we are moving forward, and all I can say to that is ...

Jesus wept.

So cry me a river, for Christ sakes.

[Minimalist]

https://www.pe.com/2019/06/02/calvary-mu...-25-years/

Calvary Murrieta Christian Schools’ high school closes after 25 years

In a letter to parents, Pastor Brian Bell of Calvary Chapel Murrieta, cites years of financial difficulties and falling enrollment

The patient is on life support, Drippy.  Time to put it out of its misery.

[Minimalist]

And it isn't "resurrecting!"

[brunumb]

The transcript below is from “Through the Wormhole” S05E01 and concerns analysis of religious census data from around the world.  The whole episode focuses on God, but the part referred to below starts at around the 19 minute mark.


Danny Abrams* is an applied mathematician at Northwestern University.  Religious affiliation has been tracked via census reports in many countries for up to 250 years in some cases and we can see how the sizes of religious groups have grown and shrunk.  We looked at 85 regions around the world and in every case, every place where it’s ever been measured, the fastest growing religious minority is the non-affiliated, the group of people who don’t affiliate with any religion at all.  To find out if this trend will continue, Danny plugged census data from nine different countries (Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Austria, Netherlands, New Zealand) into his mathematical models and made a surprising prediction.   Religion is heading towards a tipping point.  According to Danny, by the year 2050, in 6 out of the 9 countries he studied, religiously affiliated people will be a minority.  The wheels of society are making people align.  A non-religious majority looks set to emerge.

*  https://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/d...iel-CV.pdf

[SYZ]

...we do not have such a luxury. these people are the gestapo. they get paid by the completed form or something.. they are persistent and unrelenting. if one mis fills a form they will send someone else to make you answer everything over again.they will hound you everyday for the 3 months or whatever they are funded to take the census.

These are possibly some of the most absurd comments I've had the displeasure of reading from you mate.
Every one of these claims is a blatant lie, and totally misrepresent the mechanics and aims of a government
census.  It proves again what I said earlier—you have zero knowledge of the census and/or polling processes.

And anybody who introduces Nazi Germany into their argument has fallen into the Godwin's Law trap, which
effectively negates their argument.  It's defined as the reductio ad Hitlerum  fallacy.

[SYZ]

Or are you denying that this census.gov web site is fraudulent or made up?
https://www.census.gov/library/publicati...ation.html

LOL... you've shot yourself in the foot again mate.  You truly don't know when you're flogging a dead
horse do you?

The figures from your link tell me that in the US in 1990 there were
14,331 "non-religion" (atheist, agnostic, humanist, no religion) respondents.

In 2008 there were 34,169 "non-religion" respondents.  (figures in thousands)

Which represents an increase of 42% in the nones.

And according to the RNS (Religious News Service) 21 March 2019:

In a shift that stands to impact both religion and politics, survey data suggests that the percentage of
Americans who don’t affiliate with any specific religious tradition is now roughly the same as those who
identify as evangelical or Catholic. According to newly released General Social Survey data analysed by
Ryan P. Burge of Eastern Illinois University, Americans claiming "no religion", sometimes referred to as
"nones" because of how they answer the question "what is your religious tradition?"—now represent
23.1% of the population, up from 21.6%  in 2016. People claiming evangelicalism, by contrast,
now represent 22.5% of Americans, a slight dip from 23.9% in 2016. That makes the two groups statistically
tied with Catholics at 23% as the largest religious—or non-religious—groupings in the country. "Nones
have been on the march for a long time now," Burge said. "It’s been a constant, steady increase for 20
years now.  If the trend line kept up, we knew this was going to happen".

[Drich]

You are doing something commonly known as "cherry picking." Picking out a period of time when the USA was under Islamic threat from Al Queda. The fact that the church affiliation declined only slightly between 2000 and 2008 does absolutely nothing to the evidence that between the years 1990 and 2018 affiliation declined a full 17%.

sorry no. I am responding to the OP.it is speaking of the modern church and it's wrongly heralded demise. I am doing this in two ways. one point to the fact that butts in pews on sunday morning is no longer an accurate way to measure the church, and two..  I provided data compiled by the census. now whether they went door to door or they gathered from secondary or even tertiary means is irrelevant. Why??? because these are the numbers the us government officially recognises. everything else is just a hand selected cross sampling of a few thousand people.

 first complaint You guys say it is too old as it samples 2001 to 2008, and yet here you are complaining I am not including a 20 year old data point that serves not the OP or the article but your own narrative. that tweety is cherry picking.
My whole argument is topical as is framed out by the article posted. there is a reason that article was published and that is because the federal numbers support it currently.

