continues. host: we are back this morning

with ryan burge, political science professor at eastern illinois university 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 people, 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 them nonreligious because they have thrown off the religious worldview but they have not replaced it with anything else. sort of halfway on the science side, halfway on the secular side, halfway on the religious side. it is hard to understand how these nothing in particular folks think about things like philosophy. 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, but now we are seeing 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. really important 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. i think for a lot of people, 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 minutes or so. 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 lot less to 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 from a 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 banks and unions. 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 the million person who steals money or 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: ryan burge, 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 religion. 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 but you haven't been to mass in five years because catholicism is the culture you are raised in. protestantism does not work that way. in 1972, over 50% of catholics were weekly mass attenders and today it is less than 25%. that catholic identity is still hanging on even though the religious behavior, going to mass has declined over time. host: could you say that about other religions? but it's more cultural or that they identify because of cultural reasons rather than the actura the hard want to do from a survey perspective is judaism. it's like five different things wrapped in one. cultural jews or secular jews, a

rising force in judaism. it happens with muslims as well. but as the hard part about religion. more and more people are saying they are never a tent -- they are a never attending catholic or a never attending muslim. from a social science perspective, i have to figure out why you still say you are catholic or muslim or jewish even though you have not been to religious services in five years. why don't you say you are nothing in particular or atheist or agnostic? a lot of times as you still see yourself as being part of that i still see myself as muslim even though i don't go to a mosque. why is that? that is the fun part is a social scientist. i get to find out why you picked those things. host: why are you drawn to this topic? guest: i am also a pastor. i've been a pastor in the american baptist church for over 20 years. i grew up in a conservative white evangelical southern baptist church in rural illinois. religion and politics has been part of my life from the beginning.

a lot of what i pursuing my research is just trying to understand how i grew up and how odd that was. growing up in an evangelical church in rural america in the 1990's was a wild time. almost 30 of -- 30% of americans were evangelical in 1993, the peak of evangelicalism in america. i heard all the rhetoric about abortions and same-sex marriage and bill clinton. i wanted to understand how that moment fits in the larger mayor -- larger narrative of american religion and politics. a lot of it is trying to figure out the world around me. i told one of my teachers i wanted to be a youth pastor and a lawyer and i kind of mist halfway on both but i get to understand the world in a new way and help other people understand it. that is my calling, to try and help people understand themselves and where they fit in the larger narrative. host: religion and politics. you say it like it's a phrase. is it still the case that

those two go hand-in-hand? guest: that's a great question. when i was in grad school, the understanding of religion and politics was that religion was the first cause and everything else will sort of downstream from that. how i read the bible would tell me who to vote for, how to vote or if i should. over the last 10 years or so, there has been a seismic shift in social science around this topic. now that we understand that politics and partisanship is the master identity, it is the first contact lens in our eyes, and now we view everything in our lives through that lens of partisanship. now we pick what church to go to,ek out an evangelical church. if i'm democrat, i'm going to seek out maybe an episcopalian church or no church at all because i want to hear from the pulpit, things that reinforce my own partisan worldviews. it's almost like politics, big politics and little religion,

when it used to be much more 50-50. host: christina in michigan. caller: hi, thank you for letting me speak to you. this subject is so near and dear to me. i'm 78 years old. i'm supposed to be one of those people that are all religious. i was raised catholic. politics was always a little bit of that. what happened to me is i don't care what the religion is. judaism, muslim, christian, i see it as all politics now. all organized religion in my mind has turned into just politics for power and money. all of these evangelicals who are so into trump, none of them are practicing christianity. if you are so religious and believe in that theology, then

you should be living according to what christ taught and i don't see that. host: let's take your point. ryan burge? guest: she is making a really interesting point about how we understand words. the word even jell-o coal has been part of the lexicon for hundreds of years in america -- the word evangelical has been part of the lexicon for hundreds of years in america. even that word has become a political moniker more than a theological one. in 2008, about 16% of self identified even jell-o coals attended church -- even jell-o coal -- attended church. 20% of self identified evangelicals attended church once a year. more and more people think the word evangelical means you like donald trump or you are conservative.

