a new Gallup analysis finds countries with the highest wellbeing tend to be the most peaceful countries in the world and those with the lowest wellbeing are the least likely to be peaceful. Gallup’s life evaluation measure, which gauges wellbeing, correlates strongly with the Failed States Index and the World Bank’s Political Stability and Absence of Violence dimension, suggesting a clear linear relationship between peace and high wellbeing.
Not coincidentally, these countries are also highly secular. And the link between secularism, peace and wellbeing is one that is found in social science. In fact, Pitzer College professor and founder of the new Secularism Studies major, Phil Zuckerman, did a video lecture on this for ISSSC a while ago.
While there are certainly other factors involve in wellbeing and peace, secularism (and secularity) should be atop of social science explanations.
The Pew Research Center recently released some numbers about the diversity of religious groups in the United States. To measure diversity, they gauge how evenly divided each religious group among 5 racial and ethnic groups in the United States: whites, blacks, Latinos, Asians, and “other”. If each of the 5 racial groups account for one-fifth (20 percent) of the larger religious group the score is a perfect 10.
The most diverse groups are Seventh-Day Adventists, Muslims, Jehova’s Witnesses, Buddhists, and the Nones in that order. However, while the first four groups are the most diverse in the sense that most of their membership comes from racial and ethnic minorities, the Nones are the group that most closely reflects the demographic composition of the country.
The score of the Nones is 6.9, 1.5 points lower than the 4th-ranked Buddhists but their racial distribution nearly matches that of the nation as a whole. Just a few years back, this was not the case, and there are still ways to go. Atheists and agnostics are still overwhelmingly white. Moreover, while the Pew post discusses racial diversity, this is not the only source of diversity. The group is still mostly male, though some progress has been made. It would have been nice to see how gender diversity could affect the rankings.
The good news about this chart is that the Nones are growing parallel to the general population. That was the subject of my first talk at the CFI leadership conference at the end of July and it is great to see it in an infographic. The group is drawing from the country’s racial diversity. In other words, the Nones look like America.
A recent piece at The Daily Dot tries to explain Donald Trump’s “surprising” 13 percent support among Latinos. The “explanations” are that Latinos are a diverse bunch and that because Trumps scapegoats Mexicans, many Latinos still “mysteriously” favor him. Of course, 13 percent is small. In a sample of 250 voters (the number of Latinos in the survey cited), this is about 35 people.
I don’t think that fining 13 percent of Latino voters supporting Trump is surprising at all. Trump has a high level of name recognition among all Americans. Many Latinos in the US and people in Latin America recognize Trump for his Miss Universe pageant. I still recall during my teenage years when I was living in Puerto Rico and Miss Universe was a big deal and the local press would highlight whatever the Donald said about our representative. His statement was always flattering the beauty of the contestant since the Donald only cares about the looks of women. The pageant was not just popular in Puerto Rico, but through the region.
Rather than the 13 percent who would vote for Trump, I am surprised by how much attention his statements about Mexican immigrants have received. A recent Univision poll shows that 90 percent of Latinos know about the statements, 71 percent of Latinos have an unfavorable opinion of Trump, and that 79 percent of Latinos find the comments offensive. This latter number includes 77 percent of Latinos who are NOT of Mexican descent. Many Latinos are savvy enough to realize that ignorant bigots use “Mexican” to refer to any type of brown person with an accent where the “Rs” are rather strong.
The Donald’s campaign is highlighting an ugly side of the Republican coalition. At a time when the GOP thinks it is necessary to improve relations with Latino communities, Trump’s surge to the lead at the polls shows the disconnect between some of the party elites’ goals and the rank-and-file feelings. Most Latinos do not identify as Republican and most people in general do not pay attention to the Presidential Elections until they are well underway. But Trump’s statements have made Latinos pay attention to what would be an obscure affair to most of them. And that’s the real surprise of Trump’s run.
Featured image: Donald Trump tours the US-Mexico border (Source: NBC News)
A Salvadorean-American family went for a celebratory meal to a Los Angeles-area IHOP. There, they did what people usually do, have a conversation in the language they are most comfortable with while waiting to be seated. That language happened to be Spanish and an older white woman decided to intervene and stand up for America…or something.
Old white woman just gave a textbook example of how white supremacy works. You are in place named “Los Angeles” and yet Spanish is prohibited. You ask a random person to go “back to Spain” because “Spanish” comes from there, but you don’t even realize that taking that statement to its natural conclusion means you live in England. Her ignorance is not a liability, she has the ego to think she can lecture another woman about what language she should speak.
I saw the mother and son fight back, in English. That fact made me happy, but the video still made me sad and angry for many reasons. One, that Latinos still have to go through incidents like this that ruin a birthday. That this happened in Los Angeles of all places also made me angry. If you can’t be left alone speaking Spanish in Los Angeles, where can you do it?
