PEW: Fewer Christians in USA... 70.6% of population... Atheists, agnostics surge... Drifting away from religion...

Big drop in share of Christians in US, especially among mainline Protestants and Catholics. http://t.co/IFQvckZ5q9 pic.twitter.com/xJcJZ55ATz

— The Upshot (@UpshotNYT) May 12, 2015

Study finds fewer Christians, more unaffiliated in US

Washington (AFP) – The United States is becoming a little less Christian, and a little more unaffiliated to any faith, a major study on the nation’s changing religious landscape suggested Tuesday.

“The United States remains home to more Christians than any other country in the world,” with 70.6 percent of its population, or 173 million adults, identifying as Christian last year, the Pew Research Center said.

But that figure is down from 2007 when 78.4 percent called themselves Christian, Pew said in its 200-page study, titled “America’s Changing Religious Landscape.”

The decline is seen across many segments of American society, including whites, Latinos, women, men and those with or without a college education.

But it is particularly marked among younger American, and concerns Roman Catholics as much as mainstream Protestants.

At the same time, Christians are also a more diverse group, a reflection of the growing Latino population, the study found.

http://news.yahoo.com/study-finds-fewer-christians-more-unaffiliated-us-053705957.html;_ylt=AwrXnCG_6VFVMG4AV0_QtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTByYnR1Zmd1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMyBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg–

Atheists, agnostics surge…

NEW YORK (AP) — The number of Americans who don’t affiliate with a particular religion has grown to 56 million in recent years, making the faith group researchers call “nones” the second-largest in total numbers behind evangelicals, according to a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday.

Christianity is still the dominant faith by far in the U.S.; 7 in 10 Americans identify with the tradition. However, the ranks of Christians have declined as the segment of people with no religion has grown, the survey says.

Between 2007 and 2014, when Pew conducted two major surveys of U.S. religious life, Americans who described themselves as atheist, agnostic or of no particular faith grew from 16 percent to nearly 23 percent. At the same time, Christians dropped from about 78 percent to just under 71 percent of the population. Protestants now comprise 46.5 percent of what was once a predominantly Protestant country.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_US_RELIGION_SURVEY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-05-12-08-23-24
Drifting away from religion…

(Reuters) – The share of U.S. residents who identify as Christian has shrunk over the past seven years while adults unaffiliated with organized religion now represent a larger portion of the public, a poll released on Tuesday found.

Between 2007 and 2014, the number of adults who self-identified as Christian fell from 78.4 percent to 70.6 percent, or 172.8 million people, driven mainly by drops among Roman Catholics and some Protestants, according to the Pew Research Center poll.
Non-religious U.S. adults who identify as atheist, agnostic or of no particular faith have seen their ranks swell over that same time period by about 6 percentage points to 22.8 percent of the population, or 56 million people.
“One of the most important factors in the declining share of Christians and the growth of the ‘nones’ is generational replacement,” the report said, referring to respondents who chose no religious identity. “As the Millennial generation enters adulthood, its members display much lower levels of religious affiliation.”
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/poll-shows-those-u-drifting-away-religion-130013620.html

Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/pew-fewer-christians-in-usa-70-6-of-population-atheists-agnostics-surge-drifting-away-from-religion/#yW7JzKjwCQWAz64e.99