1. Comment #55555 by bruce on July 11, 2007 at 2:11 pm

As this map shows and as I've been telling people for years, Oregon is one of the most irreligious states in the country, and my county (Washington) is as light yellow as can be. You want to live in a place with mild climate year round (except for the past few days where it has been over 100 degrees), nice green forests, no sales tax and little to no religious influence, then Oregon is the place to be.

Dang, I've said too much, now y'all will be moving here real soon. Our state motto is "Oregon, it's a nice place to VISIT", especially if you are from California :-)

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2. Comment #55557 by Johnny O on July 11, 2007 at 2:22 pm

Dang, I've said too much, now y'all will be moving here real soon. Our state motto is "Oregon, it's a nice place to VISIT", especially if you are from California

LMAO

I'd love to see one of these for Europe I suspect it would red in Portugal, Spain, Italy and some of the ex-Soviet countries but yellow almosy everywhere else.

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3. Comment #55558 by AmericanHumanist on July 11, 2007 at 2:22 pm

Dear Flying Spaghetti Monster,

Please help me relocate to Oregon!

In your noodly name I pray,
AmericanHumanist

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4. Comment #55566 by krogercomplete on July 11, 2007 at 2:36 pm

I too am from Oregon, and I had heard before that it was the "least churched" state in the union. That is not necessarily saying much, though, because there are churches EVERYWHERE. I currently live in Eugene (one of the more liberal cities around), and there must be at least 20 large scale churches within a 3 mile radius of my house.

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5. Comment #55567 by Duff on July 11, 2007 at 2:38 pm

You are a lucky s.o.b. Bruce. I had the misfortune to grow up in SE Idaho and Utah, the reddest of the red. You don't know how suffocating religion can be unless you've experienced one of those two places.
Now I live in Florida where the God Business is one of the biggest earners in the area. On the road to my house you have to pass four or five mega-churches, each one bigger and more predatory than the others. I can't seem to get away from these simple people.

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6. Comment #55568 by AmericanHumanist on July 11, 2007 at 2:39 pm

Dear krogercomplete,

Look at the bright side: You can always find a church parking lot car wash on a Saturday morning.

And all of those inspirational messages on church signs? C'mon...what's not to love?

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7. Comment #55572 by arthursanford on July 11, 2007 at 2:49 pm

I moved from Virginia to Portland, Oregon in my Toyota Yaris and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I have lived here 8 months and only seen one street preacher! I was glad to come across confirmation about the un-religiosity of my new home state.

I have always suspected that the NE is at least as religious as the South, so I was glad to see evidence, merely because I have always hated the piece of snobbery that only evangelical rednecks come from the South.

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8. Comment #55574 by MartinSGill on July 11, 2007 at 2:54 pm

Now I live in Florida where the God Business is one of the biggest earners in the area. On the road to my house you have to pass four or five mega-churches, each one bigger and more predatory than the others. I can't seem to get away from these simple people.

Ahh.. but isn't Florida called the retirement state.. or the national retirement home or something?

When all the religious fraudsters (sorry, ministers, no sorry fraudsters) have had their fill of preaching to the ignorant masses they must head off to Florida to retire. Maybe the odd side-show sermon to earn a bit of pool-side money.

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9. Comment #55585 by bruce on July 11, 2007 at 3:23 pm

I moved from Virginia to Portland, Oregon in my Toyota Yaris and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I have lived here 8 months and only seen one street preacher!

And I bet you he got heckled and laughed at at least as much as any one took him seriously. By the way, welcome to Rose City.

As krogercomplete pointed out, we still have our share of churches here in Oregon, in fact there have been a couple big ones completed in the past couple of years out here in the burbs where I live. And I'm guessing that I probably have a few neighbors who go to them, but they never mention it. Religion around here is for the most part a private thing, people don't feel the need to make public displays of their faith.

