Non-believers: we're #2!

In his inaugural address, President Obama (love that phrase!) mentioned - for the first time, I think - "non-believers" as part of America's "patchwork heritage." This comports with the latest Pew research findings, which show that though Christians comprise 78% of the population, "non-believers" are the second largest group. This is probably a low number considering that of those Christians, many are faking it - including many in Congress.

In a fluffy "statement," the Christian Science Church makes a wild claim that the Obama era marks a trend toward more spirituality:

As significant as this shift in US government is, we are convinced a far more momentous change has been stirring globally—a spiritual transformation.

You have to be pretty selective where you look to make a statement like that. While it's true that in certain parts of the world, poor and underdeveloped countries for instance, the influence of fundamentalist religion is rising, the larger world is decidedly going the other way. Educated and prosperous areas see in rapidly developing breakthroughs in science and technology less and less need for a miraculous imaginary friend to solve their problems.

Bush and Obama represent a stark contrast of vision: Bush smacks of the Manichean black/white world view. Obama is more "ecclesiastical," seeking to include many shades of thought. A good article on this can be found here.

One of those shades of meaning is non-belief in a deity, and I'm glad to be included in the real transformation that the Obama era has begun.

Sam Harris on Obama's religious tightrope walk

Sam Harris is another of the intelligent, articulate observers of the current upheaval in the "spirituality" movement. Remember when spirituality was the "megatrend" that would blossom fully by 2010? Ain't going to happen. Of course, full-blown atheism isn't going to happen by then either, because the issue is so widely disruptive.

Since John Edwards quit the race, I've been an enthusiastic Obama supporter. Harris commends Obama's recent speech on religion but shows why it was so circumspect in many ways. A good read.

Here's an excerpt:

Like every candidate, Obama must appeal to millions of voters who believe that without religion, most of us would spend our days raping and killing our neighbors and stealing their pornography. Examples of well-behaved and comparatively atheistic societies like Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark--which surpass us in terrestrial virtues like education, health, public generosity, per capita aid to the developing world, and low rates of violent crime and infant mortality--are of no interest to our electorate whatsoever. It is, of course, good to know that people like Reverend Wright occasionally do help the poor, feed the hungry, and care for the sick. But wouldn't it be better to do these things for reasons that are not manifestly delusional? Can we care for one another without believing that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is now listening to our thoughts?

What Barack Obama Could Not (and Should Not) Say