Church attendence rates by states per 1000 people

[ButterflyBlood]

I found this list, and I found it rather interesting. It shows that there is practically no correlation between the social liberalism of a state and church attendence:

*edit* I just redid it with the colors for states won by * and states won by Gore. once again, no correlation.

1 Utah 747.3
2 North Dakota 732.03
3 South Dakota 678.13
4 Massachusetts 640.97
5 Rhode Island 634.51
6 Minnesota 617.04
7 Oklahoma 607.56
8 Wisconsin 604.37
9 New York 603.98
10 Nebraska 588.37
11 Louisiana 587.84
12 Iowa 584.84
13 New Mexico 581.53
14 Pennsylvania 579.49
15 Connecticut 578.79
16 New Jersey 577.44
17 Arkansas 571.17
18 Texas 555.04
19 Illinois 552.98
20 Alabama 547.63
21 Mississippi 546.46
22 Kentucky 534.31
23 Missouri 517.08
24 Tennessee 510.72
25 Kansas 493.69
26 Idaho 484.76
27 New Hampshire 476.64
28 South Carolina 475.73
29 Wyoming 467.26
30 California 460.98
31 North Carolina 453.63
32 Ohio 449.41
33 Georgia 447.76
34 Montana 447.23
35 Maryland 432.72
36 Indiana 429.06
37 Michigan 418.39
38 Virginia 415.84
39 Florida 411.47
40 Delaware 405.97
41 Arizona 399.18
42 Colorado 394.6
43 Vermont 391.33
44 Maine 363.58
45 Hawaii 362.1
46 West Virginia 359.45
47 Alaska 343.3
48 Nevada 342.86
49 Washington 329.63
50 Oregon 313.11

What exactly does this mean? I found it very odd NH, usually thought of as a very secular state, is right in front of SC, the heart of the Bible Belt.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. Arizona being so low is a shock

Seriously, when I went house hunting down there, EVERY HOUSE had a large shrine to Jesus and religious icons were EVERYWHERE. It was so bad, I could feel my skin sizzle just being in some of these homes!

[trotsky]

2. It would be interesting to see this put on a map...

using shades of color.

What exactly does this mean, though? Church attendance as in "I go to church/synagogue/mosque every Friday/Saturday/Sunday" or "Yes, I have attended church in the past year."??

[ButterflyBlood]

3. actually there is a map

[ThoughtCriminal]

8. At last I see the REAL connection

Mississippi River watershed.

[davidinalameda]

doesn't follow what I would have expected

I would have thought the northeast would have less and the southeast more

[JHB]

4. Why am I not surprised:

Ol' Sodom & Gommorah Central...
>9 New York 603.98

...comes in way above most "Bible-Belt" states...

17 Arkansas 571.17
18 Texas 555.04
20 Alabama 547.63
21 Mississippi 546.46
22 Kentucky 534.31
23 Missouri 517.08
24 Tennessee 510.72
28 South Carolina 475.73
31 North Carolina 453.63
33 Georgia 447.76
38 Virginia 415.84
39 Florida 411.47

[swag]

5. Proud resident of number 50!

WE CAN GET THE NUMBER LOWER!

WE CAN DO IT, OREGON!

[MissB]

6. LOL!

I'm here too!

Being 50th doesn't surprise me.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

11. hahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[central scrutinizer]

25. another proud resident of #50

and I am one of the church goers (if you can call Unitarians a church, that is)

[DenverDem]

7. Not all churches are fundamentalist conservative anti-intellectuals.

There are all different flavors and a whole spectrum of political persuasions in attendance.

My urban United Methodist church is very liberal.

[JHB]

12. Yes, but most of them aren't obnoxious about it.

It's the self-appointed holier than thou crowd that grates.

[DenverDem]

15. The self-appointed holier than thou crowd that grates

are not Christians (really).

[yardwork]

16. This blows a lot of myths out of the water, though.

Myth: Southerners are far more religious than the rest of the country.

Myth: People in the northeast are godless atheists.

In fact - LOL! - Florida is already quite low in terms of church-going, and when one consults the map and sees that a relatively high percentage of the church-goers are Jewish, it makes me wonder what all those Bible-thumping Christian fundamentalists who supposedly live in Florida are doing. Not going to church, evidently. Maybe they're too busy attending * rallies.

Can you say hypocrites? Sure you can.

[SmileyBoy]

9. Surprise, surprise... North Dakota at number 2.

I definitely believe it. Most of the people in the entire Fargo-Moorhead metro area are in some type of church on Sunday Mornings. And we're talking about 160,000 people here.

[Love Bug]

22. Maybe they're in church...

because there's nothing else to do in Fargo! :evilgrin:

[PfcHammer]

10. More important is

what are they doing while they're in church. Bet they are saying bad stuff about us.

[Jacobin]

13. Some of the higher ranking churches have large

catholic populations. They tend to have lots of masses during the week and make it easy to go. Going to mass is inculcated in their belief structure perhaps more than protestants.....at least they make it easier to attend with lots of opportunities.

Otherwise, who knows.

[FreeSpeechCrusader]

14. Did it happen to say if

they just surveyed by asking people if they went to church or if they documented the attendence by reports from churches and so forth.

[yardwork]

17. I'm reasonably sure that this is self-reported.

I doubt that churches would be willing to cross-reference attendance figures by name with how people respond to a poll. In fact, it's impossible. There is no way to verify whether or not people are telling the truth.

The interesting thing is that one would expect folks in the supposed "Bible belt" to be more likely to over-report rather than under-report their church attendance. Yet many states in the south show up with remarkably low attendance figures.

This has made me very happy today in a smug, sort of self-righteous way....LOL!

[NewJeffCT]

18. CT & RI are very Catholic states

Except for CT's Gold Coast outside NYC...so, no big surprise. I'm sure my grandfather voted Democratic every year and he went to church every Sunday.

[AirAmFan]

19. These statistics may be more an index of "prevarication" ...

... than of church attendance, according to http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/RIN%20Vol.1No.2/Church_lies_polling.htm

Self-reports of "socially desirable behavior" will tend to be exaggerated the more socially desirable the behavior.

That may be why Utah tops your list. Certainly the levels seem extremely high throughout. Do you really believe 60 percent of New Yorkers go to church?

[Zynx]

20. I knew it felt like most people here in Wisconsin went to church.

My local Catholic church is always packed beyond belief.

[ButterflyBlood]

21. OK, I tallied the averages for the states won by Gore and *

and this was the result:

*: 503.59
Gore: 497.39

virtually no difference at all.

[ButterflyBlood]

23. kick

I'm wondering, why exactly is this anyway? How can New York be so much higher than South Carolina?

[RummyTheDummy]

24. This re-confirms the harsh reality I live with

My home state, Oklahoma, is indeed the Buckle of the bible belt. Not all are bad, in fact most are pretty good people, but there is a sizeable percentage of fundie-repug whack jobs.

[McDiggy]

26. You got a source for this?

I might want to use it in a debate about WV some day.

[JanMichael]

27. Not by state but by Individual it was almost perfect "U".

The more church attendance, the more likely to vote Shrub. The less church attendance, the more likely to vote Gore.