Now, I must admit that Oregon is not perfect, there is one thing that shames me as an Oregonian. A few years ago, just enough of the voters were fooled into voting for an anti-gay marriage ballot measure that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman. It was spearheaded by a local Religious Right group that every once in a while tries to pass anti-gay measures. We've always fended them off in the past but this time a small majority was able to push it through. But I really do think that soon we will come around and reverse that decision. In general, we Oregonians don't like to be dicked around by religious special interest groups. After all, we are the only state that allows doctor-assisted suicide and we have medical marijuana. And our governor just signed a Civil Unions bill a couple of months ago.

My guess is that we have both gay marriage and legalized marijuana within the next ten years. Hopefully that will be enough to drive the remaining fundies out and we can have a real freethinking homeland.

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10. Comment #55587 by AtheistAcolyte on July 11, 2007 at 3:29 pm

"Florida? But that's America's wang!"
"They prefer 'The Sunshine State'."

All respects to H. Simpson.

Also, this doesn't provide a totally corroborating picture (New York, West Virginia and Minnesota as examples). I would be interested in seeing this normalized for county population. Something in a web page which didn't show map boundaries of the counties, but each county took up a percentage of the state commensurate with the percentage of the population.

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11. Comment #55594 by aaack on July 11, 2007 at 4:00 pm

My folks live in Colorado Springs (though they are not at all religious) and I have to force myself to leave my lovely home in Portland to visit them there. Seriously, people, move to Oregon. As Bruce says, people here generally know the difference between private faith and public policies.

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12. Comment #55595 by tieInterceptor on July 11, 2007 at 4:11 pm

quote: Johnny O "I'd love to see one of these for Europe I suspect it would red in Portugal, Spain, Italy and some of the ex-Soviet countries but yellow almosy everywhere else."

I'm from Spain, and right now it's on the polls at 50% I think, and believe in evolution is 75% or so, ...it would not be red... and I CAN guarantee you that is less than that, for sure.

after a fascist regime with full support of the catholic church you can imagine what it does to the population...

I really wish they asked people if they believe in a personal god that redeems your sins, sends you to heaven or hell and created the universe and the human race before cheking the Christian tick box,

see, 5 years ago I was asked by my girlfriend what was my religion, I was a bit taken back by the odd question and I naturally answered Christian, (just like I would say Spanish is my mother tongue) even thought I never was baptised and never been to churches for anything more than site seeing.

so most people who did not have a serious thought about this will inflate the polls unrealistically just out of reflex answer.

.

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13. Comment #55605 by tiff_seattle on July 11, 2007 at 4:44 pm

I see one problem with this map. The data used for the creation is taken from "149 religious bodies that participated". So that means that organizations where I live, Seattle, are most likely reporting membership that includes people from the neighboring Snohomish and Pierce counties. This makes King County, where Seattle is, look more religious than other places in the Puget Sound region. I sincerely doubt that King County is actually more religious than those places.

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14. Comment #55609 by Johnny O on July 11, 2007 at 4:54 pm

I'm from Spain, and right now it's on the polls at 50% I think, and believe in evolution is 75% or so, ...it would not be red... and I CAN guarantee you that is less than that, for sure.

That's excellent and I wasn't aware of those statistics. My view was based purely on the occasional visits to Barcelona and Madrid and seeing so many churches and religious festivals.

That and the way so many footballers cross themselves when they score.

I am glad to be wrong :-)

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15. Comment #55611 by the great teapot on July 11, 2007 at 5:06 pm

Johnny O

Given the time they have taken to build that church in barcelona I doubt even tieInterceptors inflated cijfers.

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16. Comment #55612 by Steve19 on July 11, 2007 at 5:12 pm

I lived in Salem, Oregon for a while when I was younger (now in Brisbane, Australia), and it didn't seem that irreligious. Is it considered a little more religious than other cities such as Portland? Well done anyway, it was a nice place to live and I hope to visit there again some day.

What I'm particularly interested in are those little patches of pale yellow in otherwise red states, such as Texas and North Dakota. Are there particular communities or regions within those states that are known to be filled by heathens or something?

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17. Comment #55619 by Broshiesq on July 11, 2007 at 5:54 pm

Holy shit, bruce, so if you guys legalize prostitution, then Portland will be, like, Amsterdam?

