Is Religion Dying in America? The Worrying Stats

In this episode, we dive into the alarming state of religion in the United States with shocking statistics and insights. We discuss the significant decline in church attendance and religiosity among Americans, highlighting key findings from various studies, including the Pew Research Center's Religious Landscape Study. The conversation reveals a startling drop in religious affiliation, particularly among younger generations, and examines how different religious groups, such as Mormons and Catholics, are faring. We also explore the implications of these trends for the future of religion in America and the potential societal impacts. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be discussing the horrifying state of religion in the United States. I'll be discussing some statistics I found, and you'll be discussing the statistics you found. Mm-hmm. The fifth one that I found that was shocking, where there was a recent study where they looked at where people were going in the United States using cell phone data. Mm-hmm. And they found out that despite 21 to 24% of Americans saying they attend church weekly, only 5% do. Which is way lower rate of religiosity than anyone expected. Simone Collins: Why would you lie about going to church on a survey? We'll get to that when we get to the interesting stuff. What is your, the gist of what I found is that religion is literally dying in the United States in every measurable way, and specifically by dying. I mean that the only people who still had God were the old ones. This isn't even about young people losing their faith. They never had it. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and this is something that people really get [00:01:00] wrong, is they look at the pupil where it showed religion going, not going down this year in the United States, and they think that that's an indication that the erosion of traditional religion in the United States is over. It is not. But let's go into the data Simone Collins: so with regard to the United States and what the pew, and by the way, you should definitely check out the interactive tools with this pew research to give some background, has a religious landscape study. This spans over 17 years. They first did it in 2020, 2007. Then they did it in 2014, then they were gonna do it again in 2021, you know, every seven years. But then. You know, pandemic. So they actually did it 20, 23, 24. So you get this really wide span and you're able to see really how quickly over this 17 year period, we lost God. So, basically what happened was we went from 16% of Americans being religiously unaffiliated, like, you know, not that many to over 29%. So almost, almost a third of Americans just aren't religiously affiliated. And I would say it's [00:02:00] gonna be higher than that because they considered other religions to be things like Unitarian Universalists and spiritual people of like new age and that no, like dangling crystals does not make you religious. I'm so sorry. What? People fall Malcolm Collins: into that category other. Simone Collins: It's, it's like one, 1%, so very, very little. Now 2% actually. So it was 1% around 20 2007, and then around 2% in 2014. But I still, you know, that's. That ain't religious. So everything, I think Malcolm Collins: before we get into the statistics, the reason why a lot of people from religious communities aren't seeing this is because they are from religious communities. Yeah. And definitionally, it's the people when they leave your community. I. That they are disappearing from your religion so you no longer see them, you know, when they move or whatever. Mm-hmm. This is and, and people when they deconvert from religions, don't do it for the reasons people think. The, the number one reason why people stop attending church is just because they moved and they didn't, they didn't start going. Yeah, [00:03:00] because it was, Simone Collins: it was a community thing. It was a friend group thing. It's very similar to our models of friendship where you have. Convenience friends who are basically just the people that you were friends with because they lived right next to you. And I think a lot of people grew up, and especially this is the old people who are now dying, they were only religious because it was convenience, religion, that being a part of your community kind of mandated your being religious or showing up at church. 'cause that was also culturally normative. And you get a lot of side eye. Suspicion if you didn't show up at church. So they did it, but it was convenience religion. It wasn't utility religion. People didn't practice religion because they, on the whole, because they found it really helped them perform better in life, even if it did. And so, Malcolm Collins: and, and, and so this is why when Covid came and people started doing religious services from home mm-hmm. And all of these communities stopped, many of them never really fully reopened. That 5% number that I gave you that was measured before Covid. Simone Collins: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. There is one really interesting statistic that actually runs against a lot of what you've said so far. Okay. About Mormons. That [00:04:00] gives me a lot of hope for Mormon. So when you dive into this research and you look at at age distribution among different religious groups, every religious group over time is seeing an erosion of their 18 to 29-year-old range, which is really bad because again, what this, this research is finding is that. Religion is, is going down, not because, and I know you're, you're gonna argue it's because people are like actually changing their behavior over time. What Pew argues is that, no, it's just that the religious people are dying and the younger people aren't religious at all. And yet when you look at Latter Day Saints, Mormons. 