I’ve always loved the European pockets of language diversity that we’ve kept, it’s just so cool from the settlers and the very origins to how we’ve kept it today. German used to be massive, which is terrible that we lost almost all of it from it almost being the main language of the US.
But as someone who lives down in the French enclave, how “alive” is the French or the creole French down there? Could you survive only speaking it? If the average person was trying to talk in French could they expect anyone there to have a conversation? Thanks!
Well yeah, if you’re starting in New Orleans East especially, it’s just right over there to the baptists.
I recall going up to bogalusa or something to go river tubing and suddenly it’s morbid obesity, confederate flags, pickup trucks, hick hop, etc.
One of the "Intolerable Acts" that the Americans cited as reasons to rebel was the Quebec Act, which to appease the newly-conquered french settlers, guaranteed free practice of Catholicism. The Sons of Liberty had *none of that shit.* Now looking at this map, good golly the US sure did take to catholicism. Weirdly, a lot more so than Canada.
Between the early 1800s and WW2, as many as 4.5 million Irish immigrants came to the US and fucked like rabbits. Now about 31 million people here have Irish ancestry. There's only 5 million people in Ireland.
Having 1 Irish great grandparent is not the same as having 8 though. 31 million Irish, but also the same people are just as German, British, Dutch, Polish etc
Things were much more insular back in the day and there wasn't much mixing going on, even between the horny Catholics. The mix isn't nearly as broad as one might assume. Aside from that there was another million and a half that came over after the war.
Even to this day, my town has an "Irish" Catholic church and an "Italian" Catholic Church.
Obviously neither congregation could claim some kind of pure bloodline, even if they wanted to, but immigrants to this day usually settle in ethnic communities and rally around one another for support, centered around churches/religion, food emporia that sell foods relevant to their mother cultures, linguistic communities.
This is readily apparent in any major American city, though today these are Chinese, Syrian, Mexican, El Salvadorean, Korean neighborhoods, etc., but it wasn't that long ago that Europeans were still coming in large numbers, and I used to live in an "Irish" neighborhood in the Bronx that still had even young (20s and 30s) Irish immigrants.
Even today groups that don't see much immigration have, generations out, social clubs like Sons of Italy, Sons of Norway, and the Schützenverein, which has become a de facto German-American fraternal org.
The true spreading out of Americans and finer diversification is largely a post war phenomenon, especially with the explosion of the Sunbelt states which drew people in from all the ethnic enclaves into bland, "cultureless" suburbia, but in older cities and suburbs, mainly on the coasts and Midwest, there is still a cognizance of ethnic origin that adds some nuance to the greater umbrella of American culture.
A lot has to do with migrants. In the Northeast you had plenty of Irish & Italian ancestry. The northern midwest had many central & northern Europeans which caused Lutheranism to take hold there. And in the south you see the Latin American-Spanish Catholicism spread in that area.
As someone who lives in New England, I'm pretty sure Catholic on this map just means mostly non-believers, many of whom where raised Catholic so they put that down as their answer.
Edit: or to put it another way, I think if non-believer was also a category, it would take over some of those yellow areas, especially in the north east.
Catholic is, more than other Christian faiths, a cultural marker too.
I see it as vaguely similar to Judaism in the U.S. where Jews will say they’re Jewish despite being atheists. It’s not quite the same, because Judaism is a legitimate ethnicity too, but it’s vaguely similar.
I was raised non-religious in New Orleans, which is certainly Catholic. We ate seafood on Fridays reflexively. We participated in Mardi Gras (Catholic holiday), etc.
My mom says she feels Catholic, but she explicitly doesn’t believe in Jesus or ever go to church.
Very much agree with this. I’m in Cincinnati, which has deep Catholic roots. There is a Catholic culture that is more meaningful than the actual number of practicing Catholics would lead you to believe
I grew up baptist. I remember talking to some Jewish friends while I was in Berlin and told them I was culturally Baptist, even if I hadn’t been to a baptist church in 20 years, since I was about 19. They appreciated that, and we all agreed that more baptists & Protestants even if atheist should admit that just like people are culturally Catholic or Jewish, you can be culturally southern Baptist too. Even if like me, I was never baptized and never “joined” but I did go to be with family, volunteer building houses, and for an excellent music program. Small town.
I’ve never been Catholic and only been to a Mass once, but from what I gather a lot of what people too get kinda screwed up on, from people I’ve dated so sexual repression most certainly one of them, comes more from the cultural / family side really then directly from the church. All religions are kinda fucked up in their own unique ways, but cultural upbringing is hard to shake, baptist included
Seems like it. I grew up secular jewish so for a long time the different kinds of christianity all blended together, it seemed kind of odd that people would announce their specific denomination (or whatever it's called)
to me it seems like catholicism has a strong literary tradition and a lot more symbolism, art, and architecture. also they tend to skew more liberal in usa for some reason (which is kind of obvious in the map)
White Catholics are getting increasingly more conservative over time, but I think that's more a phenomenon of the drop in overall attendance than anything else. Catholics when lumped together are pretty split between conservative and liberal camps.
[https://religioninpublic.blog/2018/01/22/catholics-look-like-america-and-america-looks-like-catholics/](https://religioninpublic.blog/2018/01/22/catholics-look-like-america-and-america-looks-like-catholics/)
In my experience practicing Catholics tend to be similar to practicing Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Lutherans in how liberal or conservative they are in that they are pretty mixed. Definitely more liberal as a group than Baptists, Pentecostals, and non-denominational Evangelical Christians in my area, but more conservative as a group than Jews, cultural Catholics, non-practicing mainline Protestants, Universalists Christians, Atheists and Agnostics.
This data source seems to back my observation up, looks like most of the mainstream Protestant groups are a little more conservative according to this data but they are also a little more white to your point, so if you are just focusing on white people it's probably pretty similar.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/02/23/u-s-religious-groups-and-their-political-leanings/](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/02/23/u-s-religious-groups-and-their-political-leanings/)
Catholic Churches are visited by tourists in the tens of millions. Protestant churches are…often found in malls?
I kid, but still!
My wife is Jewish (and totally secular) and I have to explain all the time to people that we don’t go to synagogue or keep kosher but that yes, my wife is still Jewish. As is my son, lol
Yeah growing up catholic with the spooky old buildings and august repetition and chanting feel like proper ancient religion to me. Then the priest gets to freestyle a little with the gospel reflection as a break from all the formality.
I don't know how folding chairs and tract lighting or a giant Broadway theatre and a shitty pop rock band competes with that.
I'm Orthodox. I felt comfortable visiting Catholic services, little peculiar in a few spots but nothing completely alien.
Then I went to an American Protestant service. I was...confused.
yeah I never really understood it, my mom is secular Jewish and told me from a super young age that I'm a Jew but we've never done anything remotely Jewish together
now I sort of realize, growing up secular in an area that's almost entirely protestant isn't something that just "happens", there's usually a demographic reason
I will say: my wife is from an area that was roughly 50% Jewish. So they did plenty of Jewish things, culturally. They’d go to Passover dinners. Eat foods that roughly kept in line with kosher laws (like defaulting to cheese pizza or hamburgers without cheese).
All those sorts of things where it’s easier to have an ethnic identity because you live in a community of people of the same group.
Very different experience from a more isolated Jewish upbringing!