YES I have admitted that if you include 1990 there is a very sharp decline which coincides with the greatest gen dying off. but after that it is stable as far as the data shows. even some of your polls show this stability if you take into consideration the margin of error which can be as high as 5%

Not one of you has conceded this point. that my friend (ignoring facts) is cherry picking.

Although speculative, the slower rate of decline during the Bush years could be due to 9/11 and the Islamic threat, and how it rallied people to identify as Christian in opposition to that threat. However, that would only be for the first 3 or 4 years of Bush, and as things settled down the rate continued as normal but balanced out by the end of 2008, which would be why you see a small decrease.

are you kidding? the biggest financial disaster to ever hit the USA happened in 2008! there was nothing normal about that year 40% of the people lost this homes!!! general motors dodge jeep all the banks had to be bailed out. people were scarred shit less for the next 8 years... then the riots started, all under obama! it was doom and gloom for a very very long time. From 2008 to 16 these years hit americans harder and did more damage to american than the twin towers falling the pentagon and the war combined! EVERYONE felt that period hard!

We do not need a 3rd census data point of 2020, and for you to even to ask for one when you point at a non census date of 2008 is hypocritical. The fact that the US Census bureau gets it's information concerning religious affiliation from the American Religious Identification Survey (as it says so directly in the spreadsheet) should have indicated to you that your numbers are out of date according to American Religious Identification Survey (AIRS), which hasn't published anything in the past 6 years. It also should indicate to you that the Government didn't do it's own research, but rather used the research provided by ARIS, which was run by Trinity College.

The US Census Bureau does not ask questions about religion. Info HERE. Therefore, your data is not from a government source, but the government themselves sourced it from ARIS. 

1 Are you nuts? why would anyone ignore extra  more relevent data? (oh, that right people do that it's called cherry picking!) 

And actually it is the ARDA. If you did the research as you claim you would know the AIRS was a 2008 only survey got it's data from a 54,000 person survey and largely from the ASARB

For more information contact Barry Kosmin at 860-297-2388 or barry.kosmin@trincoll.edu; or Ariela Keysar at 201-784-5724 or ariela.keysar@trincoll.edu.
Contacto en espanol Juhem Navarro-Rivera at 860-341-1485 or juhem.navarrorivera@trincoll.edu.
To download a copy of U.S. Latino Religious Identification 1990-2008: Growth, Diversity & Transformation, please visit: [/url][url=http://www.americanreligio%20nsurvey-aris.org/latinos2008.pdf]http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/latinos2008.pdf

this is the link to the religious census:
http://www.usreligioncensus.org/index.php
Even so.. SO WHAT! who cares where the census gets it's numbers (second time I have had this discussion concerning census data points)
.it's all still approved by and used as an official us census count. meaning these are the official government unarguable numbers. Now keep in mind the only the numbers used from the ARIS report was used and those numbers showed no change from 2001. 

The Aris' conclusions were not used at all. rather the census took yet another source for 1990 and 2001 to come up with the conclusion seemingly in direct conflict with what aris was describing. again between 2001 and 2008 the census shows no change in the OFFICAL religious record. while ARIS article is claiming the sky is falling on the church.

It's not about where or how the data is sourced but how it was used. just because the census took a page from ARIS does not mean it came to the same conclusion. it is like using the oppositions numbers to bolster your own point.

Therefore, the latest and most accurate information comes from PEW Research, which has become the most trusted research institute of the USA, and is often quoted from by politicians, news organizations etc.

non sequitur. how does that even follow when you have the wrong bureau, and do not consider that the census did not come to the conclusion ARIS did???

Their research shows that currently that Christian affiliation in the USA stands at 70.6%. 

https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

Comments?

you have failed to establish pew research as being any more of an authority that another other cross section poll. The only true way to know is that third data point endorsed by the US census but data mined from the ASARB or any other source it deems accurate. http://www.usreligioncensus.org/index.php 

This organisation seems to have started when the official census ended it's religious questions.

[Drich]

2008 study.  11 years old.  Not exactly a current survey.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx

Member of a church or synagogue?

Year     Yes     No

1992    70%   29%
2018    50%   50%

census is every 10 years... AS I SAID 100 TIMES NOW WE NEED THE THIRD DATA POINT 2020 WILL OFFER to properly determine whether or not the belief is in decline.

