9 ms·

The second-largest religion in each state

73 points by chwolfe 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
3minus1 12y ago
would be interesting if they used lightness and darkness to show what percentage of the population was that religion
TallGuyShort 12y ago
Apparently there is one county (out of 3000+) where Christianity is not the predominant religious tradition. I'd be curious to know which county that was...
- cwal37 12y ago
  I've been trying to dig through their data to answer your question, but I don't have SPSS/STATA, and the SPSS viewer I downloaded was pretty ineffective. It's here if you want to try and find it: http://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Downloads/RCMSCY10_DL2.asp http://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Downloads/RCMSCY10_DL2....
- gyardley 12y ago
  Emporia, Virginia. It's actually an independent city rather than a county (a historical quirk of Virginia), and Christians as a whole still outnumber Muslims, but there the Muslim congregation is larger than any one denomination of Christians. http://www.thearda.com/rcms2010/r/c/51/rcms2010_51595_county_adh_2010.asp http://www.thearda.com/rcms2010/r/c/51/rcms2010_51595_county...
ljf 12y ago
Anyone else getting a 404 on mobile?
- jamesbritt 12y ago
  Yes, 404 on my phone.
MaysonL 12y ago
Interesting that they count Mormons as Christians: I would guess that many non-Mormon Christians would not agree with that.
- argumentum 12y ago
  It makes sense to count people as what they consider themselves. Otherwise you are going to open a whole can of worms: protestants may not consider catholics christian, sunni muslims might want to exclude shia muslims etc.
  - vlunkr 12y ago
    This is an excellent point. I'm a Mormon, and from our perspective, it's clear that we are Christians, but others have disputed it. At that point, there is no authority to decide where we fit. As you said, there are plenty of similar cases, so it's easier to just count everyone as what they claim to be.
    - baddox 12y ago
      In that case, I think it makes sense to define the groups as "Mormons" and "non-Mormon Christians" or something like that. It doesn't make sense to define a group where half the members of the group think the other half are heretics.
      - chimeracoder 12y ago
        Why single Mormons out? Why not exclude Rastafari who also consider themselves Christians (but are not considered Christians by many non-Rastafari Christians)? Heck, why even include Protestants? Historically, "orthodox" Catholics consider them to be heretics as well[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafari [1] and among some pockets of Catholicism, this belief holds strong to this day
        baddox 12y ago
Isley 12y ago
If you are interested in why Islam is so successful and already the second-largest religion in so many states: http://www.inquiryintoislam.com/2010/07/why-is-islam-so-successful.html http://www.inquiryintoislam.com/2010/07/why-is-islam-so-succ...
- ScottBurson 12y ago
  When I first saw this comment I thought it was attempting to proselytize for Islam. But I followed the link anyway, and it turns out to be quite the opposite. Interesting read, actually.
- g8oz 12y ago
  Standard islamaphobic narrative - i.e support extremists in their claim to own the religion. Ignore other Muslims as fakers.
  - Isley 12y ago
    Please state with what you dont agree with in the article instead of crying out propaganda words like islamophobia. Are there factual errors in it?
    - g8oz 12y ago
      You really want to play the selective Quranic quote game? Fine I'll indulge you with one example: "Permission to spread the religion by war" - here you've already discredited yourself by sourcing the hate mongering religionofpeace.com. But anyways the sourced page at http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/023-violence.htm http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/023-violence.htm says there is no defensive historical context to the verse at Quran (2:191-193). Wrong. Relocating to Medina did not save the emerging Muslim polity from attacks and raids and from the Meccans. Low status followers who couldn't leave Mecca were still being beaten, tortured and killed. But the crucial bit of false messaging in regards to this verse happens here: "And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah]" Ha! The naive reader might say "gosh thats pretty much a recipe for constant warfare isn't it?". But Fitna doesn't mean that, it more accurately translates to "discord promoting actions/ state of destablizing disharmony" - think Russia's recent actions in the eastern Ukraine. A similar dynamic is at play with many of the other points on the site. Misleading interpretations or interpretations favored by extremist scholars are put forth as the true face of Islam. More reasonable rulings by more qualified scholars apparently don't count. Devout Muslims who have no problem in being a harmonious part of diverse societies apparently don't count. Because that might undermine the central fallacious Islamaphobic narrative: It's not bad people, it's bad ideology. But it is bad people. There is enough room in any ideology to be an asshole. I'm not going to do anymore than this, because a) I'm not qualified b) I don't have the energy and c) I doubt you're looking for a real debate, propagandists usually are not. As a postscript I really don't get the end game of these arguments, but it seems to be: "can't we just all come together and hate Islam? Can't you see that's the only way to fix the world?"
