Based Camp - Is Religion Dying in America？ The Worrying Stats

00:00:00.000 hello simone today we are going to be discussing the horrifying state of religion in the united

00:00:06.560 states i'll be discussing some statistics i found and you'll be discussing some statistics you found

00:00:12.720 one that i found that was shocking when there was a recent study where they looked at where

00:00:17.200 people were going in the united states using cell phone data and they found out that despite 21 to

00:00:22.320 24 percent of americans saying they attend church weekly only five percent do which is way lower

00:00:29.920 rate of religiosity than anyone expected why would you lie about going to church on a survey

00:00:37.840 we'll get to that when we get to the interesting stuff what is your

00:00:42.080 the gist of what i found is that religion is literally dying in the united states in every

00:00:47.680 measurable way and specifically by dying i mean that the only people who still had god were the

00:00:53.040 old ones this isn't even about young people losing their faith they never had it yeah and this is

00:00:58.640 something that people really get wrong as they look at the pew poll where it showed religion going not

00:01:03.680 going down this year in the united states and they think that that's an indication that the erosion of

00:01:08.640 traditional religion in the united states is over it is not but let's go into the data but so with

00:01:15.040 regard to the united states and what the pew and by the way you should definitely check out the

00:01:19.040 interactive tools with this pew research to give some background has a religious landscape study

00:01:24.560 this spans over 17 years they first did it in 20 20 2007 then they did it in 2014 then they were

00:01:31.040 going to do it again in 2021 you know every seven years but then you know pandemic so they actually did

00:01:35.760 it 20 23 24 so you get this really wide span you're able to see really how quickly over this 17 year

00:01:42.720 period we lost god so basically what happened was we went from 16 percent of americans being

00:01:50.240 religiously unaffiliated like you know not that many to over 29 so almost almost a third of americans

00:01:57.200 just aren't religiously affiliated and i would say it's going to be higher than that because they

00:02:01.600 considered other religions to be things like unitarian universalists and spiritual people of like new age

00:02:08.080 and that no like dangling crystals does not make you religious i'm so sorry that category

00:02:14.720 it's it's like one one percent so very very little now two percent actually so it was one

00:02:19.360 percent around 20 2007 and then around two percent in 2014 but i still you know that's that ain't

00:02:25.200 religious so everything before we get into the statistics the reason why a lot of people from

00:02:30.480 religious communities aren't seeing this is because they are from religious communities and

00:02:34.960 definitely it's the people when they leave your community uh that they are disappearing from your

00:02:41.600 religion so you no longer see them you know when they move or whatever uh this is and and people when

00:02:47.760 they deconvert from religions don't do it for the reasons people think the the number one reason why

00:02:53.760 people stop attending church is just because they moved and they didn't they didn't start going because

00:02:59.920 it was it was a community thing it was a friend group thing it's very similar to our models of

00:03:03.600 friendship where you have convenience friends who are basically just the people that you were friends

00:03:08.560 with because they lived right next to you and i think a lot of people grew up and especially this

00:03:12.480 is the old people who are now dying they were only religious because it was convenience religion that

00:03:17.360 being a part of your community kind of mandated your being religious or showing up at church because

00:03:22.000 that was also culturally normative and you get a lot of side eye and suspicion if you didn't show up at church

00:03:27.360 so they did it but it was convenience religion it wasn't utility religion people didn't practice

00:03:31.440 religion because they on the whole because they found it really helped them perform better in life

00:03:35.840 even if it did and so and and so this is why when covet came and people started doing religious

00:03:41.760 services from home and all of these communities stopped many of them never really fully reopened

00:03:47.360 that five percent number that i gave you that was measured before covet oh that's interesting

00:03:53.440 there is one really interesting statistic that actually runs against a lot of what you've said

00:03:57.360 so far about mormons that gives me a lot of hope for mormons so when you dive into this research and

00:04:02.720 you look at at age distribution among different religious groups every religious group over time

00:04:08.880 is seeing an erosion of their 18 to 29 year old range which is really bad because again what this

00:04:16.320 this research is finding is that religion is is going down not because and i know you're going to argue

00:04:22.160 it's because people are like actually changing their behavior over time what pew argues is that no it's

00:04:28.080 just that the religious people are dying and the younger people aren't religious at all and yet when

00:04:32.720 you look at latter-day saints mormons 25 of mormons are 18 to 29 which is a pretty healthy ratio

00:04:43.600 what was it in the past so it's actually better than it ever was during the survey period in 2007 24

00:04:50.480 percent of other things were in that range and in 2014 it actually dipped it was 21 now it's 25

00:04:59.040 really impressive so i'm i'm actually seeing and it's subtle but well they also have signs of recovery

