continues. host: we are back this morning with ryan burge, political science professor at eastern illinoisniversity and also the author of a book, the nones, where they came from, who they are and where they are going. who is a none? guest: a none is someone who on

a survey, they say they have no religious affiliation. i categorize it as people who say they are atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. that is what they check on the survey. in 1970 two, 5% of americans were nones. in 1991, it has risen -- it had only risen to 7%. from 1991 onward, the nones have continued to increase and increase. today, almost 30% of all american adults are nones. amongst generation z, people born in 1996 or later, it is over 40%. i argue it is the largest cultural shift we have seen in america over the last 50 years and it is having implications on every aspect of american society. host: what do these people believe in? guest: it really runs the gamut from they don't believe in anything spiritual to lots of them do believe in some type of

spirituality. there are some atheists who don't believe in a soul or an afterlife, they don't believe in the concept like evil or good. but there is also a lot of nones who are sort of dabbling in different types of spirituality. things like tarot cards and crystals and meditation and yoga. some nones go to church on a semi regular basis. amongst the nothing in particular group, about 33% of them say religion is somewhat important to them. it runs the gamut from i don't like religion, i don't want religion in my life to i am not religious in a traditional sense , not protestant or catholic or muslim, but i still deal for virtual and a connection to god in some way. host: what do they believe about the role of science? guest: amongst atheists and agnostics, we call those people secular peopl which means they have thrown off a religious worldview and they have replaced

it with a secular worldview which tends to focus on things like science and rationality. many atheists and agnostics will tell you that science is the best way to understand the world and they follow things like logic and reason. they believe that is the way we should get through life. the nothing in particular group, we call themonreligious because they have thrown off the religious worldview but they have not replaced it with anything else. sort of halfway on the science side,y on the religious side. it is hard to understand how these nothing in particular folks think about things like 8hphilosophy. they are floating in the theological and mystical space. host: you wrote, the title of the book is the nones, where they came from, who they are and where they are going. where did they come from? guest: there was only one kind of person that became a none.

a lot of educated white people. but you don't get to be 30% of the population i just being one thing, so now the nones are coming from every aspect of american society. men and women. coming not just from the white community but from the african-american, asian, latino communities. it used to be all were liberals or left of center democrats. now we are seeing a rising number of conservative nones, republican nones. it used to be places like new england or the pacific northwest,tg but now we are seeg 25 percent or 30% of people living in states like iowa or nebraska are nonreligious. they are coming from every possible aspect of american society, every partisanship, every gender, every age. this is not just a young person phenomenon. if you look at every generation, they are more likely to be nones today than in 2008.

every facet of american society. host: have people just never joined a church or is it that people are leaving a church or a faith? guest: it's both. that is a really important point to understand the nones. people born in the 1950's, only 3% of them said they grew up in a nonreligious household. today amongst young people, about 15% say they are growing up in a nonreligious household that means for everyone who was raised none, another person becomes a none at some point in their life. the other thing that is helping the nones is it used to be that two thirds of people raised nones became religious as adults. now two thirds who are raised nones stay nones as adults. they are doing a better job in retaining their own, better than a lot of religious traditions, excluding the catholic church. they are also converting people

who are leaving religion behind. from a religious perspective, everything is moving in their direction. every trend is positive for the nones. retention is high but they are also bringing people into the conversion as well. host: why are people remaining nones? why hasn't the church been as successful as they have in the past, of recruiting more members as people get older? guest: i think a lot of it is, we have d stigmatized what it means to be nonreligious in america. if you think about someone who was born in mississippi in the 1940's and was an atheist, they might live and die and never tell a soul that they are atheist because it could make them lose their job, could have them kicked out of their family. they could lose their spouse or be ostracized socially. now if you are a none born in mississippi in 1955, you can go online and google atheists of mississippi and find an online community where you feel like you are not alone.