My only statement was to show that the article in the op is right and the most current numbers currently show it.

The US Census Bureau hasn't asked questions about religious affiliation since the 1950s. You know that right?

not directly but through the Association of statisticians of American religious Bodies or us religious census
http://www.usreligioncensus.org/index.php

They picked up in 1952 and kept polling every 10 years. The way these guys work is through the church which is a loop hole to go end round asking people directly.

but YOU KNEW that right?

[Drich]

Again smart guy... they could be lower! that is my whole point!!! meaning Christians could have refused to answer fearing some sort of persecution.

Persecution against Christians in the US? I don't think there is such a thing. In fact, the opposite seems to be much more likely.

are you kidding? If I do not want to sell a product to someone because I do not want my products to support an organisation or life style I even on religious basis the federal government will step in and force my compliance. How is forcing someone to comply against strongly held religious beliefs not a form of persecution?

Did you know we can not discuss politics in church?
since nixon there is a limitation of free speech that forbids any church official to publicly discuss politics from the pulpit.

Did you know Our specific church that was built in the 1950 in down down which is now the posh side of town, in the 70s bought pretty much the whole block when crime was bad. and in the 1990s want to rent out some of the homes we completely remodeled. and the city would not allow it. (they said the church could not profit from real estate, it was explain we were trying to recoup costs and maintain the structures/homes with this money.) the city said no. We also have 4 lots about 1/2 an acre a piece we used for parking till about 10 years ago when the city said parking in the church owned lot was forbidden and they started towing cars out of the lots at 330.00 each.

They made the members park at one place 1 mile up the street and another remote lot even further away. we had to run shuttle busses. membership dropped dramatically. it is to the point where this church is being forced out of the current location because of unfair regulation concerning property the church purchased and revamped free and clear.

In essence this is now a rich gay neighborhood and the residence put pressure on the city to get rid of the church.

Now they are struggling to get a permit to fix a leaking roof.. this is not a poor neighborhood church. 750 well to do members once went there. now even after being forced out 400 to 500 members still attend weekly. It is not a matter of the church can not afford.. it is a matter of city politics.

[Drich]

we do not have such a luxury. these people are the gestapo. they get paid by the completed form or something.. they are persistent and unrelenting. if one mis fills a form they will send someone else to make you answer everything over again.they will hound you everyday for the 3 months or whatever they are funded to take the census.

You do understand that the US Census Bureau doesn't ask questions about religious affiliation, right?

In 2010, I worked doing the Census.  I can attest that the forms did not in fact ask any questions about religion.

in 2010 I was interviewed by the census and can in fact not remember anything other than how rude the census taker was.

[Drich]

You do understand that the US Census Bureau doesn't ask questions about religious affiliation, right?

In 2010, I worked doing the Census.  I can attest that the forms did not in fact ask any questions about religion.

They haven't asked any questions about religion since the 1950s.

His religious data comes from a non-official source.

...but again certified by the US census as it is on an official document and spread sheet..

Do you not understand how damning your own statement is to your own proclivity to point towards other cross section poll takers?

If the US census can not certify a number of the people to be accurate than how in the hell can the pew research center be an authority using far less complete data?

IE polling 54,000 people verse 100% participation via  the US RELIGIOUS CENSUS taken ever 10 years
http://www.usreligioncensus.org/index.php

[Drich]

You have no Census data. That's a survey you're citing.

https://www.census.gov/library/publicati...ation.html

so no census data can be found on census.gov?

Sure it can. So can other data. This is other data. It did not come from the US Census. It says so right on our copy-N-pasta:

"The methodology of the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2008 replicated that used in previous surveys. The three surveys are based on random-digit-dialing telephone surveys of residential households in the continental U.S.A (48 states): 54,461 interviews in 2008, 50,281 in 2001, and 113,723 in 1990."

"Source: 1990 data, Barry A. Kosmin and Seymour P. Lachman, "One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society, 1993"; 2001 data, Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, Religion in A Free Market: Religious and Non-Religious Americans, Who, What, Why, Where, 2006; 2008 data, Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, Trinity College, Hartford, CT."

ARIS is a Trinity College survey, not the US Census. Three phone surveys of 50,000 to 120,000 individuals is not the US Census. If you continue to try and misrepresent this as the US Census it will be due to dishonesty rather than dismal reading comprehension.

and the census is a survey so yeas i do have census data and yes I have survey data.

