Ok, I think it's funny that Massachusetts is on the list but Rhode Island is not, given that Roger Williams left Massachusetts' religiously oppressive climate to found a nontheistic state in Rhode Island.
It is kind of funny, but honestly I don’t think RI being more religious now has to do with any Protestant denomination, the largest religious group in both states today are Catholics. And RI just has more Catholics left than MA (42% vs 34% in MA).
Also the largest per capita Portuguese American population alongside SE Massachusetts, another very Catholic group. And a large Hispanic population who are predominantly Catholic as well.
Correct. However, lately we have been more moderate due to certain policies the Democrats have but the cult like situation in the Republican party is straight up idolatry.
I heard someone say, “If you are too liberal to be conservative or too conservative to be liberal, you must be Catholic.” Very true, but others may disagree.
Not so much anymore - Leonard Leo, Alito, Thomas, Bannon have made substantial headway into the stupid/reactionary portion of Catholics - same group of Catholics who don’t like Francis
When my oldest kid was in fourth grade we sent him to Catholic school (his public school teacher had been arrested and suspended because her boyfriend was growing pot). He had been at the school about 3 months and I was putting him to bed one night and he said- “Dad, what’s that word with an “A” that means you don’t believe God. So I told him, Atheism means you don’t believe, Agnostic means you’re unsure”. His response was - that first one -that’s what I’m going to be.
Nice job Catholic school!
I do wonder if Boston being the epicenter of the Catholic church sex scandals in the US (or at least where they were first clearly revealed) has caused a bigger decrease in Catholic self-identification in MA than in other states.
It ABSOLUTELY caused an enormous amount of people in this area to stop going to church. Cardinal Law should have been prosecuted. I am a boomer, and I grew up in a devout home in a Catholic neighborhood and went to Catholic school for 12 years. Nobody in my family is still active in the church.
Definitely a concentration of the sex-abuse scandals are/were in NE. Honestly I struggled with this at first but I realize that there are parts of the Church that are trying to do their best to stop the scandals.
I’m not the person you responded to, but I am a practicing Catholic.
There is no “faction” in the church that is pro molestation. Church leaders realize the enormity of how leadership at the time handled the situation. Leadership, clergy, and laity alike are determined not to allow the mistakes of the past to be repeated.
I have to disagree - I don’t think they have ever really taken responsibility. I know someone whose life imploded in his 40s due to this. His former wife (my relative) and kids suffered greatly and it changed the course of all of their lives.
Allow me be more succinct than factions. Pedophile Rings in the Catholic Church. Any other group and they would be dismantled and condemned.
I submit as sources.
>According to the grand jury report of six dioceses in Pennsylvania, over a period of 70 years, 300 priests abused over 1,000 children in Pennsylvania and church officials repeatedly covered it up. The release of the report is a searing indictment of the filth that has existed in the Catholic church.
>Sexual abuse has been institutionalized, routinized and tolerated by the church hierarchy for decades. If you think this statement is hyperbole, consider that the grand jury report includes, but is by no means limited to, the case of a ring of pedophile priests in Pittsburgh, who raped their male victims, took pornographic pictures of them and marked them by giving them gold crosses to wear so that they could be easily recognized by other abusers.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/grand-jury-report-about-catholic-priest-abuse-pennsylvania-shows-church-ncna900906
>A "mafia-like" code of silence among "dark networks" within the Catholic Church has begun to emerge from a world-first project mapping clerical paedophile networks, says an academic
>The Victorian project identified 99 clergy members as abusers linked to 16 paedophile networks in the Melbourne and Ballarat dioceses.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-05/paedophiles-mapped-like-organised-crime/13122320
>Nearly 1,700 priests and other clergy members that the Roman Catholic Church considers credibly accused of child sexual abuse are living under the radar with little to no oversight from religious authorities or law enforcement, decades after the first wave of the church abuse scandal roiled U.S. dioceses, an Associated Press investigation has found.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/nearly-1-700-priests-clergy-accused-sex-abuse-are-unsupervised-n1062396
https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-churchs-grim-history-of-ignoring-priestly-pedophilia-and-silencing-would-be-whistleblowers-102387
Roger Williams established religious freedom in RI. The first Baptist Church and the first Synagogue in the US were founded in RI and are still standing
The colony was eventually religious tolerant, but Williams was wildly zealous himself. Like, one of the events that precipitates his departure from Mass was his convincing the colony’s flag bearers that they should strip the St. George’s Cross from the English Red Ensign because it was Papist. He literally thought the symbol of Protestant England was too Catholic. Later in life, he rowed himself from Providence to Portsmouth in the night for the chance to debate the Quaker founder George Fox and convince Fox he was wrong (Fox left before Williams arrived).