25% of Mormons are 18 to 29, which is a pretty healthy ratio. Cons, and what, what was it in the past? So it's actually better than it ever was during the survey period in 2007, 24% of thinks were in that range. And in 2014 it actually dipped. It was 21%. Now it's 25%. Malcolm Collins: That's really [00:05:00] impressive. Simone Collins: So I'm, I'm actually seeing, and it's subtle, but they also just signs of recovery because actually what we are seeing in, in sort of, inverse is we're seeing fewer proportionately Mormons in the 30 to 49 range. Yeah. And I feel like there's this millennial. Millennial slump that the LDS church had that lost a lot of people. And I feel that they've developed some cultural technologies to start recovering from that. And or the LDS community started realizing early people who left or they saw people who left and they're like, wow, it's not working out for them. I'm gonna stay in, I'm not gonna jump the ship. So you Malcolm Collins: look. The numbers that she has here. Sorry, this is important to get to because you, you're just, you're saying the graph says something, but a lot of people listen on podcasts, so we've gotta explain what the graph says. Yeah. So, if you're looking at the elderly population. Within the latest measurement, the 23 to 24 range, it was 20% in the two. Previous to 2014 and 2017, it was much lower only 15% and 16% [00:06:00] respectively. Now that's really striking when you consider that now they're dealing with a bigger, much older 65 plus range in much younger, under 29 range, 18 to 29 range. Which implies that there was sort of a baby boom within the LDS church for one generation. No, and Simone Collins: this is really important because just to give you some perspective, okay, in 23 to 24, 20 5% of Mormons were in this 18 to 29 range. They were young. Compared to that, to Catholics in the 23 to 24 range, 14% of Catholics were in the 23 to 24% range and 28%. Basically a third plus another 29%. So basically two thirds of Catholics are over 50 years old with 29% being 50 to 64 and 28% being 65 or older. Malcolm Collins: It gets worse when you look at the historic data because if you go to 2007, not that long ago, only 16% of Catholics were over 65 and now it's 28%. Yeah. [00:07:00] Catholics are dying Simone Collins: and this is, this is huge. ' cause I mean, I, I, I'm, I, so I do have hope for Catholics because I think that there are a couple very small communities. That are very high fertility that could come to represent the new version of the Catholic Church. However, I also have my doubts in this model. You know how a lot of people are like, oh, the future will be inherited by the Amish. It's hard to even find Anaba. Mm-hmm. Let alone like, I mean there's on Amish, there's Mennonites, Mennonites, there's heater Hutterites, right? Like there's literally different subgroups. But of all the Anabaptists in general. It's, it's around 1%, maybe less. And this could be a polling issue, right? Like it's probably harder Of the Malcolm Collins: US population, you mean? Simone Collins: Of the US population? Yeah. If you look in this, it Malcolm Collins: doesn't matter if they're 1%, if they're, if they're growing at the rate that they're growing now, like they'll be a huge Simone Collins: chunk very shortly. Yeah. But I don't know, I don't know if they're actually growing at that rate. I just, they're, they're so small. I, I'm really putting all my hope in Malcolm Collins: are we can look at the data. This happened in another country, specifically Israel. So Israel, right now, if you look at the Hawaii population, you know how [00:08:00] they don't. Have to participate in war and stuff like that. Another 16% of the population. Yeah. The reason why they got the war exception was because when they first went to and applied for this, there were like 10,000 of them or something. They were basically, they're like, oh, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. And now they've exploded. So yeah, this literally has happened in other countries. Simone that's, that's, that's the power of compounding interest Simone Collins: maybe. But Malcolm Collins: I'm also not, the, don't really matter because they don't have technology. So no matter how big they get, they're not gonna be a force that can impose its will on their neighbors. So you don't really need to think about them. And because they're pacifists, they can't defend themselves. If anybody wants to, like, if they don't have the state protecting them, it's, it's, it's irrelevant. But the, the Catholics here. I find to be really fascinating how much they're arose. I actually, it's so much Simone Collins: worse than I thought. I would not have guessed it was that bad. Malcolm Collins: Well, it, it's, it's bad for the, the, remember that phone survey I, I found so, only only 2% of Catholics [00:09:00] actually attended church Weekly. Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, no. So here's, here's the thing too though, and like to put things in perspectives, at least from a starting position, Catholics are coming off from a, a stronger position. So 19% of Christians in the US which. To be fair, only make up 62% of Americans, but of those 19% are Catholic and only 2% are LDS. So, you know, that's a, Malcolm Collins: but again, this doesn't really matter. I, again, you, you have to look at this in terms of compounding returns. A a as I've pointed out, if we have eight kids and they have eight kids, and you do that for just 11 generations, we have more descendants than there are people on earth today. When you're starting with existing large populations. There was a one population that I was looking at of Hutterites and I, and I'll. Put the exact gross numbers after, but I, I seem to remember