No shit. Look at the Netherlands:
Legal: Euthanasia; Pot; Whoring; Same sex marriage

Religion: None(41%)

Connection? Hmmm

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18. Comment #55631 by jshuey on July 11, 2007 at 6:56 pm

Actually, if you compare maps several Bush state have moderate at best religious belief - FL, NV, ID, WY, CO for example.

As for the Peoples Republic of Oregon, they have a high personal income tax, refuse to recognize the 2nd Amendment, and do not even allow individuals to pump their own gas. Physical beauty galore, personal rights few.

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19. Comment #55635 by krogercomplete on July 11, 2007 at 7:30 pm

One more thing about Oregon, most strip clubs and adult shops per capita. Amen for our liberal first amendment jurisprudence!

As for the gas thing, a major pain in the ass. Not sure what jshuey means about the second amendment. I know that my 17 year old brother was able to walk into a little gun shop in Philomath and purchase an AK-47 and double barrel shotgun without any hassle at all.

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20. Comment #55636 by John P on July 11, 2007 at 7:31 pm

I'm not so sure about this map. Where I live (south Central PA) the two ends of the state, politically are historically Democratic, while the Central and Northern Tier counties are solidly Republican, to the extent that James Carville has said that PA is closer to Alabama in the middle.

So why does the map show the same sections, including Philly and Pittsburgh, to be more religious than the northern tier and central counties?

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21. Comment #55651 by bruce on July 11, 2007 at 9:56 pm

if you guys legalize prostitution, then Portland will be, like, Amsterdam?

krogercomplete is right about the strip clubs and from what I hear the city turns a blind eye toward the sex workers as long as they keep it relatively discrete and off the streets. And the pressure is on to legalize gambling within the city, so we may soon become the Sin City of the world :-)

Not sure what pumping your own gas has to do with personal rights and I much prefer to pay a higher income tax than get nickled and dimed every time I buy something. Besides, sales taxes aren't very progressive. And you can definitely get a gun if you need one.

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22. Comment #55656 by BT Murtagh on July 11, 2007 at 10:19 pm

You know, jshuey, some would question your inclusion of Florida as a Bush state! ;)

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23. Comment #55658 by Broshiesq on July 11, 2007 at 10:31 pm

I don't know about the gas and the taxes in OR, but, jshuey, where the hell is the "People's Republic of Oregon" thing coming from? No personal rights? Allowing medicinal marijuana, right to die (uh, "right" is right in that one, there), and (if they pass) same sex marriage, not to mention porn-o-plenty, is sort of defining the laws of a state as personal-rights rich. And as for the 2nd Amendment (the single most important "personal right" in the Constitution if you ask me), Oregon is one of the 36 states that has adopted "shall issue" laws (http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=18) for the concealed carrying of handguns by its citizens. That's liberty. I unfortunately live in Chicago, not even arguably the most prohibitive city in the most prohibitive state of the Union regarding the right to personal defense. Outstanding. I'm still not rooting for the Ducks, though.

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24. Comment #55661 by Spinoza on July 11, 2007 at 10:52 pm

Not to rain on anyone's parade... just an observation... but since the colours are based on PERCENTAGE by district, not on actual population numbers... what you're seeing is going to be skewed by the number of people that live in that area.

Oregon might LOOK "less religious"... but that is probably at least in part due to the fact that it has less people.

And simply because some districts have a ratio of irreligious to religious that's higher than some others doesn't mean that on the whole the state is, itself, less or more religious... That depends on the percentage of the total population of the state.

So yeah, this map is interesting, but probably more than anything shows that the adage "You can prove anything with statistics" is so very true.

I'd like to see the raw data.

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25. Comment #55662 by troyreynolds86 on July 11, 2007 at 11:02 pm

I grew up in northern New Hampshire (that conspicuous little red nipple surrounded by all of the yellow) and most of the people I know did have a religious belief but the adherents were of the casual Christmas and Easter kind. Most thought Sunday was a good day for sleepin' and fishin'. I wonder what the question was that they drew their conclusion from; "Do you consider yourself religious?" or "Do you actually participate in a religion?" If you don't know how a survey is conducted then the survey is largely meaningless.

