More American Blacks Claim No Religion
A story in The Root…
Unlike grandma and grandpa who built their lives on deep religious faith, Bible study, prayer meeting and consistent church attendance, more blacks Americans—now 11 percent—say they have no religion at all. They are not attached to any religious tradition or to any spiritual belief in the existence of God.
they are not necessarily rejecting belief in God
Warnock says some blacks, like others in the mainstream, are rejecting institutionalized or traditional religious organization. “But if you ask a question on spirituality, you’ll find that they are spiritual.”
Ariela Keysar, one of the principal investigators in the Trinity study, agrees.
About 70 percent of Americans believe in a “personal God” says Keysar, and another 12 percent believe in a higher power, but not a personal God.
I am still lost on this concept of “spiritual”. Always have been
Filed under: Posts of no Benefit
I remembered being around my grandparents. They always went to Sunday School/Church amd I would go with them. I could not say no to not going I HAD to go. My mom would go to church on occasion and my pops up until now,would not go( didn’t attend since he was 21 years old). I loved church, but I could never grasp the meaning of believing in God because it was just that—just believing. It seemed that a good Christian ( or what ever faith one derives from)was a person who paid their tithes/dues attended chruch/Sunday schhol and said their prayers/grace. It end up taking a neighbor of mine to teach me the true meaning of believing in God.
It’s good that there are people who consider themselves to be spiritual, but with god , they have to be more than just that and they must also realize that religion alone isn’t going to get them closer to god because of it.
This isn’t surprising. There has been an all out assault upon religion for decades and how christianity was practiced and taught prior to 60’s it’s no wonder most people would reject the “fire and brimstone” sermons and cult like behavior of Christianity of yesteryears. That kind of suspicion and animosity among the majority of the US (white people) filtering down amongst black folk shouldn’t surprise anyone. How many cult leaders in the black community have used religion to prey upon folks?Father Divine,Daddy Grace,Jim Jones,Malachi York,etc
One good thing though I noticed although a person may be anti-religion or have an “I don’t believe in organized religion” mentality that doesn’t preclude they are anti-islam. So there’s room for dawah. As long you stay away from hadith hurling and ayah throwing most will respond favorably to Islam.
You know Tariq one of funniest things is to watch someone explain what they mean by saying they’re “spiritual”. It’s the definition of contradiction come to life! lol
Maybe feeling that there is a God/god who plays a role in one’s life is “spirituality,” but add on the attendance of a house of worship, and it becomes “religious”??
It would have been nice if the article had, perhaps, included information on AAs who do not come from a Christian background (those born and raised as Muslim or Jewish, for example), or AAs who leave Christianity and go on to choose other religious faiths.
I’m a little confused about “Higher Power” vs “Personal god.” So, there’s “a God/god” but He/She/It just doesn’t belong to you? Or you don’t really acknowledge Him/Her/It?
I’m not surprised either. as a matter of fact that pretty much described me before I started practicing Islam.
[...] via Tariq, The Root has an article discussing growing ‘black atheism’ (or at least not [...]
Perhaps “mystical” is a better term than ” spiritual”- wonder at the sheer beauty and complexity of the universe. There’ve been mystical atheists- Walt Whitman and Ralph Vaughan Williams for example- and there are mystical passages in the writings of such noted atheists as Dawrin, Russell, Feynman, Dawkins and Marx.
Humans may be “hard-wired” to believe which would explain why so many people turn mysticism into spirituality- an imprecise and undefined belief instead of delighted astonishment.
Hamza Islam teaches that there is a place of punishment for people’s misdeeds though. I agree about some of your other statements.