By 2010, this percentage had more than doubled to 18 percent. That's a difference of about 25 million people, all of whom have somehow lost their religion.

That raises an obvious question: how come? Why are Americans losing their faith?

Today, we get a possible answer thanks to the work of Allen Downey, a computer scientist at the Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, who has analyzed the data in detail.

He says that the demise is the result of several factors but the most controversial of these is the rise of the Internet.

He concludes that the increase in Internet use in the last two decades has caused a significant drop in religious affiliation.

Downey's data comes from the General Social Survey, a widely respected sociological survey carried out by the University of Chicago, that has regularly measure people's attitudes and demographics since 1972.

In that time, the General Social Survey has asked people questions such as: "what is your religious preference?" and "in what religion were you raised?"

It also collects data on each respondent's age, level of education, socioeconomic group, and so on. And in the Internet era, it has asked how long each person spends online. The total data set that Downey used consists of responses from almost 9,000 people. Continue reading.

Source: MIT Technology Review

Image: theamericanjesus.net

In cities, that means the ability to sell presbyteries that are currently housing one priest and having him — and possibly another nearby parish priest — move into a four- or five-bedroom presbytery that used to house a parish priest and a couple of curates. It means selling churches that can be sold if there's another parish two kilometres down the road, which is the case in some New Zealand cities.

Catholic schools have largely been growing in recent years, especially primary schools, while some secondary colleges have been merged in recent decades. For whatever reason, a Dunedin school had become surplus to requirements and the decision was made to sell it. Regardless of how much money was generated from the sale, it will be put to better use than paying insurance and rates on an unused building. Read more

Sources

• Gavin Abraham in The Catholic Soapbox
• Image: Zoodle Property

Gavin Abraham, a journalist for more than a dozen years, has spent most of the last six years working in Catholic media.

It is a question that divides people of the same religion and denomination.

Some, like the interfaith members of the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care who visited Capitol Hill last week to lobby for climate change legislation, believe that man-made greenhouse gases are an example of human activity threatening creation and unjustly subjecting the Earth's most vulnerable populations to climate-related privation and violence.

Others — often from relatively similar religious backgrounds — point to scripture as the basis for their belief that only God can cause a destructive change in climate and that the poor are more likely to suffer from expensive energy than from weather disasters.

The Rev. Mitchell Hescox, president of the Evangelical Environmental Network, is firmly in the first camp. He said last week that he expects Christians in particular to play a key role in eventually persuading lawmakers, especially Republicans, to support curbs on emissions.

Hescox said the religious community was already making inroads on the issue when the economy tanked in 2008 and would do so again when the economy is fully recovered.

"I think the fear over job loss has sort of trumped the issue of climate change for a short time," he said.

While acknowledging that evangelical Christians are far from unanimous in viewing climate change as a threat, Hescox predicted that would change.

Read more of how the Vatican Report Shines Light on Climate Change Divisions Within the U.S. Faith Community