they were nones in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's. i just didn't want to admit it to anyone else because of all of the ostracized asian that comes with being a -- ostracization that comes with being a none. also when they take surveys, they are being more honest now because it used to be almost all surveys were either in person or over the phone. now they are online. people are a lot more honest when they take a survey by looking at a web browser, instead of taking a survey looking another person in a fate -- in the face. people are more happy now not being part of religious tradition and saying that. host: we want to get the calls here. here is how we have divided the lines. if you consider yourself religious, dial in at (202)-748-8000. nonreligious, (202)-748-8001. ryan burge, on capitol hill

there was an annual bipartisan gathering between lawmakers and the president for the national prayer breakfast. the president is going to speak, as many of them have over the decades, at this gathering on capitol hill, in about 25 did this used to matter more to the american public? guest: it is pretty staggering to think about the fact that about 30% of americans have no religious affiliation but less than five members of congress have no religious affiliation. we talk a lot about what is happening in washington, why are we continuing to have legislatures who are 70 or even 80 years old representing us in congress and the white house? it is a generational thing. religion used to matter a whole lot more to the silent generation, to the baby boomers. they are the ones who are in the halls of congress. it matters a whole lotes

millenials and generation z who are not taking their fair share of seats in the congress. what is going to happen is this is a holdover froa different time in american history, when we were more religious, more outwardly religious. as time passes, the importance of things like this are going to continue to fade and it's going to look like a relic of a bygone era, that we had things like the national prayer breakfast, if congress begins to look more and more like the people who vote for them. host: by the way, to our viewers, you can watch the national prayer breakfast over on c-span2, today as well as c-span.org or our free video mobile app. randy in virginia. good morning to you. question or comment? caller: a little bit of both. good morning. just in the first hour, my father was a founding chair of emeritus. when al gore joked about paying

for or discovering the internet, it was the national academy of sciences that got the funding to him so that he could pass that bill. those scientists -- host: could we move onto the topic that we've got here? caller: during that time, people like my dad was president of a shipyard. he built aircraft carriers and submarines defending this country now. during that time, he sold from the bernadine sisters, he was here in virginia. he sold that hospital and was founding chair of their foundation which was $40 million. during that time, the first years of accepting grant applications and reviewing them, it was painfully obvious that

pastors were looking for capital improvement funds. due to a personal injury -- host: you've got to get to your point. caller: the point is that religion is a financial instrument. the catholic church is making money off of the border. they are making money off of adoption. they are making money off of health care. host: randy burge, distressed in the -- just trust in the institution -- distrust in the institutions. guest: if you look at the data, americans are lest -- less trusting of every institution in american life, not just religion. things like ba the government, the media. but also religion. we trust it less now than we did 30 or 40 years ago. that's especially acute amongst younger people. think about like the toxic stew online.

negative news goes farther. they don't report on the planes that land on time which happens 99% of the time. clergy, there are literally hundreds of thousands of clergy in the united states, and almost all of them do their job well. they don't steal money. they don't abuse people. they go to their house of worship and preach well and serve their community. not many stories are written about them. it's the one in abuses children or does something awful that makes the headlines. the problem is we only really hear about religion when it does something negative. i can't emphasize this point enough. there are lots of faith out there who are doing good work for their community. we forget about them oftentimes. that is part of this larger narrative. we are so pessimistic and cynical about everything and religion has been caught up in that larger wave. host: kyle in new mexico. caller: can you hear me? host: yes we can. caller: good deal.

