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Showing posts from April, 2009

Religion and Political Shifts

From The Secular Humanist (paraphrased): Atheists/agnostics are now 18% of U.S. voters, trending center-left and libertarian. "The non-religious are most likely to live in Purple Districts" a study found. Church attendance is equated with "social conservative" in the U.S., but used to be "liberal" (1920s-40s Social Gospel movement). The "far left" is now more likely to be "alternatively spiritual" -- Wicca? Druid? Marxist-Wiccanism. Who knew? I was struck by this finding. Therefore, the two major parties need to pay attention to the non-religious if they want to win future elections. Self-identified "Spiritual and/or religious" people occupy the two political extremes, with some notable exceptions. Yes, there are progressive atheists, but I think many of these are what the author would group with social democrats, not radical socialists or Marxists. Apparently, there are a lot of New Age people on the far left. That would