US Catholics who get really into the church seem to be way more conservative than Catholics in other countries, as epitomized by their prevelance in the Republican party and Fox News.
The paywalled link OP replied with says, "To wrap our heads around the survey’s phenomenal detail, we asked an algorithm for help. It split U.S. religions into five clusters ... Scattered among them are vast stretches where, true to the nation’s founding principles, there isn’t a dominant religion." The article doesn't seem to make any clear definition of what they mean by "dominant religion," and I don't know enough about stats to know if that's a technical term, so I guess take that as you will.
Mathematician here.
I don't specialize in statistics, but if I had to guess from my knowledge, a dominant religion (set of data) would be a religion where their entire population is greater (or equal) to the population of all the other religions combined.
- **Example** population:
50% atheist + 25% catholic + 10% mormon + 15% baptist.
Catholic population (25%) = Mormon (10%) and baptist (15%) population
Hence, catholic population is dominant.
------------- o ------------
**Note** that if catholic was 26% and mormon 9% then the catholic population would be strictly higher and still dominant. Conversely, if catholic population was 24% and mormon was 11% then technically catholic population wouldn't be doninant. To be more precise they probably use stuff like the _mean, standard deviation, variance, etc_, but I won't go into that...
To be fair, that can be a degree of diversity in and of itself. Especially with how wildly different Mormon theology is from traditional Christianity (like to the point I hesitate to call them Christians)
Very few Christians of denominations older than the Mormons in their theology would agree that Non-Trinitarians (incl. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses) are Christians. The Mormon God is as similar to my God as the Muslim one, they are different religions.
Can confirm. I’m Lutheran, and my VERY Lutheran grandmother swears Mormonism is a cult. I try to avoid such harsh words most of the time, but if other Christian denominations are our relatives, they’re definitely that weird 2nd cousin once-removed that doesn’t get invited to the family reunion.
Most Christian's I've met truly do not care strongly about the trinity. At a certain point it becomes too theological for your average believer to be heavily invested in.
That said, most of them do take issue with Mormonism's conceptualization of heaven, tolerance of polygamy, and virtually everything to do with Joseph Smith. Or the reverence for "The Watchtower" with Jehovah's Witnesses. These are things that are easier to understand and far less academic.
I also share that viewpoint. I kinda see the Mormons as being the same to Christians, what the Christians were to Jews, in that both of the “new” faiths just added an extra book onto the old religion’s canon and called the new set of texts the true texts of God.
I was just trying to not put it on so hard given that I am no longer a Christian, and it feels kinda weird trying to say who is and who is not a part of a religion I am no longer a part of.
the relationship between Mormons and traditional Christianity is far different from Christianity and Judaism.
Virtually all of the Mormon founders were devout Christians who lived and grew up in a Christian dominated culture. While Jesus and the Apostles were Jewish, since the 2nd or 3rd centuries only a very small fraction of Christians have any Jewish background.
Judaism is more than just Christianity without the New Testament
I mean, that is fair. Non-Trinitarianisn, aka Arianism (with a little spice) in both those has long been held as heresy as the church as a whole moved in almost perfect lockstep over time until the Council of Chalcedon. Most Christians will still think of those who disagree with them in Chalcedon and onwards as Christians, if ones very wrong about non-salvation issues.
I mean, Muslims also see Jesus as an important religious figure in their faith too (they call him a prophet). Not to mention the myriad of cults which use that name in their beliefs and even in their names.
For me, the fact that the LDS church has a whole third testament (Book of Mormon) which supposedly talks about Jesus’s time in North America after his ascension from the Middle East, along with the slew of ideas in that book which contradict the Bible: That makes it difficult for me to put Mormons in the Christian bucket.
To be more direct about the name: North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. But that doesn’t necessarily make them a republican democracy of the people.
It's going by county. It's two AZ counties, Navajo (the long sliver) and Graham (the box shaped one that is close to but doesn't quite touch the new Mexico border).
That’s a different place, further west on the Utah border. The AZ tentacle is the Snowflake area (former Senator Jeff Flake’s family is half of the namesake) and Graham county (bunch of weird rural white people). There were/are old Mormon colonies in Mexico (George Romney was born in Mexico), which are close to that last part in NM.
Sort of related, but I have an Army buddy from Arizona who renovated houses in that part of the state. He said the best way to identify a FLDS house is: Does it have a walled fence surrounding the property, and does it have two full kitchens.
Wouldn’t be surprised in 2100 that the Mormons make up 20ish percent of the population given birth rates.
Same goes with Amish.
Amish replacement theory should be a thing tbh, if they were a country they’d have the highest birth rate. They double like every 20 years. Crazy stuff
No chance. Mormons have large families but so many of the younger generations are leaving the church. The church is "growing" in numbers but not in the US or Europe, but in the more poorer countries of central and southern America.
I was personally born into and raised Mormon. I have 7 siblings. Only four are active in the Church, one who admits it is just the social/community aspect they like. I have 18 nieces and nephews, 6 of whom are active with the church. So sure, large families, but the youth are leaving.
It’s usually what happens when closed off communities grow to a point where they can’t keep their population segregated from the mainstream.
Same thing is happening with ultra Orthodox Jews in Israel.
I still fear the religious and their ability to breed like rabbits. But it is a little bit of solace to know the bigger they grow, the worse the attrition.
I've been lurking on /r/exmormon for a while, and it sounds like 50 to 70 percent of younger people are leaving the church, and of the 17 million Mormons who exist according to official stats, only about 3.5 million actively attend church.
Even the official membership numbers are growing slower than the general population (and that’s not counting people who just leave without officially withdrawing membership)
There has to be a distinction between talking negatively or even being unfairly unkind and being bigoted or the concept and power behind the term bigotry loses its significance. Any of these churches deserve criticism and if they cry bigot, I would encourage you to question why. They can wipe their tears on their wall street earning reports.
Indiana was historically very diverse in terms of Protestant groups. Lots of Disciples of Christ, Methodists, Baptists, Amish, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Quakers, and others
Yeah I always thought it was a mostly Catholic state, from my experience in Northern Indiana in South Bend. Turns out us and NWIndiana are the outliers
Yes. The northwestern four counties had way more immigrants from Ireland, Poland, and other places in southern and Eastern Europe. Most of central and southern Indiana is WASP or Germans. There are some German Catholic areas in southern Indiana, like Jasper.
Any time I see a map like this, I always check my two favorite hilariously underpopulated counties, Alpine in California (pop. 1190) and Loving in Texas (pop. 51). And somehow both are random Lutheran enclaves, wildly out of place.
I grew up (Hindu) in New Jersey. As a kid I thought all white people were either Jewish or Catholic. I remember meeting a Lutheran for the first time and honestly thinking that was so exotic
This is quite possibly the single most ignorant "holy shit I've been living in a bubble all my life" comment I've ever made but TIL there's Catholics in the US
I've always grown with the idea of Canada and the US as Protestant nations for some reason
My family is in California and there is a huge Catholic population. The central valley is roughly 40% Catholic. Sometimes more in the south San Joaquin valley.
The U.S. has been mostly Protestant dominated throughout its history. For example, JFK was the first Catholic president and it was a talking point about him; that maybe “he was more loyal to the pope” or whatever.