as i'm listening to the caller, i was raised catholic. i love this conversation. i was just looking at a book, i'm sure the caller and you are familiar with him. the pillars of something or another. the binder is all torn up. anyways, plenty of books have been written about catholicism, and the influence of the church. but i do like this conversation a lot and i called in almost specifically to say, i'm going to buy this book, because the nones, that is an adorable phrase. i'm going to buy this book. as a none, as a millennial none, i can say that --

host: why are you a none? caller: why? i'm still a catholic i guess. host: first you say you are a none, then you say wait, you're a catholic? caller: it's an adorable phrase? i'd like to buy the book to understand more of what a none is. host: what do you make of kyle? guest: kyle is a lot of americans. they are not firm in their position. in some ways they are a catholic or some ways they are a none. it's interesting because it has almost become a cultural marker instead of a marker about theology or relion. if you are raised in a certain type of community. say your parents are irish or italian or hispanic american. you say you are catholic if you haven't been to master in five or 10 years of catholicism is part of the culture in which you were raised.lturally

proper.wo they say they are a nun in since 1972 over 50% of catholics who are weekly mass attenders and today it's less than 25% said that catholic identity is still hanging on even though the religious behavior going to mass has declined precipitously over time. y >> could you say that about other religions, that is more cultural war that they identified because of cultural reasons rather than a practice that day. >> it's hard to do from a survey perspective is judaism. its five different things wrapped in onee. so cultural jewish or secular are a rising force in judaism. it happens with muslims as well. that's the hard part of that religion but what i find fascinating is more and more people are saying they never attend catholic or never attend muslim. i to

still say you are catholic or muslim or jewish even though you haven't been to religious services in five years. why don't you say you are nothing inc? particular are atheist or at gnostic and what's driving that decision in a few see herself as being that part of the i still see myself t as muslim but i never o to mass. i need to figure out why you pick those things on the survey. >> why are you drawn to this topic? >> i'm also pastor. addendum a to a pastor in american baptist church for over 20 years and i grew up in a conservative evangelical southern baptist church in rural you one eye. religion and politics has been part of my live from the beginning to ay lot of what i perceive as trying to understand how i grew up and how it was evl church in thehe rural 90s was a wild tempered 30% of americans were evangelical in 1993 which was the peak of evangelicalism.

all the rhetoric i heard about marriage in culture wars and pornography bill clinton and monica lewinsky. i want to understand how that moment fits into the larger narrative of american religion a lot of it's just trying to figure out the world around you. when i was 18 i told one of my teachers i wanted to be a youth pastor and a lawyer and i'm missed win both but i understand the world in a new way to help other people understand as well and that's my calling from is to help people understanding themselves and where they fit in the larger -- >> you say it like it's a phrase and ihe case that those two go hand-in-hand? >> that's a great question. when i was in grad school the understanding was that religion was the first cause and everything else was downstream from that so how i read the would tell me who to vote for and how to vote or if i should

go. over the last 10 years there has been a real seismic shift in social science or in this topic and now that we understand politics and partisanship is the master identity is the first contact lens in our eyes and now we do everything in our lives through that lens of partisanship. now we pick what church to go to based on their political affiliation not the other way round. if i'm republican i will seek out an evangelical church in if i'm a democrat i may seek out an episcopalian church or no church about because they want to hear from the pulpit things that reinforce my own partisan worldviews. now big politics and little religion he used to be more an50/50. >> kristine in oakland michigan hi kristina. >> hi. thank you for letting me speak to you and you are so near and dear to me. i'm 78 years old so i'm one of

those people. i too was raised catholic.in mys always a bit of it. what happened to me is i don't care what religion is judaism muslim christian. i see it is all politics now. religion inas my mind has turned into just being politics with power and money. all these evangelicals who are so into trump none of them are practicing christianity and if you believe in that theology you should bee living according to what taught and i don't see that. >> i want to take your point. ryan burge. >> kristine iss making important point aboutds how we understand the words of the word evangelical has been part of the lexicon for hundreds of years in

america but what's fascinating is the data is pointing more and more to the fact that evangelicals have become aea political moniker more than a theological one so in 2008 about 16% of self-identified evangelicals attended attended church lesson once year so 16% said they never or seldom attended religious in 27% of self-identified evangelicals attend once a gear so the question is how can you be an evangelical and say that you attend church never because more and more people think the word evangelical means i like donald trump or i'm republican or i'm a conservative.qp that's a rise in people who self-identify as catholic and evangelical and jewish and evangelical and even muslim evangelical. if you lookor why they are doing that is consistently republican catholics republican muslims who are self-identifying as evangelical on surveys and the only explanation i can come