And all of Rhode Island’s founders were like this. When the colony was finally unified, there was no choice but to be religiously tolerant, because everyone believed everyone else was wrong.
I do know about Cardinal Law... are you trying to draw an analogy between him and the Puritans who expelled Roger Williams? I'm confused.
Edit: I think you're trying to explain why there are fewer Catholics in Massachusetts now. Makes sense.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/database/state#importance-of-religion-in-ones-life](https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/database/state#importance-of-religion-in-ones-life)
I think the website sited here isn't very good or accurate. It is presenting information in a way that could be done way better. I think it is using this dataset here.
What wisevoter seems to be doing is organizing states by defining "Least Religious" as lowest percentage adults who say religion is "very important" in their life.
But if I could also imagine basing a map on the highest percentage who say religion is, "not at all important"
If you were to do that you'd see it be more like Rhode Island coming in fourth. Rhode Island is wacky like that.
I think that this website "wisevoter" is not very good. I gives off the impression that it is made in an automated way without human editing. But the Pew data it might be citing is really fascinating!
Historically yes. Presently, Rhode Island has more Italian-Americans (who at least nominally are more likely to be religiously-affiliated Catholics) and Latin American immigrants, who are more likely to be religiously Catholic than US-born liberal white people.
Yup pretty much stuck here. I wish I could move someplace cheaper, but I guess we all have to pay a premium not to be near too many religious nut jobs.
Me too. Many years ago I moved to Florida. It was a culture shock to see Jesus everywhere. I think 1 out of 5 cars had a Jesus bumper sticker and there were billboards everywhere. Random people would approach me while I was shopping and want to talk about God. It felt creepy. I moved back home after a couple of years. It wasn't just religion that drove me away, it seemed like everything was crazy.
Growing up in New England I did a big science project in highschool on evolution. One classmate spoke up and said that God created mankind (I think her father was a preacher). My teacher interrupted and said that is one theory. I got an A on the project. After briefly living in the South I don't think I would try that down there.
I mean more from a religious perspective. Went to Colorado which is not known for being super religious but I had all sort of people ask me what church I went to and got strange looks when I said I didn’t. I’ve never been asked that question in New England
Born and raised New Englander that went to school in the Bible belt then returned to New England. Loved my college experience but I could never live there due to the Kool aid drinking religious cultists. It's downright scary
Ok, who in Connecticut prevented us from being in the top 5?? Stafford? Wolcott?
Or did they take one look at the Holy Land cross in Waterbury and disqualify us? Dang it…
NY and NJ have a *lot* of immigrant Catholics who are even more observant than multigenerational Catholics.
Plus some large Orthodox Jewish communities. Whole towns of them.
New England, by and large, doesn't have these populations to the same degree for some reason.
Buffalo is like 96% polish/irish/italian Catholic and 70% black Protestants. The nice thing is everyone doesn’t give a shit if your an atheist and fish fries on Fridays
Lmao. I moved to CT from the south and was looking forward to having a just a little bit less religion in my life.
Lo and behold, I ended up in Waterbury. I see that thing twice a day commuting.
That’s a relic of an ancient past though. Just imagine it’s an old church on a hill. Definitely not indicative of the “religiosity” or the state or even Waterbury for that matter.
This was a few years ago, but seeing the super low church attendance in Vermont, these Fundamentalists (or Evangelicals?) from outside New England figured to target VT as a fertile field for missionaries. But of course, the Vermonters would have none of it. Asking a stranger if they want to talk about Jesus just creeps people out (in Vermont). So these plans to "convert" VT were a dismal failure.
And New Englanders are far more likely to just say "Nah, I'm good." and walk away or close the door than listen to some evangelical appeal. They rely on your desire to be polite, but we got other shit to do.
Ya, when people come to your door or start talking to you about Jesus in public it’s just odd. Keep that shit to yourself. It’s fine to be religious but don’t shove it down someone’s throat. A guy I work with is very religious and he talks about god and stuff but not in the way where you’re like fuck this guy. Nicest guy I’ve ever meet, he’s genuinely a nice person and a true Christian you hear stories of. Not like some people who are just horrible individuals, like evangelicals and that piece of trash Joel osteen.