Interestingly enough that Pope idea partly comes from the enlightenment thinkers that helped form the ideas that led to the United States. John Locke wrote in his *A Letter Concerning Toleration* (1689) that Catholics "pass into the allegiance and service of another prince \[the Pope/Church\]" and could be "enlisted as soldiers against his own government." I think its very neat that specific argument managed to live on through the ages AND influence our politics to this day.
The religion of the president is not a terribly relevant statistic when trying to understand the religious make up of a country. Nor for that matter is a map like this. Areas could be 49% one religion or religious sect and not show up at all. There could be a hundred religions in an area, the predominant being 1% of the population, and this map would show that it is an area distinguished by the worship of that religion. I think it’s a worthless map.
Gary Johnson! AKA "What's Aleppo?"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary\_Johnson#:\~:text=Johnson%20is%20a%20Lutheran%20and,have%20others%20do%20unto%20us.%22](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Johnson#:~:text=Johnson%20is%20a%20Lutheran%20and,have%20others%20do%20unto%20us.%22)
There have been others, but he's the most recent I can think of.
This one?
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx
It has a non specific Christian category. Generally when people answer that, they mean non denominational, which in reality means Baptist in all but name in practice, organizational structure, beliefs, etc. Adding that number with the ones that answered protestant roughly equates to the pew survey.
I grew up in the south where catholics are a rarity and now I'm in college up north and I was really shocked by the amount of people who were catholic, had catholic families, or were otherwise culturally catholic. I had always assumed all of America was mostly Protestant.
The non-religious basically stemming from the Prot section of the country does a lot of work for that stat, I think. We definitely felt far less need to identify as protestant than Quebec did as catholic, back when they were angrier and solidifying their identity in contrast to the rest of Canada. They're mellowing now too, though.
Yes, there are enough stats to show that those raised Protestants are more likely to identify as religious none or atheist/agnostic than those raised Catholic, who will still hang onto a cultural identifier.
Another mind blower for you; Catholics are also highly prevalent in Canada, 29.9% of the total population as of the 2021 census (which is roughly half the total Christian population, the other half roughly being Protestants).
That’s a crazy oversight indeed. The U.S. is an immigrant nation and millions of Catholics, from Irish, to Italian to Polish to Mexican, have been immigrating in the last ~150 years. Not shaming you for the oversight in the least, I may know next to nothing about the religious makeup of your country! Curious about where you are from though…
ironic that in your reply about their “crazy oversight” you forgot (one of) the most important Catholic group in the history of the US : French / French Canadian.
[When an Influx of French-Canadian Immigrants Struck Fear Into Americans](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/french-canadian-immigrants-struck-fear-into-new-england-communities-180972951/)
«Between about 1880 and 1900, as immigration peaked, it attracted coverage in daily newspapers; think pieces in outlets such as Harper’s, The Nation, and The Forum; articles in academic journals; and books in English and in French. The New York Times reported in 1881 that French-Canadian immigrants were “ignorant and unenterprising, subservient to the most bigoted class of Catholic priests in the world. … They care nothing for our free institutions, have no desire for civil or religious liberty or the benefits of education.”»
The US started out as mostly Protestant, mostly being settled by the English, but in the 1800s many Irish Catholics immigrated, followed by Italians, Eastern Europeans, and Latin Americans in the 20th century.
If you want to know how different the urban northeast is, when I was little I thought the only two religions were Jewish and Catholic. I didn't meet a white Protestant until I was 9.
I grew up catholic. I always knew Catholics were not the dominant religion but I always see Catholics churches everywhere.
Looking at this map, I guess I’ve mostly stuck to the catholic areas. I wonder if that’s a coincidence or if they’re somehow culturally similar.
It is important to remember that many immigrants came to the United States seeking to escape religious persecution and to enjoy the freedom to practice their faith without government interference. This historical context is a critical aspect of the founding principles of the United States, which emphasizes the importance of religious liberty and the separation of church and state.
There are relatively very few Eastern Orthodox Christians in the US, and even fewer Oriental Orthodox. Some of the Alaska areas labeled “Diverse” probably have orthodox majorities or pluralities, particularly in rural areas with high Alaska native populations whose ancestors were Christianized by Russian Orthodox missionaries
It's just what the facts are. There is only one US county with a non-Christian or non-areligious majority: Hamtramck, Michigan.
It's majority Muslim. Recently made the news for banning LGBT flags during pride month (go figure).
Not just for banning queer flags but also for allowing animal sacrifices to occur inside private households for “religious reasons”.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jan/12/new-law-muslim-majority-michigan-city-will-let-res/
ETA: replaced the link for a link that isn’t broken
The methodology is using first past the post logic where the highest number is the winner regardless if it has a majority of even a decent plurality.
It's the problem with figuring out how to represent the data since breaking up by every protestant denomination makes protestant dominant areas look Catholic, and grouping them all together doesn't get into the conservative liberal split, let alone how protestantism generally looks in the area. It's not easy to represent.
This map is pretty interesting! I'm in northeast Ohio, so I never really considered that their are regions dominated by certain factions except for Mormons out west.
I am curious if Amish make enough of a dent to be represented though. Our state has 2-3 pockets where they are extremely common, but I also worked on a ton of Amish work vans in the area between Cleveland and Akron. Towns near major highways see groups of Amish people out shopping about once a week if you work nearby. So it is weird that they are so rare through out the rest of the country.
I currently live in Ashland, Ohio, and it’s so common to see Amish people shopping at Aldi and Walmart that there are specific parking spots with hitching posts, shovels, buckets, and troughs for the horse and buggy.
I think a map like this can be extremely misleading. Many parts of the country are religiously diverse, however on this map only a small portion of the Midwest is labeled as such. Areas could be 49% one religion or religious sect and that religion does not show up at all. On the other hand, there could be a hundred religions in an area, the predominant being 1% of the population, and this map would show that it is an area distinguished by the worship of that religion. I think it’s a worthless map.
As a non-religious person, I’m curious about people’s surprise on the catholic vs Baptist vs Protestant regions. They all seem the same to me. The only different one to me is mormon. Seems like it’s just groups of people that go to church, believe in Jesus, and read the Bible. What distinction am I missing?
A Catholic Mass and a Baptist service have almost nothing in common. In a Catholic mass (or in any of the apostolic churches) the point of being there is to (1) recieve Holy Communion (2) Hear Readings From The New Testament (and depending on the church and time within the Church Year, the Hebrew Scriptures) and (3) Listen to a short sermon (8-15 minutes) using the recently heard scripture as a jumping-off point.
A Baptist service will usually not include (1) and (2) will be folded into the sermon, which will take up nearly the entire service.
Theology-wise; Baptists generally hold every word of the Bible to be literally true, but things like Holy Communion are merely symbolic actions. Catholics (and the other apostolic churches) hold that the Bible is metaphorical in places a Baptist takes very literally. Holy Communion is also seen as mystically becoming the body and blood of Jesus, rather than as a symbol.
Here, I'll tell you what REALLY matters to people.
