Here's hope

Did you see the study on religion in America that came out this past Monday?

It gave me hope for America.

It came from the Associated Press and told that "More Americans say they have no religion".

May I have an "AMEN!"?

No, seriously, this is good news.

It will be interpreted as "hell and damnation" and nothing but bad things by the religious kooks but it's just good news.

Some of the data from the article:

"A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out o of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all."

"Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey."

"Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state."

Naturally, there was also a dollop of bad news and that is "since 1990, a slightly greater share of respondents — 1.2 percent — said they were part of new religious movements, including Scientology, Wicca and Santeria."

Talk about superstitions.

I've written here before that we just need to rely more on logic, intelligence, research, intellect, reason and decency and good morals, in my opinion, than on religion, superstition, "gut-feelings", emotion and everything else that keeps us from progressing, as individuals and as a group.

It just makes sense.

Europe learned its lessons, over many centuries--and the hard way, I might add--by putting its literal faith in religion and religious institutions.

We'd do well by studying their history--and our own, for that matter.

Is it enough, this progress we've made?

No, certainly not.

But we're headed in a good direction, thank goodness.

Link to original story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090309/ap_on_re/rel_religious_america