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2009-04-11

Gallup poll: fewer identify themselves as Christian in US than in past

A positive sign for the nonreligious: this Gallup Poll (sample size: slightly over 17k) shows a decline in Americans identifying themselves as Christian. I grabbed a chart from the original site, but be sure to follow the link above -- there's more there.



This made me wonder: given that the fastest-growing ethnic group in the US is the latino community, which identifies itself heavily as Catholic, will these gains be short-lived as the large adolescent latino population ages and become voters? With some research I discovered that:
a) almost 25% of latinos are Protestant, more that my prejudices would allow me to believe.
b) that about 70 % of latinos are Catholic. I assumed it was more like 80 to 90 percent.
c) less than 1 % of latinos are atheist/agnostic.
I'm not trying to single out latinos because of their religious beliefs. I'm just thinking that this data makes it likely that the gains in population of nontheists comes probably from caucasian protestants. That's my guess.

For more good news, listen to this. It's an NPR report from their show, Faith Matters, that say that latinos are leaving the Catholic church...

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