Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled.

Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades.

“Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.

  • crystalmerchant@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    92
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’ve heard about the “rise of the nones” for fucking years now. I’m in my mid 30s. When the fuck will this trend translate into policy reform

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        23
        ·
        1 year ago

        Yep.

        Doesn’t matter how religious voters are when the options are both hardcore Christian.

        Like, Biden not being actively anti-abortion was enough to get American bishops to start talking if they should try and get every Catholic church in America to refuse to give him communion.

        He’s still not really pro-abortion, and we’ll never really know if that’s because his incredibly organized church is against it, or if he just doesn’t care enough to push for codifying abortion rights.

        He’s the most high profile because he’s president, but lots of House Reps and Senators are in the same boat.

    • soycapitan451@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      28
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Organising nones is like herding cats. The evangelicals do not get their power from their number. They vote uniformly and reliably, turning out for every primary, local, and federal election.

      We are a diverse bunch with diverse opinions.

      • Chr0nos1@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’ve been a none for a bit now, and often find myself disagreeing with the opinions of others. I also tend to be more centrist in my political leanings, whereas a lot (obviously not all) of nones or atheists tend to lean left, or in some cases are extreme leftists. In my opinion, extreme leftists are as harmful to society as the extreme right, but that’s a pretty unpopular opinion online.

        Long story short, I agree with you on this.

    • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Have you looked at the age of the average politician? It’ll change when they all die of old age and someone sensible from the younger generation takes over.

      • braxy29@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        my concern is that they seem to have indoctrinated or allied with enough young people that i’m no longer certain it will matter.

      • 🏳️‍⚧️ 新星 [she/they]@lemmygrad.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Why is this take so popular? What do you think will happen when every politician of today is dead or retired? They’ll just be replaced with a new generation of mostly older people, who more importantly are there to serve their corporate masters.

        If you really think it’s about age, let’s try your country’s legislative body but every politician is a Marjorie Taylor Greene clone

    • stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      This is a question of attrition. Religiosity is dying out and so, in a sense, is neo-conservativism, and that’s why there is such a huge push to the right in many parts of the world. It’s the last desperate gasp of people who know that their time is up. They are doing everything they can to stop it from happening but it’s inevitable.

    • nfh@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      Around the time the majority of our lawmakers learned about the Vietnam war in a history book.

    • kromem@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      The problem is that as moderate critical thinkers leave religious organizations the organizations are becoming more polarized by the foolhardy remnants which leads to large organizational efforts to do stupid nonsensical things.