Personally, I feel that if I acknowledge my personal understanding of God in my own manner, I do not need to go to a church. I do not need to belong to a denomination, believe in any scripture, profess any creed, and most important, let any hand dig into my wallet to pay for all of that.

I am spiritual, but not religious. I am free.

As for spreading the word outside churches, we need to find the places where spiritual and progressive people do congregate, and address them there.  Places like The Daily Kos, or other popular blogs and 'watering holes'. The Utne Reader. AlterNet. Places like that. We're here- we're just not concentrated in one spot. Seed the meme in one place, and it will spread.

by Lorie Johnson on Wed Mar 22, 2006 at 11:42:50 AM EST

One of the problems with polls that ask questions of people, where some of the choices can be seen as against accepted norms, is that people will give the socially popular answer.

This is especially true of simple polls such as this where the answers are multiple choice or yes/no. Very few people will tell a complete stranger what their true beliefs about religious doctrine are if they think they will be frowned upon.

Reliable measures of people's beliefs require extensive interviews which go on for a long enough period that people let down their guard and start to reveal their true feelings or beliefs.

So, take the results of this poll with a large pinch of salt. I think that there are many more people with a minimal attachment to organized religion that is usually assumed. Many churchgoers, for example, conceal their own opinions in order to fit into their local community. There are also benefits in terms of business and social arrangements from not standing out.

Hardly anyone will admit to being a racist in the US, but behaviors in terms of housing and school segregation, job opportunity and social contacts indicate otherwise.

-- Policies not Politics
by rdf on Wed Mar 22, 2006 at 01:21:12 PM EST

Here is one beginning of an answer, then: there is a subset of Americans who are people of faith but consider affiliation with a church to be somehow a form of...what? Confinement?  Note the comment, too, about churches "digging into pockets".  How did these persons get to a point where they want no part of a worshipping community, whether that means dealing with expectations of showing up, or expectations of pledging/paying up on the commitment, or expectations that their kids will be brought to Sunday School?  How did worship and spiritual community get disconnected for these people?

by Lady T on Thu Mar 23, 2006 at 01:17:01 AM EST