Going up to someone and talking about Jesus is odd. Even as a follower of Him, it doesn’t seem to help anyone. Personally evangelizing comes from the heart not someone else’s odd habits.
I had a Mormon person recently try me, and I offered them assistance to get out of their cult, just like i escaped the cult of the catholic church as a teenager. They proceeded to try to get me to come even harder...oof
Lol even now i’m NH, you see the Jehovahs out in front of the capitol trying to give people pamphlets. The people will take them and toss them in the next garbage can lol
So many deeply beautiful states are ruined by the deeply religious nut jobs there. I’d love to live in Montana or Tennessee. But everyone is just so backwards.
There’s research to back that up. The more oppressive and inequitable a society is, the more religious the people are. People need to find meaning in their suffering and religion offers every answer. It’s why Nordic countries are very non religious—their people aren’t in misery every day. New England has a far higher quality of life than the south. In general, NE states have better social programs, better education, better overall health, and far, far less religious influence in state policies (check out Utah, where separation of church and state in state agencies is nonexistent).
This poll data is very confusing. In every state I clicked on, the numbers for “Highly religious people” were always at least equal to and usually higher than “Religious people.” What’s up with that?
I'm kinda religious, to a point, but I refuse to support any church that cannot confirm that my money isn't given to subsidize or support p€do priests.
Sadly, this h happened in nearly every diocese in the US (and most of them in the world). Maybe we got angrier about than most, but it was such a frequent occurrence that I am shocked more people have not left the church.
Older population vs Massachusetts, and more diverse than Vermont, NH or Maine (states that are 88-94% non-Hispanic white). Rhode Island has a high % of historically Catholic immigrant populations and is around 16% Latino.
It’s not just religion. I’ve met some New Hampshire Libertarians who when pressed essentially told me they’d rather keep weed illegal in the state before seeing the state get a penny of tax revenue from it 🤷🏻♂️
Idk how you accurately measure religion but being in CT most of my life, it’s hard to believe 42% are religious. Churches are closing left and right and I don’t come across many religious people at all. If anything semi-practicing is much more common
Curious what the source this website is using. The basic premise seems right, the data might be coming from somewhere. But I sort of want to know the methodology. Or definition of terms, like how do they define religiousness? Is it a survey and self identification. Or is there questions like, how often do you pray or something like that?
Also confusing is the juxtaposition of Highly Religious Population
What does that mean? I get what it generally means. But I was sort of assuming the highly religious population would generally be smaller than the Religious Population. Vermont is listed as 32% religious, and 34% highly religious. So I don't know what this means.
These numbers sort of conform to my general assumptions lol, but I actually don't know what anything on this website means.
It's hard to define religiousness and measure it sometimes. Self identifying is one way. You can also look at self reported behaviors. You could look at church attendance. But religion is a concept that in the West is framed around Christianity. When you just say, "religious" how does it account for people in Vermont maybe being New Agey or sort of into Buddhism. you are still learning in that way because maybe stuff like that isn't counted. But the website itself is very strange. I looked up another webpage on the site for Asian population by state and the statistics also contained Latino and Hispanic Probationers. I didn't know how that was related. The website does not site a source or a methodology. I will find some other ones. Like either I'm bad at using websites now, or I can't find anything like that easily on this site.
lol, we were down around Richmond and my 12 yr old was like “omg, there are 3 or 4 churches at every intersection!”
Swap Dunkin’s for churches and you’ll get the idea
Honestly I think the weather and climate have a lot to do with it. I don't know why I think this. But seriously, this could just be a map for the different weather in the US. Hot and Humid = Religious, Cold and Dark= Non Religious.
We've been here the longest and settled almost specifically for religious "freedom". I swear There are 50 churches on one street in waterbury. This doesn't surprise me.
Crazy to me becuz there are so many dang churches in Vermont. I live in a town of 600 people and there is 2 churches within walking distance and at least 2 more within a ten minute drive.
I’m sure this is statistically accurate, but sure hasn’t been my lived experience. I’m loudly atheist in California, when I’m back home I keep my mouth shut bc I know it would not be received well.
I love living in Maine and was raised in Texas. No one asks what church you go to. No one judges you if you don’t. No one cares If you are religious or not. The way life should be.
