One of the most important questions we are trying to answer in The Nones Project is: Do non-religious people have feelings of self-worth and satisfaction that are similar to traditionally religious Americans? In many ways, this may be the most important issue to address when talking about the rising share of nones in the United States.
I've noticed a pattern whereby you tend to take people's answers on "how do you feel" type questions at face value. I'm a sociolinguist, and in my field we never do that with responses to surveys about language use and language attitudes. It's very easy to see that people respond more in terms of norms than in terms of actual behaviors and beliefs. It might be that religious people believe they're supposed to be happy whereas atheists don't. In fact, given all the smiley Christians out there, I suspect that's the case.
As I've mentioned before, Done is the default for Australians, and we are pretty happy, AFAICT. Of course, being in Australia helps in lots of ways - great climate, OK economy for most though not all, very low-key politics. Both zealous atheists and proselytising Christians are incredibly rare, unless you belong to a sect like JW or Trotskyism (which assumes atheism) where handing out the newspaper is more or less compulsory. Generally speaking, you are expected to keep your (dis)beliefs to yourself.
I don't think there is a God-shaped hole in the Aussie heart.
Wow.. I’d really like to dig deeper on that last ZA graph.. What accounts for that distribution compared to the theists (or former theists).. How much is due to (physical not online) social network or other factors like life goals (ie bucket list)? And then flipping it all around, what is it about theists that makes them perform better on these metrics? Does a striving for community induce religious belief or the other way around?
Can I assume that the Weekly+ Protestants and Catholics would score much higher on these metrics than the Dones and the less frequent attending Christians?
That information about the dissatisfied ZA's is going to be quite the starting point for when I see Hemant Mehta (Friendly Atheist) give a talk at the Ethical Society of St. Louis "When Our Heroes go Off the Rails".
I would like to see you compare this to activism. Are the Catholics and protestants more likely to be “kicking the can down the road and letting God take care of it”? Is there more concern for the “least of these” among those who have left organized religion? Is the possible increased happiness due to not feeling like this is my problem, God will take care of it?
What if you measured gratefulness instead of satisfaction? We live in a consumer culture that at a basic level feeds dissatisfaction. Would gratefulness show something different?
I've noticed a pattern whereby you tend to take people's answers on "how do you feel" type questions at face value. I'm a sociolinguist, and in my field we never do that with responses to surveys about language use and language attitudes. It's very easy to see that people respond more in terms of norms than in terms of actual behaviors and beliefs. It might be that religious people believe they're supposed to be happy whereas atheists don't. In fact, given all the smiley Christians out there, I suspect that's the case.
As I've mentioned before, Done is the default for Australians, and we are pretty happy, AFAICT. Of course, being in Australia helps in lots of ways - great climate, OK economy for most though not all, very low-key politics. Both zealous atheists and proselytising Christians are incredibly rare, unless you belong to a sect like JW or Trotskyism (which assumes atheism) where handing out the newspaper is more or less compulsory. Generally speaking, you are expected to keep your (dis)beliefs to yourself.
I don't think there is a God-shaped hole in the Aussie heart.
Wow.. I’d really like to dig deeper on that last ZA graph.. What accounts for that distribution compared to the theists (or former theists).. How much is due to (physical not online) social network or other factors like life goals (ie bucket list)? And then flipping it all around, what is it about theists that makes them perform better on these metrics? Does a striving for community induce religious belief or the other way around?
Can I assume that the Weekly+ Protestants and Catholics would score much higher on these metrics than the Dones and the less frequent attending Christians?
That information about the dissatisfied ZA's is going to be quite the starting point for when I see Hemant Mehta (Friendly Atheist) give a talk at the Ethical Society of St. Louis "When Our Heroes go Off the Rails".
I would like to see you compare this to activism. Are the Catholics and protestants more likely to be “kicking the can down the road and letting God take care of it”? Is there more concern for the “least of these” among those who have left organized religion? Is the possible increased happiness due to not feeling like this is my problem, God will take care of it?
Why are the SBNRs among the dissatisfied? To listen to the "spiritual" demographic I would assume that they are the most bubbly about life.
What if you measured gratefulness instead of satisfaction? We live in a consumer culture that at a basic level feeds dissatisfaction. Would gratefulness show something different?