In today’s Barre/Montpelier Times Argus we find Vermont ranks lowest in religion survey. This story (barely) discusses a recent Pew Research Center offering that describes just how religious various states are and the state of religious belief in general for the US. (Pew Research’s better explanation is through this link.)
The short story is Vermont and New Hampshire share in leading the nation with lowest percentage of population who say “religion is very important in their lives.”
Actually the Times Argus says we’re at the bottom of the list and Pew Research does indeed list it the way the Argus reports … but I think they’ve it backwards … personal thing for me only, and it could reflect differences in definition of religion and spirituality. BUT MY BIGGER POINT …
Okay, we’re a state full of godless heathens or so Pew Research claims. I can offer more proof …
GO TO THIS LINK … Vermont Department of Ed’s transformation document!
Or they could just be trying to fit into the whole military/industrial complex thing, but nonetheless a pentagon is a pentagon … right?
Okay, let my tongue leave my cheek … nice Wikipedia article on pentagrams.
Religion.,..spirituality…whatever.I’m just glad our state has the least amount of people subscribing to irrational belief systems. We don’t have a lot of teabaggers, either.
a comparison by state of the percentage who ascribe to organized religion and the percentage that vote
and of course we know that many of the most religious states also have the highest rates of violent crime and teen births
and how about matching by state the percentage of religious folks with the percentage over 25 with a BA or higher
what exactly are we supposed to be missing?
We’re missing the perverts, Doug. There are over a hundred studies about religious demographics and antisocial behavior that show a marked association between extremely conservative religious views and sexual misbehavior.
At the least offensive end of the scale, extremely conservative protestants have the highest rate of adultery and divorce. (Atheists and agnostics have the lowest divorce rates.)
Extreme religious conservatives are more likely than other religious demographics to commit child sexual abuse and sexual assault. In fact, many sociologists and social workers consider extreme religious conservatism to be one of the basic risk factors for child abuse. Not surprisingly, extreme religious conservatives are more likely to have been sexually abused than other demographics.
I should note that the mainstream protestant sects do not show up in the studies as having that risk.
I guess it goes to show that if you have a problem with sex you probably have a sex problem.