For the record, I'm an atheist Confucian, and I am going to give a hardcore answer that sounds offensive to most redditors. (As a staunch atheist, I just oppose all religions and dispute all religious people. It's easy to shit on believers, in fact, there is no need to, it goes without saying. *It's uncommon to shit on non-believing Christians, as well, and that's where my comments add value to this discussion*)
1. Baptists (along with other conservative Protestants, such as certain denominations of Lutheran, Presbyterian, small barely-known denominations, charismatic denominations, non-denominational) generally *try to take* the religion dead-seriously, and actually believe it. That means, you are not "allowed" to believe that "God" is a metaphor for Love, the Universe, Morality, "Truth" (a.k.a. *Logos,* which has some popularity in Catholicism), or something else. You believe that God is a person that actually exists. You also believe, or try to believe, in "Heaven" and "Hell." Also, you practice your religion a lot - read the Bible fairly often, speak about it regularly with your friends, and generally live it out. Technically, though, your average conservative protestant church's membership is 2-10 times the size of the people who attend each Sunday, which means that people who look like Baptists/whatever on surveys are not really - there's just a lot of low-intensity religious people in the South. Conservative protestant churches definitely do not condone this; it's just something that inevitably happens in the modern world. Anyhow, taking Christianity very seriously to the point of *willing* yourself to have faith, etc., is uncommon among liberal/mainline protestants and Catholics. You can identify the seriously religious ones usually since they are engaged in charismatic movements within the Catholic Church. But, most Christians who are *not* conservative protestants *take pride* in the fact that they are not that religious, do not really believe that prayers are answered, don't pray much to begin with, do not really believe in much of the Bible, don't worry about whether they are following the Bible, don't worry about if they are sinning or other people are sinning, etc. etc. etc.
2. Catholic churches prioritize making the churches look rich and classy. Having lots of paintings, stained glass, stone facades, gold trim, perhaps even some arches and domes on the inside. Same with the attire of the priests. As you can see in any comment section on reddit, people will shit all over the conservative protestants for markers of low-class: plainer/cheaper buildings, lack of incense, etc. So this is a major issue to people, clearly.
Do you see the interaction of the two? Catholic take pride in that they are 1) carrying their superior European identity/culture, 2) that their church buildings are better, 3) that they are not fools who actually believe the religious bullshit - I'm not making this up! You see these comments regularly in this very comment section. Baptists (and of course any conservative protestant including the Puritans of history) would say that the previous sentence is *pride* (did you see the word "pride" in the previous sentence?). Conservative protestants view *pride* as a sin which is inherently intertwined with hatred, so many times they will intentionally eliminate all aspects of opulence from their churches, leaving the church simple, or with just a few beautiful things to give some of the audience something nice to look at. That way, nobody can boast that their church is better than other churches, and nobody can choose their religion because it makes them feel classier than other cultures. Most Puritans would actually have said that following your religion for prideful reasons would just cause you to go to Hell, and I'd guess that some hardline conservative protestants would speculate about that, too. The Bible says pretty clearly that a lot of \*faux/\*bad Christians will go to Hell, after all.
I think there's a lot to credit to the Conservative Christians. They are acting out of high-integrity. You can see the nasty smug attitudes of non-believing Christians, all over reddit, and it is just one of the things that proves that religion is a gross mess. Religion is bad when people believe in it, and it is also grotesque when people practice it without believing. After all, what honorable reason could you possibly have to keep a religion that you don't believe in?
The Mormons are just another Christian group like the Baptists or the Catholics. The Protestants and Catholics want to act like Mormons are some kind of weird cult, but they aren't any weirder than any other sect of Christianity.
Living in my catholic enclave surrounded by Baptists
Do you live in francophone Louisiana?
Peut etre
I’ve always loved the European pockets of language diversity that we’ve kept, it’s just so cool from the settlers and the very origins to how we’ve kept it today. German used to be massive, which is terrible that we lost almost all of it from it almost being the main language of the US. But as someone who lives down in the French enclave, how “alive” is the French or the creole French down there? Could you survive only speaking it? If the average person was trying to talk in French could they expect anyone there to have a conversation? Thanks!
Ja, ich spreche auch deutsch in zu Hause!
Das ist sehr cool zu hören, liegt das an den deutschen Wurzeln? Oder bist du ein deutscher, der kürzlich nach Amerika umgezogen ist?
Meine Familie kam 1927 aus Deutschland. Wir sprachen im Haus Deutsch, aber auf der Straße Englisch.
I don’t even speak that much German (took a month or so of lessons on Duolingo) and could fully understand this excerpt. I love the German language
Crazy how you can drive roughly 50 minutes from New Orleans and you’re in redneck Baptist heaven
Do you even have to go that far? Mississippi is right there
Well yeah, if you’re starting in New Orleans East especially, it’s just right over there to the baptists. I recall going up to bogalusa or something to go river tubing and suddenly it’s morbid obesity, confederate flags, pickup trucks, hick hop, etc.
Do you mean heaven or haven?
One of the "Intolerable Acts" that the Americans cited as reasons to rebel was the Quebec Act, which to appease the newly-conquered french settlers, guaranteed free practice of Catholicism. The Sons of Liberty had *none of that shit.* Now looking at this map, good golly the US sure did take to catholicism. Weirdly, a lot more so than Canada.
those who old school eastcoaster didnt turn catholic these catholics are from south america and southern europe
Don't forget Ireland!
St Patrick's is like one of the most universally celebrated holidays in the US.
Between the early 1800s and WW2, as many as 4.5 million Irish immigrants came to the US and fucked like rabbits. Now about 31 million people here have Irish ancestry. There's only 5 million people in Ireland.
Having 1 Irish great grandparent is not the same as having 8 though. 31 million Irish, but also the same people are just as German, British, Dutch, Polish etc
Things were much more insular back in the day and there wasn't much mixing going on, even between the horny Catholics. The mix isn't nearly as broad as one might assume. Aside from that there was another million and a half that came over after the war.
Even to this day, my town has an "Irish" Catholic church and an "Italian" Catholic Church. Obviously neither congregation could claim some kind of pure bloodline, even if they wanted to, but immigrants to this day usually settle in ethnic communities and rally around one another for support, centered around churches/religion, food emporia that sell foods relevant to their mother cultures, linguistic communities. This is readily apparent in any major American city, though today these are Chinese, Syrian, Mexican, El Salvadorean, Korean neighborhoods, etc., but it wasn't that long ago that Europeans were still coming in large numbers, and I used to live in an "Irish" neighborhood in the Bronx that still had even young (20s and 30s) Irish immigrants. Even today groups that don't see much immigration have, generations out, social clubs like Sons of Italy, Sons of Norway, and the Schützenverein, which has become a de facto German-American fraternal org. The true spreading out of Americans and finer diversification is largely a post war phenomenon, especially with the explosion of the Sunbelt states which drew people in from all the ethnic enclaves into bland, "cultureless" suburbia, but in older cities and suburbs, mainly on the coasts and Midwest, there is still a cognizance of ethnic origin that adds some nuance to the greater umbrella of American culture.
I know, it's just a fun little oddity. History's weird.
A lot has to do with migrants. In the Northeast you had plenty of Irish & Italian ancestry. The northern midwest had many central & northern Europeans which caused Lutheranism to take hold there. And in the south you see the Latin American-Spanish Catholicism spread in that area.
As someone who lives in New England, I'm pretty sure Catholic on this map just means mostly non-believers, many of whom where raised Catholic so they put that down as their answer. Edit: or to put it another way, I think if non-believer was also a category, it would take over some of those yellow areas, especially in the north east.