even muslim and evangelical. if you look for why they are doing that, it is consistency -- consistently the republican catholics and muslims who are self identifying as evangelical on surveys and the only explanation we can come up with is because they think the word evangelical means, you are a republican, a conservative and you vote for donald trump. host: i want to point out that the national prayer breakfast, the president right now, sitting in the front row on the right side, sitting right next to the speaker of the house, mike johnson, a republican. do you think it is important that -- or what is the role of religion here, and its impact on politics? there they are, sitting side-by-side. what impacts could this have or has it had in the past on politics when the two sides are

gathering for a religious event? guest: i'm a big fan of both sides getting together for any reason at this point, when they are not yelling at each other. religion has this way of bringing people together. if there is a state funeral, you will see republicans and democrats sitting side-by-side at the national cathedral, to sell a break that person's life. anytime you can rub shoulders with people from a political background, it's a good thing. american religion used to be very diverse. not racially but economically, socially, educationally. we had people with phd's sitting next to people with high school diplomas or less. that was the only time they would see someone from a different class. john rockefeller was the richest men in the world 100 years ago. he hardly ever went to social events. the only money went to every week was his local baptist church. it was a circus when he got there. cameras and reporters. someone asked him, you could --

you have to go to all of this trouble to go to church, why? he said it is my only opportunity to talk to a blacksmith or a mechanic. that is what religion can provide. it can provide the ability to see people we don't typically see and build relationships with people we typically don't build relationships with. having mike johnson sit next to joe biden at the national prayer breakfast is nothing but a good thing in my mind for relations between those two. host: right now the speaker of the house, standing nearly shoulder to shoulder with hakim jeffries, the democrat leader. they are both going to be reading scripture and giving remarks. live coverage of this over on c-span2. catherine from minnesota, identifies as religious. welcome to the conversation. caller: thank you. i am really charmed by this. i grew up starting as a catholic

and then felt 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 was said to me by a professor really struck me. she said people have a hard time moving away from where you begin. i found that to be very true. i found myself more recently going back to the catholic church, and again, i am so disappointed someone violated my trust. i don't even feel like i can just be a free person there. i feel like i am stared at. it's so strange. i am so disappointed, but because that is how my family started and our family limited -- family lineage was connected and once you are baptized as a catholic, you are told you are always a catholic and i found it hard to move away from it, even

thouin my life, i feel governmes super important and i feel that the relationship our founders set up, we didn't have to practice a certain thing, that is so important. it has been so important to allow our country to be successful. i kind of want a claim to both of those things. i want to have a religious affiliation. i also want to believe that as people strive for higher ideals, that we give people license to be free. i just think it has been really tough to figure out how you fit into this, and figuring out how it is successful for you. host: professor burge? guest: i want to say i hear you

and i feel you when it comes to church hurts. churches have hurt all of us. america is a very religious country, much more religious than we should be compared to our closest neighbors in places like spain and france and germany. and a lot of those countries, the sheriff people whois betwee% and 10%. today in america it is still 25%. we are much more religious than we should be and one of the reasons we think we are is because we have so much religious diversity in america and religious competition. we never had a state church. jefferson and madison were very clear about that. they wanted religions to compete for membership, not have automatic money coming from the taxpayer dollars. because of that, religion did very well because it had to. religious diversity is a strength for us. not having a state church has been a good thing for the robust amount of religious life we have in the united it's right now. host: ryan burge, is separation

of church and state exactly what you just said? that there is not a state church, or is it that politicians should not be reading scripture? guest: i'm a baptist. roger williams founded the tradition in america and one of the things he believed in was a strong separation of church and state. i don't believe churches should have anything to do with the government and ethic the government should be as hands-off with the -- with religion as it possibly can. i wish it was that black and white and clear. during the pandemic, there were ppp loans for churches and they could apply for these forgivable loans from the government to basically pay payroll so they wouldn't have to lay people off because they had no offerings coming in and my church did apply and received a ppp loan that was forgiven. i had a hard time with that but i knew that my church could not continue to exist without some help from the government. thousands of other churches around america did the same. i wish there was a clear answer between the separation and --