that they grew I think it was something like. God, I can't remember. I wanna say like three, 350% in just like 50 years. Mm-hmm. Like you can [00:10:00] explode really. And then keep in mind when you're growing on top of that, it's compounding. No, no. You Simone Collins: make a fair point. And you also have Malcolm Collins: compounding collapses. Simone Collins: And also Yeah, like when, when there's nobody left. All that matters is who's still there and they'll still be there. So that's good for them as long as they don't change. Yeah. But this, another, the Malcolm Collins: thing with Catholics is, and to to, to focus on this Yeah. Is, is they internally don't accept how bad things are for them. They don't accept their deconversion rates. Yeah. They refuse to, they don't accept they're low fertility rates. They're like, the ones that I can see are fine. And as I've said before, this is like looking at a battlefield and being like, my troops are purposely healthy. And I'm like, what about all the dead ones? And they're like, why would I count them among my ranks? It's, it's survivorship bias. The, the, the Catholics who matter are the ones who are deconvert. It's, and, and, and leaving. It's not the ones who are there. But I was actually just talking with a Catholic earlier today. He's a fan of ours. And he was sort of asking like what he should do as his future. He really wants kids and a family. But he was thinking about the priesthood, you know, and he knows like this is a, a challenge and a choice. And this is again, one of the problems. Oh boy. This is just. [00:11:00] Remember how we liked the opus Day before? Yeah. Did you know 30% of the Opus day are silhouettes? Oh, this Simone Collins: was the guy who, so he's the same guy who wrote to us about this. Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is he got the guy in Poland? No, no. Different guy. Different guy. This is a Oh, totally. We have lots of Catholic fans. Okay. Anyway, the other Catholic fan was thinking about what he's gonna do with his future. The guy in Poland actually had some really interesting points. Both, yeah. Like, is actually pretty bad for family creation because they gender isolate people. Mm-hmm. And they have 30% celibate and they're just more focused on this like performatively. And so I went to this guy, I was like, well, what if you like. Pitched the Vatican on starting an order that takes, oh snap. The opus day's idea that you can dedicate yourself like faithfully to like anything you're doing in your daily life. Yeah, but refocuses it entirely on the sacrament, just being Simone Collins: apparent. Malcolm Collins: Yeah, REFA not, not being a parent explicitly, but the next generation. Mm-hmm. So what you would do is not just be a parent yourself, but you would like religiously put together things like, like [00:12:00] daycares was in existing, like he was talking about a parish that was about to shut down near him. And I'm like, well, what if you, you know, build a, a daycare facility in there? You know, what if you find people to, in their free time within this order. As a way of giving back to the church man, this what have you, you know, this is the type of thing that the church could get really excited about. Simone Collins: Yeah, actually that's, I mean, I think it's worth pitching. It fits Malcolm Collins: Catholic ideology. Simone Collins: Like we should pitch that to the person that we've spoken with in the past. He's a priest. Malcolm Collins: Who shoulda not. Yeah. We could connect, we should pitch it to them. Simone Collins: Yeah. Malcolm Collins: Be like, yeah, because I was like a wow to think I have connections in the Vatican, but Yeah. Okay. But yeah, connect them because I think that that, that it's, it's completely conducive with Catholic's current belief system. It would work. It's, it's something they desperately need. Yeah. It works with their theology. And so why not just put that together and then you can build this like. Prenatal as Catholic sect. And you already have the justification from the [00:13:00] opus day that lay people can, can, can like, live a life of, of, of sacrifice. Like what if you canonized this idea of sort of like living martyrdom to the next generation. Simone Collins: I like it. Oh, very. Techno puritan. Of course. I'm gonna share with you one more thing that I think is relevant at least to our, I told you so narrative that came from this. Pew study, which is that the urban monoculture is spreading and has really effectively spread from the university system in more elite parts of society to mainstream society. Mm-hmm. And that is you can see this when you look at the levels of education and then the loss of Christianity. So when you look at these numbers for the beginning of this survey in 2007. The percentage of people with high school or less as their education was 60 some, 66% Christian 5% other religions, and then 27% religiously unaffiliated. And then by 2014 I, I guess they [00:14:00] don't have the most recent stuff. It went to 75%. Were Christian which is really interesting. Like they sort of became like the uneducated became more Christian. But when you look at people with postgraduate degrees 56% of them were Christian. So very, very few, like from the very beginning, oh, sorry. When you look at 2014 and. People with graduate degrees, 62% of them are Christian. So almost like the sort of level of average Americans today. Mm-hmm. And I feel like this has very much trickled down to mainstream society now. It's even, even fewer. Only 56% of people with postgraduate degrees are Christian. But compared to today with high school or less, that's, that's 66% in other ways. In other words, the gap between postgraduate. Americans and high school or less were Americans was actually higher in terms of religiosity in 2014. Mm-hmm. It was 10% [00:15:00] different in terms of Christianity versus 16% in 2014. And I feel that that difference in like wow. Postgraduate people were a whole lot less religious. That difference in 2014 decreasing is a sign of basically just the urban monoculture spreading from just elite culture to all culture. So even people without high school. Wait, you said Malcolm Collins: that the uneducated became more Christian, so that's, that's almost like the urban monoculture. Sorry, I Simone Collins: got it wrong. I was looking at the, the wrong tabs. 