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26. Comment #55664 by krogercomplete on July 11, 2007 at 11:23 pm

Not to rain on anyone's parade... just an observation... but since the colours are based on PERCENTAGE by district, not on actual population numbers... what you're seeing is going to be skewed by the number of people that live in that area.

I am not sure I understand. I think everyone here has the right idea: the map shows the proportion of religious belief in each part of the country. The yellow sections have a smaller number of religious believers per capita than the red sections. Am I reading the map wrong?

Oregon might LOOK "less religious"... but that is probably at least in part due to the fact that it has less people.

It should also feel that way if it has a smaller number of religious believers per capita.

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27. Comment #55667 by exegesis_saves on July 12, 2007 at 12:19 am

Another issue to consider...

I am originally from the great state of North Dakota, which currently sports a population of approximately 600,000 people (yes, the city of San Jose, CA has more people than live in my entire home state).

I know for fact that one of those maroon counties in the Northeast corner contains a town called Russo.

Population: 9.

Thus, if six or seven of those nine is a god-licker, then that whole geographic tract turns maroon.

Not to say that this is not an interested graphic...but lets read it for what it actually says.

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28. Comment #55694 by rokort on July 12, 2007 at 2:09 am

Living and working in Amsterdam i have to react to what Broshiesq (Comment #55619 on July 11, 2007 at 5:54 pm) said:

Holy shit, bruce, so if you guys legalize prostitution, then Portland will be, like, Amsterdam?

No shit. Look at the Netherlands:
Legal: Euthanasia; Pot; Whoring; Same sex marriage

I'm not sure you think this is a good or bad thing, but let me enlighten you a bit on your simplistic view:

Euthanasia: only when the patient has asked for it, with consent from his/her family and two independent docters.
Pot: only in special designated places (so-called "coffeeshops") or your own home.
Whoring: unfortunately too much still illegal, but lots of it legal paying their taxes (so not as hypocritical as in, let's say.......the US).
Same sex marriage: sure, why not?

All this (except for some prostitution) on a voluntary basis, with no proof of more damage to society when compared to countries where it's illegal. Can't also think of anything that might be inhumane here.

What Amsterdam people dislike most: tourists coming to our city for sex and drugs, acting like they know and own the place. And there's many of those.

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29. Comment #55702 by scottishgeologist on July 12, 2007 at 2:58 am

I wonder, and I would really like to see a UK (and in particular) Scotland, map of faith. Percentage of people who "go to church" would suffice. Statistics like people calling themselves christian dont count - loads of people do that and they are never in a church except for weddings.

Parts of the Highlands and Islands have a very high precentage of believers, although places like Aberdeen would be considered "godless"

Even although parts of rural Scotland such as the Isle of Skye would probably register quite high, other rural districts like Argyllshire are possibly quite low. Certainly, if you travel from say Fort William to Lochgilphead (right through Argyll) , you pass by an awful lot of disused churches, now converted to houses.

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30. Comment #55704 by Clapton_is_God on July 12, 2007 at 3:16 am

I'd love to see one of these for Europe I suspect it would red in Portugal, Spain, Italy and some of the ex-Soviet countries but yellow almosy everywhere else.

Not Spain or Italy, those countries are very secular now. Definitely red would be Ireland and Poland, most of the rest of Europe would be sub-yellow.

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31. Comment #55709 by tieInterceptor on July 12, 2007 at 3:51 am

Johnny O
"My view was based purely on the occasional visits to Barcelona and Madrid and seeing so many churches and religious festivals.

I am glad to be wrong :-)"

oh well, you are not that wrong, the older people believe more than the new generation, and all festivals are just there as tradition, and the churches, well they are beautiful to look at... I don't think they will knock them down anytime soon, as much as the Italians would wish to destroy the beautiful pantheon.