up with is because they think the word evangelical means i'm a republican and i vote for donald trump. >> i want to point out that the national prayer breakfast you were talking the two president right now sitting in the front row on the right side sitting next to the speaker of the house mike johnson a republican. do you think it's important or what is the role of religion here and its impact on politics. there they are sitting side-by-side. what impact could this have or has it had in i the past on politics when the two sides are gathering for a religious event? >> i'm a big fan of both sideswt yelling at each other. religion has this way of bringing people together. the president has passed away

will see republicans and democrats sitting side-by-side at the huge national cathedral to celebrate that persons life. anytime you can rub shoulders with people with different political faith backgrounds is a good' thing. it seems very diverse not racially. economicallyci socially and. we had people with ph.d. sitting next to people with high school diplomas or lesson that's the time you see someone from a different class. john rockefeller was the richest man a hundred years ago and he hardly ever went to social events for the only social event he went to assist local baptist church and it was a circus. there were cameras outside and reporters yelling questions at him and someone asked if you had to go to all this trouble to go to church why do you go to church? is my only opportunity to speak with the blacksmith core mechanic. it's the ability to see people get to see and build relationships with people we typically don't build relationships with.

having mike johnson sitting next to joe biden on the dais at the national prayer breakfast is nothing but a good thing in my mind for the relationship. >> the speaker of the house standing nearly jeffries the democratic leader both going through the reading scripture and giving remarks. live coverage of this over on c-span2. welcome to the conversation. >> thank you. i'm really challenged by this. i grew up, i started as a catholic and exiled from that church and then wandered around and found a lot of different churches. i found my way back because in college in theology something that a nun said to me and a professorr stressed to me she just said people have a hard

time moving away from where they began. i find that to be true so i found myself more recently going back to the catholic church and again i was so disappointed, so disappointed someone violated my trust and now i don't feel like li can be a free person there. i feel like i feel like i'm the icon. so strange and i'm so disappointed. but i want to say because that's where my family started inin our family is connected and the -- once you are baptized a catholic you are told you are always a catholic and i found it hard to move away from it even though i've been disappointed. in my life i feel government is super important and i feel the relationship our founders set up was we didn't have to practice a

certain thing is so important thand has been so important. i want their country to be successful and i want to claim both of those things. i want to have a religious affiliation but i also want to believe that as people strive for higher ideals we give people places to be free and some framework. i don't know i just think it's been really tough to figure out how you fit into this and figure out how it's successful. >> catherine hang on the line. for this are ryan burge. >> catherine first want to say ice here you and i feel you. churches heard all of this one ■where another. america is a really religious country and we are much more religious than we should be compared to our closest neighbors in places like spain france and germany. in a lot of those countries

assure people who attend church is between five and 10% in america even today it's 25% so we are much more religious thann we should be in one of the reasons we think we are more religious than we should be as we have so much religious diversity in america and competition. we have never had a state church. jefferson and madison were very clearso about that. they didn't want to haven't automatic money coming from taxpayer dollars and becausec f that religion did well because it had to. religious diversity is a strength and not having eight -- is a good thing for the robust amount of religion that we have in the united states right now. >> ryan burge is separation of church and state exactly what you said that there's not a state church or is it that politicians should not be reading scripture? >> roger williams founded the church in america in 1683 in one of the things that he believed was a strong separation of

