In a sweeping package of stories, photos and video, The Associated Press Religion Team takes an in-depth look at how the “none” phenomenon is playing out in the United States, South America, Nigeria, India, Middle East, Japan, Italy and Israel.
They’re taking about atheists. That’s it.
Please read the full article before making comments like this. It marginalizes the experiences of some of the peoples mentioned, who never identify themselves as atheist but who are often seeking community and spiritual experiences outside of religion.
You see, people don’t have to identify as atheist to in fact be atheist. Anyone who lacks belief in a god, for any reason (or lack thereof), is an atheist whether they want to admit it or not.
Yeah, I suppose my second sentence is somewhat diminitive… The article itself is more of a “dossier” than a single article, and gatekeeping discussions only for those who read the full article(s) kind of discourages discussions on the topic.
The first thing I wanted to convey is that they’re trying to redefine something that already exists. Today I learned that “atheism” has such a loaded baggage to you and the article’s authors that they’re is a need for a new word!
Too me, that is quite the revelation: everything I read in the article is exactly what I understand to be “atheism”! I’ve known that in some places on the world, it can be worst to be atheist than to be of the “wrong” religion… I hope using “the none phenomena” will help these people be safer…
30% in the US? We need to bump those numbers up. 70% of the population to way to many adults believing in ghost stories.
43% of those reported belief in god or some higher power. They’re “spiritual but not religious”. So I wouldn’t even call it 30%. One was even quoted as believing in astrology, saying she bet half of it is even a placebo effect.
This is nothing to be excited about. That said, I personally don’t care what people believe, so long as they keep it to themselves.
I read the intro part, but didn’t dive into the meat of the article. I also don’t care what people’s religious views are, as long as it’s nothing more than a belief to them that doesn’t affect anyone outside of them. Unfortunately, that’s not how religion generally works, so my hope is that more and more people stop believing in religion.