00:05:04.880 because actually what we are seeing in in sort of inverse is we're seeing fewer proportionately mormons

00:05:11.200 in the 30 to 49 range yeah and i feel like there's this millennial millennial slump that the lds

00:05:19.120 church had that lost a lot of people and i feel that they've developed some cultural technologies

00:05:24.560 to start recovering from that and or the lds community started realizing early people who left

00:05:30.320 or they saw people who left and they're like wow it's not working out for them i'm going to stay in

00:05:34.560 i'm not going to jump the ship so look at the numbers that she has here sorry this is important

00:05:39.120 to get to because you you're just you're saying the graph says something but a lot of people listen

00:05:42.800 on podcasts so we've got to explain what the graph says so if you're looking at the elderly population

00:05:48.560 within the latest measurement the 23 to 24 range it was 20 percent in the two previous in 2014 and 2017

00:05:55.840 it was much lower only 15 and 16 respectively now that's really striking when you consider that now

00:06:03.360 they're dealing with a bigger much older 65 plus range and much younger under 29 range 18 to 29 range

00:06:10.960 which implies that there was sort of a baby boom within the lds church for one generation and

00:06:17.520 this is really important because just to give you some perspective okay in 23 to 24 25 percent of

00:06:22.880 mormons were in this 18 to 29 range they were young compare that to catholics in the 23 to 24 range

00:06:30.000 14 percent of catholics were in the 23 to 24 range and 28 percent basically a third plus another 29 so

00:06:39.920 basically two-thirds of catholics are over 50 years old with 29 percent being 50 to 64 and 28 being 65

00:06:48.240 and older it gets worse when you look at the historic data because if you go to 2007 not that long ago

00:06:54.240 only 16 percent of catholics were over 65 and now it's 28 percent catholics are dying and this is this is

00:07:01.680 huge because i mean i i so i do have hope for catholics because i think that there are a couple

00:07:07.600 very small communities that are very high fertility that could come to represent the new version of the

00:07:12.720 catholic church however i also have my doubts in this model you know how a lot of people are like

00:07:16.720 oh the future will be inherited by the amish it's hard to even find anabaptists let alone like i mean

00:07:25.200 there's on it amish there's memomites mennonites there's hutterites right like there's literally different

00:07:29.520 subgroups but of all the anabaptists in general it's like it's around one percent maybe less and

00:07:35.280 this could be a polling issue right like it's probably hard of the u.s population you mean of

00:07:39.040 the u.s population yeah if you look at this it doesn't matter if they're one percent if they're

00:07:42.640 if they're growing at the rate that they're growing now like they'll be a huge chunk very shortly yeah

00:07:46.720 but i don't know i don't know if they're actually growing at that rate i just they're they're so

00:07:50.560 small i'm really putting on my hoping or we can look at the data this happened in another country

00:07:55.920 specifically israel so israel right now if you look at the haradi population you know how they

00:08:00.000 don't have to participate in war and stuff like that another 16 of the population the reason why

00:08:04.400 they got the war exception was because when they first went to and applied for this there were like

00:08:10.080 10 000 of them or something they were basically they're like oh it doesn't matter yeah it doesn't

00:08:14.560 matter and now they've exploded so yeah this literally has happened in other countries simone

00:08:22.000 that's that's that's the power of compounding interest maybe but i'm also not really matter

00:08:28.000 because they don't have technology so no matter how big they get they're not going to be a force

00:08:32.640 that can impose its will on their neighbors you don't really need to think about them

00:08:36.800 and because they're pacifists they can't defend themselves if anybody wants to like if they don't

00:08:41.360 have the state protecting them it's it's irrelevant but the the catholics here i find to be really

00:08:47.520 fascinating how much they're erosing it's so much worse than i thought i would not have guessed it

00:08:52.320 was that bad it's it's bad for the the remember that phone survey i found so only only two percent

00:08:59.200 of catholics actually attended church weekly yeah well no so here's here's the thing too though and

00:09:03.840 like to put things in perspectives at least from a starting position catholics are coming off

00:09:08.800 from a stronger position so 19 of christians in the u.s which to be fair only make up 62 of americans but

00:09:16.640 of those 19 are catholic and only two percent are lds so you know that's again this doesn't really

00:09:26.400 matter again you you have to look at this in terms of compounding returns as i've pointed out if we

00:09:32.240 have eight kids and they have eight kids and you do that for just 11 generations we have more

00:09:35.440 descendants than there are people on earth today when you're starting with existing large populations

00:09:39.840 there was a one population that i was looking at of hutterites and i and i'll put the exact gross

00:09:45.520 numbers after but i i seem to remember that they grew i think it was something like

00:09:52.720 god i can't remember i want to say like through 350 in just like 50 years uh like you can explode