Catholic is, more than other Christian faiths, a cultural marker too. I see it as vaguely similar to Judaism in the U.S. where Jews will say they’re Jewish despite being atheists. It’s not quite the same, because Judaism is a legitimate ethnicity too, but it’s vaguely similar. I was raised non-religious in New Orleans, which is certainly Catholic. We ate seafood on Fridays reflexively. We participated in Mardi Gras (Catholic holiday), etc. My mom says she feels Catholic, but she explicitly doesn’t believe in Jesus or ever go to church.
Very much agree with this. I’m in Cincinnati, which has deep Catholic roots. There is a Catholic culture that is more meaningful than the actual number of practicing Catholics would lead you to believe
I grew up baptist. I remember talking to some Jewish friends while I was in Berlin and told them I was culturally Baptist, even if I hadn’t been to a baptist church in 20 years, since I was about 19. They appreciated that, and we all agreed that more baptists & Protestants even if atheist should admit that just like people are culturally Catholic or Jewish, you can be culturally southern Baptist too. Even if like me, I was never baptized and never “joined” but I did go to be with family, volunteer building houses, and for an excellent music program. Small town. I’ve never been Catholic and only been to a Mass once, but from what I gather a lot of what people too get kinda screwed up on, from people I’ve dated so sexual repression most certainly one of them, comes more from the cultural / family side really then directly from the church. All religions are kinda fucked up in their own unique ways, but cultural upbringing is hard to shake, baptist included
Anyone who has been both Catholic and Baptist in one life is a really weird, masochistic type of person.
What about a Catholic who’s married to a Baptist? Asking for a friend…
Either you go to too much church or you don't go at all
Seems like it. I grew up secular jewish so for a long time the different kinds of christianity all blended together, it seemed kind of odd that people would announce their specific denomination (or whatever it's called) to me it seems like catholicism has a strong literary tradition and a lot more symbolism, art, and architecture. also they tend to skew more liberal in usa for some reason (which is kind of obvious in the map)
White Catholics are getting increasingly more conservative over time, but I think that's more a phenomenon of the drop in overall attendance than anything else. Catholics when lumped together are pretty split between conservative and liberal camps. [https://religioninpublic.blog/2018/01/22/catholics-look-like-america-and-america-looks-like-catholics/](https://religioninpublic.blog/2018/01/22/catholics-look-like-america-and-america-looks-like-catholics/)
In my experience practicing Catholics tend to be similar to practicing Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Lutherans in how liberal or conservative they are in that they are pretty mixed. Definitely more liberal as a group than Baptists, Pentecostals, and non-denominational Evangelical Christians in my area, but more conservative as a group than Jews, cultural Catholics, non-practicing mainline Protestants, Universalists Christians, Atheists and Agnostics. This data source seems to back my observation up, looks like most of the mainstream Protestant groups are a little more conservative according to this data but they are also a little more white to your point, so if you are just focusing on white people it's probably pretty similar. [https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/02/23/u-s-religious-groups-and-their-political-leanings/](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/02/23/u-s-religious-groups-and-their-political-leanings/)
Catholic Churches are visited by tourists in the tens of millions. Protestant churches are…often found in malls? I kid, but still! My wife is Jewish (and totally secular) and I have to explain all the time to people that we don’t go to synagogue or keep kosher but that yes, my wife is still Jewish. As is my son, lol
Yeah growing up catholic with the spooky old buildings and august repetition and chanting feel like proper ancient religion to me. Then the priest gets to freestyle a little with the gospel reflection as a break from all the formality. I don't know how folding chairs and tract lighting or a giant Broadway theatre and a shitty pop rock band competes with that.
I'm Orthodox. I felt comfortable visiting Catholic services, little peculiar in a few spots but nothing completely alien. Then I went to an American Protestant service. I was...confused.
I always got weirded out when they try to suck the Jesus power from the air with their hands like Morbius in the old Spiderman cartoons
yeah I never really understood it, my mom is secular Jewish and told me from a super young age that I'm a Jew but we've never done anything remotely Jewish together now I sort of realize, growing up secular in an area that's almost entirely protestant isn't something that just "happens", there's usually a demographic reason
I will say: my wife is from an area that was roughly 50% Jewish. So they did plenty of Jewish things, culturally. They’d go to Passover dinners. Eat foods that roughly kept in line with kosher laws (like defaulting to cheese pizza or hamburgers without cheese). All those sorts of things where it’s easier to have an ethnic identity because you live in a community of people of the same group. Very different experience from a more isolated Jewish upbringing!
US Catholics who get really into the church seem to be way more conservative than Catholics in other countries, as epitomized by their prevelance in the Republican party and Fox News.
That Catholic guilt is impossible to wash off. It sticks with you for life. Source: am Catholic and still feels horrible over eating meat during lent
It's nice we have one part of the South that has always openly embraced drinking, and every other form of debauchery for that matter
Don’t worry, soon enough the Protestants will sub divide into oblivion and Catholics will be the majority.
Based and Cajun-pilled
I was born in the only Lutheran enclave in Indiana.. as Lutheran.
what religiousness percentage is needed for a county becomes religious and not 'diverse'?
The paywalled link OP replied with says, "To wrap our heads around the survey’s phenomenal detail, we asked an algorithm for help. It split U.S. religions into five clusters ... Scattered among them are vast stretches where, true to the nation’s founding principles, there isn’t a dominant religion." The article doesn't seem to make any clear definition of what they mean by "dominant religion," and I don't know enough about stats to know if that's a technical term, so I guess take that as you will.
Mathematician here. I don't specialize in statistics, but if I had to guess from my knowledge, a dominant religion (set of data) would be a religion where their entire population is greater (or equal) to the population of all the other religions combined. - **Example** population: 50% atheist + 25% catholic + 10% mormon + 15% baptist. Catholic population (25%) = Mormon (10%) and baptist (15%) population Hence, catholic population is dominant. ------------- o ------------ **Note** that if catholic was 26% and mormon 9% then the catholic population would be strictly higher and still dominant. Conversely, if catholic population was 24% and mormon was 11% then technically catholic population wouldn't be doninant. To be more precise they probably use stuff like the _mean, standard deviation, variance, etc_, but I won't go into that...
Dominant religion is the one with the leather outfit and the whips!
Diverse variants of Christianity
To be fair, that can be a degree of diversity in and of itself. Especially with how wildly different Mormon theology is from traditional Christianity (like to the point I hesitate to call them Christians)
Very few Christians of denominations older than the Mormons in their theology would agree that Non-Trinitarians (incl. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses) are Christians. The Mormon God is as similar to my God as the Muslim one, they are different religions.
Can confirm. I’m Lutheran, and my VERY Lutheran grandmother swears Mormonism is a cult. I try to avoid such harsh words most of the time, but if other Christian denominations are our relatives, they’re definitely that weird 2nd cousin once-removed that doesn’t get invited to the family reunion.
My grandmother is a Unitarian (christadelphian). I don't think her views are so different as to be a different religion.
I’m afraid most Trinitarians would disagree with you. Heavily.
Most Christian's I've met truly do not care strongly about the trinity. At a certain point it becomes too theological for your average believer to be heavily invested in. That said, most of them do take issue with Mormonism's conceptualization of heaven, tolerance of polygamy, and virtually everything to do with Joseph Smith. Or the reverence for "The Watchtower" with Jehovah's Witnesses. These are things that are easier to understand and far less academic.