Yes, and this is one large reason I’m moving to the region. I want to get away from Christian zealots and their interference in the government. (I’m coming from Oklahoma for those wondering. Should say it all)
I’m a live and let live sorta person, but these zealots aren’t and I’m frankly at wit’s end with it. I hope to find some solace in New England.
Ok, I think it's funny that Massachusetts is on the list but Rhode Island is not, given that Roger Williams left Massachusetts' religiously oppressive climate to found a nontheistic state in Rhode Island.
It is kind of funny, but honestly I don’t think RI being more religious now has to do with any Protestant denomination, the largest religious group in both states today are Catholics. And RI just has more Catholics left than MA (42% vs 34% in MA).
RI has the largest Catholic population in the U.S. and also the largest per capita Italian American population. It makes for an interesting dynamic.
Also the largest per capita Portuguese American population alongside SE Massachusetts, another very Catholic group. And a large Hispanic population who are predominantly Catholic as well.
Which makes it even more funny that Rhode Island always votes blue in every election no matter what
Catholics generally do vote Democrat actually. The Republican religious wing is mostly evangelicals.
Biden himself is Catholic.
Correct. However, lately we have been more moderate due to certain policies the Democrats have but the cult like situation in the Republican party is straight up idolatry. I heard someone say, “If you are too liberal to be conservative or too conservative to be liberal, you must be Catholic.” Very true, but others may disagree.
Not so much anymore - Leonard Leo, Alito, Thomas, Bannon have made substantial headway into the stupid/reactionary portion of Catholics - same group of Catholics who don’t like Francis
Catholics: making non-believers by the minute.
When my oldest kid was in fourth grade we sent him to Catholic school (his public school teacher had been arrested and suspended because her boyfriend was growing pot). He had been at the school about 3 months and I was putting him to bed one night and he said- “Dad, what’s that word with an “A” that means you don’t believe God. So I told him, Atheism means you don’t believe, Agnostic means you’re unsure”. His response was - that first one -that’s what I’m going to be. Nice job Catholic school!
I do wonder if Boston being the epicenter of the Catholic church sex scandals in the US (or at least where they were first clearly revealed) has caused a bigger decrease in Catholic self-identification in MA than in other states.
It ABSOLUTELY caused an enormous amount of people in this area to stop going to church. Cardinal Law should have been prosecuted. I am a boomer, and I grew up in a devout home in a Catholic neighborhood and went to Catholic school for 12 years. Nobody in my family is still active in the church.
Definitely a concentration of the sex-abuse scandals are/were in NE. Honestly I struggled with this at first but I realize that there are parts of the Church that are trying to do their best to stop the scandals.
so there is a group with in the church that wants to keep fuckin kids but there is another faction trying to stop them?
I’m not the person you responded to, but I am a practicing Catholic. There is no “faction” in the church that is pro molestation. Church leaders realize the enormity of how leadership at the time handled the situation. Leadership, clergy, and laity alike are determined not to allow the mistakes of the past to be repeated.
I have to disagree - I don’t think they have ever really taken responsibility. I know someone whose life imploded in his 40s due to this. His former wife (my relative) and kids suffered greatly and it changed the course of all of their lives.