church and state. i don't believe churches should have anything to do the government the government should be as hands off of religion as it possibly can. i wish it was that black and white in a clear sometimes. words and string the pandemic there were ppp loans for churches because of the pen to make restrictions so they couldn't meet. they had to take payroll so they couldn't lay people off because they had no offerings coming a . i had a hard time with that. i also do my church could not exist in substance without help from the government. thousands of churches around america did the same. i wish there was a clear black and white answer between the separation of church and state. i generally think pastors and passers by the wayal don't talk about politics at the pulpit on a regular basis. we asked a thousand people who go to church every week we gave them 15 issues. has your pastor spoken about

politics in the last three months and 52% responded to your pastor spoke about one issue or zero issues over the last 12 months. most pastors are not bringing politics into the pulpit. if it's happening from the lay level it's not happening at the pulpit. >> you consider yourself nonreligious are you more or less likely to participate in civics? >> a good question. it depends on what type of non-religion you are. atheists are the most religiously active political group in america today. over 50% of atheists donated to a candidate or campaign in 2020. so they are much more likely but on the other side of that coin could have nothing in particular group which by the way most of us are nothing in particular. nothing in particulars are the least politically active religious group in america today

but only 32% of nothing in particular is voted. 52% of atheists and 50% of evangelicals. it depends of what type of nun you are and how politically active you are. >> i went to read this from mika thiss her text to us. she said she was born and raised souther baptist and regularly attend church. using their religion as they will reason to ostracize. can you speak to the larger issue around train genders. without a doubt there are many marginalized amenities in america because of religion the lgbtq community especially has been marginalized their religion and that seems to have i at

it's almost like religious people felt like they had to dig in. one of the reasons evangelicalism has continued to maintain h its steady presence n american life there are two the mainline which is the's moderate like methodist episcopal. evangelicals are sparred today as they were in 1970. they created cleared delineations between them and everyone else. they called it -- and things like transgender is one way they put their foot down to draw a clear line. these are lines that we will not cross in and there are a lot of social science literature that said it's typical religion tents to do better because it does create that sense ofof us versus them their religion and tents to capitulate more towards what the culture is all about an evangelicals is proof of the pudding. we are doing well while they have collapsed or that 50 years.

it keeps us continuing to keep people -- >> professor burger is a follow-up from a viewer dave a lando says he takes offense at e more religious than we should be. please explain in. >> if you do a scatter plot of gdp which is a measure of economic prosperity across the x-axis and the share of the country this is religion is important across the y-axis we are huge outlier. really religious very economically challenged our places in the global in the bottom right corner are countries like sweden norway denmark and france. the closest neighbor that we have inne terms of our gdp is switzerland but our gdp is almost exactly the same as the swiss. 12% of this was that religion is very important in its 51% of americans say that religion is very important to them.

from that pure perspective we shld look like switzerland but we don't. we are much more religious than we should be based on economic prosperity and religious importance metrics than other countries. >> greg and felt in texas nonreligious, i met greg. >> hello. i am spiritual and that's the classic fit in. we didn't gorl regularly. but the reason i don't go to church for except religion is because guess it was said earlier that religious people don't practice what they. she. also the churches are political. they are oppressing women. they oppressed, they don't accept each other.

a baptist and a catholic are not going to attend church together even thoughet it's the same. and i see religion as what is separating america. >> greg i want to take the appointed professor burge's thoughts. >> that's something i hear quite a bit that religion is cause for division in american society. he's right. my wife is catholic and i baptist and i can't take communion in her church and she can't take communion in mine. western europe is basically esreligious. less than 5% of people in the country's religious even in places like spain and france. there are still divisions in the country. you have divisions of her class and race and region and over what soccer team we root for. it's a way to create groups of

us versus them and religion is a way to create us versus them. the tendency we have to create us versus them doesn't go away. it's another matrix which i would rather -- >> jamie garden city missouri religion. jamie are you there? damien garden city missouri let's try you. hi jamie. go ahead with your comment. >> i've comment. i grew up in a very conservative catholic family. i was not allowed to go to mass. a long story short i divorced remarried and was shunned because i was to. i did remarry if in long story short and i am christian and i believe our country cannot exist