separation of church and state. pastors do not talk about politics at the pulpit. we know that to be empirically true. we asked 1000 people who went to church every week and give them a list of 15 issues and asked if your pastor has spoken about any of these issues in the past year. one third of people said not one of those issues. 52% said the pastor spoke about one or zero issues over the last 12 months. most pastors are not bringing politics into the pulpit. if politics is in the church, it is happening at the pew level. host: if you consider yourself nonreligious, are you more or less likely to purchase a pate in civics? guest: good question -- to participate in civics? guest: good question. it depends on what type of nonreligious you are. atheists are the most quote unquote, religiously active today.

they are much more likely to donate, but on the other that point, you have the nothing in particular group, which most nones a.ticulars are the least politically active religious group in america today, only 32% of nothing in particulars voted in the 2022 midterms compared to 52 percent of atheists and 50% of evangelicals. it depends on what type of none you are. host: i want to read this from mika in henville. this is a text. she sa was born and raised southern baptist and most of her family regularly attends church. they rejected hers -- when she came out as transgender, using religion as the reas ostracize her. can your guest speak more to transgender rights? guest: without a doubt, there

are many marginalized communities in america because of religion. the lgbtq community especially has been marginalized by religion. that seems to have intensified over the last 10 years. when same-sex marriage became the law of the land across all 50 states, it is all most likely just people felt like they had to dig in. one reason that even -- one reason that evangelicalism has continued to maintain it steady presence in american life, there is the main line, which is a more moderate flavor, and episcopal's. evangelicals are as large today as they were in the 1970's because they have created a clear delineation between them and everyone else. they call it us versus the world. things like transgender, that is one way they put their foot down and draw a clear line. these are lines they will not cross. there are a lot of social science literature that says hard religion, difficult

religion tends to do better because it does create that sense of us versus them than religion that tends to capitulate to what the culture is all about. evangelicals say the proof is in the pudding. they say they are doing well while the mainline has collapsed because of their stances on things like abortion, same-sex marriage and transgender. host: professor burge, here is a follow-up from a vwer. dave in lando says he takes offense at your remark that quote, we are more religious than we should be. please explain. guest: if you do a scatterplot of gdp, a measure of economic prosperity across the x axis, and a share of the country that says religion is important, we are huge outlier. really religious but very economically challenged countries are places in the global south. lots of them in that top left corner. in the bottom right, countries like sweden, norway, denmark and

france. the closest neighbor we have in terms of our gdp is switzerland. it is almost exactly the same. 12% of the swiss say religion is very important to them. it is 51% for americans. from that perspective, we should look like switzerland but we don't. we are much more religious than we "should" be based on metrics or other countries. host: greg in texas, nonreligious. guest: hello -- caller: hello. i would consider myself spiritual. my mom did not attend church regularly. we went with our grandparents. the reason why i don't go to church or except a religion is because religious people don't practice what they read.

also the churches are political. they are oppressing women, they oppress -- they don't accept each other. each religion separates from the other. a baptist and a catholic are not going to attend church together even though it is the same god. host: i want to take that point and have professor burge respond. guest: that is something i hear quite a bit, that religion is a cause for division in this country. my wife is catholic and i am baptist. i can't take communion at her church and she cannot take communion at mine. that can create divisiveness but if you look at western europe, western europe is basically postreligious. especially in places like sweden and denmark and norway.

but they are still -- they still have divisions in those countries. it is not like division goes away if you get rather -- get rid of religion. you still have divisions over class, region, race. we are human beings, we are set up in a way to create groups, us versus them and religion is just one way to create us versus them. if you get rid of religion, the tenants that we have -- the tendency we have to create us versus them does not go away. i would rather buy us versus them be over religion then what football team i'm going to cheer for in the super bowl. host: jamie in missouri, religious. are you there? jamie in garden city, missouri. caller: hello. host: go ahead. caller: i have a comment. this is so interesting. i grew up in a very conservative catholic -- i was not allowed to go to mass. long story short, i divorced,