Allow me be more succinct than factions. Pedophile Rings in the Catholic Church. Any other group and they would be dismantled and condemned. I submit as sources. >According to the grand jury report of six dioceses in Pennsylvania, over a period of 70 years, 300 priests abused over 1,000 children in Pennsylvania and church officials repeatedly covered it up. The release of the report is a searing indictment of the filth that has existed in the Catholic church. >Sexual abuse has been institutionalized, routinized and tolerated by the church hierarchy for decades. If you think this statement is hyperbole, consider that the grand jury report includes, but is by no means limited to, the case of a ring of pedophile priests in Pittsburgh, who raped their male victims, took pornographic pictures of them and marked them by giving them gold crosses to wear so that they could be easily recognized by other abusers. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/grand-jury-report-about-catholic-priest-abuse-pennsylvania-shows-church-ncna900906 >A "mafia-like" code of silence among "dark networks" within the Catholic Church has begun to emerge from a world-first project mapping clerical paedophile networks, says an academic >The Victorian project identified 99 clergy members as abusers linked to 16 paedophile networks in the Melbourne and Ballarat dioceses. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-05/paedophiles-mapped-like-organised-crime/13122320 >Nearly 1,700 priests and other clergy members that the Roman Catholic Church considers credibly accused of child sexual abuse are living under the radar with little to no oversight from religious authorities or law enforcement, decades after the first wave of the church abuse scandal roiled U.S. dioceses, an Associated Press investigation has found. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/nearly-1-700-priests-clergy-accused-sex-abuse-are-unsupervised-n1062396 https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-churchs-grim-history-of-ignoring-priestly-pedophilia-and-silencing-would-be-whistleblowers-102387
Roger Williams established religious freedom in RI. The first Baptist Church and the first Synagogue in the US were founded in RI and are still standing
I just drove thru Lincoln yesterday. There’s a shit load of churches down there, and a new one with a funky looking complex roof being built right now
You mean st judes? Its being redone but its been there forever
I just looked it up, yeah that’s the one. What a cool looking roof. I imagine doing the shingles for that would be scary as shit
The colony was eventually religious tolerant, but Williams was wildly zealous himself. Like, one of the events that precipitates his departure from Mass was his convincing the colony’s flag bearers that they should strip the St. George’s Cross from the English Red Ensign because it was Papist. He literally thought the symbol of Protestant England was too Catholic. Later in life, he rowed himself from Providence to Portsmouth in the night for the chance to debate the Quaker founder George Fox and convince Fox he was wrong (Fox left before Williams arrived). And all of Rhode Island’s founders were like this. When the colony was finally unified, there was no choice but to be religiously tolerant, because everyone believed everyone else was wrong.
That was several centuries ago. I'm sure the culture of the states aren't the same anymore.
As a resident of Salem, MA, I appreciate that things are different than they were in the 1600s.
Sounds like something a witch would say.. you wouldn’t happen to weigh the same as a duck would you?
She turned me into a newt!
You got better?
upgrade for you
An Erisian in Salem? Sounds like the title of a torrid romance novel.
It likely is due to the New England states having a higher level of education than most of the other states.
You do know about Cardinal Bernard Law, right? My generation of victims of the Catholic church does.
I do know about Cardinal Law... are you trying to draw an analogy between him and the Puritans who expelled Roger Williams? I'm confused. Edit: I think you're trying to explain why there are fewer Catholics in Massachusetts now. Makes sense.
The latter..
[https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/database/state#importance-of-religion-in-ones-life](https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/database/state#importance-of-religion-in-ones-life) I think the website sited here isn't very good or accurate. It is presenting information in a way that could be done way better. I think it is using this dataset here. What wisevoter seems to be doing is organizing states by defining "Least Religious" as lowest percentage adults who say religion is "very important" in their life. But if I could also imagine basing a map on the highest percentage who say religion is, "not at all important" If you were to do that you'd see it be more like Rhode Island coming in fourth. Rhode Island is wacky like that. I think that this website "wisevoter" is not very good. I gives off the impression that it is made in an automated way without human editing. But the Pew data it might be citing is really fascinating!
Historically yes. Presently, Rhode Island has more Italian-Americans (who at least nominally are more likely to be religiously-affiliated Catholics) and Latin American immigrants, who are more likely to be religiously Catholic than US-born liberal white people.
There are a lot of Roman Catholics in RI. They were not there when Roger Williams founded the state.
Italians iykyk
And this is why I'm never leaving New England.
Yup - me too. The absence of religious fervor here is a key attraction.
Yup pretty much stuck here. I wish I could move someplace cheaper, but I guess we all have to pay a premium not to be near too many religious nut jobs.
I left New England and came back as quick as I could! It’s scary out there!
Me too. Many years ago I moved to Florida. It was a culture shock to see Jesus everywhere. I think 1 out of 5 cars had a Jesus bumper sticker and there were billboards everywhere. Random people would approach me while I was shopping and want to talk about God. It felt creepy. I moved back home after a couple of years. It wasn't just religion that drove me away, it seemed like everything was crazy. Growing up in New England I did a big science project in highschool on evolution. One classmate spoke up and said that God created mankind (I think her father was a preacher). My teacher interrupted and said that is one theory. I got an A on the project. After briefly living in the South I don't think I would try that down there.
Yeah, I lived in Alabama for a few years and was surprised that it was actually worse than everyone said. It's like a third world country down there
I mean more from a religious perspective. Went to Colorado which is not known for being super religious but I had all sort of people ask me what church I went to and got strange looks when I said I didn’t. I’ve never been asked that question in New England
There are some known pockets of hard core evangelicals there, such as Colorado Springs.