I often wonder why people do stuff like this. Is it because they’re naturally nosy and are mad they can’t eavesdrop on other people’s conversations? Is it because they feel “unsafe” about being invaded by “barbarian hordes” but safe enough to warrant a confrontation? I guess she didn’t expect a confrontation. They never do. They expect you to crawl back to your place, maybe even apologize and leave. But they are taken aback when you push back. That is when they know we’re here to stay and that always they will have to press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish.
A new Baylor University study of counties in the United States finds that those with “with more beautiful weather and scenery have lower rates of membership and affiliation with religious organizations.” It makes sense looking at the top metro areas in terms of their percentage of religious nones. Portland, Ore. (42 percent), Seattle, San Francisco (33 percent each), and Denver (32 percent) rank as the least religious metro areas according to the American Values Atlas (see chart below). They are also beautiful places, and great for outdoor activities.
Click to see full size
The metro areas with the lowest percentages of nones tend to be in the South. Nashville, with 15 percent finally caught up to the rest of the country (in 2008). After the capital of country music, Charlotte has the lowest percentage with 17 percent. Several Southern cities are also tied in the next tier. In Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Orlando the none population is 18 percent, as is in Pittsburgh , which has the lowest percentage of nones in a non-Southern city.Yup, hot weather and religion go together.
The lesson of the Baylor study is that the secular movement needs to invest in nice buildings with air conditioning. Maybe that’s why mega churches in the region are legion. Air conditioning can create heaven on Earth, at least in places where the weather approaches hellish temperatures.
I was in Buffalo over the weekend. Not really in Buffalo exactly but in Amherst, NY at the Center for Inquiry’s global domination headquarters. I was a featured speaker at CFI’s annual leadership conference. This year’s theme “Moving Freethought Forward” clearly aligned with my current research interests in race and politics among secular Americans.
I arrived in Buffalo on Friday morning after being stranded for a while on Thursday night (airport celebrity sightings: Curt Schilling and Sen. Elizabeth Warren). After a brief check-in at the hotel and working a little on the first of my two presentations, I went to the CFI headquarters and was able to catch some of the morning sessions. The speakers in those sessions were some of the student participants discussing how their own college (or high school groups) organize and conduct events. The CFI staff also presented about some of their projects.
Watching those presentations gave me an idea of who most of my audience was (the other audience members were leaders of CFI branches, who at the time attended a different event). My first presentation was on the increasing diversity of secular Americans. While initially I focused on race, building on my presentation at the American Humanist Association conference in May, I shifted gears a bit and also discussed sex and gender identity. The movement, or at least the greater secular community, is not just a collection of old white males. Using data from my previous employers, the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture (ISSSC) and Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), I showed that the percentage of people of color and women have increased over time among the “nones.” I also included data on LGBT Americans that shows high levels of secularism among this population.
Sharing the stage with James Baldwin and Nemesio Canales
After the statistical part of the presentation I discussed why these groups are increasingly secular. While education is part of the explanation, I moved away from the usual STEM explanation: that as people learn about science they become more secular. Instead I argued that questioning the power structures in society can be a path to secularism. The picture on the left shows the slide where I placed two secular thinkers of color: James Baldwin and Nemesio Canales. Their secularism wasn’t the kind that refutes religion with science but the one that questions divine authority in light of very inefficient results.
I finished the presentation with a segway to my next presentation. In a slide showing different political leaders of different religions I made the argument that the politics of religious groups in America vary by race: white and black Protestants vote differently, as do white and Latino Catholics. But this is not the case with the Nones.
Trying to explain how to make up for a 40-year organizational deficit.
My second presentation compared a bit the secular left and religious right. They are mirror images of each other, with the exception that the latter is a major force in American conservatism, and the former a bunch of people who tend to agree on political and social issues. My goal was to show that regardless of nomenclature (nones, atheists, agnostics), secular Americans largely agree on the issues that are important today. Moreover, they also have similar levels of political party affiliation, and have been abandoning the GOP in the last quarter-century.
I liked how my presentations were received. Several students and leaders talked to me about what they liked and to continue a bit the conversation. Overall, it was a great conference. The diverse faces in the crowd: young men and women reflective of America’s diverse population give me hope about the future of the movement. Of course, the conference was not possible without the hard work of the CFI crew. I was finally able to meet Debbie Goddard in person and chat again with Paul Fidalgo. I also met Sarah Kaiser, Stef McGraw, and Cody Hashman, who made my life easier handling logistics and tech. And I had the opportunity to meet some amazing fellow presenters: Columbia’s Melanie Brewster, a rising star in the secular scholarly community; Desiree Schell is the person who can put in practice whatever theory of politics I come up with; Keith Lowell Jensen made my face hurt with his jokes, especially those about Max, his 5-year old tweeting daughter; and is always good to see James Croft, one of the most engaging speakers around and whose presentation was, luckily, after mine. I also want to thank Matt Enloe for tweeting a storm, the pictures in this post come from his account.
The LatiNone 