00:10:00.080 really and then keep in mind when you're growing on top of that it's compounding you make a fair

00:10:03.760 point it also has compounding collapses but also yeah like when when there's nobody left all that matters

00:10:09.520 is who's still there and they'll still be there so that's good for them as long as they don't change

00:10:13.280 yeah but another thing with catholics is in to focus on this yeah is is they internally don't

00:10:20.160 accept how bad things are for them they don't accept their deconversion yeah they refuse to

00:10:24.960 their low fertility rates they're like the ones that i can see are fine and as i've said before

00:10:28.560 this is like looking at a battlefield and being like my troops are purposely healthy and i'm like

00:10:32.000 what about all the dead ones they're like why would i count them upon my ranks it's it's survivorship bias

00:10:37.200 the the catholics who matter are the ones who are deconverting it's in and leaving it's not the ones who are

00:10:42.480 there but i was actually just talking with a catholic earlier today he's a fan of ours and he

00:10:47.680 was sort of asking like what he should do with his future he really wants kids and a family but he was

00:10:52.160 thinking about the priesthood you know and he knows like this is a challenge and a choice and this is

00:10:56.320 again one of the problems oh boy this is just bringing back my did you know that remember how

00:11:00.960 we liked the opus day before did you know 30 of the opus day are silhouettes oh this was the guy

00:11:05.680 so he's the same guy who wrote to us about this yeah is he got the guy in poland no no different guy

00:11:10.080 different guy this is oh totally we have lots of castle fans okay the other catholic fan was

00:11:14.800 thinking about what he's going to do with his future well the guy in poland actually had some

00:11:17.760 really interesting points like yeah a is actually pretty bad for family creation because they gender

00:11:22.560 isolate people they're 30 celibate and they're just more focused on this like performatively and

00:11:26.720 so i went to this guy i was like well what if you like pitched the vatican on starting an order

00:11:33.200 that takes the opus day's idea that you can dedicate yourself like faithfully to like anything

00:11:39.920 you're doing in your daily life yeah refocuses it entirely on the sacrament of being a parent

00:11:46.880 yeah not not being a parent explicitly but the next generation um so what you would do is not just be a

00:11:54.080 parent yourself but you would like religiously put together things like like daycares was in existing

00:12:00.560 like he was talking about a parish that's about to shut down near him and i'm like what if you

00:12:04.400 you know build a daycare facility in there you know what if you find people to in their free time

00:12:10.320 within this order uh as a way of giving back to the church man this what if you you know this is the

00:12:17.040 type of thing that the church could get really excited about yeah actually that's i mean i think it's

00:12:23.120 worth pitching it fits catholic ideology like we should pitch that to the person that we've spoken with

00:12:30.000 in the past who's a priest oh yeah yeah and we could be like yeah because i was like to think i have

00:12:37.040 connections in the vatican but yeah okay but yeah connect them because i think that that that it's

00:12:41.680 completely conducive with catholics current belief system it would work it's something they desperately

00:12:48.000 need it works with their theology and so why not just put that together and then you can build this

00:12:55.520 like pro natalist catholic sect when you already have the justification from the opus dee that

00:13:00.880 lay people can can can like live a life of of of sacrifice like what if you canonize this idea of

00:13:08.480 sort of like living martyrdom to the next generation i like it oh very techno puritan of course i'm going

00:13:14.560 to share with you one more thing that i think is relevant at least to our i told you so narrative that

00:13:19.840 came from this pew study which is that the urban monoculture is spreading and has really effectively

00:13:26.560 spread from the university system and more elite parts of society to mainstream society and that is

00:13:32.240 you can see this when you look at the levels of education and then the loss of christianity so when

00:13:38.880 you look at these numbers for the beginning of this survey in 2007 the percentage of people with high

00:13:47.200 school or less as their education was 60 66 christian five percent other religions and then 27

00:13:55.120 religiously unaffiliated and then by 2014 i guess they don't have the most recent stuff it went to

00:14:02.560 75 were christian which is really interesting like they sort of became like the uneducated became more

00:14:09.440 christian but when you look at people with postgraduate degrees 56 of them were christian so very very

00:14:16.720 few like from the very beginning oh sorry when you look at 2014 and people with graduate degrees 62 of

00:14:26.000 them were christian so almost like the sort of level of average americans today and i feel like this is

00:14:31.280 very much trickled down to mainstream society now it's even even fewer only 56 of people with postgraduate

00:14:39.920 degrees are christian um but compared to today with high school or less that's that's 66 in other ways

00:14:47.920 in other words the gap between postgraduate americans and high school or less americans was actually higher

00:14:56.320 in terms of religiosity in 2014 it was 10 different in terms of christianity versus 16 in 2014 and i feel