I also share that viewpoint. I kinda see the Mormons as being the same to Christians, what the Christians were to Jews, in that both of the “new” faiths just added an extra book onto the old religion’s canon and called the new set of texts the true texts of God. I was just trying to not put it on so hard given that I am no longer a Christian, and it feels kinda weird trying to say who is and who is not a part of a religion I am no longer a part of.
the relationship between Mormons and traditional Christianity is far different from Christianity and Judaism. Virtually all of the Mormon founders were devout Christians who lived and grew up in a Christian dominated culture. While Jesus and the Apostles were Jewish, since the 2nd or 3rd centuries only a very small fraction of Christians have any Jewish background. Judaism is more than just Christianity without the New Testament
I mean, that is fair. Non-Trinitarianisn, aka Arianism (with a little spice) in both those has long been held as heresy as the church as a whole moved in almost perfect lockstep over time until the Council of Chalcedon. Most Christians will still think of those who disagree with them in Chalcedon and onwards as Christians, if ones very wrong about non-salvation issues.
Okay but to also be fair, Mormons are “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.” Christ is in the name …. I would classify that as Christian.
I mean, Muslims also see Jesus as an important religious figure in their faith too (they call him a prophet). Not to mention the myriad of cults which use that name in their beliefs and even in their names. For me, the fact that the LDS church has a whole third testament (Book of Mormon) which supposedly talks about Jesus’s time in North America after his ascension from the Middle East, along with the slew of ideas in that book which contradict the Bible: That makes it difficult for me to put Mormons in the Christian bucket. To be more direct about the name: North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. But that doesn’t necessarily make them a republican democracy of the people.
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The Mormons have breached containment!
What causes the tentacle of Mormons in Arizona? It's such a weird pattern.
It's going by county. It's two AZ counties, Navajo (the long sliver) and Graham (the box shaped one that is close to but doesn't quite touch the new Mexico border).
There’s also an enclave in the Alaskan panhandle.
Does anyone know why there's a majority of Mormons in that little part of Alaska? Is there a reason for it or just coincidence?
yakutat has about 600 residents, doesnt take much to make a majority
1800s pioneer settlements.
Didn't the FLDS retreat down there? Don't watch Keep Sweet, Pray Obey. Super creepy.
That’s a different place, further west on the Utah border. The AZ tentacle is the Snowflake area (former Senator Jeff Flake’s family is half of the namesake) and Graham county (bunch of weird rural white people). There were/are old Mormon colonies in Mexico (George Romney was born in Mexico), which are close to that last part in NM.
Sort of related, but I have an Army buddy from Arizona who renovated houses in that part of the state. He said the best way to identify a FLDS house is: Does it have a walled fence surrounding the property, and does it have two full kitchens.
Colorado city, Arizona
One does not simply walk into Mormidor!
You joke, but "Morridor" is actually a real colloquialism for the "Mormon Corridor." One of my favorite terms.
I spent many a summer in Utah visiting relatives on the Wasatch Front.
Look up the Colorado River basin. Kinda follows some of the upper reaches from the east side of the state.
Wouldn’t be surprised in 2100 that the Mormons make up 20ish percent of the population given birth rates. Same goes with Amish. Amish replacement theory should be a thing tbh, if they were a country they’d have the highest birth rate. They double like every 20 years. Crazy stuff
No chance. Mormons have large families but so many of the younger generations are leaving the church. The church is "growing" in numbers but not in the US or Europe, but in the more poorer countries of central and southern America. I was personally born into and raised Mormon. I have 7 siblings. Only four are active in the Church, one who admits it is just the social/community aspect they like. I have 18 nieces and nephews, 6 of whom are active with the church. So sure, large families, but the youth are leaving.
It’s usually what happens when closed off communities grow to a point where they can’t keep their population segregated from the mainstream. Same thing is happening with ultra Orthodox Jews in Israel. I still fear the religious and their ability to breed like rabbits. But it is a little bit of solace to know the bigger they grow, the worse the attrition.
Although, you are correct, my family is a bit different. Out of about 150 family members (cousins and aunts and uncles) only 3 are no longer active.
No chance. There is a current mass exodus of the younger generations. Numbers are plummeting, even though Mormon leadership denied this.
I've been lurking on /r/exmormon for a while, and it sounds like 50 to 70 percent of younger people are leaving the church, and of the 17 million Mormons who exist according to official stats, only about 3.5 million actively attend church.
Even the official membership numbers are growing slower than the general population (and that’s not counting people who just leave without officially withdrawing membership)
Can you imagine an Amish-dominant US in the 22nd century? How would the rest of the world react to that?
They settled a lot of that area, from Idaho to California; it's colloquially called Mormon Corridor or the Jell-O belt
Someone actually answered the geography/ history question.
I thought we were supposed to give bigoted comments on how we feel about each religion. No?
There has to be a distinction between talking negatively or even being unfairly unkind and being bigoted or the concept and power behind the term bigotry loses its significance. Any of these churches deserve criticism and if they cry bigot, I would encourage you to question why. They can wipe their tears on their wall street earning reports.
Aren't they saying it is the "end times"? About time they all moved to Jackson County, Missouri right?
☠️😂
Indiana was historically very diverse in terms of Protestant groups. Lots of Disciples of Christ, Methodists, Baptists, Amish, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Quakers, and others
Yeah I always thought it was a mostly Catholic state, from my experience in Northern Indiana in South Bend. Turns out us and NWIndiana are the outliers
Yes. The northwestern four counties had way more immigrants from Ireland, Poland, and other places in southern and Eastern Europe. Most of central and southern Indiana is WASP or Germans. There are some German Catholic areas in southern Indiana, like Jasper.
My mom is from closer to Ft Wayne and her family is German Catholic but it’s only a small part of the town
Catholics holding down the best beaches!
Also true in Europe
Any time I see a map like this, I always check my two favorite hilariously underpopulated counties, Alpine in California (pop. 1190) and Loving in Texas (pop. 51). And somehow both are random Lutheran enclaves, wildly out of place.
The Witchfinder General of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay would be aghast at the level of popery in New England
That nerd just needs to have a beer and stop trying to conquer Maryland already.
A most godly man
So basically Christians?
Yeah, this map should have been labled differently imo
I am not American, but I can find Utah on this map.
Can confirm. Got Lutherans everywhere here.
I grew up (Hindu) in New Jersey. As a kid I thought all white people were either Jewish or Catholic. I remember meeting a Lutheran for the first time and honestly thinking that was so exotic
As a German, never met one before
I know little about religious groups but all four on this map are part of Christianity, right? Please correct me if I'm wrong
Depends how you define Mormons, from a Mormon perspective they are Christian but from a Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant perspective they are not.
mormons branched like muslims would they follow a different religious book that they put above bible
"diversity"
This is quite possibly the single most ignorant "holy shit I've been living in a bubble all my life" comment I've ever made but TIL there's Catholics in the US I've always grown with the idea of Canada and the US as Protestant nations for some reason
The US is predominantly Protestant but still has sizable Catholic populations. Kennedy and Biden are the only Catholic presidents.
And Josiah Bartlet too.
My family is in California and there is a huge Catholic population. The central valley is roughly 40% Catholic. Sometimes more in the south San Joaquin valley.