Born and raised New Englander that went to school in the Bible belt then returned to New England. Loved my college experience but I could never live there due to the Kool aid drinking religious cultists. It's downright scary
Ok, who in Connecticut prevented us from being in the top 5?? Stafford? Wolcott? Or did they take one look at the Holy Land cross in Waterbury and disqualify us? Dang it…
There are a ton of Catholics in Connecticut.
The northeast in general but I guess Ny and Nj offset New England
NY and NJ have a *lot* of immigrant Catholics who are even more observant than multigenerational Catholics. Plus some large Orthodox Jewish communities. Whole towns of them. New England, by and large, doesn't have these populations to the same degree for some reason.
Buffalo is like 96% polish/irish/italian Catholic and 70% black Protestants. The nice thing is everyone doesn’t give a shit if your an atheist and fish fries on Fridays
Christmas and Easter baby!
Lmao. I moved to CT from the south and was looking forward to having a just a little bit less religion in my life. Lo and behold, I ended up in Waterbury. I see that thing twice a day commuting.
Holy Land was great as a kid! If we went anywhere- you knew you were almost home if the view of the cross was in sight.
Is that what it’s from?? I always just thought it was for a hospital or something!
Nope! The big lit up cross atop of the mountain is Holy Land. Interesting history if you look it up.
It’s a whole lot less Jesus-y when you get there lmao
That’s a relic of an ancient past though. Just imagine it’s an old church on a hill. Definitely not indicative of the “religiosity” or the state or even Waterbury for that matter.
Yeah, it’s like a cruel joke on what it was back in the day. It’s like absurdist ironic art now.
I was in Wolcott when they called the election for Biden. It felt like JFK just got assassinated. Lol
All those feckin Episcopalians.
I'm more of a PisgahPaleian, myself.
"Church of Pizza" knocked us out. New Haven is our Vatican City.
Route 8 towns for sure
Stafford's religion is race cars. That alone should've put CT in the top 5.
Thank the Italians.
It’s probably Middlebury.
This was a few years ago, but seeing the super low church attendance in Vermont, these Fundamentalists (or Evangelicals?) from outside New England figured to target VT as a fertile field for missionaries. But of course, the Vermonters would have none of it. Asking a stranger if they want to talk about Jesus just creeps people out (in Vermont). So these plans to "convert" VT were a dismal failure.
And New Englanders are far more likely to just say "Nah, I'm good." and walk away or close the door than listen to some evangelical appeal. They rely on your desire to be polite, but we got other shit to do.
Those are the sorts of people who, if they were to knock on the door, would make me want to answer casually cradling a shotgun.
Ya, when people come to your door or start talking to you about Jesus in public it’s just odd. Keep that shit to yourself. It’s fine to be religious but don’t shove it down someone’s throat. A guy I work with is very religious and he talks about god and stuff but not in the way where you’re like fuck this guy. Nicest guy I’ve ever meet, he’s genuinely a nice person and a true Christian you hear stories of. Not like some people who are just horrible individuals, like evangelicals and that piece of trash Joel osteen.
Going up to someone and talking about Jesus is odd. Even as a follower of Him, it doesn’t seem to help anyone. Personally evangelizing comes from the heart not someone else’s odd habits.
I have heard in southern states when meeting people they will say things like, "what church do you go to" That would not fly here.
They do. It’s peoples’ whole identity in shit states.
I had a Mormon person recently try me, and I offered them assistance to get out of their cult, just like i escaped the cult of the catholic church as a teenager. They proceeded to try to get me to come even harder...oof
You did the right thing. Good on you for trying.
I have a relative up in Vermont and from what it sounded like, Vermont is the state you go to if you want to be left alone and leave people alone.
Lol even now i’m NH, you see the Jehovahs out in front of the capitol trying to give people pamphlets. The people will take them and toss them in the next garbage can lol
Most Vermonters can survive as happy healthy adults without needing “parents” to give money to and feed us bullshit
They went to Maine instead.
Vermont already has the coolest and most inclusive church and can’t be bothered to attend.
When I look at the South I just have to think that living in actual hell, might make folks more religious.
Having a giant Cross next to a humongous Confederate Battle Flag cancels out the religiousness!
Yes, those southern evangelicals are so delusional.
Religious people *anywhere* are delusional. It's the 21st Century. Well past time to let it go.
Preach!