00:15:04.720 that that difference in like wow um postgraduate people were a whole lot less religious that

00:15:11.200 difference in 2014 decreasing is a sign of basically just the urban monoculture spreading from just elite

00:15:17.040 culture to all culture so even people without high school you said that the uneducated uh became more

00:15:23.280 christian so that's that's almost like the urban monoculture sorry i got it wrong i was looking at the

00:15:27.120 the wrong tabs because there's there's a lot of tabs here okay then say it correctly yeah in 2014 75 of

00:15:33.840 people with high school or less were christians now only 66 consider themselves to be christian and

00:15:41.680 with postgraduates in 2014 waiting for it to load come on okay and with postgraduates in 2014 62 were

00:15:54.240 christian now only 56 are but as you can see the gap got narrower and i think that's just a sign of the

00:16:00.160 urban monoculture spreading from the university system to mainstream culture things have just

00:16:06.000 become a lot more normalized another thing just that's important to point out in this this survey

00:16:12.160 finding is on every area that they measured religiosity people were moving in a less religious direction so

00:16:19.200 it came with identity it came with beliefs and it came with practices so people aren't going to church

00:16:25.280 or praying as much as your data shows they are not identifying as religious as your data shows

00:16:30.320 and they don't believe religious things which i mean part of me would have wanted to think okay

00:16:34.880 well people still identify as christian or they identify as jewish they're just not going you know

00:16:41.360 they're not actively practicing or they maybe don't even believe but they you know they still call

00:16:45.680 themselves that and then the final important thing to note from this pew in data which is

00:16:51.040 interesting and does kind of feed into the natal con we have to protect the west narrative which is

00:16:58.480 surprising because it's not what i expected is it only christianity seeing a decline in the united

00:17:05.200 states when you look at the united states in general i want to go into the protestant data because i find

00:17:10.400 it interesting the evangelical protestants yeah these are protestants who identify as evangelical

00:17:14.480 protestants and they're actually in as bad a situation as the catholics so not maybe not as

00:17:20.800 bad but but pretty bad no it's pretty pathetic no no don't don't don't understate it this is

00:17:25.200 embarrassing angelical protestants they're 18 to 29 percentage is the same as catholics 14 it's pathetic

00:17:31.520 and they're over 65 percentage is 27 the only group i saw that had me thinking oh you guys are getting

00:17:37.440 it together is mormons period they're over 50 over the age of 50 right now like that's crazy like well

00:17:43.920 over 50 percent again and because they're dying and that's what you see in these numbers is it's like

00:17:48.240 the skew is shifting to old people because literally as this survey has progressed over

00:17:52.320 this 17 year period people's views have stayed the same it's just that the people who had faith are

00:17:58.080 going to die soon the protestant numbers are more stable than the than the catholic numbers in that if

00:18:03.280 you go back to 2007 they were already at only 16 of their population you know being 18 to 29 yeah so

00:18:09.360 basically there isn't something new happening 2007 to now in the protestant population evangelical

00:18:14.400 protestant population and note here like i've talked about this i've said the evangelical movement is

00:18:19.760 dying like yeah like the extremist like quiverful protestant etc they don't really exist within this

00:18:27.360 generation in large numbers they're not a major voting bloc anymore they're not like they used to be

00:18:32.800 like super super super important to american politics they defined their republican party and

00:18:39.520 they have been replaced by four channers i guess you could say like yeah as like the key voting bloc

00:18:45.120 four channers aren't exactly known for having faith also this has serious implications for

00:18:49.520 pronatalism in general for for america's birth rates in general because the the research also tracked

00:18:55.520 things like marital status and it is very clear that there is a correlation between religion and marriage so

00:19:02.640 as of 2007 i mean it was very stark 81 of married people in the united states were christian only 14

00:19:11.360 were religiously unaffiliated wait 81 81 so eight out of ten eight out of ten married people in the

00:19:18.000 united states were christian or americans are christian and oh in general in that year yeah like that that

00:19:24.800 statistic means nothing without knowing how many yeah yeah sorry let me give you the comparison

00:19:28.080 oh come on

00:19:40.640 let me find this it's a little kludgy no you literally just google it i don't know what's okay 67

00:19:49.600 percent 67 percent no hold on go to us data oh there we go okay in 2017 78 of americans in general

00:20:04.080 were christian 81 were married so there wasn't that much of a gap let's go to 2014 suddenly 76 of married

00:20:11.520 people are christian and yet the u.s population that is christian goes down to 71. the gap is getting bigger

00:20:17.520 then 2023 2024 only 62 of americans are christian and yet we're seeing a slight uptick 68 of married