The survey that you're citing isn't the US Census. A thousand time thou shalt write out:

"[b]Therefore, the U.S. Census Bureau is not the source for information on religion, nor is the Census Bureau the source for information on religious affiliation."[/b]

Then a thousand more:

"Trinity College's ARIS is not the US Census."

asked and answered.. see posts above.

[Drich]

It would appear that this thread has served the purpose of demonstrating as factual that Christianity is dying in the USA, much the same way it has been dying in other civilized democracies. People are simply getting too smart for religion anymore. I mean seriously ... a talking snake and a talking ass? Flying chariots? Anyone been inside the belly of a whale lately? How about that Jesus guy raising people from the dead, and then picking somebody's ear up of the ground and sticking it on somebody's head as if to say, "I think you dropped this?"

It's all insane. The world simply could never go forward when all religion ever tried to do throughout history is hold it back with crazy tales and rules that we can't do this or that because it will make Jesus cry. Well despite that we are moving forward, and all I can say to that is ...

Jesus wept.

So cry me a river, for Christ sakes.

I am not saying religion is never going to die.. in fact the book of revelation predicts it. so if you wish to usher that time in then by all means feel free. I would like to see the end of the world just to see how things play out in reference to John's personal understanding and descriptions..

How ever as the data shows thus far... there has been no discernable movement in church membership since 2001 to 2008 according to the US census.

GRANTED.. there is a ton of speculation because closed minded and hard hearted people can not recognise the way the church is mutating from a tradition sunday morning tradition to an online in real life on going discussion.

Again right now do you consider yourself to be in church? According to the defination Christ gave you are. what more having a discussion about religious matters you are actively seeking.. seeking to cover up or uncover is yet to be seen.

[Minimalist]

in 2010 I was interviewed by the census and can in fact not remember anything other than how rude the census taker was.

I guess it never occurred to you that you bring out rudeness in people by being such an unrelenting asswipe!  You're the type who would be beaten up by Quakers.

[Drich]

...we do not have such a luxury. these people are the gestapo. they get paid by the completed form or something.. they are persistent and unrelenting. if one mis fills a form they will send someone else to make you answer everything over again.they will hound you everyday for the 3 months or whatever they are funded to take the census.

These are possibly some of the most absurd comments I've had the displeasure of reading from you mate.
Every one of these claims is a blatant lie, and totally misrepresent the mechanics and aims of a government
census.  It proves again what I said earlier—you have zero knowledge of the census and/or polling processes.

And anybody who introduces Nazi Germany into their argument has fallen into the Godwin's Law trap, which
effectively negates their argument.  It's defined as the reductio ad Hitlerum  fallacy.

you are more than a stick in the mud..

Those words where an exaggeration that describes how I felt like I was being treated.. or do you not understand that after the fall of the nazi party there was no more gestapo? because if you understand there is no more gestapo then the only valid conclusion is I am intentionally exaggerating. Do i need to educate your highness (another exaggeration, I am not lying and saying you are a king or of royalty) the difference between a lie and an exaggeration? 

Not only that how in the world can you possible rate my experience with the last census taker I had?
-or
Are you Just making shit up to sound like you have a legit reason to dismiss without thinking or reading anything I have to say.

You don't seem prohibitivly stupid.. you seem like a sorta smart enough guy, but the type who doesn't like his beliefs challenged or to think about them too much.. you seem just set in your ways, which is fine. a closed mind I can deal with as you are not the only one.

However if I am wrong and your intellectual capacity is severely handicapped or limited in some way and the best you can do is "drich bad! Drich a liar! Drich not smart [line]like me[/line] IE the stuff you have been doing since post 2 with me.. 
Then pm me or have your care taker pm me and I will leave you alone completely, and let you have your fun!

just gotta be willing to share with the rest of the class (don't pm anything you do not want potentially posted) No shmeckle pics.

[Free]

...but again certified by the US census as it is on an official document and spread sheet..

There is a distinct difference between "certified" and "confirmation." To certify something merely means to recognize that Trinity College has the qualifications to conduct the survey. It does not mean that the Census Bureau confirms the data.

Do you not understand how damning your own statement is to your own proclivity to point towards other cross section poll takers?

My point should have been obvious. You have been harping about the validity of other polling instituations when it has been demonstrated that the polling station recognized by the Census Bureau is also independant and not a government agency, and it is Christian orientated which increases the possibility of bias.

Since 2008 we have new data available from PEW Research which is a far more credible and unbiased polling organization. 

