
The second-largest religion in each state - chwolfe
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/06/04/the-second-largest-religion-in-each-state/
======
Gustomaximus
I'd be curious to see how atheism fits in, if for this purpose it was counted
as a religion.

~~~
chestnut-tree
_" I'd be curious to see how atheism fits in"_

In the UK, we have a census every 10 years that tries to collect detailed
information about the population. The last census was in 2011 and contained an
optional question: what is your religion? The number who said they had no
religion was 14.1 million which equals 25% of the population of England and
Wales. This is a rise from the 2001 census where 15% of the population (of
England and Wales) said they had no religion.

There was a decline in the number of people who called themselves Christian
and a rise in all other minority religions.

Here's a very informative short video (4 mins) from the Office of National
Statistics in the UK examining religion in England and Wales from the 2011
census.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXdZJoXuxC8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXdZJoXuxC8)

~~~
pionar
But, there's a difference between not having a religion and atheism. Atheism
is the belief that there is no God.

Just because one does not have a religion does not make them atheist.

I have no religion and yet I am not an atheist.

~~~
lukevdp
Atheism is the lack of a belief in a god. You can categorise it into a subset
of people who believe there is no god (positive atheism) and people who simply
have no belief (negative atheism)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Implicit_vs._explicit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Implicit_vs._explicit)

~~~
mbubb
Semantics perhaps but isn't a 'belief that there is no god'? I tend to think
of agnosticism as a 'lack of belief in a god'

~~~
br78
A unicorn agnostic would say "I have no evidence for the existence of
unicorns, so there may or may not be unicorns" but a unicorn atheist would say
"I have no evidence for the existence of unicorns, so I don't believe unicorns
exist".

It is a matter of semantics.

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rdmcfee
In Canada the second largest group by religion is "no religious affiliation"
[http://globalnews.ca/news/544591/the-second-largest-
religiou...](http://globalnews.ca/news/544591/the-second-largest-religious-
faith-in-canada-nothing/)

In BC over 35% are non-religious. In Vancouver it's over 41% with only 5,000
more Christians than "non-religious". [http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-
enm/2011/dp-pd/prof/details/p...](http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-
pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CMA&Code1=933&Data=Count&SearchText=Vancouver&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&A1=Religion&B1=All&Custom=&amp;TABID=1)

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brownbat
The first two graphics provide a great illustration of how misleading
population statistics are once you reduce the fidelity to the state level.

"No Presence" cuts a huge swath through the believably near-unanimously
Christian (and scant populated) middle.

That entire trend is conspicuously absent from the state map, which basically
lacks the capacity to distinguish between urban and rural through most of the
country, despite that being probably the most salient cultural divide.

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baddox
I completely fail to understand the "Adherents reported" explanation on the
per-county map, which is on the majority of counties.

~~~
brownbat
Exactly. The explanation seems to invoke Zoroastrianism, but not in any
sensible way.

You might assume that pale yellow refers to Zoroastrians, but that seems
unlikely, given its predominance in counties throughout the country and lack
of registering at all on the state map. It looks like a pattern more similar
to "No Presence," which I take to mean there simply aren't any discoverable
congregants other than Christians in certain vast stretches of the, uh,
Northern Rocky Heartland (for lack of a good regional descriptor).

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TallGuyShort
Apparently there is one county (out of 3000+) where Christianity is not the
predominant religious tradition. I'd be curious to know which county that
was...

~~~
gyardley
Emporia, Virginia. It's actually an independent city rather than a county (a
historical quirk of Virginia), and Christians as a whole still outnumber
Muslims, but there the Muslim congregation is larger than any one denomination
of Christians.

[http://www.thearda.com/rcms2010/r/c/51/rcms2010_51595_county...](http://www.thearda.com/rcms2010/r/c/51/rcms2010_51595_county_adh_2010.asp)

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jedp
I'm dubious about the meaningfulness of broad terms like "Christian",
"Muslim", etc., because of their coarse granularity. I'm not religious, but
from what I observe, I don't think the "Christian" crowd of Catholics,
Protestants, Mormons, and Unitarian Universalists would say they believe the
Same Thing. I'm guessing that if you asked a C of E whether they were of the
same religion as Jehovah's Witnesses, they'd probably look at you funny. Ditto
for Shia and Sunni. Such distinctions have great social relevance everywhere.
Consider Latin Americans: Catholic vs Evangelical (and that in itself is
already a ludicrous simplification) has massive post-colonial, political, and
social ramifications; to lump them all as "Christians" is to throw away so
much information. It would also be interesting to see a break-down that
included people who culturally identify with a "faith" but who are non-
practicing (like so many of my Jewish friends).

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MaysonL
Interesting that they count Mormons as Christians: I would guess that many
non-Mormon Christians would not agree with that.

~~~
argumentum
It makes sense to count people as what they consider themselves. Otherwise you
are going to open a whole can of worms: protestants may not consider catholics
christian, sunni muslims might want to exclude shia muslims etc.

~~~
vlunkr
This is an excellent point. I'm a Mormon, and from our perspective, it's clear
that we are Christians, but others have disputed it. At that point, there is
no authority to decide where we fit.

As you said, there are plenty of similar cases, so it's easier to just count
everyone as what they claim to be.