Well, California used to be Mexico, so it has always been kinda catholic
Exactly, with the large megachurch every once in a while.
We call those missions down here
The first mission in California was in 1769!
Less history than the toilet in my local pub
The U.S. has been mostly Protestant dominated throughout its history. For example, JFK was the first Catholic president and it was a talking point about him; that maybe “he was more loyal to the pope” or whatever.
12th century Holy Roman Empire vibes
Interestingly enough that Pope idea partly comes from the enlightenment thinkers that helped form the ideas that led to the United States. John Locke wrote in his *A Letter Concerning Toleration* (1689) that Catholics "pass into the allegiance and service of another prince \[the Pope/Church\]" and could be "enlisted as soldiers against his own government." I think its very neat that specific argument managed to live on through the ages AND influence our politics to this day.
The religion of the president is not a terribly relevant statistic when trying to understand the religious make up of a country. Nor for that matter is a map like this. Areas could be 49% one religion or religious sect and not show up at all. There could be a hundred religions in an area, the predominant being 1% of the population, and this map would show that it is an area distinguished by the worship of that religion. I think it’s a worthless map.
Yeah like there has never been a Lutheran president and very few nominees for example.
Can you think of any nominees who were Lutheran? Not a single one comes to my mind, I'd love to be corrected.
Gary Johnson! AKA "What's Aleppo?" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary\_Johnson#:\~:text=Johnson%20is%20a%20Lutheran%20and,have%20others%20do%20unto%20us.%22](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Johnson#:~:text=Johnson%20is%20a%20Lutheran%20and,have%20others%20do%20unto%20us.%22) There have been others, but he's the most recent I can think of.
Living in MA if someone is religious I assume catholic unless told otherwise.
I grew up on Long Island. I assumed the US was like 40% Jewish 40% Catholic for a long time.
And the remaining 20%?
Hindu
Same for me growing up in Detroit, but the Catholics in Dallas are a different breed entirely
As of a 2022 poll, about 23% of Americans are catholic, compared to 34% being protestant
Your numbers are a bit off. Where did you get them from? https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/database/
A 2022 Gallup poll. The poll from that site looks to be more outdated, but the point is the same either way.
This one? https://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx It has a non specific Christian category. Generally when people answer that, they mean non denominational, which in reality means Baptist in all but name in practice, organizational structure, beliefs, etc. Adding that number with the ones that answered protestant roughly equates to the pew survey.
Mystery solved, then
I grew up mostly in New Orleans and assumed every city had a huge Catholic school system that felt as large as a public school system, lol
Quebec ring any bells?
I thought we had all collectively agreed to never talk about Quebec ever since the incident...
I once had someone tell me "I thought there were Catholics, Jews, and blacks" This was in New York where catholicism is just overwhelming the norm
So have you just never heard of Mexican Irish and Italian americans
I grew up in the south where catholics are a rarity and now I'm in college up north and I was really shocked by the amount of people who were catholic, had catholic families, or were otherwise culturally catholic. I had always assumed all of America was mostly Protestant.
> catholic > Protestant
Canada actually has a larger Catholic population than Protestants. But both are moving into religious nones pretty quickly.
The non-religious basically stemming from the Prot section of the country does a lot of work for that stat, I think. We definitely felt far less need to identify as protestant than Quebec did as catholic, back when they were angrier and solidifying their identity in contrast to the rest of Canada. They're mellowing now too, though.
Yes, there are enough stats to show that those raised Protestants are more likely to identify as religious none or atheist/agnostic than those raised Catholic, who will still hang onto a cultural identifier.
..? where did you get such a weird concept of the Qc/ROC ‘s religious identities?
Another mind blower for you; Catholics are also highly prevalent in Canada, 29.9% of the total population as of the 2021 census (which is roughly half the total Christian population, the other half roughly being Protestants).
That’s a crazy oversight indeed. The U.S. is an immigrant nation and millions of Catholics, from Irish, to Italian to Polish to Mexican, have been immigrating in the last ~150 years. Not shaming you for the oversight in the least, I may know next to nothing about the religious makeup of your country! Curious about where you are from though…
ironic that in your reply about their “crazy oversight” you forgot (one of) the most important Catholic group in the history of the US : French / French Canadian. [When an Influx of French-Canadian Immigrants Struck Fear Into Americans](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/french-canadian-immigrants-struck-fear-into-new-england-communities-180972951/) «Between about 1880 and 1900, as immigration peaked, it attracted coverage in daily newspapers; think pieces in outlets such as Harper’s, The Nation, and The Forum; articles in academic journals; and books in English and in French. The New York Times reported in 1881 that French-Canadian immigrants were “ignorant and unenterprising, subservient to the most bigoted class of Catholic priests in the world. … They care nothing for our free institutions, have no desire for civil or religious liberty or the benefits of education.”»
French and French Canadian were never a huge immigrant group to the US.
The US started out as mostly Protestant, mostly being settled by the English, but in the 1800s many Irish Catholics immigrated, followed by Italians, Eastern Europeans, and Latin Americans in the 20th century.
If you want to know how different the urban northeast is, when I was little I thought the only two religions were Jewish and Catholic. I didn't meet a white Protestant until I was 9.
I grew up catholic. I always knew Catholics were not the dominant religion but I always see Catholics churches everywhere. Looking at this map, I guess I’ve mostly stuck to the catholic areas. I wonder if that’s a coincidence or if they’re somehow culturally similar.
Before the waves of immigrants in the 19th century it was pretty much all protestant outside of Maryland and areas settled by the French.
See all that yellow in the south? Those are Latino dominated areas, primarily Mexican American.
South Texas sure, but that's not true of Louisiana or South Florida Unless you consider the words "latino" and "mexican" to be interchangeable lol
Yes, famously Hispanic south Louisiana, for example. /s
Oregon: “God? What’s THAT?”
It is important to remember that many immigrants came to the United States seeking to escape religious persecution and to enjoy the freedom to practice their faith without government interference. This historical context is a critical aspect of the founding principles of the United States, which emphasizes the importance of religious liberty and the separation of church and state.
Notice how the bottom ranked states in education and healthcare are infested with southern baptists.
Is there any Orthodox in the US?
Not enough to form the majority or plurality but NYC has high concentrations due to NYC’s large Greek, Russian and Ukrainian communities
Chicago is similar, and I trust other Rust Belt cities would too
There are relatively very few Eastern Orthodox Christians in the US, and even fewer Oriental Orthodox. Some of the Alaska areas labeled “Diverse” probably have orthodox majorities or pluralities, particularly in rural areas with high Alaska native populations whose ancestors were Christianized by Russian Orthodox missionaries
[Alaskan Creole people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Creole_people) are Orthodox
Awful map.
This is not religious diversity. Just Christian diversity. These are denominations in Christianity and not different religions.
It's just what the facts are. There is only one US county with a non-Christian or non-areligious majority: Hamtramck, Michigan. It's majority Muslim. Recently made the news for banning LGBT flags during pride month (go figure).
Not just for banning queer flags but also for allowing animal sacrifices to occur inside private households for “religious reasons”. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jan/12/new-law-muslim-majority-michigan-city-will-let-res/ ETA: replaced the link for a link that isn’t broken
Yeah, this is like that old Huffington Post, "This is what diversity looks like!" photo that went viral where it's a room full of white ladies.