'cause there's a lot, there's a lot of tabs here. So, okay. Then say it correctly. Yeah. In 20 14, 70 5% of people with high school or less were Christians. Now only 66% consider themselves to be Christian and with postgraduates in 2014 waiting for it to load. Come on. Okay. Okay. And with postgraduates in 20 14, 60 2% were Christian. Now only 56% are, but as you can see, the gap got narrower. And I think that's just a [00:16:00] sign of the urban monoculture spreading from the university system to, yeah, mainstream culture. Things have just become a lot more normalized. Another thing just that's important to point out. In this, this survey finding is on every area that they measured religiosity, people were moving in a less religious direction. So it came with identity, it came with beliefs, and it came with practices. So people aren't going to church or praying as much as your data shows. They are not identifying as religious as your data shows. And they don't believe religious things, which. Part of me would've wanted to think, okay, well people still identify as Christian or they identify as Jewish. They're just not going, you know, they're not actively practicing. Or they maybe don't even believe, but they, you know, they still call themselves that. And then the final important thing to note from this pew in data, which is interesting and does kind of feed into the natal con, we have to protect the west narrative, which is surprising because it's not what [00:17:00] I expected, is it? Only Christianity seeing a decline in the United States When you look at the United States in general. Yeah. Or we do that. Malcolm Collins: I wanna go into the Protestant data because I find it interesting. Okay. The Evangelical Protestants. Yeah. These are Protestants who identify as evangelical Protestants and they're actually in. As bad a situation is the Catholics. So not, maybe not as bad, but, but pretty bad. No, it's Simone Collins: pretty pathetic. No, no, no. Don't, don't, don't understate Malcolm Collins: it. This is embarrassing. Look at evangelical Protestants. They're 18 to 29 percentage is the same as Catholics. 14%. Yeah. It's pathetic. And, and they're over 65 percentage is 27%, which is the only Simone Collins: group I saw that had me thinking, oh, you guys are getting it together. Is is Mormon. Period. Malcolm Collins: Period. They're, they're over 50% over the age of 50 right now. Like that's crazy. Like well over 50% again, and Simone Collins: because they're dying. And that's what you see in these numbers is it's like the skew is shifting to old people. Because literally as this survey has progressed over this 17 year period. People's views have stayed the same. It's just that the people who had faith are Malcolm Collins: going to die Simone Collins: soon. Malcolm Collins: The Protestant [00:18:00] numbers are more stable than the, than the Catholic numbers in that if you go back to 2007, they were already at only 16% of their population, you know, being 18 to 29. Yeah. So basically there isn't something new happening 2007 to now in the Protestant population. Yeah. The evangelical Protestant population. And note here, like I've talked about this, I've, I've said the evangelical movement is. Dying. Like, yeah. Like the extremist, like Quiverfull, Protestant, et cetera they don't really exist within this generation in large numbers. They're not a major voting block anymore. They're not like, they used to be like super, super, super important to American politics. Yeah. They defined their Republican party. And they have been replaced by four C Channelers, I guess you could say. Like, yeah. As, as like the key voting block before Chans Simone Collins: aren't exactly known for having faith. Also, this has serious implications for Tism in general for, for America's birth rates in general. Because the, the research also tracked things like marital status and it is very clear that there is a correlation [00:19:00] between religion and marriage. So as of 2007, I mean, it was very stark. 81% of married people in the United States were Christian. Only 14% were religiously unaffiliated. 80 Wait, 21%? What? What? 81%. So eight out of 10. Eight outta 10 married people in the United States were CED Western Dinner, or Americans are Christian and Oh, in general, on that year. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like that. That justing means nothing without knowing how many, Simone Collins: yeah, yeah. Sorry. Let give you the comparison. Oh, come on. Let me find this. It's a Littley. Malcolm Collins: No, you literally just Google it. Simone Collins: I don't know what's, okay. 67%. 67%. No. Hold on. Go to US data. Oh, there we go. Okay. In 20 17, [00:20:00] 70 8% of Americans in general. Were Christian, 81% were married, so there wasn't that much of a gap. Let's go to 2014. Suddenly 76% of married people are Christian, and yet the US population that is Christian goes down to 71. The gap is getting bigger. Then 20 23, 20 24, only 62% of Americans are Christian, and yet we're, we're seeing a slight uptick. 68% of married people are Christian, and I'm, what this says to me. Is it the thing that is keeping people getting married is religion. Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Simone Collins: In more cases than not. Which is, which is meaningful. So we're gonna see if fewer marriages, because we're gonna see fewer cultural frameworks that make marriage make sense. Especially in a country like in the United States, where for a lot of middle and lower income people getting married gives you a tax penalty. Like, it's not, it's not a culturally logical, like in the absence of religion, it doesn't make [00:21:00] sense to get married if that makes Yeah. Like just, and that's, that's insane. But like we live in a country that actually penalizes marriage in many cases, especially for normal people, not like, not for very rich people. So this is going to hurt birth rates, just period. And it, it makes me really sad because this, this is getting reflected in, in rates of sex and everything else. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you are you were gonna give data on the fertility rates of non-Christians in the United States and what's happening with them? Simone Collins: Oh, like the parental status of non-Christians? No, you said Malcolm Collins: the only groups that are dropping are Christians. And then you were going to talk about groups that weren't Christians that are not dropping. Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no. So just in general, an important thing to note with this research is that. The fairly low, but, but now apparently constant percentage of non-religious people, or sorry other religious people has sort of stayed the same. So in 2007, 5% of US [00:22:00] adults were other religions. This includes Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and then what We wouldn't count Unitarian Universalist and New Age and Native American religions. Then in 2014, it actually jumped up to 6%, and in 20 23, 20 24, it jumped to 7%. So the only reason it jumped to 7%, by the way, is that we now have more people identifying as New Age and Unitarian Universalists. So I don't actually, I think a lot of people would be like, oh, that means we're getting more Muslim immigrants or like more Jews. No. Those have stayed constant. They have not changed. 2% of the other religions are Jewish. That's just stayed the same. Same for 1% for Buddhist, 1% for Muslim, there was a slight increase in Muslims because in 2007, fewer or less than 1% of American adults were mu, or of the 5% that were other religions were Muslim. It switched to just 1%. But the problem is that like, is that, is that 1% of Malcolm Collins: Americans or 1% of the 5%, Simone Collins: 1% of the 7% that are other religions are Muslims [00:23:00] now. Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. So very small. So there's Simone Collins: very, very few Muslims, extremely few Muslims extremely few Buddhists. And then, and then actually a, a way more than there should be new age and we would argue and hearing universalists. Yeah. So one new religions we, I would argue have not actually increased because you shouldn't count UUs and New Age Crystal. People as religious that is religiously unaffiliated and being into a trend. And I think that that's important to note because it runs counter to my world model that like western civilization isn't falling and like Christians are doing just fine. I mean, Christians are still a huge percentage of Americans, but. They are eroding. But I also, like other religions are coming from nowhere and they're basically just holding steady. They're not increasing. So I don't see this as real as Christians being replaced by any stretch of the imagination. However, these other religions aren't tanking in the same way that [00:24:00] many Christian religions are, except for the Mormons, which by, you know, we keep tank. We like. We keep saying they're doing a terrible job. They're saying a huge exodus. They're bouncing back. Malcolm Collins: They're, they're taking this situation seriously. Mm-hmm. Which I think is why they're doing well. Yeah. Like they're actually like sitting down and doing like, what the Catholic should be doing is like starting new orders based on having kids and stuff like that. Like, they're the, they actually do this stuff. Yeah. Like when. When their fertility rates started to drop. A lot of Mormon things that we think of as, as having been around forever are new cultural technology. Like the singles wards were invented in the 19 seventies. Like, that's, that's not that old, that's not like always been a part of Mormonism. Simone Collins: Yeah. And it's, and actually those, it was the perfect time to do it because it was during the age of. Female professional empowerment. It was during the age when people were not as tethered to their childhood communities, which I think made getting married a little bit easier. So the church either intuitively or very intentionally and logically saw where the headwinds and tailwinds were and [00:25:00] decided to create new forms of institutions that would make it possible for people who were not moored. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Simone Collins: To a single community and who had careers to find someone, which is so cool. Malcolm Collins: Like a question I have internally is like, why are Catholics not able to take this as seriously as Mormons or treat this as seriously? Yeah. And I have a hypothesis. Simone Collins: Okay. Malcolm Collins: It has to do with how their central leadership is decided. Mm. So both Catholics and Mormons have a central church that could disseminate these messages if it had a mind to, okay. The Mormons Central Church, the people who end up is the, like prophets and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. And like the, the head people in the central church a lot of them have a background in. Bus business, like they show their company. They're, they're like bane type people. Oh. They're like, Simone Collins: yeah. McKenzie type people. They're private equity people. They own businesses. Yeah. They're private Malcolm Collins: equity type people. And, and so when they come into religion, they're, they're viewing it like a giant company, right? Like they're trying to, to make money and grow and think long term, right? Yeah. You know, that's, that's their goals. The Catholic leadership is made up entirely of people who have dedicated their entire life to theological [00:26:00] study. Hmm. Not just that, but celibate people who have dedicated, it's, it's almost like lifetime Simone Collins: politicians making policy versus business people making policy. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And, and because of that, the issue of fertility collapse is just not something that's on their mind. And when it's brought up to them, they would believe that they have some form of theological protection from its implications, I believe. Hmm. You know, because they're relating to this all through, through the lens of theology rather than through the lens of like, well, let's be practical about the situation. Now, Mormon fertility rates have taken a hit, but like, as you've pointed out here, they appear to be already riding the ship, like the, the, the, the torpedo hit and the ship is now coming back online. Whereas. Yeah, this is interesting. Evangelical Protestants, the reason I don't mention them is 'cause they don't have a centralized structure, so they can't disseminate new messages. Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. And they're kind of, they're, they're unmoored and listless and they're isolated communities. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So if you, if you're like, what's going to replace them? Well, I hope something like techno Puritanism [00:27:00] replaces them, to be honest. Like, I'd be okay with that. I like, I, we don't actively proselytize, but I like the the structure of this. And I think that and when I say something like, what's replacing the evangelical movement? The Jordan Peterson movement the the, the various new forms of Christianity that are more melds of secular self-help slash Protestantism. Mm-hmm. Mixed with religiosity. These, this, this is where that community is going. And I see Techo Puritanism as an iteration of that, that's more extreme. And, and, and more dedicated and more is sort of like the techno puritanism is like the opus day to whatever Jordan Peterson is. You know, like if Jordan Peterson represents the Jesuit branch of this Protestant faction, we would represent the Opus Day faction. Mm-hmm. Just like the way more intense about it, the way more extreme in expectations. And, and like, I think that, that, that works. But the thing about Protestantism is, is unlike other groups, you [00:28:00] know, you don't have some higher group deciding what's canon and what's not canon. Mm-hmm. You need to go out there on the ground and convince people of your perspective or out breed them. Simone Collins: Yeah. And parents especially, I mean, parents see what's happening to their kids on the ground. They're the ones who know what their kids need as they go through whatever religious system is rearing them. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wow. I mean, it's it's worse than I thought. Malcolm Collins: Well, I was, I was surprised by the e how cooked evangelical Protestantism is. Like I've mentioned it before, but like, it's something you don't see 'cause nobody really molds. I don't know. But yeah. Simone Collins: Yeah. It's so much of the content that we create, you know, about the new right. About the interesting religious movements. Where are the evangelicals? Where are the influencers in this space? They don't Malcolm Collins: come. Like, I literally, like, I have been involved in politics a lot recently in terms of meeting with political influencers and people who work in politics. I haven't met a single evangelical project. Yeah. Simone Collins: They're just not there. And that's the thing like that, that's, to me, that's why I'm not at all surprised. I'm like, well, yeah, they, this explains it. You know, [00:29:00] they're all just dying. They're, they're old and they're offline and they're dying. Well, but here's the thing. I've met tons of Malcolm Collins: Catholics. So they're also dying. And that is, yeah, that is the reason have institutional power. That's, Simone Collins: but that's why I have hope for Catholics is, is they are getting organized in their communities and if anything, they're literally Malcolm Collins: not bro. They're literally not. They have like some communities that seem to work, but I think they need something from up top going down. I think they need border. So you don't think that over time Simone Collins: as these groups are the only ones that are left, they will influence policy at the Vatican level? You don't think so? Malcolm Collins: Like already. I mean, I think the majority of Catholics, at least the ones that I found who take it seriously, are very unhappy with what's happening at the Vatican level. Like the, yeah, Simone Collins: yeah. Malcolm Collins: The idea that the Vatican is, the point is though that their opinion doesn't matter now because Simone Collins: they're too small and when they are bigger, they, their opinion will matter. Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. I, I said the majority of Catholics I know are actually involved with their religion are not so already. Okay. Interesting. Already the Vatican is not a democracy in the way, like America's [00:30:00] democracy, right? Like if the average Catholic is, is is like suppose like you had like super prenatal Catholics having lots of kids growing and everything like that, the the entire. Career pipeline to getting in the chair that votes on the Pope is celibate. Mm. Like you are not near those people. Yeah. Simone Collins: That's not gonna help. Malcolm Collins: So, so you do have this and, and if you believe you have divine protection, you're not gonna take threats like this as seriously. Simone Collins: That's also fair. Malcolm Collins: So that does worry me. Yeah, I can see that that potentially not going on. What's even more sobering though, Simone Collins: if we wanna get to this though, is we're just looking at the P research data for the United States. A actually fairly passionate religious country. I think if we were to see EU data, we would, I. Oh, absolutely. It'd be so hot. Vomit with anxiety. Yeah. Japanese jata, south Korean data. Malcolm Collins: I've pointed out, like if you look at like ic, majority of countries in the eo like, like Italy, right? Where like the Vatican is, it's at 1.18 now. Fertility rate [00:31:00] they hundred Italians, there's only gonna be 20 great grandchildren. And there are, but this is a good thing because there are like small high fertility Catholic communities. I think that they might be able to stabilize and like replace a lot of the rest of the Catholic population pretty quickly. Hmm. The questions I have is just like, what's the deconversion rate in these communities? 'cause I don't feel like that's being taken seriously. Yeah. Like the communities exist, but like the Quiverfull movement also existed. Right. You know, and I know I'm saying all of this only because Catholics can actually do something. Like, Protestants can't really, like Simone Collins: they lack the top down organization necessary. Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they lack the top-down organization necessary to address this outside of the way that we're doing it. I mean, I think what we're doing is the best way to handle this as a Protestant. Yeah. Which is to create a living religion, which continues to update in the way that Protestants have updated in a long time. I mean, Protestants have undergone major re-understanding of their faith throughout American history. And us having that [00:32:00] was like the track series and stuff like that. Is not in any way discordant with American Protestant traditions. So I, I'd argue like we are fighting for the Protestant thing, is what we're doing with tracks is what we're doing with second Puritanism. Simone Collins: Yeah. Fair. Malcolm Collins: So, I mean, maybe somebody else can create some, some other form that's like persistent, but I, I, I think I'd, I'd like to see that. That'd be cool, right? Like, it, it could work, but you just don't see many of them. Like, like at at Natal Con, you don't see many Protestants. Simone Collins: I guess not. I mean, if you do, they're not the main speakers or influencers there. Yeah, which is interesting. Cool. Yeah. Malcolm Collins: But in terms of church attendance, I'll put a heat map on screen here. So like who is actually attending church? Yeah. In what regions are they? Simone Collins: Okay. LDS church is a must 'cause you have, you know, your callings, you have to, you've, you have a job. Like you can't Yeah. Not show up at church because you literally have to play piano or help man the kitty [00:33:00] pool or what, whatever their like daycare version thing is. Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I'm trying to find out where, where the LDS was. I seem to remember for the LDDS, it was 11%, which is really high for weekly attendance. I went back to double check, so I'm gonna get some of these numbers wrong coming up. So just remember these are the right numbers. For Catholics, it was 1.9% of Catholics to attend mass weekly. For Protestants, it's 7% of Protestants to attend mass weekly. And for LDS it's 14.6%. Attend Mass weekly. Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. 11 percent's actually pretty low. Low Malcolm Collins: when you consider the way their face is structured. Yeah, yeah, look Simone Collins: low when you consider what a proper practicing Mormon should be doing, and if you are a proper practicing Mormon, you have a calling at your local ward. Malcolm Collins: Yeah, like Simone Collins: you, you have a job. You have to do something. Malcolm Collins: Well, there may be, there's just not that many proper practicing Mormons of the Mormons. That's Simone Collins: crazy. Okay. That's actually, now I'm worried about the LDS church. This is not good. This Malcolm Collins: Protestants, it was like, I wanna say 5%. The remember was Catholic. It was only, two to 1% I [00:34:00] think. Whoa. For Catholics, it was 1.9% of Catholics to attend mass weekly. For Protestants, it's 7% To get into some more data here, only 19% of Americans self-identify as Catholic, down 24% in 2007. This is a 20% decrease by comparison. Protestants decreased by 21% while religious nuns. Increased by 81% and Muslims increased by an astounding 200%, although they still make up a small percentage of the overall population, only 1.2%. Even though the Pew Survey headline suggested a decline in Christianity in this country may have quote unquote leveled off, it's clear the overall direction is downward. This is a quote from a Christian magazine about it. . Malcolm Collins: If you look at the map, you can clearly see the Bible belt. Like the Bible belt is just like dark, dark, dark. You're looking at like 6.4% in those regions. If you go to like Massachusetts or Maine or something like that, you're looking at like under 1% in all of those regions. Wow. You go to Texas, you're looking at like 4.5%, [00:35:00] 4.8%, you know, around 5%. Same with Florida. Pennsylvania, you're looking fairly low. You're looking at around like it seems maybe like 2.3%. And, and, and what you might be surprised about is California, you're looking higher than that. California, you're looking in like the 4% range. Simone