If the US census can not certify a number of the people to be accurate than how in the hell can the pew research center be an authority using far less complete data?

IE polling 54,000 people verse 100% participation via  the US RELIGIOUS CENSUS taken ever 10 years

You have absolutely no basis whatsoever to make the claim that Trinity College polled 100% of the population of the USA. In fact it is simply not true at all.

Actually the polling done by Trinity College in 2008 was a random digit dialed (telephone survey) of a nationally representative sample of 54,461 adults. 

Information available at the following link:

https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/c...ext=facpub

Now, since Pew Research is using a virtually identical sampling of approximately 54,000 people as Trinity College used, what exactly is your complaint?

How ever as the data shows thus far... there has been no discernable movement in church membership since 2001 to 2008 according to the US census.

That data is meaningless in the greater view that since 1990, religious affiliation has dropped 17%, and that is undeniable. Hanging on to a period of time when the USA was under Islamic attack and thereby endured a resurgence of Christian faith is paramount to cherry picking the data to suit your argument, while ignoring the data as a whole that completely defeats your argument.

That is not a good demonstration of intellectual honesty.

Again right now do you consider yourself to be in church? According to the defination Christ gave you are. what more having a discussion about religious matters you are actively seeking.. seeking to cover up or uncover is yet to be seen.

I am an atheist. Enough said.

[Drich]

Or are you denying that this census.gov web site is fraudulent or made up?
https://www.census.gov/library/publicati...ation.html

LOL... you've shot yourself in the foot again mate.  You truly don't know when you're flogging a dead
horse do you?

The figures from your link tell me that in the US in 1990 there were
14,331 "non-religion" (atheist, agnostic, humanist, no religion) respondents.

In 2008 there were 34,169 "non-religion" respondents.  (figures in thousands)

Which represents an increase of 42% in the nones.

And according to the RNS (Religious News Service) 21 March 2019:

In a shift that stands to impact both religion and politics, survey data suggests that the percentage of
Americans who don’t affiliate with any specific religious tradition is now roughly the same as those who
identify as evangelical or Catholic. According to newly released General Social Survey data analysed by
Ryan P. Burge of Eastern Illinois University, Americans claiming "no religion", sometimes referred to as
"nones" because of how they answer the question "what is your religious tradition?"—now represent
23.1% of the population, up from 21.6%  in 2016. People claiming evangelicalism, by contrast,
now represent 22.5% of Americans, a slight dip from 23.9% in 2016. That makes the two groups statistically
tied with Catholics at 23% as the largest religious—or non-religious—groupings in the country. "Nones
have been on the march for a long time now," Burge said. "It’s been a constant, steady increase for 20
years now.  If the trend line kept up, we knew this was going to happen".

glob... welcome back to the land of the self aware..

very good point!!!

however what is the op about? it is about the diminishment of the church... not the increase of the 'non-reigious.'

If we are not cherry picking and if we are having a topical discussion anywhere near the OP.. then the point is there is no change between 2001 and 2008.. now I am more than willing to say we NEED the 2020 census to be certain. 

the only thing i have said here is we need more data, and that the current data does not reflect a decline in the church.

anything else you can extrapolate from the existing data... great. however this is not the topic being discussed.

[Drich]

...but again certified by the US census as it is on an official document and spread sheet..

There is a distinct difference between "certified" and "confirmation." To certify something merely means to recognize that Trinity College has the qualifications to conduct the survey. It does not mean that the Census Bureau confirms the data.

Do you not understand how damning your own statement is to your own proclivity to point towards other cross section poll takers?

My point should have been obvious. You have been harping about the validity of other polling instituations when it has been demonstrated that the polling station recognized by the Census Bureau is also independant and not a government agency, and it is Christian orientated which increases the possibility of bias.

Since 2008 we have new data available from PEW Research which is a far more credible and unbiased polling organization. 

If the US census can not certify a number of the people to be accurate than how in the hell can the pew research center be an authority using far less complete data?

IE polling 54,000 people verse 100% participation via  the US RELIGIOUS CENSUS taken ever 10 years

You have absolutely no basis whatsoever to make the claim that Trinity College polled 100% of the population of the USA. In fact it is simply not true at all.

Actually the polling done by Trinity College in 2008 was a random digit dialed (telephone survey) of a nationally representative sample of 54,461 adults. 

Information available at the following link:

https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/c...ext=facpub

Now, since Pew Research is using a virtually identical sampling of approximately 54,000 people as Trinity College used, what exactly is your complaint?