00:20:27.920 people are christian and i'm what this says to me is that the thing that is keeping people getting

00:20:33.440 married is religion in more cases than not which is which is meaningful so we're going to see fewer

00:20:40.560 marriages because we're going to see fewer cultural frameworks that make marriage make sense especially

00:20:46.800 in a country like in the united states where for a lot of middle and lower income people

00:20:50.800 getting married gives you a tax penalty like it's not it's not a culturally logical like in the absence

00:20:58.240 of religion it doesn't make sense to get married if that makes sense like just and that's that's

00:21:04.160 insane but like we live in a country that actually penalizes marriage in many cases especially for

00:21:09.360 normal people not like not for very rich people so this is going to hurt birth rates just period

00:21:15.200 and it makes me really sad because this is getting reflected in rates of sex and everything else

00:21:22.400 yeah yeah absolutely and you are you were going to give data on the fertility rates of

00:21:28.560 non-christians in the united states and what's happening with them oh like the parental status of

00:21:33.680 not no you said the only groups that are dropping are christians and then you were going to talk about

00:21:37.840 groups that weren't christians that are not dropping oh yeah no no no so just in general an important

00:21:42.880 thing to note with this research is that the fairly low but but now apparently constant percentage of

00:21:52.720 non-religious people are sorry other religious people has sort of stayed the same so in 2007

00:21:58.480 five percent of u.s adults were other religions this includes jewish muslim buddhist hindu and then

00:22:04.800 what we wouldn't count unitarian universalist and new age and native american religions and then in 2014

00:22:11.120 it actually jumped up to six percent and in 2023 2024 it jumped to seven percent so the only reason

00:22:18.640 it jumped to seven percent by the way is that we now have more people identifying as new age and

00:22:23.520 unitarian universalist so i don't actually i think a lot of people would be like oh that means we're

00:22:27.520 getting more muslim immigrants or like more jews no those have stayed constant they have not changed

00:22:33.120 two percent of the other religions are jewish that's just stayed the same same for one percent for

00:22:38.560 buddhist one percent for muslim there was a slight increase in muslims because in 2007 fewer or less

00:22:45.600 than one percent of american adults or mus or of the five percent that were other religions were muslim

00:22:51.440 it switched to just one percent but the problem is that is that one percent of americans or one percent

00:22:56.080 of the five one percent of the seven percent that are other religions are muslims now okay okay so very

00:23:01.120 this is very very few muslims extremely few muslims extremely few buddhists and then and then actually

00:23:07.920 a way more than there should be new age and we would argue interior universalists so one new religions

00:23:15.440 we i would argue have not actually increased because you shouldn't count you use and new age crystal

00:23:21.520 people as religious that is religiously unaffiliated and being into a trend and i think that that's

00:23:29.120 important to note because it runs counter to my world model that like western civilization isn't

00:23:36.720 falling and like christians are doing just fine i mean christians are still a huge percentage of

00:23:41.040 americans but they are eroding but also like other religions are coming from nowhere and they're

00:23:47.520 basically just holding steady they're not increasing so i don't see this as as christians being replaced

00:23:52.960 by any stretch of the imagination however these other religions aren't tanking in the same way

00:23:59.360 that many christian religions are except for the mormons which by you know we keep tank we like we

00:24:05.120 keep saying they're doing a terrible job they're seeing a huge exodus maybe they're bouncing back

00:24:10.560 they're they're taking this situation seriously which i think is why they're doing well like they're

00:24:15.440 actually like sitting down and doing like what the catholic should be doing is like starting new orders

00:24:19.520 based on having kids and stuff like that like they're they actually do this stuff like when when

00:24:24.720 their fertility rate started to drop a lot of mormon things that we think of as as having been around

00:24:29.520 forever are new cultural technology like the singles wards were invented in the 1970s like that's

00:24:36.160 that's not that old that's not like always been a part of mormonism yeah and and actually this was the

00:24:41.840 perfect time to do it because it was during the age of female professional empowerment it was during

00:24:47.120 the age when people were not as tethered to their childhood communities which i think made getting

00:24:52.240 married a little bit easier so the church either intuitively or very intentionally and logically

00:24:57.200 saw where the headwinds and tailwinds were and decided to create new forms of institutions that

00:25:02.000 would make it possible for people who are not moored to a single community and who had careers to

00:25:07.280 find someone which is so cool like a question i have internally is like why are catholics not able

00:25:13.440 to take this as seriously as mormons or treat this as seriously and i have a hypothesis okay it has

00:25:18.400 to do with how their central leadership is decided so both catholics and mormons have a central church

00:25:23.120 that could disseminate these messages if it had a mind to the mormon central church the people who end

00:25:28.640 up is that like prophets and stuff like that and like the head people in the central church a lot of