remarried, was shunned because i was going to be damned to hell. i did remarry. i am christian and i believe that our country cannot exist without judeo-christian values. that is what our constitution was founded on. do i practice? no, i sit with my bible and i read because my trust in church is completely broken. host: you have the love for your lord. professor burge, respond? guest: she raises a good point about what is happening in the catholic church. after vatican two, the latin mass became the mass in the country in which you are in. the priest would face the congregation, not faces back to

the congregation. it was a way to make mass more appealing to more catholics because the church was worried about losing membership will stop if you look at the data we just talked about, catholics attending mass every sunday has declined and there is a growing movement among american catholics, traditional catholics, they want to go back to the latin mass and there are is -- there is a medical evidence that dioceses who have brought back the latin mass have seen a significant increase in attendance the latin mass and a lot of it's young families with young children. if you make religion hard, people are more likely to be drawn into hard religion. if you make it easy, it does not seem so supernatural and people are more lucky to drift away if they dondifficult to stop that a movement happening in lots of traditions by the way. don't make it easier to come, make it harder and when people come, they will stick around longer because they like how separate is from the rest of the world. host: where is the line for the church and officials, for trying

to control behavior of those that are in your building on a weekly basis? you just heard her say, she was told she would burn in hell. that is not just the catholic church. other religions use that as a way to control as well. does not go too far? guest: generally, politicians and elected officials have been very hesitant to get involved in religious disputes. even the courts will walk away from religious disputes, saying you need to figure that out on your own, because the american public wants religion to have a wide birth in american society and politics. there are some states where if you are a christian daycare, you get inspected once a year and if you are non-christian, you could inspected once a quarter. one of the interesting fights right now is what we call the ministerial exception. if you a minister like im, i can

be fired for any reason for any time and i have no legal recourse. physically the courts would never step in. if i say i'm pro lgbtq and i'm fired, that is totally allowed because my pastor. the question is how big is that exception? if i'm a schoolteacher in the local catholic church, teaching k-8 and i come out as lgbtq, can they fire me for that? there is a case an organism -- in oregon were a man was hired to work for a christian nonprofit as a lawyer and they found out he was gay and fired him because that is a violation of their religious beliefs and they use ministerial exception to say they can do that legally. there all these interesting questions about how much freedom does religion have in american life, but also things like diversity, equity, inclusion and discrimination? those things matter as well. those will be significant fights. host: brian in massachusetts, nonreligious. caller: good morning. a great conversation today.

i was raised catholic. i became agnostic, atheist later on. now i'm in a 12 step program. you are supposed to have a higher power, which i kind of struggle with. what your guest said about science, the nonreligious people basing their thinking on science and whatnot. separation of church and state is in the constitution. everyone should just not push their religion on each other. i think back to when the indians, those savages we eradicated only first came here. they respect of the land and each other. warred with each other, but like the pagans and everything, the seasons, earth and water.

religion should be minimized because it is a political firestorm. host: professor? your thoughts? guest: i was thinking about thomas jefferson. he was a guy who had a bible. you can find in the smithsonian. he took the gospel of jesus and cut out all the miracles but left the teaching. he thought jesus was a fine moral teacher but that he could not be divine because it is just not possible. it is unscientific to bring someone back from the dead or turn water into wine. he wanted to keep the teachings of jesus but get rid of the miracles. folks like jefferson worshiped at the temple of reason. that was the highest call. science and reason. that is what god gave us to help understand the world around us. we don't need miracles. they believed that god existed and that he was the divine watc■uhmaker, creating the lawsf

science and physics and gravity and then took his hands off and let angst happen the way they are supposed to happen. host: let's go to bill in pennsylvania. religious. caller: good morning. i am a evangelical lutheran. we don't think of evangelical the way other people think of evangelical. baptist, catholics, you are welcome to come and commune with us. my question has to do with televangelists and the rise of the televangelist, fakers, jho low steen -- joel osteen. 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 and the mega churches on society's

