That's them in the spotlight....

Dammit!  Missed again!

TPM has been touting this article on Millenials and religion (I know, I know, technically R.E.M. are Gen X'ers; just roll with it).  I can't read it without a TPM Prime subscription (I'm too old and cranky to pay for my internet twice; besides, it is seldom worth it.), but I can get this much of it before it fades away:

Just over thirty years after Falwell gave his speech, the United States is becoming more secular rather than more religious, with fully 25 percent of the population claiming no religious affiliation. The religiously unaffiliated, called the “Nones” because they check the relevant box on surveys about their religion, are made up of atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, spiritual-but-not-religious types, and people who just don’t care. In 1979, they accounted for less than ten percent of the U.S. adult population. Since the mid-1990s they have grown dramatically. They are now the largest “religious” group in the country and the only one growing in all fifty states.

I don't know if they drill down into those numbers, but I hope they do.   I've covered this before, and the posts tend to repeat themselves (I grow old, I grow forgetful, now git offa mah lawn, I got clouds to yell at!), so they are collected here if you are vaguely interested.

I'm vaguely interested because this discussion comes up and goes 'round, again and again, and it never really gets anywhere.  Especially in the age of Trump, where lies and fictions pass for truth or at least good enough for government work, I'm getting more tired than ever of the stupid.

It burns.  Same as it ever was.

And as for that 25% figure; when it hits 59%, we'll be back where we were in 1906; usually idealized as an idyllic age, but also just about the time Fundamentalism got started in earnest.  The picture, as ever, is never so simple and clear as one set of statistics, and statistics never speak for themselves.

Vanity of vanities.....*

*I think the rise of Falwell was the aberration, not the "flight" of the Millenials from churches.  Mostly what Falwell & Co. accomplished was self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment.  Where are their lasting political contributions?  What did they pass on except wealth to their children?