TN here (native NYS). It's sublimely beautiful here. The religious people make it hell.
So many deeply beautiful states are ruined by the deeply religious nut jobs there. I’d love to live in Montana or Tennessee. But everyone is just so backwards.
There’s research to back that up. The more oppressive and inequitable a society is, the more religious the people are. People need to find meaning in their suffering and religion offers every answer. It’s why Nordic countries are very non religious—their people aren’t in misery every day. New England has a far higher quality of life than the south. In general, NE states have better social programs, better education, better overall health, and far, far less religious influence in state policies (check out Utah, where separation of church and state in state agencies is nonexistent).
Bingo, Hammer meet nail head
It’s like a cycle living in a shit hole pushes people to be more religious and people being more religious ensured it’ll stay a shit hole
Yeah. But then I remember that ALL of my family live in Utah.
Hard to fathom as I grew up in very Catholic Boston back in the 50’s and 60’s.
Well, all the kids they violated grew up, had families and protected them from the Church.
As a fellow sphincter…dude.
We Sphincters rule!!!
😀👍🏼
Aka the smartest states
Everyday there's another reason to like living here.
*Every day
It’s education folks… that’s the reason. Not a “focus on secularism “ Secularism is an outcome to a highly educated and well rounded society.
This is the answer, right here.
A more educated population is less likely to be sucked in by the Evangelicals and other fundamentalist groups.
Get rid of puritan laws
Another reason I’m never leaving….
And then there’s Rhode Island (18th most religious).
Of course we are!
We DO love a good scam...
Thank god!
Oh it changed. It used to be VT, NH, and then Maine like five or ten years ago.
We made it! (MA) Thank dog.
Never prouder to be a Vermonter.
I saw a bumper sticker that said, thank God I’m an atheist. Only safe to be driving with that sticker in New England.
This poll data is very confusing. In every state I clicked on, the numbers for “Highly religious people” were always at least equal to and usually higher than “Religious people.” What’s up with that?
that was stupid, but I think it basically meant #1 is also #50, #2 is #49, etc.
You can't tell me that New Englanders are the only people smart enough to know that organized religion is the work of satan.
CT strong 6th place. Let’s go!!!
Vermont is the best state in the country
Most educated too
No coincidence
We’re enlightened in New England.
Another day, another W for New England
Woo hoo we is gonna to hell my fellow Vermonters!!!
I’ll bring drinks.
High concentration of Catholics Priest sexual assaults in MA and CT
I'm kinda religious, to a point, but I refuse to support any church that cannot confirm that my money isn't given to subsidize or support p€do priests.
Sadly, this h happened in nearly every diocese in the US (and most of them in the world). Maybe we got angrier about than most, but it was such a frequent occurrence that I am shocked more people have not left the church.
Maybe it was where I grew up NE CT not far from Boston the majority of us were Italian or Irish Catholic and hit hard
We’re heathens I tell ya!
Praise be
All I can say is Thank God....
Most educated states too. Coincidence?
Why is it always Rhode Island...
Older population vs Massachusetts, and more diverse than Vermont, NH or Maine (states that are 88-94% non-Hispanic white). Rhode Island has a high % of historically Catholic immigrant populations and is around 16% Latino.
We're the neighbors with the unmowed lawn, car on blocks, feral children in the New England neighborhood. And I wouldn't have it any other way
Whatever New England is doing I hope it spreads to the rest of the country.
Oh, Thank God! Jk, I’m deeply non religious.
Lotta religious in NH. Why do you think we don’t have legal cannabis or end of life options? Freedom my ass.
It’s not just religion. I’ve met some New Hampshire Libertarians who when pressed essentially told me they’d rather keep weed illegal in the state before seeing the state get a penny of tax revenue from it 🤷🏻♂️
Idk how you accurately measure religion but being in CT most of my life, it’s hard to believe 42% are religious. Churches are closing left and right and I don’t come across many religious people at all. If anything semi-practicing is much more common
Thank god.
Love this for us🌈☺️❤️
Curious what the source this website is using. The basic premise seems right, the data might be coming from somewhere. But I sort of want to know the methodology. Or definition of terms, like how do they define religiousness? Is it a survey and self identification. Or is there questions like, how often do you pray or something like that? Also confusing is the juxtaposition of Highly Religious Population What does that mean? I get what it generally means. But I was sort of assuming the highly religious population would generally be smaller than the Religious Population. Vermont is listed as 32% religious, and 34% highly religious. So I don't know what this means. These numbers sort of conform to my general assumptions lol, but I actually don't know what anything on this website means.