00:25:32.800 them have a background in biz business like they show their confidence they're like bane type people

00:25:38.240 they're like yeah mckenzie private equity people they own businesses they're private equity type

00:25:42.880 people and and so when they come into religion they're they're viewing it like a giant company

00:25:47.600 right like they're trying to to make money and grow and think long term right you know that's

00:25:53.280 that's their goals the catholic leadership is made up entirely of people who have dedicated their

00:25:58.160 entire life to theological study not just that but celibate people who have dedicated it's almost

00:26:02.880 like lifetime politicians making policy versus business people making policy yeah yeah and and

00:26:09.840 because of that the issue of fertility collapse is just not something that's on their mind and when

00:26:15.840 it's brought up to them they would believe that they have some form of theological protection from

00:26:20.320 its implications i believe you know because they're relating to this all through the lens of theology

00:26:26.080 rather than through the lens of like well let's be practical about the situation now mormon fertility

00:26:30.160 rates have taken a hit but like as you've pointed out here they appear to be already writing the

00:26:35.680 ship like the the the torpedo hit and the ship is now coming back online whereas yeah this is

00:26:42.640 interesting evangelical protestants the reason i don't mention them is because they don't have a

00:26:46.240 centralized structure so they can't disseminate new messages they're kind of they're they're unmoored

00:26:51.840 and listless and they're isolated communities yeah so if you if you're like what's going to replace

00:26:57.520 them well i hope something like techno puritanism replaces them to be honest like i'd be okay with

00:27:01.840 that i like we don't actively proselytize but i like the the structure of this and i think that

00:27:07.120 and when i say something like what's replacing the evangelical movement the jordan peterson movement

00:27:12.800 the the the various new forms of christianity that are more melds of secular self-help

00:27:22.080 slash protestantism mixed with religiosity these this this is where that community is going and i

00:27:29.440 see techno puritanism as an iteration of that that's more extreme and and more dedicated and more

00:27:36.720 is sort of like the techno puritanism is like the opus day to whatever jordan peterson is you know like

00:27:43.120 if jordan peterson represents the jesuit branch of this protestant faction we would represent the opus day

00:27:47.840 faction uh just like the way more intense about it the way more extreme and expectations and and

00:27:54.000 like i think that that that works but the thing about protestantism is is unlike other groups you

00:27:59.840 know you don't have some higher group deciding what's canon and what's not canon you need to go

00:28:04.880 out there on the ground and convince people of your perspective or out breathe them and parents

00:28:09.280 especially i mean parents see what's happening to their kids on the ground they're the ones who know

00:28:13.520 what their kids need as they go through whatever religious system is rearing them

00:28:20.160 but wow i mean it's it's worse than i thought well i was i was surprised by the how cooked evangelical

00:28:26.800 protestantism is like i've mentioned it before but like it's something you don't see because nobody

00:28:30.960 really more i don't know but yeah yet so much of the content that we create you know about the new

00:28:35.440 right about the interesting religious movements where are the evangelicals where are the influencers in

00:28:41.760 they don't like i literally like i have been involved in politics a lot recently in terms

00:28:48.160 of meeting with political influencers and people who work in politics i haven't met a single

00:28:52.080 evangelical project they're just not there and that's the thing like that that's to me that's

00:28:55.680 why i'm not at all surprised i'm like well yeah they this explains it you know they're all just

00:29:00.400 dying they're old and they're offline and they're dying i've met tons of catholics so they're also dying

00:29:06.720 and yet we still have institutional power but that's why i have hope for catholics is is they

00:29:11.360 are getting organized in their communities and if anything they're literally not bro they're

00:29:16.320 literally not they have like some communities that seem to work but i think they need something from

00:29:21.200 up top going down i think you don't think that over time as these groups are the only ones that are

00:29:26.160 left they will influence policy at the vatican level you don't think so like already i mean i think

00:29:33.360 the majority of catholics at least the ones that i found who take it seriously are very unhappy with

00:29:37.440 what's happening at the vatican level like the yeah the idea that the vatican the point is though

00:29:42.640 that their opinion doesn't matter now because they're too small and when they are bigger they

00:29:46.320 their opinion will matter no no no i i said the majority of catholics i know who are actually

00:29:52.240 involved with their religion already the vatican is not a democracy in the way like america's

00:29:59.360 democracy you're like of the average catholic is is is like suppose like you had like super

00:30:05.760 pronatalist catholics having lots of kids growing and everything like that the the entire career

00:30:11.520 pipeline to getting in the chair that votes on the pope is celibate like you are not near those people

00:30:18.400 oh that's not gonna help so so you do have this and and if you believe you have divine protection