I wonder in the south of Spain (I'm NOT from the south) when they do Easter processions (semana santa) , with the virgin carried on the shoulders and all that stuff on the street, if most of them are just doing it out of tradition than real strong believe in the supernatural.

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32. Comment #55738 by konquererz on July 12, 2007 at 6:12 am

This map is interesting, but I don't feel that it is accurate for our current time period. I live in Indiana, and it is mostly on the "less religious" color parts of the map. Problem is that this state is so bass ackwards religious its not funny.

Radio stations constantly make fun of gays, city officials keep signs up that say "god is great all the time" up every where. I have only met any atheists through the brand new Indiana Center For Inquiry. I don't know any near me personally. All my neighbors are religious and go to church. I hear gospel music on my left side pumping and some wacky Christian station from the neighbors on my right. So honestly, I don't see it.

But I guess we are lucky, we did manage to stave off the banning of gay marriage and other such religious laws they have tried to pass in the last couple years before I moved here. I'm going to move to Oregon, I swear!

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33. Comment #55768 by A on July 12, 2007 at 7:29 am

"Essentially, the redder it is, the stronger the faith."

Poor wording - better wording would be "Essentially, the redder it is, the higher the incidence of faith."

'Stronger the faith' to me suggests that where it is redder the people hold their beliefs with more conviction, when I suspect these redder areas simply have a higher the incidence of faith.

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34. Comment #55773 by Awl on July 12, 2007 at 7:45 am

I live in Bristol, England and there must be at least 2 dozen churches within a miles walk of my house.

The good news is that most of the churches have nowbeen converted: they are now flats, estate agents, chartered accountants, a climbing school and a couple of sikh temples.

All hail the death of religion in Europe!

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35. Comment #55776 by _J_ on July 12, 2007 at 8:26 am

Nice map. The easiest way ever to win at 'Pin Utah on the USA'.

Other Comments by _J_

36. Comment #55782 by DC_Runner on July 12, 2007 at 8:52 am

Is anyone else surprised at how "yellow" West Virginia is?

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37. Comment #55791 by Broshiesq on July 12, 2007 at 10:17 am

rokort, feel free to call my view of your country simplistic, but it doesn't change the fact that I am right. I mentioned 4 activities that are legal in the Netherlands, and they are. My comment to bruce about Portland becoming like Amsterdam was only half serious. And in case it weren't apparent, YES, I think it is a good thing. Look at the four issues: euthanasia, same-sex marriage, marijuana use and prostitution. There are tens of millions of people in America who deem these activities "wrong" (read "immoral"). I think that's bull shit. None of these activities hurts anyone. To the extent that they remain crimes in the states that they do, they are victimless crimes. But the bigger problem is the federal govt's attempting to legislate when the states should be left alone to decide these issues. Raise your hand if you think it's within the Federal govt's purview to say you can't: smoke pot in your home; pay someone for sex; legally commit to a same-sex partner or; receive help from a doctor to kill yourself if you so desire. The ONLY reason people have to be against these activities is that it offends their morality (read "religion"). And the only reason politicians have to be anti is to coddle to the religious vote.

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38. Comment #55793 by bluebird on July 12, 2007 at 10:30 am

DC_Runner
If this map IS correct, then yes it's surprising about West Virginia!!

If everyone moves to the same place, then it's no longer utopia~~~"bloom where you are planted".

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39. Comment #55803 by denoir on July 12, 2007 at 11:22 am

For those asking for an equivalent map for Europe, here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Europe_belief_in_god_upd.png

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40. Comment #55807 by Steven Mading on July 12, 2007 at 12:27 pm

The map is very misleadingly labeled. The title claims it's a map showing religious adherants, but the fine print says its actually a measure of church congregations. Those two are not the same thing at all. If you are an adherant of a religion that does not automatically mean you are going to a church congregation - there are some religious people who don't believe their religion requires being in a church. Furthermore, if you used to attend a church in the past, but no longer are a believer and don't do so today, there is a good chance you are still counted as part of the congregation.