without judeo-christian values. that's what our constitution was founded on was judeo-christian values. do i practicreligion no, i did read my because my trust in church is completely broke in. my is -- >> professor burge respond to jamie. >> she makes an interesting point with happening and make catholic church. burkhurt -- quick primer after vatican ii it became the mass of the country which arena and so the priest would face the cup nation and not his back to the congregation. it was the way to make math more appealing to more catholics at the church was worried about losing membership. if you look at the data and we just talked about the share attending mass every sunday it declining precipitously there is a growing movement of traditional catholics today want

to go back to the latin mass and there'sth anecdotal evidence tht it became a significant increase in attendance and families with lots of children. if you make religion hard people are more likely to be drawn into hard religion if you make it easy doesn't seem so supernatural and people are more likely to drift away if they don't see the don't see the things of typical but that's a movement happening in lots of religious traditions by the way. don't make it easier to come make it harder to come in when people come they will stick around longer because they like y ihow separated us from the rt of the world. >> where's the line for the church and officials for trying to control behavior of those that are in your building on a weekly basis? we just heard her say she would burn in etc. not just the

catholic other religions use that as a way to control as well. does that go too far? >> generally politicians and ç5 been very hesitant to get them involve in religious disputes even the courts a lot of time to walk away from religious disputes saying you need to figure that out on yourur own because the american public wants religion to have a -- in american politics and americanie society. there are some states where fewer christian daycare you can expect once a year if you are not christian you get inspected every quarter. one of the most interesting things happening as the ministerial exception. if you are a minister like i am in my part-time job i can be fired for any reason at any time and i have no legal recourse for this court -- the courtsys will never step in. if i same ulta beauty q&a fire me that's allowed because i'm a pastor but the question is how big is the ministerial

exception? if i'm a schoolteacher in the local catholic church teaching k-8 eight and come out as lgbtq can they fire me for that? there's a case in oregon where man was hired to work for christian nonprofit as a lawyer and they found out he was and fired him because of the violation of their religious -- and they use the ministerial exception to say they can do it legally. there'll these interesting questions about how much freedom does religion have in american life are also things like diversity equity inclusion and discrimination. those things matter as well. they face a significant fight in the next two years. >> brian, non-religion hi rain. >> of mourning. i was raised catholic and became agnostic atheist and now i'm in a 12 step program and look to a higher power which i kind of struggle with but i like what your guests said about science

and nonreligious people. their thinking on science and whatnot. parati o and state is one of the great things in the constitution. everyone should just don't push your religion on each other and you know i think back to when the, the savages savages we eradicated when they first came here they respected the land in each other and they may have -- with each other but the pagans and everything everything was, the seasons. religion should be minimized because it's a politic. >> professor, your thoughts?

>> was thinking about thomas jefferson, thomas jefferson was a guy who had a. he took the gospel of and cut out all the miracles and left all the teachings because they thought he was a fine moral teacher but he could not be defined and that was not possible in this unscientific to bring someone back from the dead and turning water into wine. he wanted to keep the teaching of jesusus figure where the miracles and folks worshiped the temple of reason during the colonial period. that was their highest calling signs in recent that's how what gave us to help understand the world around us. we don't need miracles we just need -- they believe god existed and he was a divine watchmaker created the laws of science and gravity and then he took his p hands off and let things happen the way they were supposed to happen. >> let's go to fill in johnson pennsylvania religious. hi bill. >> good morning.

i'm an■ evangelical lutheran and we don't think as -- of evangelicals the way lot of people think of evangelicals. my question house to do with televangelist and the rise of the televangelist the faith maker and joel osteen and people like that. to a lot of people we see a lot of hypocrisy in the life of the televangelist. what is the effect of the rise of the televangelist in megachurches on society's opinion of religion? >> a great point. televangelist him is a really interesting story because if you think about when the religious right rouson of which was in the early 1970s and 1980s.

