s2a
Heretic and part-time (skinny) Santa impersonator
How religious is your own state?
source:
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
Exit polling from the most recent Presidential election of 2012 served to dramatically highlight the disparities of interests and priorities of minority communities and aggregate voting blocs (ie black americans, latinos, and asian americans most notably and to lesser degree, women which are actually a majority group still rising within a male dominated political realm) but when President Obama misspoke his most quoted gaffe of 2008 in referencing disaffected and bitter, economically distressed Americans as clinging to guns or religion or antipathy to people who are not like them that gaffe was only an observation of an existent reality, and oftentimes in politics, saying aloud what is demonstrably true is just a faux pas of uncomfortable fact and truth in fair observation
If you will take just a moment to actually click the link as provided above, and read then note which states are Most vs Least religious the polling data presented is dramatically clear (assuming of course that the overwhelming majority of respondents replied truthfully).
Just to observe that the first and top 17 states in that survey evaluating the import of religion in their own lives, ALL are so-called Red States, with conservative leanings and ALL 17 states were carried by Mitt Romney. It took Virginia, at 18th, to become the first outlier within that data set with Florida and Maryland close behind, within 1% of the mean average of all 50 states.
Excluding the minimal outliers of North/South Dakota, Arizona, Wyoming/Montana, and Alaska (most of which are sparsely populated in comparison to other states), the remainder of the polling is held by Blue states that voted for Obama -- most notably Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, New Jersey, California, and New York State.
No definitive conclusions predicated upon one poll alone can ever seek claim to validation of blithely offhand comments tendered by a presidential candidate nearly 5 years ago but then again, its certainly more difficult to contend that Red states with populations identified as being most adherent to religious devotions and ritualistic weekly worship services do not at least cling to their Bibles and Beretta 92Fs a tad more than those within Blue states. I can cite readily enough available evidences of either pending or passed bills in State legislatures that seek to expand gun ownership and possession rights in places like schools, bars, churches, and heck, at yer grandmothers funeral but the very same religious states seem to be the same gun rights defenders too hmmmmm .
What does it all mean, or suggest may lie in our collective futures as cultural/societal values in promoting the general welfare of all, or insuring the rights of fair and equal representation under law?
Honestly, I do not know, nor would I presume to predict whichever ultimately dichotomous perspectives may prevail in the long term but I can now point with more solid evidence as to which areas of America are more likely to embrace anti-intellectualism, anti-immigration, anti-science, and anti-equality ideals predicated primarily within the confines and restrictions of dogmatic principles and religious fervor demanding rote adherence and like-minded beliefs or else.
source:
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
Exit polling from the most recent Presidential election of 2012 served to dramatically highlight the disparities of interests and priorities of minority communities and aggregate voting blocs (ie black americans, latinos, and asian americans most notably and to lesser degree, women which are actually a majority group still rising within a male dominated political realm) but when President Obama misspoke his most quoted gaffe of 2008 in referencing disaffected and bitter, economically distressed Americans as clinging to guns or religion or antipathy to people who are not like them that gaffe was only an observation of an existent reality, and oftentimes in politics, saying aloud what is demonstrably true is just a faux pas of uncomfortable fact and truth in fair observation
If you will take just a moment to actually click the link as provided above, and read then note which states are Most vs Least religious the polling data presented is dramatically clear (assuming of course that the overwhelming majority of respondents replied truthfully).
Just to observe that the first and top 17 states in that survey evaluating the import of religion in their own lives, ALL are so-called Red States, with conservative leanings and ALL 17 states were carried by Mitt Romney. It took Virginia, at 18th, to become the first outlier within that data set with Florida and Maryland close behind, within 1% of the mean average of all 50 states.
Excluding the minimal outliers of North/South Dakota, Arizona, Wyoming/Montana, and Alaska (most of which are sparsely populated in comparison to other states), the remainder of the polling is held by Blue states that voted for Obama -- most notably Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, New Jersey, California, and New York State.
No definitive conclusions predicated upon one poll alone can ever seek claim to validation of blithely offhand comments tendered by a presidential candidate nearly 5 years ago but then again, its certainly more difficult to contend that Red states with populations identified as being most adherent to religious devotions and ritualistic weekly worship services do not at least cling to their Bibles and Beretta 92Fs a tad more than those within Blue states. I can cite readily enough available evidences of either pending or passed bills in State legislatures that seek to expand gun ownership and possession rights in places like schools, bars, churches, and heck, at yer grandmothers funeral but the very same religious states seem to be the same gun rights defenders too hmmmmm .
What does it all mean, or suggest may lie in our collective futures as cultural/societal values in promoting the general welfare of all, or insuring the rights of fair and equal representation under law?
Honestly, I do not know, nor would I presume to predict whichever ultimately dichotomous perspectives may prevail in the long term but I can now point with more solid evidence as to which areas of America are more likely to embrace anti-intellectualism, anti-immigration, anti-science, and anti-equality ideals predicated primarily within the confines and restrictions of dogmatic principles and religious fervor demanding rote adherence and like-minded beliefs or else.