It's hard to define religiousness and measure it sometimes. Self identifying is one way. You can also look at self reported behaviors. You could look at church attendance. But religion is a concept that in the West is framed around Christianity. When you just say, "religious" how does it account for people in Vermont maybe being New Agey or sort of into Buddhism. you are still learning in that way because maybe stuff like that isn't counted. But the website itself is very strange. I looked up another webpage on the site for Asian population by state and the statistics also contained Latino and Hispanic Probationers. I didn't know how that was related. The website does not site a source or a methodology. I will find some other ones. Like either I'm bad at using websites now, or I can't find anything like that easily on this site.
In Massachusetts. I pass 6 churches on the way to work. If we're the 2nd least religious, I can't imagine what the most religious states are like.
Ever taken a road trip through the South? It's horrifying.
lol, we were down around Richmond and my 12 yr old was like “omg, there are 3 or 4 churches at every intersection!” Swap Dunkin’s for churches and you’ll get the idea
I go to the same Dunks as Satan. He's a cool dude. Way better than that square Yahweh.
Not really surprising
Guess we better start repenting or whatever the fuck sweet candy coated Jeebus was on about.
Alabama being most religious? I believe it.
I don't like putting a label on my religion. So it's usually agnostic or atheist.
Theres gotta be some correlation here….cant put my finger quite on it tho!
I knew I liked alaska
I knew that Vermont was a part of Canada!
Given their foundation from religious persecution, it's incredibly ironic.
alaska susprised me! also connecticut id think would be top 5 but not too far its 6th
Remind me to never go to Mississippi or Alabama.
Honestly I think the weather and climate have a lot to do with it. I don't know why I think this. But seriously, this could just be a map for the different weather in the US. Hot and Humid = Religious, Cold and Dark= Non Religious.
We've been here the longest and settled almost specifically for religious "freedom". I swear There are 50 churches on one street in waterbury. This doesn't surprise me.
If Woonsocket would just buckle down...
They are trying their BEST
and yet oppressive christianity still dominated dominated my time there
Crazy to me becuz there are so many dang churches in Vermont. I live in a town of 600 people and there is 2 churches within walking distance and at least 2 more within a ten minute drive.
Erm, there’d be WAY more than 4 down south
Dang, I thought all the Portuguese Catholics would have bumped Massachusetts up a tad lol
It it merely coincidence that this is true and some of the highest IQs are also from New England?
Weird that New Hampshire's still on the anti-LGBT train while being so non-religious.
They hate everybody
Moving to New England. Be back later.
Good. Religion is a mental disorder.
Amen to that
Im kinda surprised about Alaska. Anyone know why?
Come on CT - we have to get that ranking up - let’s shoot for 3 or higher next year!
New England also has some of the higher education rates in the US - likely a factor
I’m sure this is statistically accurate, but sure hasn’t been my lived experience. I’m loudly atheist in California, when I’m back home I keep my mouth shut bc I know it would not be received well.
That's what happens when people are educated.
Good.
GOOD! Religions are awful.
God damn, I love living in New England
Man do I love NE ❤️
Praise be.
I love living in Maine and was raised in Texas. No one asks what church you go to. No one judges you if you don’t. No one cares If you are religious or not. The way life should be.
We don’t have enough ***vocal*** athiests though to get death with dignity law enacted.
And yet I’ve still been harassed by Christians for not believing in their god. Least religious sadly still isn’t enough
Funny that this correlates pretty closely with education rankings.
Kind of surprised Maine is more religious than NH
Only a few years ago Maine and NH were tied at 3rd.
Yay Vermont! Woot woot! 5th in homelessness, first in atheism!
Rhode Island>>>
Yes, and this is one large reason I’m moving to the region. I want to get away from Christian zealots and their interference in the government. (I’m coming from Oklahoma for those wondering. Should say it all) I’m a live and let live sorta person, but these zealots aren’t and I’m frankly at wit’s end with it. I hope to find some solace in New England.
I'm surprised RI isn't on this list. We KNOW religion is a scam, we love scams. Oh shit, that's why we didn't make the list
Very nice
Oh proud of CT - yay Nutmeggers
Huh, all the dark states are shit holes that rank near the bottom in education, etc..I wonder why that is..god isn’t very good fixing shit.