opinion of religion? guest: a great point. it is a really interesting story because when you look at the -- look at when the religious right rose in america in the 1980's, guess what was also happening in american religion? we saw the rise of someone like pat robertson or jerry falwell or jim and tammy faye baker. they could use their pulpits, digital pulpits to get the message out to tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of followers every week because they had these vast tv deals. before that, it was almost impossible for a guy like billy graham to have his message heard by more people than were actually in the stadium or in the congregation he was giving a talk in. there is a lot of data and understanding from religious history that one of the reasons the religious right grew so quickly and became so cohesive was because the rise of televangelists helped guide the flock and organize them on

certain issues like same-sex, pornography and abortion in the 1970's and 1980's. host: here is ramona any text message. as a fallen away catholic,'m concerned that the majority of the supreme court are catholic. majority were jewish or evangelicals. guest: the problem is if you have nine people, you can't represent all of america with nine people. that's a fundamental problem we've always had. it is just one of those small sample size things. there are several jews on the supreme court right now and the only makeup 2% of the population. if the supreme court looked like america, about two of them would be nonreligious. that's not going to happen at any point in the near future. when you only have nine people, it is hard to represent the diversity we have in america, especially when it comes to religion. host: another text from teresa in little rock. do nones have more or less

morals? what is their code on right or wrong? guest: that's an impossible question to answer but i wish i could. no one has the same sense of morality. i love evangelicals will look at atheists and say you can't be a moral atheist because you have no moral framework. a lot of atheists say evangelicals are immoral because they don't allow women to preach and they are anti-lgbtq. morality is a shifting sand. one side throws insults at the other side. if you look at the data, most americans do say you can be moral and not be religious. there tends to be some tolerance in that direction. still a significant number of religious people, people who go to church on a regular basis do think you need to be religious in order to be moral. host: brad in louisiana, nonreligious. you've got to mute that television. caller: sorry. host: go ahead. caller: the whole idea of

religion is a human construct. if we look at the evolution of homo sapiens, we find that it wasn't until the neolithic period that we started getting the various gods. whether there is a god or not, there is no way to prove it. we need to turn to science. as we look at science -- i am a phd biologist -- we see through animal behavior the same kind of behaviors in humans, that we see in other animals. host: brad, and what way? where is their similarities between animal behavior and human behavior in it comes to religion? -- when it comes to religion? caller: animals have no

religion. it is an idea, just like we have the construct for democracy or we have a construct for building an airplane. religion is the same thing. it came out of the human brain. host: understood. guest: cultural and apologists would make that -- cultural anthropologists would make that argument. religion did not exist when people groups were small. you didn't want to steal from your cousin or your brothers because you were close with them. one societies became larger and more organized, you did not know everyone in your people group and you had to have some sort of external control to keep you from stealing and murdering and doing those awful things. essentially god was created in sense of external control and internal punishment for you doing things like stealing. it was a way to encourage prosocial behavior, altruistic behavior.

it was an essential part. what they would also argue is that as government got larger and more likely to enforce roles -- rules and more capable of enforcing rules, punishment doesn't come from god, it comes from the state. if you do steal or murder, you are tried and convicted and that is how the punishment happens. when these scholars look a place like denmark it is because the government now has become the god in many ways and it regular to behavior better than god ever could. host: maria and atlanta. you consider yourself religious -- maria in atlanta. you consider yourself religious. caller: thank you for c-span. yes i am religious. i look at religion as how you walk the earth and treat people morally. i do not see where america has a lot of religion in the things they have done the past and continue to do. but there are some good people

and a lot of pastors and ministers, they are all about the money. the reason why they are scared to preach about it is because they don't want the congregation to go because of the congregation goes, than their money goes. now it is all about money. america is not a great country, there is no way you can be religious and have the laws and prior history and today. host: thank you. guest: i would say that the average church in america is 75 people. the average pastor is vocational. very few pastors are getting any sort of richness off being a pastor. there is no economic security for them. many have significant amounts of student loan debt. we are seeing more and more pastors say they are burned out.