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41. Comment #55811 by Fedler on July 12, 2007 at 12:47 pm

One point I would like to add about the map is that it is from 2000, presumably right before the Bush administration. It would be an understatement to say a lot has happened since then in terms of fanning the flames of religious belief, at least here in the U.S.

Further to Spinoza (#25) and Steven Mading (#41), I think the two posts are complimentary. Population density is less in the western U.S., therefore the actual number of people belonging to a specific congregation, which this map represents, may be misleading due to the wide geographic distribution of specific congregations, but this is conjecture. If the map measured specific belief in god, I bet it would be much more red.

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42. Comment #55842 by Ty_Webb on July 12, 2007 at 2:53 pm

I live in Bristol, England and there must be at least 2 dozen churches within a miles walk of my house.

The good news is that most of the churches have nowbeen converted: they are now flats, estate agents, chartered accountants, a climbing school and a couple of sikh temples.

All hail the death of religion in Europe!

Hehe, I saw in Scotland last weekend a church that had been changed into an indian restaurant. Cracking stuff

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43. Comment #55844 by krogercomplete on July 12, 2007 at 3:00 pm

Broshiesqe,

Look at the four issues: euthanasia, same-sex marriage, marijuana use and prostitution.

Just to be clear, same-sex marriage is prohibited by the Oregon Constitution and prostitution is illegal (though, it may be true that Portland police place it relatively low on their priority list).

Other Comments by krogercomplete

44. Comment #55855 by terradea on July 12, 2007 at 4:24 pm

Someone made a mistake ... look at Indiana! I escaped from that twisted, ignorant state years ago and believe me, the religion addiction was running rampant. It is worse than West Virginia, and I itch every time I go back. What's up with the lack of pink and red in that reddest state? (look at the voting results)

Other Comments by terradea

45. Comment #55870 by Broshiesq on July 12, 2007 at 5:29 pm

krogercomplete, I was not referring to Oregon regarding the four issues I mentioned, but the Netherlands.

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46. Comment #55896 by krogercomplete on July 12, 2007 at 7:30 pm

Broshiesq,

My point was just that Oregon only has 2 of the 4 cool Netherlands attributes. Actually, just 1.5 (weed only legal medically). We have a long way to go.

Other Comments by krogercomplete

47. Comment #55905 by Stryker on July 12, 2007 at 7:56 pm

Wow, great to see so many other Oregonians on this site! As mentioned by several people, I tend to question how valid this data is relative to population density. I live in Portland which (according to beloved wikipedia) has 2 million people in the metro area compared to Oregon's total population of 3.7 million. What's odd is that according to this map Portland seems to have a higher % of people in church than outside the area (35~50% compared to <35%), yet I 'feel' that the rest of the state is generally quite RED compared to Portland. Either conservative voting and church attendance don't line up very well in Oregon, the data's skewed relative to density or perhaps I'm making incorrect assumptions towards people in the rest of my state. Hmm.

Other Comments by Stryker

48. Comment #55906 by Stryker on July 12, 2007 at 8:00 pm

What the map does show is that we're battling religious fundamentalists in the mid-east AND in the mid-west (they just have different names for their god).

Other Comments by Stryker

49. Comment #55942 by rokort on July 13, 2007 at 2:01 am

broshiesq, my apologies if my words were too harsh, didn't mean to patronize you or anything. I guess i'm pretty used to dive into defense mode whenever someone lines up our "special liberties" and i'm not sure whether he/she thinks that's good or bad.

And with simplistic i meant that before anybody thinks euthanasia, whoring and smoking pot is all we do here, i would like them to know it's neatly regulated and has its place in the greater scheme of things.

Anyways, i totally agree with your morale and can only hope more folks in the States will follow, leaving the line of thinking based on religious grounds and the atrocious acts following from it. Looking at the red spots on the map, that might make some time though..... Later this year i'll move to San Francisco and will try my utmost best to influence this process by pushing some of the Dutch ethics, okay?

Other Comments by rokort

50. Comment #55988 by HarryHUK on July 13, 2007 at 5:25 am

Look on the bright side of the map from a fundies point of view.
It will make "rapture" targetting so much easier for Jesus on his return.

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