Xmas Wars

I was thinking about the whole "War on christmas" movement this morning on the way to work. While I think that it is largely a false construction of Faux News I had a little epiphany regarding its origins. Religious people are scared. Their ranks are shrinking. So they are drumming up a secular enemy to battle against.

According to the last Pew Study, Americans are increasingly becoming atheistic, agnostic or unaffiliated with organized religion.

...More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion - or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.The survey finds that the number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.

Like the other major groups, people who are unaffiliated with any particular religion (16.1%) also exhibit remarkable internal diversity. Although one-quarter of this group consists of those who describe themselves as either atheist or agnostic (1.6% and 2.4% of the adult population overall, respectively), the majority of the unaffiliated population (12.1% of the adult population overall) is made up of people who simply describe their religion as "nothing in particular." This group, in turn, is fairly evenly divided between the "secular unaffiliated," that is, those who say that religion is not important in their lives (6.3% of the adult population), and the "religious unaffiliated," that is, those who say that religion is either somewhat important or very important in their lives (5.8% of the overall adult population).v 

These changes in our religious beliefs have to be a significant threat to the power structure that churches and synagogues represent in our country. The lack of religious fervor among the young must be especially troubling. But don't blame us. They're your kids. Not our fault they figured it out.

People not affiliated with any particular religion stand out for their relative youth compared with other religious traditions. Among the unaffiliated, 31% are under age 30 and 71% are under age 50. Comparable numbers for the overall adult population are 20% and 59%, respectively.

The survey finds that belief in the existence of God has dropped 15 points in the last five years among Americans 30 and under. While the great majority of Americans still believe in god, this trending has to be disturbing to the faithful. Holy Crap.