having grown up in that middle “old school” part and now having lived for a decade in the “void” i would say that it is the latter.

the part about not being able to integrate other cultures seems foreign to my experience growing up in KS. i really didn’t encounter racism until i moved to the coast. also, some of the largest centers of islam in america are in that upper part of the vertical bible belt. so i don’t buy that stuff about not being able to hold competing or contrary beliefs in tension like people in more urban centers. my experience has been that it is the urban centers that have more cultural enclaves. in rural areas folks don’t have the option to isolate themselves.

but that is just my experience in KS. but then again, the KS i remember isn’t the Far Right bastion that it is painted as in the media. many of the old farmers i knew were socialists or dems, not republicans.

which leads me to wonder about the methodology of the gathering of these statistics.

I also wonder about the cross-section of denominations that participated, because any one denomination’s prevalence varies greatly from region to region.

Also, I wonder about how to track “religious adherents” that are now on the sidelines, not connected to a major national group, participating in more holistic groups. There are also a lot of “non-denominational” mega-churches that might not be included in such a survey.

In any case, the trends the graph shows are probably somewhat accurate – the south has changed a lot in the past twenty years, and a lot of the growth in the south has come from people moving from the northeastern states and the west coast. That, combined with the urbanization of the south, would explain why Georgia looks more like New York instead of Alabama or Mississippi.

As far as the difference, I think Mike is on the right track. Despite cramming people into smaller spaces, people in urban areas are less connected to the wider community, and so it’s easier for someone who is disconnected from religion to keep themselves isolated from it. Not so in rural areas. In a rural area, you can’t really isolate yourself from those who participate in religion, and you’re more likely to (eventually) connect with it yourself in some way.

So… since a Belt traditionally goes horizontal, and we’re talking about the Bible Belt… could we call the new dividing line the Bible Suspender (being vertical)?

You heard it here first, folks. Makin history, one comment at a time.

well played.

Eric,

that is a very polar centric view of the world. for someone living exactly on the equator in one of the oceans the earth is flipped on its side. how un PC of you.

What can I say. I live on the edge of whats acceptable and unacceptable in language. Usually on the unacceptable side. I’m kinda a pioneer in that regard.

I’d say that the New Orleans area is lying. Orleans Parish is nowhere near that red color. Closer to the yellow. But… post-ThatDamnHurricane… who knows what it really is.

I was thinking about what this map says about the overall population of the US… if the major centers of population aren’t particularly religious in nature, then… I mean, because I drove through plenty of that red area (like, almost all of it) a couple weeks ago, and some of those counties have about 50 people total.

Oh joy. But I like the site that has all those maps.

It seems popular to bash California as the godless state, but it appears that distinction falls Oregon, Washington and ?Ohio?
Interesting map – wish we could zoom up on the individual counties, would love to see what the counties are like where Saddleback, willow creek, lakewood, etc are like, in regards to religious adherents.

This takes into account all religious expressiones, yeah?