zhemao 12y ago
The presence of Bahai'i in SC is rather unexpected. From the county map it looks like they are mostly in the Myrtle Beach / Georgetown area.
- whalesalad 12y ago
  Really cool to see the Baha'i faith mentioned in something like this, and I was really surprised to see South Carolina as the epicenter. For those interested, our House of Worship in the US is located in Illinois: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1'%C3%AD_House_of_Worship_(Wilmette,_Illinois) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1'%C3%AD_House_of_Worsh...
  - conorh 12y ago
    If you get a chance I highly recommend visiting this location. I drive by it often and have walked around it a few times. It is a breathtaking building.
Gustomaximus 12y ago
I'd be curious to see how atheism fits in, if for this purpose it was counted as a religion.
- eevilspock 12y ago
  Not what you after, but the best countries to be atheist in: http://www.salon.com/2012/08/29/eight_of_the_best_countries_to_be_an_atheist/ http://www.salon.com/2012/08/29/eight_of_the_best_countries_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_the_Czech_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_the_Czech_Republ... [corrected per namenotrequired's comment]
  - namenotrequired 12y ago
    Small correction, it's "eight of the best countries to be atheist in", not "the most atheist countries".
  - cristianpascu 12y ago
    "Slowly but surely, religion’s historical monopoly on the human mind is breaking apart." I'm currently reading a book[1] by theologian/philosopher David Bentley Hart that shames to ground sentences like this. Also the idea that modernity is somehow superior to previous ages in regard to tolerance and reason. Nothing further from the truth. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions-Christian-Revolution-Fashionable/dp/0300164297/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402003935&sr=8-1&keywords=atheist+delusions http://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions-Christian-Revolution...
    - scotty79 12y ago
      "Hart closes the book in the present, delineating the ominous consequences of the decline of Christendom in a culture that is built upon its moral and spiritual values." It seems that he doesn't claim in this book that religions monopoly isn't diminishing but rather reaffirms this fact at the same time expressing his opinion that it's bad.
      - 12y ago
rdmcfee 12y ago
In Canada the second largest group by religion is "no religious affiliation" http://globalnews.ca/news/544591/the-second-largest-religious-faith-in-canada-nothing/ http://globalnews.ca/news/544591/the-second-largest-religiou... In BC over 35% are non-religious. In Vancouver it's over 41% with only 5,000 more Christians than "non-religious". http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CMA&Code1=933&Data=Count&SearchText=Vancouver&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&A1=Religion&B1=All&Custom=&TABID=1 http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/prof/details/p...
baddox 12y ago
I completely fail to understand the "Adherents reported" explanation on the per-county map, which is on the majority of counties.
- brownbat 12y ago
  Exactly. The explanation seems to invoke Zoroastrianism, but not in any sensible way. You might assume that pale yellow refers to Zoroastrians, but that seems unlikely, given its predominance in counties throughout the country and lack of registering at all on the state map. It looks like a pattern more similar to "No Presence," which I take to mean there simply aren't any discoverable congregants other than Christians in certain vast stretches of the, uh, Northern Rocky Heartland (for lack of a good regional descriptor).
plainOldText 12y ago
Arizona and Delaware are the only two states where Hindus is the second most popular religion. That's very interesting, considering these states are not too close to each other.
brownbat 12y ago
The first two graphics provide a great illustration of how misleading population statistics are once you reduce the fidelity to the state level. "No Presence" cuts a huge swath through the believably near-unanimously Christian (and scant populated) middle. That entire trend is conspicuously absent from the state map, which basically lacks the capacity to distinguish between urban and rural through most of the country, despite that being probably the most salient cultural divide.
jedp 12y ago
I'm dubious about the meaningfulness of broad terms like "Christian", "Muslim", etc., because of their coarse granularity. I'm not religious, but from what I observe, I don't think the "Christian" crowd of Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, and Unitarian Universalists would say they believe the Same Thing. I'm guessing that if you asked a C of E whether they were of the same religion as Jehovah's Witnesses, they'd probably look at you funny. Ditto for Shia and Sunni. Such distinctions have great social relevance everywhere. Consider Latin Americans: Catholic vs Evangelical (and that in itself is already a ludicrous simplification) has massive post-colonial, political, and social ramifications; to lump them all as "Christians" is to throw away so much information. It would also be interesting to see a break-down that included people who culturally identify with a "faith" but who are non-practicing (like so many of my Jewish friends).

