You're always good for...well, good shit, Ross.
And I appreciate this one very much.

And, actually, I read an article the other day in my local paper (the
Sacramento Bee) that was so similar that I suspect that it was near
plagerized from your offerring (or more reasonably both reports orgiginated
from the same polls).

I'd like to parse and or disect the report you offered though.
Not to be argumentitive, per se, but to offer my own opinions.
(hoping to advanece more discussion...'cause god damn it I want more
traffic in this echo!)

So here we go:

 RS> Good.

Damn straight!
It's good to see that people are at least questioning (that means thinking)
and that's fine...sweet as wine!

 RS> Fewer People Claim Religious Affiliation Survey Of 35,000 Finds
 RS> Religious Landscape Changing

 RS> The U.S. religious marketplace is extremely volatile, with nearly half
 RS> of American adults leaving the faith tradition of their upbringing to
 RS> either switch allegiances or abandon religious affiliation altogether, a
 RS> new survey finds.

PRAISE JESUS!

Whoops. Hee!

 RS> The study released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
 RS> is unusual for it sheer scope, relying on interviews with more than
 RS> 35,000 adults to document a diverse and dynamic U.S. religious population.

 RS> While much of the study confirms earlier findings -- mainline Protestant
 RS> churches are in decline, non-denominational churches are gaining and the
 RS> ranks of the unaffiliated are growing -- it also provides a deeper look
 RS> behind those trends, and of smaller religious groups.

Yep, I've noticed personally that U.U.'s (Unitarian Universalists) are all
over the fuckin' place.

My mother-in-law is one of them. She's a fuckin' ex-Hippy. She gives a good
back rub though.

 RS> "The American religious economy is like a marketplace - very dynamic,
 RS> very competitive," said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum.
"Everyone
 RS> is losing, everyone is gaining. There are net winners and losers, but no
 RS> one can stand still. Those groups that are losing significant numbers
 RS> have to recoup them to stay vibrant."

 RS> The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey estimates the United States is 78
 RS> percent Christian and about to lose its status as a majority Protestant
 RS> nation, at 51 percent and slipping

That part I love! I was raised Protestant. And I didn't know what
"Protestant" meant until I was in college.

....some 5 years after knowing that I was athesist/agnostic. I'm an Atheist
now (big A).

 RS> More than one-quarter of American adults have left the faith of their
 RS> childhood for another religion or no religion at all, the survey found.

Probably because they were "taught" by assholes like my dad. Hypocrites!

 RS> Factoring in moves from one stream or denomination of Protestantism to
 RS> another, the number rises to 44 percent.

 RS> One in four adults ages 18 to 29 claim no affiliation with a
religious institution

Beauty!

 RS> "In the past, certain religions had a real holding power, where people
 RS> from one generation to the next would stay," said Penn State University
 RS> sociologist Roger Finke, who consulted in the survey planning. "Right
 RS> now, there is a dropping confidence in organized religion, especially in
 RS> the traditional religious forms."

 RS> Lugo said the 44 percent figure is "a very conservative
estimate," and
 RS> more research is planned to determine the causes.

 RS> "It does seem in keeping with the high tolerance among Americans for
 RS> change," Lugo said. "People move a lot, people change
jobs a lot. It's a
 RS> very fluid society."

 RS> The religious demographic benefiting the most from this religious churn
 RS> is those who claim no religious affiliation. People moving into that
 RS> category outnumber those moving out of it by a three-to-one margin.

 RS> The majority of the unaffiliated -- 12 percent of the overall population
 RS> -- describe their religion as "nothing in particular,"
and about half of
 RS> those say faith is at least somewhat important to them.

 RS> Atheists or agnostics account for 4 percent of the total population.

BULLSHIT!The pressure of the name "Atheist" keeps most down! I'll
dare venture that 12-15% are atheists

(meaning agnostics/freethinkers/and strong Atheists)

 RS> The Roman Catholic Church has lost more members than any faith tradition
 RS> because of affiliation swapping, the survey found. While nearly one in
 RS> three Americans were raised Catholic, fewer than one in four say they're
 RS> Catholic today

It's a creepy religion.

After all, anyone that can read can see that it's anti-Biblical.

What with the graven images and praying to Mary and the fucking of boys. :)

 RS> That means roughly 10 percent of all Americans are ex-Catholics.

 RS> The share of the population that identifies as Catholic, however, has
 RS> remained fairly stable in recent decades thanks to an influx of
 RS> immigrant Catholics, mostly from Latin America

Yep, the keep'em stupid fucks.

 RS> Nearly half of all Catholics under 30 are Hispanic, the survey found.

 RS> On the Protestant side, changes in affiliation are swelling the ranks of
 RS> nondenominational churches, while Baptist and Methodist traditions are
 RS> showing net losses.

 RS> Many Americans have vague denominational ties at best. People who call
 RS> themselves "just a Protestant," in fact, account for
nearly 10 percent
 RS> of all Protestants.

 RS> Although evangelical churches strive to win new Christian believers from
 RS> the "unchurched," the survey found most converts to
evangelical churches
 RS> were raised Protestant.

 RS> Hindus claimed the highest retention of childhood members, at 84 percent.

 RS> The group with the worst retention is one of the fastest growing --
 RS> Jehovah's Witnesses.

 RS> Only 37 percent of those raised in the sect known for door-to-door
 RS> proselytizing said they remain members.

 RS> Among other findings involving smaller religious groups, more than half
 RS> of American Buddhists surveyed were white, and most Buddhists were
 RS> converts.

Oh those "searchers".

 RS> More people in the survey pool identified themselves as Buddhist than
 RS> Muslim, although both populations were small -- less than 1 percent of
 RS> the total population. By contrast, Jews accounted for 1.7 percent of the
 RS> overall population.

 RS> The self-identified Buddhists -- 0.7 percent of those surveyed --
 RS> illustrate a core challenge to estimating religious affiliation: What
 RS> does affiliation mean?

 RS> It's unclear whether people who called themselves Buddhists did so
 RS> because they practice yoga or meditation, for instance, or claim
 RS> affiliation with a Buddhist institution.

THERE is an error! Just because one is a Buddhist doesn't infer that they
"do" yoga or meditation.

Buddhism has no innate deity! One can be an atheist (small a) and still be
a Buddhist.

 RS> The report does not project membership figures for religious groups, in
 RS> part because the survey is not as authoritative as a census and didn't
 RS> count children, Lugo said.

It'd be rather easy to get a "standard ratio" for children.

 RS> The U.S. Census does not ask questions on religion

The U.S. just enforces (forces) the "Under God" Pledge. ;)

--- Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 (Windows/20071031)