How ever as the data shows thus far... there has been no discernable movement in church membership since 2001 to 2008 according to the US census.

That data is meaningless in the greater view that since 1990, religious affiliation has dropped 17%, and that is undeniable. Hanging on to a period of time when the USA was under Islamic attack and thereby endured a resurgence of Christian faith is paramount to cherry picking the data to suit your argument, while ignoring the data as a whole that completely defeats your argument.

That is not a good demonstration of intellectual honesty.

Again right now do you consider yourself to be in church? According to the defination Christ gave you are. what more having a discussion about religious matters you are actively seeking.. seeking to cover up or uncover is yet to be seen.

I am an atheist. Enough said.

sport I have acknowledge the 1990 data point in the post you highlighted! yet you are admonishing me for being intellectually dishonest???

Did you not read or are you just making up an narrative as you go?

[Free]

...but again certified by the US census as it is on an official document and spread sheet..

There is a distinct difference between "certified" and "confirmation." To certify something merely means to recognize that Trinity College has the qualifications to conduct the survey. It does not mean that the Census Bureau confirms the data.

Do you not understand how damning your own statement is to your own proclivity to point towards other cross section poll takers?

My point should have been obvious. You have been harping about the validity of other polling instituations when it has been demonstrated that the polling station recognized by the Census Bureau is also independant and not a government agency, and it is Christian orientated which increases the possibility of bias.

Since 2008 we have new data available from PEW Research which is a far more credible and unbiased polling organization. 

If the US census can not certify a number of the people to be accurate than how in the hell can the pew research center be an authority using far less complete data?

IE polling 54,000 people verse 100% participation via  the US RELIGIOUS CENSUS taken ever 10 years

You have absolutely no basis whatsoever to make the claim that Trinity College polled 100% of the population of the USA. In fact it is simply not true at all.

Actually the polling done by Trinity College in 2008 was a random digit dialed (telephone survey) of a nationally representative sample of 54,461 adults. 

Information available at the following link:

https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/c...ext=facpub

Now, since Pew Research is using a virtually identical sampling of approximately 54,000 people as Trinity College used, what exactly is your complaint?

How ever as the data shows thus far... there has been no discernable movement in church membership since 2001 to 2008 according to the US census.

That data is meaningless in the greater view that since 1990, religious affiliation has dropped 17%, and that is undeniable. Hanging on to a period of time when the USA was under Islamic attack and thereby endured a resurgence of Christian faith is paramount to cherry picking the data to suit your argument, while ignoring the data as a whole that completely defeats your argument.

That is not a good demonstration of intellectual honesty.

Again right now do you consider yourself to be in church? According to the defination Christ gave you are. what more having a discussion about religious matters you are actively seeking.. seeking to cover up or uncover is yet to be seen.

I am an atheist. Enough said.

sport I have acknowledge the 1990 data point in the post you highlighted! yet you are admonishing me for being intellectually dishonest???

Did you not read or are you just making up an narrative as you go?

What you have not acknowledged is the significance of the 17% drop in Christian affiliation from the year 1990 to the present time. You are clinging to the years 2001 to 2008 as if they represent the entirety of the argument. They do not. 

You have also been caught out with complete dishonesty about Trinity College having access to 100% of the population for their polling, when they themselves state factually that they polled a sample of just over 54,000 people.

And your denialism of these points most certainly warrants our observations of your dishonesty.

[Minimalist]

Another aspect of the question.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/the-rel...an-author/

The religious right’s embrace of the GOP and Trump is driving people away from the church: Christian author

Appearing on CNN to promote his book “The Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power over Christian Values,” conservative columnist Ben Howe explained that the symbiotic relationship between an increasingly radicalized Republican Party and evangelical leaders is making people considering becoming Christians reconsider.

That, and the fact that it is the stupidest story ever told!

[Bucky Ball]

I am not saying religion is never going to die.. in fact the book of revelation predicts it. so if you wish to usher that time in then by all means feel free. I would like to see the end of the world just to see how things play out in reference to John's personal understanding and descriptions..

My comic books say otherwise.

In fact there were hundreds of "Books of Revelation".
They were just cooked up fantasy.
No serious Biblical Scholar takes it seriously ... and besides .... omen reading is forbidden.

"Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft"
Deuteronomy 18:10
(BTW, "John" didn't write it).

[Mathilda]

"Members of Generation X – the 35 million Americans born between 1965 and 1972

Oh shit I thought I was Generation X. I was sure it included more of the 70's.