news-record.com

There is still a lot of fear among people in admitting that they have no religion. If the social stigma against being a non-believer (based in the myth that religion is the only way to ensure "good behavior") ever diminishes, I expect there will be more than 25% in the country. As it is, coming out of the non-religious closet always poses some risk. Which is a sad commentary in a nation that prides itself on "freedom of religion."

Oh you of little faith - please don't tell me the pontifications of Ernest Angley, Kenneth Copeland, Jack Van Impe, Joel Ostreen, Oral Roberts, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Jim Bakker, & Jimmy Swaggart are not to be taken seriously and believed. And please don't tell me that a sermon is just a more eloquent sytle of panhandling -

Most surveys are poorly constructed and reported upon by people with very little understanding of the process to begin with. Personally, I believe the criteria for calling one's self Catholic or Hindi or Satan worshipper are set very low by anyone administering a survey.
I'll happily label myself agnostic. I have yet to find proof for anything supernatural, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And just because the Bible was written by men, edited by men and retranslated many times over by men doesn't mean there aren't a few good ideas left in it.
But just a few.

The choices for self-identification are also too narrow. I'd say I am open to any empirical evidence of the existence of God, but I choose not to live in continual waiting for God-ot. So, I find it better for me to act and live as an atheist, predicated on there being no God, and hence be responsible for all my own choices of conscience.

I respect others' right to live and act as if for them there is a God, which there might be. But I find life much more vital if I make my choices based on best-available (to me at the moment) Reason and compassion. I do not look back and worry if there is a vengeful or angry personal deity who'll strike me down or send me off to eternal hell or make me come back as an ant for not doing proper worship (every religion has a claim to how and to whom) and the rest. I just gotta get my job done, share my talents and knowledge (bitty as there are), take care of my wife, kid, dog and cat, and home, pay my taxes and bills ...and... whew! Who has time for angels on the heads of pins and triune mysteries of incarnation and karmic balance., etc, etc???

And somewhere in there--- do the things I also love to do with others or on my own!!