73 points by chwolfe 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

3minus1 12y ago

would be interesting if they used lightness and darkness to show what percentage of the population was that religion

TallGuyShort 12y ago

Apparently there is one county (out of 3000+) where Christianity is not the predominant religious tradition. I'd be curious to know which county that was...

cwal37 12y ago
I've been trying to dig through their data to answer your question, but I don't have SPSS/STATA, and the SPSS viewer I downloaded was pretty ineffective. It's here if you want to try and find it: http://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Downloads/RCMSCY10_DL2.asp http://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Downloads/RCMSCY10_DL2....
gyardley 12y ago
Emporia, Virginia. It's actually an independent city rather than a county (a historical quirk of Virginia), and Christians as a whole still outnumber Muslims, but there the Muslim congregation is larger than any one denomination of Christians. http://www.thearda.com/rcms2010/r/c/51/rcms2010_51595_county_adh_2010.asp http://www.thearda.com/rcms2010/r/c/51/rcms2010_51595_county...

ljf 12y ago

Anyone else getting a 404 on mobile?

jamesbritt 12y ago
Yes, 404 on my phone.

MaysonL 12y ago

Interesting that they count Mormons as Christians: I would guess that many non-Mormon Christians would not agree with that.

argumentum 12y ago
It makes sense to count people as what they consider themselves. Otherwise you are going to open a whole can of worms: protestants may not consider catholics christian, sunni muslims might want to exclude shia muslims etc.
- vlunkr 12y ago
  This is an excellent point. I'm a Mormon, and from our perspective, it's clear that we are Christians, but others have disputed it. At that point, there is no authority to decide where we fit. As you said, there are plenty of similar cases, so it's easier to just count everyone as what they claim to be.
  - baddox 12y ago
    In that case, I think it makes sense to define the groups as "Mormons" and "non-Mormon Christians" or something like that. It doesn't make sense to define a group where half the members of the group think the other half are heretics.
    - chimeracoder 12y ago
      Why single Mormons out? Why not exclude Rastafari who also consider themselves Christians (but are not considered Christians by many non-Rastafari Christians)? Heck, why even include Protestants? Historically, "orthodox" Catholics consider them to be heretics as well[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafari [1] and among some pockets of Catholicism, this belief holds strong to this day
      - baddox 12y ago

Isley 12y ago

If you are interested in why Islam is so successful and already the second-largest religion in so many states: http://www.inquiryintoislam.com/2010/07/why-is-islam-so-successful.html http://www.inquiryintoislam.com/2010/07/why-is-islam-so-succ...

ScottBurson 12y ago
When I first saw this comment I thought it was attempting to proselytize for Islam. But I followed the link anyway, and it turns out to be quite the opposite. Interesting read, actually.
g8oz 12y ago
Standard islamaphobic narrative - i.e support extremists in their claim to own the religion. Ignore other Muslims as fakers.
- Isley 12y ago
  Please state with what you dont agree with in the article instead of crying out propaganda words like islamophobia. Are there factual errors in it?
  - g8oz 12y ago
    You really want to play the selective Quranic quote game? Fine I'll indulge you with one example: "Permission to spread the religion by war" - here you've already discredited yourself by sourcing the hate mongering religionofpeace.com. But anyways the sourced page at http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/023-violence.htm http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/023-violence.htm says there is no defensive historical context to the verse at Quran (2:191-193). Wrong. Relocating to Medina did not save the emerging Muslim polity from attacks and raids and from the Meccans. Low status followers who couldn't leave Mecca were still being beaten, tortured and killed. But the crucial bit of false messaging in regards to this verse happens here: "And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah]" Ha! The naive reader might say "gosh thats pretty much a recipe for constant warfare isn't it?". But Fitna doesn't mean that, it more accurately translates to "discord promoting actions/ state of destablizing disharmony" - think Russia's recent actions in the eastern Ukraine. A similar dynamic is at play with many of the other points on the site. Misleading interpretations or interpretations favored by extremist scholars are put forth as the true face of Islam. More reasonable rulings by more qualified scholars apparently don't count. Devout Muslims who have no problem in being a harmonious part of diverse societies apparently don't count. Because that might undermine the central fallacious Islamaphobic narrative: It's not bad people, it's bad ideology. But it is bad people. There is enough room in any ideology to be an asshole. I'm not going to do anymore than this, because a) I'm not qualified b) I don't have the energy and c) I doubt you're looking for a real debate, propagandists usually are not. As a postscript I really don't get the end game of these arguments, but it seems to be: "can't we just all come together and hate Islam? Can't you see that's the only way to fix the world?"