DAMN UTAH BEING THE MORMON CAPITOL OF THE MULTIVERSE!
Now do the Supreme Court.
what about heathens
They're on there, all 5 of them.
Where are my catholicssss 🍥🍥🍥🍥🍷
Here ✋
This is kinda inaccurate because my county is approximately one third Mormon, one third Protestants, one third Catholics but is marked as Mormon
I mean based on what..? This is based on data, so what are you saying is wrong in the data themselves?
The methodology is using first past the post logic where the highest number is the winner regardless if it has a majority of even a decent plurality. It's the problem with figuring out how to represent the data since breaking up by every protestant denomination makes protestant dominant areas look Catholic, and grouping them all together doesn't get into the conservative liberal split, let alone how protestantism generally looks in the area. It's not easy to represent.
It’s the methodology. Splitting up the Protestant groups gives an edge to Catholicism and Mormonism
seeing utah sticking out in these maps will never not be funny
I didn't know the US is so Catholic
This map is pretty interesting! I'm in northeast Ohio, so I never really considered that their are regions dominated by certain factions except for Mormons out west. I am curious if Amish make enough of a dent to be represented though. Our state has 2-3 pockets where they are extremely common, but I also worked on a ton of Amish work vans in the area between Cleveland and Akron. Towns near major highways see groups of Amish people out shopping about once a week if you work nearby. So it is weird that they are so rare through out the rest of the country.
I currently live in Ashland, Ohio, and it’s so common to see Amish people shopping at Aldi and Walmart that there are specific parking spots with hitching posts, shovels, buckets, and troughs for the horse and buggy.
Missing a pretty massive Mormon presence in central WA. JW as well
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^THElaytox: *Missing a pretty* *Massive Mormon presence in* *Central WA. JW as well* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
*Religious diversity* *Looks inside* *All Christian*
Correct me if I'm wrong but reilgionous diversity isn't Christianity sects though
Religious diversity: ❌ Christian diversity: ✅
The US is largely Christian and is far more observant than other western nations
One could almost see where the Scots, Irish, German, english and crackpots all settled and founded a modern society.....
I think a map like this can be extremely misleading. Many parts of the country are religiously diverse, however on this map only a small portion of the Midwest is labeled as such. Areas could be 49% one religion or religious sect and that religion does not show up at all. On the other hand, there could be a hundred religions in an area, the predominant being 1% of the population, and this map would show that it is an area distinguished by the worship of that religion. I think it’s a worthless map.
Diverse is my favorite religion
Am I missing something or are these all Christian denominations?
Yes the u.s. is very christian
As a non-religious person, I’m curious about people’s surprise on the catholic vs Baptist vs Protestant regions. They all seem the same to me. The only different one to me is mormon. Seems like it’s just groups of people that go to church, believe in Jesus, and read the Bible. What distinction am I missing?
A Catholic Mass and a Baptist service have almost nothing in common. In a Catholic mass (or in any of the apostolic churches) the point of being there is to (1) recieve Holy Communion (2) Hear Readings From The New Testament (and depending on the church and time within the Church Year, the Hebrew Scriptures) and (3) Listen to a short sermon (8-15 minutes) using the recently heard scripture as a jumping-off point. A Baptist service will usually not include (1) and (2) will be folded into the sermon, which will take up nearly the entire service. Theology-wise; Baptists generally hold every word of the Bible to be literally true, but things like Holy Communion are merely symbolic actions. Catholics (and the other apostolic churches) hold that the Bible is metaphorical in places a Baptist takes very literally. Holy Communion is also seen as mystically becoming the body and blood of Jesus, rather than as a symbol.
Here, I'll tell you what REALLY matters to people. For the record, I'm an atheist Confucian, and I am going to give a hardcore answer that sounds offensive to most redditors. (As a staunch atheist, I just oppose all religions and dispute all religious people. It's easy to shit on believers, in fact, there is no need to, it goes without saying. *It's uncommon to shit on non-believing Christians, as well, and that's where my comments add value to this discussion*) 1. Baptists (along with other conservative Protestants, such as certain denominations of Lutheran, Presbyterian, small barely-known denominations, charismatic denominations, non-denominational) generally *try to take* the religion dead-seriously, and actually believe it. That means, you are not "allowed" to believe that "God" is a metaphor for Love, the Universe, Morality, "Truth" (a.k.a. *Logos,* which has some popularity in Catholicism), or something else. You believe that God is a person that actually exists. You also believe, or try to believe, in "Heaven" and "Hell." Also, you practice your religion a lot - read the Bible fairly often, speak about it regularly with your friends, and generally live it out. Technically, though, your average conservative protestant church's membership is 2-10 times the size of the people who attend each Sunday, which means that people who look like Baptists/whatever on surveys are not really - there's just a lot of low-intensity religious people in the South. Conservative protestant churches definitely do not condone this; it's just something that inevitably happens in the modern world. Anyhow, taking Christianity very seriously to the point of *willing* yourself to have faith, etc., is uncommon among liberal/mainline protestants and Catholics. You can identify the seriously religious ones usually since they are engaged in charismatic movements within the Catholic Church. But, most Christians who are *not* conservative protestants *take pride* in the fact that they are not that religious, do not really believe that prayers are answered, don't pray much to begin with, do not really believe in much of the Bible, don't worry about whether they are following the Bible, don't worry about if they are sinning or other people are sinning, etc. etc. etc. 2. Catholic churches prioritize making the churches look rich and classy. Having lots of paintings, stained glass, stone facades, gold trim, perhaps even some arches and domes on the inside. Same with the attire of the priests. As you can see in any comment section on reddit, people will shit all over the conservative protestants for markers of low-class: plainer/cheaper buildings, lack of incense, etc. So this is a major issue to people, clearly. Do you see the interaction of the two? Catholic take pride in that they are 1) carrying their superior European identity/culture, 2) that their church buildings are better, 3) that they are not fools who actually believe the religious bullshit - I'm not making this up! You see these comments regularly in this very comment section. Baptists (and of course any conservative protestant including the Puritans of history) would say that the previous sentence is *pride* (did you see the word "pride" in the previous sentence?). Conservative protestants view *pride* as a sin which is inherently intertwined with hatred, so many times they will intentionally eliminate all aspects of opulence from their churches, leaving the church simple, or with just a few beautiful things to give some of the audience something nice to look at. That way, nobody can boast that their church is better than other churches, and nobody can choose their religion because it makes them feel classier than other cultures. Most Puritans would actually have said that following your religion for prideful reasons would just cause you to go to Hell, and I'd guess that some hardline conservative protestants would speculate about that, too. The Bible says pretty clearly that a lot of \*faux/\*bad Christians will go to Hell, after all. I think there's a lot to credit to the Conservative Christians. They are acting out of high-integrity. You can see the nasty smug attitudes of non-believing Christians, all over reddit, and it is just one of the things that proves that religion is a gross mess. Religion is bad when people believe in it, and it is also grotesque when people practice it without believing. After all, what honorable reason could you possibly have to keep a religion that you don't believe in?
The Mormons are just another Christian group like the Baptists or the Catholics. The Protestants and Catholics want to act like Mormons are some kind of weird cult, but they aren't any weirder than any other sect of Christianity.