“There are roughly 51 million Catholic adults in the U.S., accounting for about one-fifth of the total U.S. adult population, according to Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study. That study found that the share of Americans who are Catholic declined from 24% in 2007 to 21% in 2014."
“Catholicism has experienced a greater net loss due to religious switching than has any other religious tradition in the U.S. Overall, 13% of all U.S. adults are former Catholics – people who say they were raised in the faith, but now identify as religious “nones,� as Protestants, or with another religion. By contrast, 2% of U.S. adults are converts to Catholicism – people who now identify as Catholic after having been raised in another religion (or no religion). This means that there are 6.5 former Catholics in the U.S. for every convert to the faith. No other religious group analyzed in the 2014 Religious Landscape Study has experienced anything close to this ratio of losses to gains via religious switching."
Note: Figures are from the PEW study.
Why such a decrease in American Hispanic Catholicism?
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Willum
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Post #2
Everyone has the internet now.
Those genuinely interested can Google or join chat sites, like this one.
Those genuinely interested can see the basics:
That you can't distinguish one religion's god from another.
That there were earlier religions no longer worshiped, and ask, 'why arent these MORE legitimate.'
They can read Epicurus and Lucius Annaeus Seneca on the subject, and wonder why this hasn't caught on before.
In short there are many prima facia reasons to reject religion out of hand, and to those honest with themselves, there is little reason to pry further.
Those genuinely interested can Google or join chat sites, like this one.
Those genuinely interested can see the basics:
That you can't distinguish one religion's god from another.
That there were earlier religions no longer worshiped, and ask, 'why arent these MORE legitimate.'
They can read Epicurus and Lucius Annaeus Seneca on the subject, and wonder why this hasn't caught on before.
In short there are many prima facia reasons to reject religion out of hand, and to those honest with themselves, there is little reason to pry further.
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koko
Re: Why such a decrease in American Hispanic Catholicism?
Post #3Very good question.
As a Hispanic, I remember discussing this matter in college many years ago. I wrote of an experience I had in the town of Hormigueros, Puerto Rico where there was a religious tract in a shrine entitled (in Spanish) "Prayer to a dollar bill". In the prayer, the supplicant tells the dollar that it is the root of all evil and that the supplicant would be better off without it. That life can be lived without materialism and that poverty is ideal. This is what the Catholic church has taught for centuries among poor Hispanics and, having nothing better to live for, many succumbed to this mythic teaching.
Today we live in a modern world where it is clearly evident that materialism and social mobility are far better than poverty. Because of that, such teachings are not only conclusively wrong they are are down right ridiculous. This is why many Hispanics have turned their backs on Catholicism and its archaic teachings while embracing Protestantism and its materialism.
As a Hispanic, I remember discussing this matter in college many years ago. I wrote of an experience I had in the town of Hormigueros, Puerto Rico where there was a religious tract in a shrine entitled (in Spanish) "Prayer to a dollar bill". In the prayer, the supplicant tells the dollar that it is the root of all evil and that the supplicant would be better off without it. That life can be lived without materialism and that poverty is ideal. This is what the Catholic church has taught for centuries among poor Hispanics and, having nothing better to live for, many succumbed to this mythic teaching.
Today we live in a modern world where it is clearly evident that materialism and social mobility are far better than poverty. Because of that, such teachings are not only conclusively wrong they are are down right ridiculous. This is why many Hispanics have turned their backs on Catholicism and its archaic teachings while embracing Protestantism and its materialism.