almost half of pastors have seriously considered leaving the pulpit. in many ways, being a pastor is one of the worst jobs in america and we will have a significant shortage in this country in the next five or 10 years because of all the negative sentiment that pastors receive from the general population. host: that brings up the last part of your book, where are they going? where are the nones going? guest: they are going to get larger. there is no doubt that in the next 30 years, the share of americans that are nonreligious is going to be 40%. this is going to create very interesting dichotomy in american society. we talk a lot about partisan polarization. we don't talk enough in this country about religious polarization. in the 1950's we talked about the mainline, half of americans were moderate protestants, methodist, episcopalians who did believe in the bible but were going to tell you you're going to hell. they wanted to help and build

the community. those kinds of religions are dying rapidly. all that are going to be left in the future is a bunch of nones on one side and a bunch of very religious people on the other. not just evangelicals, traditional catholics, conservative jews, conservative muslims are going to be locking arms on the right side of the religious spectrum and a lot of americans want to be religious they don't want to be that kind of religious, so they're going to be left out and they have no place to worship. a lot of people come to me and say they can't find a place to worship because they are not really conservative. the answer is in a lot of committees across the country, they don't have a lot of options when they used to have a cornucopia of options 30 or 40 years ago. host: richard in verona, missouri. caller: this religious business. if you are a catholic, you probably were raised by your

parents as being catholic. you brainwash her kids into believing what you are taught by your parents. the same way with the mormons or anyone else. they are brainwashed into that particular religion. christianity is great. if you do the right thing, we've got these people coming from the border and we need to take care of them. they are none americans but they are humans. overseas, the muslims and the jews killing each other and sending each other to heaven i guess. to me, i'm 86 years old and i look back and i think religion for the most part has been a big con game that other people can get money without having to work for it. host: professor burge. guest: that is a sentiment we hear a lot. richard has a great point.

the number one determinant of your current religion is the one you were raised in. majority of people across the world are the same religion that their parents were. we are seeing more and more religious switching in the united states. protestants are becoming catholics. a lot of people are becoming nones. even some nones become religious overtime. we have a dynamic religious marketplace. the one thing that is great about our country is if you don't like your current religion, you have plenty of options, or you can become nonreligious. host: a text -- a post from bobby. don't most people choose a church before they become politically aware? why is that important? guest: they do. we grow up in church. your parents take you to church and for a lot of people, they don't even understand what denomination they are a part of because it is not part of the conversation. one hard thing with survey research is a lot of people don't know what the word protestant means anymore because

a lot of protestant churches don't use that word, they will say they are just christian. i have a hard time with surveys because young people especially don't know what the word artist that means because it is not used in the vernacular. people grow up in a specific church. when people get to 18 or 19 years old and go to college, that is when they start looking around, saying why am i going to this church, why am i going to this type of church? should i continue to go to church? that is where they do a lot of searching. if you're going to choose to pick a different religion, they do it during that crucial period in their late teens and early 20's. host: any statistics as to whether newer immigrants to the u.s. are more or less religiously affiliated than longer-term american residents? what is the effect of that on policy decisions? guest: immigrants tend to be slightly more religious as a

whole because ill -- because a lot of the countries they're coming from tend to be more religious. what the data says is the longer they are in the country, the more they assimilate to american culture, which means they are more looking to become nonreligious. there is an argument that if we increased immigration, we will become a more religious country. if you look at the data, we would be no more or less religious if we had no immigration versus having a lot more immigration because of the assimilation factor that happens in the second generation of people who come to the united states. host: what do you think overall is the impact on policy of the trends we are seeing of more nones in this country? guest: at some point, congress is going to have to wake up to the fact that there are a lot of nonreligious people in the united states, so things like the equality act, something i'm following very closely, the idea

that no organization or business can discredited against you based on your gender identity or sexual orientation. a bill like that is very much liked by the nones but religious organizations are reluctant to embrace things like that because would you be able to fire a transgender pastor of your church? churches still want to have a ton of autonomy when it comes to who they hire and fire and how they do their policy and they are worried the government is going to encroach on their ability to regulate who their pastor is. host: ryan burge, professor at eastern university illinois and author of the book, "the nones: where they came from, who they are and where they are going." professor and pastor burge,

the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from georgia seek recognition? the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from from georgia seek recognition? miss green: pursuant to clause

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