Immigration could certainly be a mitigating factor in the rate of decline; another is that believers and immigrants tend to have more children and both are more apt to raise their children with a respectful attitude to tradition and religion. On the other hand, the US educational establishment – in public schools, upper-class private schools, and nearly all colleges – is adamantly, and all but universally, opposed to both tradition and religion.
As a none raised in and among Protestants I am often puzzled about the lack of religious study in and among American historians, a field adjacent to your own. I am glad to read about Bottum's work in this regard. His thesis seems to me central to understanding the American scene. It is also true that nones lack an eschatology, a narrative of meaning beyond the individual grave and a timeless human governmental experience in a natural environment. Following Yuval Harari I hope not for an unending meaning narrative for myself or the human commune. I work alone and with others to mitigate suffering in the present. I hope for the mitigation of suffering in the future.
Immigration could certainly be a mitigating factor in the rate of decline; another is that believers and immigrants tend to have more children and both are more apt to raise their children with a respectful attitude to tradition and religion. On the other hand, the US educational establishment – in public schools, upper-class private schools, and nearly all colleges – is adamantly, and all but universally, opposed to both tradition and religion.
As a none raised in and among Protestants I am often puzzled about the lack of religious study in and among American historians, a field adjacent to your own. I am glad to read about Bottum's work in this regard. His thesis seems to me central to understanding the American scene. It is also true that nones lack an eschatology, a narrative of meaning beyond the individual grave and a timeless human governmental experience in a natural environment. Following Yuval Harari I hope not for an unending meaning narrative for myself or the human commune. I work alone and with others to mitigate suffering in the present. I hope for the mitigation of suffering in the future.