00:30:24.640 you're not going to take threats like this is seriously that's also fair so that does worry me

00:30:31.840 yeah i can see that that potentially not going what's even more sobering though if we want to get

00:30:36.720 to this though is we're just looking at the peer research data for the united states a actually fairly

00:30:41.840 passionate religious country i think if we were to see eu data we would oh absolutely be so hot with

00:30:48.640 anxiety yeah japanese data south korean data i've pointed out like if you look at like catholic

00:30:54.720 majority countries in the ego like like italy right where like the vatican is it's at 1.18 now

00:30:59.280 fertility rate they need to have 100 italians there's only going to be 20 great grandchildren

00:31:03.040 and there are but this is a good thing because there are like small high fertility catholic

00:31:08.160 communities i think that they might be able to stabilize and like replace a lot of the rest of

00:31:14.400 the catholic population pretty quickly the questions i have is just like what's the deconversion rate

00:31:19.040 in these communities because i don't feel like that's being taken seriously like the communities

00:31:23.600 exist but like the quiver full movement also existed right you know and i know i'm saying all

00:31:28.640 of this only because catholics can actually do something like protestants can't really like they lack

00:31:34.320 the top-down organization necessary yeah they lack the top-down organization necessary to address

00:31:40.480 this outside of the way that we're doing it i mean i think what we're doing is the best way

00:31:44.240 to handle this as a protestant yeah which is to create a living religion which continues to update

00:31:49.760 in the way that protestants have updated in a long time i mean protestants have undergone major

00:31:54.720 re-understandings of their faith throughout american history and us having that was like the track

00:32:00.640 series and stuff like that is not in any way discordant with american protestant traditions so i i'd argue

00:32:07.120 like we are fighting for the protestant thing with what we're doing with tracks is what we're doing

00:32:12.160 with techno puritanism yeah fair so i mean maybe somebody else can create some some other form

00:32:17.680 that's like persistent but i i think i'd like to see that that'd be cool right like it could work

00:32:23.200 but you just don't see many of them like like at natalcon you don't see many protestants

00:32:29.840 i guess not i mean if you do they're not the main speakers or influencers there

00:32:38.720 yeah which is interesting yeah but in terms of church attendance i'll put a heat map on screen

00:32:44.720 here so like who is actually attending church yeah in what regions are they okay lds church is a must

00:32:50.800 because you have you know your callings you have to you've you have a job like you can't not show up at

00:32:55.600 church because you literally have to play piano or help man the kiddie pool or whatever they're like

00:33:01.200 daycare version thing is yeah i'm trying to find out where the lds was i seem to remember that for

00:33:06.480 the lds it was 11 which is really high for weekly attendance i went back to double check so i'm gonna

00:33:12.320 get some of these numbers wrong coming up so just remember these are the right numbers for catholics

00:33:16.560 it was 1.9 of catholics attend mass weekly for protestants it's 7 of protestants attend mass weekly

00:33:23.200 and for lds it's 14.6 percent attend mass weekly oh my gosh 11 is actually pretty low

00:33:29.680 low low when you consider the way their faith is structured yeah like low when you consider what

00:33:33.680 a proper practicing mormon should be doing and if you are a proper practicing mormon you have a

00:33:39.360 calling at your local ward yeah like you you have a job you have to do something well maybe there's

00:33:46.400 just not that many proper practicing mormons that's crazy okay that's actually now i'm worried about

00:33:51.440 the lds church um protestants it was like i want to say five percent they remember it was catholics

00:33:57.760 it was only two to one percent i think whoa for catholics it was 1.9 of catholics attend mass weekly

00:34:05.440 for protestants it's seven percent to get into some more data here only 19 of americans self-identify

00:34:10.880 as catholic down 24 in 2007 this is a 20 decrease by comparison protestants decreased by 21

00:34:18.800 while religious nuns increased by 81 and muslims increased by an astounding 200 although they

00:34:26.560 still make up a small percentage of the overall population only 1.2 even though the pew survey

00:34:31.360 headline suggested a decline in christianity in this country may have quote unquote leveled off

00:34:36.400 it's clear the overall direction is downward this is a quote from a christian magazine about it if you look

00:34:41.840 at the map you can clearly see the bible belt like the bible belt is just like dark dark dark you're

00:34:48.720 looking at like 6.4 in those regions if you go to like massachusetts or maine or something like that

00:34:54.480 you're looking at like under one percent in all of those regions you go to texas you're looking at

00:34:58.480 like 4.5 4.8 you know around five percent same with florida pennsylvania you're looking fairly low

00:35:05.440 you're looking at around like it seems maybe like 2.3 and and what you might be surprised

00:35:11.200 about is california you're looking higher than that california you're looking in like the four percent