Collins: Is that from all the inland Christians? Malcolm Collins: Yeah. California has a big conservative population in it. Yeah. It's basically Simone Collins: San Francisco and LA Malcolm Collins: is, and then a bunch of conservative Simone Collins: progressives and then like the rest is, yeah, Malcolm Collins: it's funny. Nevada's also in that range, Washington's also in that range. Interesting. Oregon is actually pretty Blue Oregon is, is is in the like 5% church attendance range. Simone Collins: I guess these rural regions help to hold Malcolm Collins: them up. So like close to like, you know, New Mexico or Florida or something, or Virginia. Which I, I found pretty interesting. That is interesting. But you know, another thing you might be surprised about is how low church attendance to this in the Midwest, Montana, Wyoming, North [00:36:00] Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, all of them have around 2% church attendants. Simone Collins: Wow. Oh man. Okay. Yeah, no we are, it's over. We. Yeah, and this is just an, I think this is also a lot more evidence indicating that going back to the old boys, like we just have to get more traditional Catholic, traditional evangelic, whatever is clearly not working you. You can't just go back to that. People have clearly chosen to abandon it. It's not trying to make that work, I think is the wrong approach. Malcolm Collins: I agree. I agree a hundred percent. Simone Collins: But then you know what does work? Because I think it's also very difficult for people to do the othering, to do the weirdness if they don't feel like there's at least some safe tribe that's doing it with them. I think we're unusual and that we really don't care that we dress weird and have weird names and do weird holidays. I [00:37:00] think other people would be very uncomfortable if they did that in isolation. So how do you. Malcolm Collins: Well, and that's why's that why people are gonna go extinct? Simone Collins: Oh, so just the people who don't care what mainstream society thinks will survive. Malcolm Collins: Well, that's what I mean. If you look at our video on like, they're gonna replace you like the Japanese subculture and the, the tradies and the, you know, the, the, a lot of these are people who just do not care what mainstream society No, no. But Simone Collins: the tradies and the. The Japanese soft Yankees, they do live in tight-knit communities. They do live close together. No, they Malcolm Collins: have communities that they choose, but it's not like everyone in their community lives the way they do. They, they, they choose these groups. It's like a subculture, right? You know? They're like goths or something within the United States. Simone Collins: Yeah, but I think that they're more representative of what I would expect from future high fertility cultures and that they do geographically concentrate and live next to each other and feel solidarity in their weirdness together. I. Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Also, you'll note here if you're, if you're looking at the, the regular church attendants, the greater Appalachian region [00:38:00] is like also really darker than the other regions around it. Hmm. Which is interesting. But yeah, as, as, as I you know, one thing I didn't get a chance to point outta that video that these, that these Yankees, that these whatever guys. That dress like, you know, greasers and stuff like that in Japan are, are staying high fertility. This means that we're in the timeline where space dandy or red line happens. There's been a number of, of, of far future like space animes where one of the characters is a Japanese Yankee. And I can totally see that like Simone Collins: yeah, they called it without realizing what they were calling. Right. Which is interesting. Yeah. They're just like, no, this, this subculture is visually interesting. Little did they know that it was a future friendly subculture as everyone else chose to die out? Well, Malcolm Collins: I unlikable, you know, I, I think one of the thing is is, is J Japanese person could be like, well, does Japanese culture really survive? If it's the Japanese Yankees, I mean, you don't walk around in like samurai armor or whatever, right? Like, you don't walk around dress like somebody from the ma maing whatever period. Like ma you, period. Yeah, yeah. Like. You, you, you change a lot as, as things go on, and you might be undergoing one of these changes [00:39:00] right now where when our descendant think of Japanese people, they're thinking of somebody who looks like whatever, like the Yankees and, and Gaza or what, what are those girls called? Who dressed Goldman? Ros become. Yeah. And if you're thinking about Americans, you're thinking about like, what, what, you know, the, the Hill people became the country music culture. And, and the Mormons. I, I think that they're gonna write the ship on them because Utah and Idaho are just so high fertility right now. And that's where the, the Mormons are based. Simone Collins: I'm thrilled. They not high Malcolm Collins: fertility, high high church attendance. They're, they're Boston in Lake. Simone Collins: So then, you know, space Mormons too. They called it. Yeah. Starship Troopers. The, the few that will remain, by the way, she's referring to Malcolm Collins: the scene that they started the war, they Mormon separatists you know, were not listening to, to the sky Marshal and settled a, a remote outpost called Brigham Young. I love you death, Simone. Have a spectacular day. Simone Collins: And may we never lose religion. [00:40:00] Yes. Space Mormons. Is this daddy's phone? Yes. So be very careful with it on tv. What you doing? Um. No, look. Careful, careful, careful, careful. Uh oh. She's gonna clobber you guys. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com