guess whatas also we saw the rise of some like pat robertson or jerry falwell or jim and tammy fay baker. those guys could use their pulpit their digital pulpits to get the message out to tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of followers every singleee week because they had these vast tv deals where they could talk to people across america. before that it was almost an impossible for a guy like billy graham to have his message heard by more people in the stadium with where the congregation when he was giving a talk. there's a lot of data and understanding from religiousth history history that wanted one of the reasons the religious right grew so quickly and becamn soso cohesive was because the re of televangelist to help guide the block and organize them on certain issues back in the 1970s and 1980s. >> here is rona in a text message. as a fallen away catholic i'm concerned the majority seven of the supreme court are catholic.

>> the problem is if you have nine people you can't represent with nine people. that's a fundamental problem that we have always had. it's very in this one of those things there are several jewish people on the supreme court when they only make upd 2% of the population make up 20%. the supreme court looks like america two of them would be nonreligious and that's not going to happen at any point in the near future. we only have nine people and it's hard to the diversity we have in america especially when it comes to religion. >> another text from theresa and littleit rock did nuns have more are less morals and how are there -- what is their code on the right or wrong? >> that's an impossible question to answer but i wish i could. no one has the same sense of morality. a lot of evangelicals look at atheist and say you can't be a moral atheist because you have

no moral framework and a lot ofa atheist say evangelicals are because they don't allow them to. she and they are anti-lgbtq so for once i'd throwing insults at the other side. if you look at the data most americans do say you can be moral and not be religious. there does tend to be some tolerance in that direction but a significant number of religious people to go to church on a regular basis thank you need to be religious in order to be moral. >> brad in shreveport louisiana nonreligious. you've got to that television. >> sorry. >> go ahead. >> the whole idea of religion is a human construct. if we look at the evolution of of homo sapiens we find that it the dealdash that

we started getting various so whether there is a god or not there's no way to prove it. we need to turn to science and as we look at science and i'm a ph.d. biologist, we see animal behavior and the same kind of behaviors in humans that we see in other animals. so unless -- >> brad, in what way? in what way? where their similarities to animal behavior and human behavior when it comes to religion? >> animals have no t religion. religion is a human construct. it was an idea just like we have the construct for democracy or we have the construct for building an airplane.li religion is the same thing. he came out at the human rain. >> understood.

professor burge.nt >> anthropologist would say -- you have a familial relationship with them but one societies became larger and more organized baby people got to 150 or 200 you didn't know everyone but you are a people group and you had to have ananrn external controlo keep you from stealing and murderings. and doing those things. essentially god was created in those societies to create a sense of external control and eternal punishment for doing things like stealing. it was a way to encourage prosocial behavior and it was an essential part. what they would also argue as government got larger and more likely to enforce and more capable enforcing rules that we don't need god anymore because punishment doesn't come from god comes from the state. if you steal or murder you are

tried and convicted in a court of law and that's how the punishment is happening. when the happening. when the scholars look at placen like denmark the government has become god and regulates behavior better than god ever could. >> maria and atlanta you consider yourself religious. good morning. >> the morningta greta. thank you to c-span. yes i'm religious. i think it's important how you treatt people morally. there are someth good people ana lot of pastors today they are all about the money. they are scared to. she about it because they don't want the congregation to know

because of the congregation knows than their money goes. so now it's all about money and america is not a great country and there's no way you can be religious and haveve the rules that you -- the prior history3c that today. thank you. >> all right maria. >> i would say to my beverage church in america is 75 people in the average pastor in america is bi- vocational which means pastoring is a part-time job. very few pastors are getting any sort of richness of being a pastor and there's no economic security for them. many of them have significant amounts of student loans debts and an undergraduate in seminaries well. we are seeing more and more passengerss -- pastors said thy burned out. many consider leaving the pulpit. in many ways being a pastor is one of the worst jobs in america and i think we'll have a significant pastoral shortage it this country in the next five or 10 yearsrs because of all the negative sentiment that pastors