00:35:15.200 range is that from all the inland christians yeah california has a big conservative population

00:35:22.720 in it yeah it's basically san francisco and la is a bunch of conservatives and then like the rest is

00:35:28.240 yeah yeah i mean nevada is also in that range washington's also in that range um oregon is actually pretty

00:35:34.800 blue oregon is is is in the like five percent church attendance range

00:35:40.480 i guess these rural regions help to hold them up like close to like you know new mexico or florida

00:35:46.800 or something or virginia which i found pretty interesting but you know another thing you might

00:35:53.600 be surprised about it's how low church attendance is in the midwest montana wyoming north dakota south

00:36:00.320 dakota minnesota and wisconsin all of them have around two percent church attendance

00:36:07.840 wow oh man okay yeah no we are it's over we yeah and this is just i think this is also a lot more

00:36:18.160 evidence indicating that going back to the old ways like we just have to get more traditional catholic

00:36:24.640 traditional evangelic whatever is clearly not working you you can't just go back to that people have

00:36:30.080 clearly chosen to abandon it it's not trying to make that work i think is the wrong approach

00:36:36.320 i agree i agree 100 but then you know what does work because i think it's also very difficult for

00:36:42.480 people to do the othering to do the weirdness if they don't feel like there's at least some safe

00:36:49.760 tribe that's doing it with them i think we're unusual and that we really don't care that we dress

00:36:55.840 weird and have weird names and do weird holidays i think other people would be very uncomfortable if

00:37:01.760 they did that in isolation so how do you well people are gonna go extinct oh so just the people

00:37:08.880 who don't care what mainstream society thinks will survive well that's what i mean if you look at our

00:37:12.640 video on like they're gonna replace you like the japanese subculture and the the tradies and the you

00:37:17.600 know a lot of these are people who just don't care what mainstream no no but the tradies and the

00:37:23.600 the japanese soft yankees they do live in tight-knit communities they do live close together

00:37:29.840 they have communities that they choose but it's not like everyone in their community lives the way

00:37:34.240 they do they they they choose these groups it's like a subculture right you know um they're like

00:37:40.000 goss or something was in the united states yeah but i think that they're more representative of what i

00:37:44.800 would expect from future high fertility cultures and that they do geographically concentrate and live next

00:37:49.840 to each other and feel solidarity in their weirdness together yeah also you'll note here if you're

00:37:56.480 if you're looking at the the regular church attendance the greater appalachian region is like

00:38:00.160 also really darker than the other regions around it which is interesting but yeah as i you know one

00:38:06.560 thing i didn't get a chance to point out in that video that these that these yankees that these

00:38:10.240 whatever guys that dress like you know greasers and stuff like that in japan are are staying high

00:38:14.320 fertility this means that we're in the timeline where space dandy or red line happens there's been

00:38:20.880 a number of a far future like space animes where one of the characters is a japanese yankee and i can

00:38:26.080 totally see that like yeah they called it without realizing what they were calling right which is

00:38:30.720 interesting they're just like now this this subculture is visually interesting little did they

00:38:35.120 know that it was a future friendly subculture as everyone else chose to die out likable you know i i think

00:38:40.960 one of the thing is a japanese person could be like well this japanese culture really survive if

00:38:45.120 it's the japanese yankees i mean you don't walk around in like samurai armor or whatever right like

00:38:49.680 you don't walk around dressed like somebody from the major major whatever period period yeah yeah

00:38:54.400 like you you you change a lot as as things go on and you might be undergoing one of these changes

00:38:59.840 right now where when our descendant think of japanese people they're thinking of somebody who looks

00:39:05.360 like whatever like the yankees and and gaozai or what are those girls called who dress

00:39:09.440 all the gyarros become yeah but if you're thinking about americans you're thinking about

00:39:15.920 like what what you know the the hill people became the country music culture and and the mormons i i

00:39:23.600 think that they're going to write the ship on them because the utah and idaho are just so high fertility

00:39:26.960 right now and that's where the the mormons are based i'm thrilled not high fertility high high church

00:39:31.280 attendance they're they're both in like so then you know space mormons too they called it

00:39:35.520 yeah starship troopers the few that will remain by the way she's referring to the scene that they

00:39:41.760 started the war they mormon separatists you know we're not listening to to the sky marshal and settled

00:39:48.880 a a remote outpost called brigham young um i love you to death simone have a spectacular day

00:39:57.280 and may we never lose religion yes space mormons

00:40:05.280 yes so be very careful with it oh it's even what you doing

00:40:25.280 okay careful careful careful careful

00:40:45.440 uh-oh she's gonna clobber you guys

Based Camp - April 21, 2025

Is Religion Dying in America？ The Worrying Stats

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