~~~
baddox
In that case, I think it makes sense to define the groups as "Mormons" and
"non-Mormon Christians" or something like that. It doesn't make sense to
define a group where half the members of the group think the other half are
heretics.

~~~
chimeracoder
Why single Mormons out? Why not exclude Rastafari who also consider themselves
Christians (but are not considered Christians by many non-Rastafari
Christians)?

Heck, why even include Protestants? Historically, "orthodox" Catholics
consider them to be heretics as well[1].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafari)

[1] and among some pockets of Catholicism, this belief holds strong to this
day

~~~
baddox
I didn't mean to advocate singling Mormons out specifically. Like I said, my
proposal is to define groups such that each group's members all consider each
other to be orthodox.

> Heck, why even include Protestants? Historically, "orthodox" Catholics
> consider them to be heretics as well[1].

When I listed "Mormons" and "non-Mormon Christians," I didn't mean to imply
that those would literally be the only two groups within Christianity. I was
just giving an example of separating people into groups based on mutually-
recognized orthodoxy.

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zhemao
The presence of Bahai'i in SC is rather unexpected. From the county map it
looks like they are mostly in the Myrtle Beach / Georgetown area.

~~~
whalesalad
Really cool to see the Baha'i faith mentioned in something like this, and I
was really surprised to see South Carolina as the epicenter. For those
interested, our House of Worship in the US is located in Illinois:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1'%C3%AD_House_of_Worsh...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1'%C3%AD_House_of_Worship_\(Wilmette,_Illinois\))

~~~
conorh
If you get a chance I highly recommend visiting this location. I drive by it
often and have walked around it a few times. It is a breathtaking building.

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plainOldText
Arizona and Delaware are the only two states where Hindus is the second most
popular religion. That's very interesting, considering these states are not
too close to each other.

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3minus1
would be interesting if they used lightness and darkness to show what
percentage of the population was that religion

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ljf
Anyone else getting a 404 on mobile?

~~~
jamesbritt
Yes, 404 on my phone.

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Isley
If you are interested in why Islam is so successful and already the second-
largest religion in so many states:
[http://www.inquiryintoislam.com/2010/07/why-is-islam-so-
succ...](http://www.inquiryintoislam.com/2010/07/why-is-islam-so-
successful.html)

~~~
g8oz
Standard islamaphobic narrative - i.e support extremists in their claim to own
the religion. Ignore other Muslims as fakers.

~~~
Isley
Please state with what you dont agree with in the article instead of crying
out propaganda words like islamophobia. Are there factual errors in it?

~~~
g8oz
You really want to play the selective Quranic quote game? Fine I'll indulge
you with one example:

"Permission to spread the religion by war" \- here you've already discredited
yourself by sourcing the hate mongering religionofpeace.com. But anyways the
sourced page at
[http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/023-violence.htm](http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/023-violence.htm)
says there is no defensive historical context to the verse at Quran
(2:191-193). Wrong. Relocating to Medina did not save the emerging Muslim
polity from attacks and raids and from the Meccans. Low status followers who
couldn't leave Mecca were still being beaten, tortured and killed. But the
crucial bit of false messaging in regards to this verse happens here:

"And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of
others along with Allah]"

Ha! The naive reader might say "gosh thats pretty much a recipe for constant
warfare isn't it?". But Fitna doesn't mean that, it more accurately translates
to "discord promoting actions/ state of destablizing disharmony" \- think
Russia's recent actions in the eastern Ukraine.

A similar dynamic is at play with many of the other points on the site.
Misleading interpretations or interpretations favored by extremist scholars
are put forth as the true face of Islam. More reasonable rulings by more
qualified scholars apparently don't count. Devout Muslims who have no problem
in being a harmonious part of diverse societies apparently don't count.

Because that might undermine the central fallacious Islamaphobic narrative:
It's not bad people, it's bad ideology.

But it is bad people. There is enough room in any ideology to be an asshole.

I'm not going to do anymore than this, because a) I'm not qualified b) I don't
have the energy and c) I doubt you're looking for a real debate, propagandists
usually are not.

As a postscript I really don't get the end game of these arguments, but it
seems to be: "can't we just all come together and hate Islam? Can't you see
that's the only way to fix the world?"

~~~
Isley
It wasn't me who wrote the page whose URL I gave but please don't play the
"the verses are taken out of the context" game with me. You could have fooled
most people five years back but most common people now have learned enough
from Islam to see behind such protective "arguments".

Hacker News isn't the place where religion should be discussed but I urge
anyone to read the Quran - best in a simplified form like in "An abridged
Koran" (by Bill Warner) where the verses have been reordered chronologically
(as they were in the beginning) so everybody can read those verses together
with the context of the life of Muhammad and see why your "Muslims were
attacked and had the right to defend themselves" is nothing but a blatant lie
and also the blue-print for the Jihad carried out by Hamas, Taliban, Boko
Haram and other islamic terror groups that just follow the example of their
violent prophet.

~~~
g8oz
>>Hacker News isn't the place where religion should be discussed.

I see, you wanted to do some drive by propaganda without being called out on
it. Sorry.

Muhammad was a political and military leader of his faith community as well as
a spiritual one. I see no reason why any Muslim has to apologize for actions
he took in those capacities. And context matters even if it upsets your little
narrative. It is the basis of the numerous condemnations of extremist violence
put forth by _qualified_ Islamic authorities.

~~~
Shihan
What, that does exist? Give me an example of a major islamic authority who
condems violence and intolerance against non-muslims who refuse to convert to
Islam or pay the Jizya when they are under islamic rule.

~~~
Isley
I'm sure he will come back with some example of the Ahmadiyya sect who isn't
recognized by any of the main schools of Islam.