zhemao 12y ago

The presence of Bahai'i in SC is rather unexpected. From the county map it looks like they are mostly in the Myrtle Beach / Georgetown area.

whalesalad 12y ago
Really cool to see the Baha'i faith mentioned in something like this, and I was really surprised to see South Carolina as the epicenter. For those interested, our House of Worship in the US is located in Illinois: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1'%C3%AD_House_of_Worship_(Wilmette,_Illinois) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1'%C3%AD_House_of_Worsh...
- conorh 12y ago
  If you get a chance I highly recommend visiting this location. I drive by it often and have walked around it a few times. It is a breathtaking building.

Gustomaximus 12y ago

I'd be curious to see how atheism fits in, if for this purpose it was counted as a religion.

eevilspock 12y ago
Not what you after, but the best countries to be atheist in: http://www.salon.com/2012/08/29/eight_of_the_best_countries_to_be_an_atheist/ http://www.salon.com/2012/08/29/eight_of_the_best_countries_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_the_Czech_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_the_Czech_Republ... [corrected per namenotrequired's comment]
- namenotrequired 12y ago
  Small correction, it's "eight of the best countries to be atheist in", not "the most atheist countries".
- cristianpascu 12y ago
  "Slowly but surely, religion’s historical monopoly on the human mind is breaking apart." I'm currently reading a book[1] by theologian/philosopher David Bentley Hart that shames to ground sentences like this. Also the idea that modernity is somehow superior to previous ages in regard to tolerance and reason. Nothing further from the truth. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions-Christian-Revolution-Fashionable/dp/0300164297/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402003935&sr=8-1&keywords=atheist+delusions http://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions-Christian-Revolution...
  - scotty79 12y ago
    "Hart closes the book in the present, delineating the ominous consequences of the decline of Christendom in a culture that is built upon its moral and spiritual values." It seems that he doesn't claim in this book that religions monopoly isn't diminishing but rather reaffirms this fact at the same time expressing his opinion that it's bad.
    - 12y ago

rdmcfee 12y ago

In Canada the second largest group by religion is "no religious affiliation" http://globalnews.ca/news/544591/the-second-largest-religious-faith-in-canada-nothing/ http://globalnews.ca/news/544591/the-second-largest-religiou... In BC over 35% are non-religious. In Vancouver it's over 41% with only 5,000 more Christians than "non-religious". http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CMA&Code1=933&Data=Count&SearchText=Vancouver&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&A1=Religion&B1=All&Custom=&TABID=1 http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/prof/details/p...

baddox 12y ago

I completely fail to understand the "Adherents reported" explanation on the per-county map, which is on the majority of counties.

brownbat 12y ago
Exactly. The explanation seems to invoke Zoroastrianism, but not in any sensible way. You might assume that pale yellow refers to Zoroastrians, but that seems unlikely, given its predominance in counties throughout the country and lack of registering at all on the state map. It looks like a pattern more similar to "No Presence," which I take to mean there simply aren't any discoverable congregants other than Christians in certain vast stretches of the, uh, Northern Rocky Heartland (for lack of a good regional descriptor).

plainOldText 12y ago

Arizona and Delaware are the only two states where Hindus is the second most popular religion. That's very interesting, considering these states are not too close to each other.

brownbat 12y ago

The first two graphics provide a great illustration of how misleading population statistics are once you reduce the fidelity to the state level. "No Presence" cuts a huge swath through the believably near-unanimously Christian (and scant populated) middle. That entire trend is conspicuously absent from the state map, which basically lacks the capacity to distinguish between urban and rural through most of the country, despite that being probably the most salient cultural divide.

jedp 12y ago

I'm dubious about the meaningfulness of broad terms like "Christian", "Muslim", etc., because of their coarse granularity. I'm not religious, but from what I observe, I don't think the "Christian" crowd of Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, and Unitarian Universalists would say they believe the Same Thing. I'm guessing that if you asked a C of E whether they were of the same religion as Jehovah's Witnesses, they'd probably look at you funny. Ditto for Shia and Sunni. Such distinctions have great social relevance everywhere. Consider Latin Americans: Catholic vs Evangelical (and that in itself is already a ludicrous simplification) has massive post-colonial, political, and social ramifications; to lump them all as "Christians" is to throw away so much information. It would also be interesting to see a break-down that included people who culturally identify with a "faith" but who are non-practicing (like so many of my Jewish friends).