Ask Americans what their religion is, and nearly 1 in 3 say this -- none. That’s according to the U.S. adults surveyed by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled.

Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades.

“Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.

  • @kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23•1 year ago

    Every time I think about the fact that the belief that a dead body came back to life, floated up into the sky, and is expected to float back down at the end of the world isn’t considered to be a psychotic delusion because it’s so commonplace as to be normative I feel like I’m on crazy pills.

    How?

    How the heck do we live in an age of measuring how long it takes for light to cross a hydrogen atom, of seeing the complete observable universe, of building our own virtual universes - and yet intelligent people who are aware of or even involved in such efforts genuinely think magic is real?

    I get that there’s a lot of people who just don’t have a good grasp on reality and think lizards running world governments is somehow a probable explanation for the state of things, but the part that destroys a bit of my soul is seeing people who clearly should know better but don’t.

    How are we supposed to collectively solve real problems when so many are unwilling to come face to face with what is actually real?

    • @kicksystem@lemmy.world
      2•1 year ago

      100%.

      I have that same problem with meat eaters too. How is it possible that we know we are brutally mass breeding and killing animals for food we don’t need, is fucking up the planet and isn’t all that healthy either, while at the same time also pretending to be civilized human beings that care about animals and the climare. And every time I raise the issue people make the dumbest excuses I have heard a thousand times…

      People, once brainwashed into a way of thinking and behaving, can just be really hard to change even if you have all the arguments on your side.