received from the general population. >> that brings up the last part of your book where are they going? where the nuns going? >> they are going to get larger. there's no doubt in my mind and 34 years the share of americans who are nonreligious will be close to 40% and i think this will create an interesting dichotomy in american society. we talk about partisan polarization so republicans have moved far to the right and democrats have moved far to the left. in the 1950s a mainline half americans were the pisgah pillai and moderates. they wanted to help the community and build the commission those churches are dying rapidly right now. onlyid 10% of american 5% of america in the next 10 to 13 years and all we will be left with any in the future the whole bunch of nuns on one side and a f bunch of very religious people on the other side. it's not just evangelicals.

traditional catholics conservative jewish and muslim people are locking arms on the right side of her the religious spectrum and a lot of americans want to be religious but they don't want to be that kind of religion so go be left out. they have no place to worship and a lot of people come to me and they go i can't find a place to worship because i'm not conservative in what should i do? they don't have a whole lot of options. they have a whole corner cop -- they used to have. a whole cornucopia of choices before. >> richard, hi richard. >> if you are catholic you were probably raised by your parents as being catholic and you brainwash your kids into what you are taught in the same way with the mormons or anybody else. they are brainwashed into that particular religion.

christianity is great if you do the right thing and we get these people coming from -- they need to take care of them just like they are humans. overseas the muslims and the jewish people are killing each other and sending each other to heaven i guess by killing each other? to me i made a sixers old and i look back and i think religion for the most part is a game that other people can get money without having to work for it. >> arrived professor burge. >> all say this about richard is a great point in your talking about your current religion in the religion you were raised in the pastst when 30 people not jt the uteligion that theirar parents were. we are seeing more switching than ever before. a lot of people are becoming

nuns but even some nuns to come religious overtime. we have a dynamic religious marketplace and if you don't like your current religion you have plenty of options for religion and you can become non-religions -- nonreligious and that's a viable option for many americans. >> a text or post on x from bobby. >> we grow up in church and your parents say go to church and for a lot of people they don't understand what denomination they are part of because it's not part of the conversation. one hard thing a lot of people don'tt know what the word protestant means anymore. a lot of protestant churches don't use the word and they say they are just christian so i haveth a hard time surveys with young people especially because they don't know what the word protestant means because it's not used in the vernacular. people grow up in a specific church but we notice the people

are in 18 or 19 years and go with a college that's when they start looking around going wait why am i going to this church and this type of church and should i continue to go to church and that's where they do a lot ofat searching. 16 to 25-year-olds most americans make up their mind if they choose to pick a different legend that's when they do it during that crucialal period in their late teens early 20s. >> another x post for you any specifics asohether immigrants are more alissa religiously affiliated in longer-term american residents in what is the impact of that on policy decisions? >> that's a great question. immigrants coming to deny state tend to be slightly more religious than america is as whole because lot of countries they are coming from tend to be more religious than united states. central and south america and africa are more religious places than the united states right now. whatat the data says is the lonr they are in the country the more they assimilate tont american

culture which means they are more likely to become nonreligious but there's an argument after that we increase immigration in america and become a more m religious county and if you look at the data we would be no more or less religious if we had no migration. we have had a lot more immigration because of the assimilation after that happens in the second generation of. people come to united united states. >> what do think overall is the impact on policy of the trends that we are seeing a more nuns in this country? >> at some point congress will have the wake up to the fact that there there are a lot of nonreligious people in the unitedre states. things like the equality act is something i'' following closely which isfo the idea that an organization of business can be discriminated against based on gender or orientation but a bill like that is liked by them. religious organizations are reluctant to embrace a bill like that able

to fire a transgender pastor of your church? churches don't want to have a ton of autonomy and how they do their policies and their worried the government will encroach on their ability to regulate to their pastors. >> burge professor and author of the book, the nuns who they are -- where they came from, who they are and where they are going.

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