On Monday the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a study
in which they chronicled the state of faith and organized religion in
America. The news is not good if you are a God lover, worst of all of
you are a Jesus lover. Cutting to the chase, the sharpest drop in
members amongst organized faiths is amongst Catholics. That is to say
that amongst those polled, the largest number of people who said
they had chosen to abandon the faith they had grown up with was
Catholics. The largest growth was amongst those who now claimed to be
“Unaffiliated.” The study went out of its way to assure readers that
“unaffiliated” does not indicate agnostics or atheists, just those
who, ya’know, believed in God and all but just not when it was
organized” (I’m paraphrasing).
Okay, enough of the paraphrasing – you can track down the study
yourself and dig into all the fascinating data – onto the analysis
and interpretation. Frankly, the Pew data does not surprise me. A lot
of people I know like to say that they are “spiritual but not
religious.” Others will even be so bold and admit to being
“religious, but do not believe in organized religion.”
Semantics I say! Listen, now is a particular tough time to believe in
religion. The Catholic Church and Islam in particular have really poor PR.
From deviant Priests to nutty Jihadis, the perverts and extremists
in their respective groups tend to drown out the rest. And then
there’s that prickly science that keeps pushing evolution and
disputing long held beliefs that the various scriptures cite as
irrefutable law. In fact, modern cosmology makes it really really
difficult for individuals “believe” all the wacky theories that
diehards hold to be gospel (pun intended). In any other setting aside
from the indemnity provided by religion, anyone grounding their views
because an old white man sitting in the clouds says it’s so, would be
remanded to an asylum. In short, I’m not surprised that God is dying
at such a rapid rate.
Of course, I used to be one of those people who said that “I didn’t
believe in organized religion.” It was hip in college but now it just
feels lame and cliched. The notion of saying “I belong to the Church
of Unaffiliated” is a lot more attractive and cool sounding. Of
course, given a few years, the Church of Unaffiliated will likely
come up with all sorts of strange rules and decrees, laws and
interpretations. Political candidates will pander to us and go out of
their way to insure that they appeal to moderates in our group. There
will be “unaffiliated fundamentalists,” the most articulate of which
will appear on Larry King any time some haughty organization like Pew
releases some study. I guess that’s just the nature of the game. My
dad likes to say that “God created Religion and then the Devil came
and organized it.” It’s a rather witty one-liner but now that the Pew
Forum is backing it up in some strange way, it just doesn’t feel so
cool. In short, I think the “unaffiliated” is just a fad. But at
least we’re not Scientologists.
posted February 27, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Thanks Gotham, as I was wondering about the percentage yesterday and here it is! Thanks. Love,Char
posted February 28, 2008 at 11:58 am
Enjoyed your commentary. You are so right on all points. Glad I found your blog. I will check in to read your POV more often.
posted February 29, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Today we are dicussing regarding each others faith because we find ourselves in the world of hate, anger, desparation and frustration. We forgot the basic understanding of a CREATION of a HUMAN through a relationship of a MAN and a WOMAN of ACCEPTANCE, DEPENDENCE and CONSIDERATION. We forgot that we are creatures of habits.We never accepted ourself, hence never acceted others. We spent our energy on trying to understand the issue of soul and its relationship to human body. Todate we are stil dicussing and still asking that very important question, Why I Am Suffering? OR Why I Am Not Happy?.
We seized to understand something that all we have (HUMAN BODY). IT IS NOT HOW WE LOOK AND IT IS NOT WE BELIEVE, IT IS WHAT WE SAY AND HOW WE ACT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE TO THE WORLD. We can all comfort ourselves through a dialogue of our own life experiences and understanding. I would be humbled to have a dialogue to try to comfort humanity.I would be humbled to visit my website http://WWW.CONSIDERATEWOLD.COM.
posted February 29, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Thank you, Gothom. I have belong to an “Unaffiliated” church here in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for many years now. Although raised Methodist, I have evolved far beyond the “standard thinking” of religion, period. Contrary to most organized religions, I believe I AM a good human, and I DO deserve the love and understanding of God/Jesus/whomever. The ultimate higher power – whomever that may be for us individually; including Muslims, Buddahists, etc al – knows US INDIVIDUALLY. I have NO need for an “earthbound human being or organized religion” to decide if I shall ascend to “heaven” upon my demise. Bless YOU and Thank YOU, Gothom.
posted February 29, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Perhaps now that so many people are finding the God within, we will be able to express that Godlike nature to one another. I spent decades allowing others to define my relationship to God and never once really connected with him/her. Once I was able to shake the concept of the need for a mediator between my Creator and myself, I was able to make the connection to the Spirit and my life has not been the same. Releasing the idea that I was born under the curse of “Original Sin” I was then free to find the wonders of existence, and accept the love of the Creator without fear of reprisal. I can only hope that others in great numbers will find this freedom and discover self love. If that trend continues we may see real change for the better in the midst of our world.
posted March 8, 2008 at 2:12 pm
unaffiliated is as you seem to say, another form of categorizing. I don’t think its a very good way of categorizing, as its really a category of elimination, and not really descriptive of beliefs as it were….know what im getting at? If it is necessary to describe for the comfort of others, what you believe to be true, and categorize it in a way that others of a similar belief can find you, and converse in the same ‘language set’ I guess in this group, some form of deepakology or chopraist could be descriptive, at least on this group area. I’d hate the idea of being a ‘member’ of the church of the unaffiliated, because I’m sure they’d allow riffraff like myself to join
. All kidding aside, is there a common denominator used to describe, or some name descriptive of a belief pattern like deepak? It would be enjoyable to check a box other than unaffiliated when the religious police become interested.