An acclaimed sociologist explains on the latest episode of the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s TV show what recent national numbers on religion and nonreligion actually mean.
Ryan T. Cragun is a professor of sociology at the University of Tampa who focuses mainly on Mormonism and nonreligion. He’s the author or co-author of many books, including “Beyond Doubt: The Secularization of Society,” “What You Don’t Know About Religion (but Should)” and the intriguingly titled book “How to Defeat Religion in Ten Easy Steps.” Cragun’s newest book, co-authored with Jesse M. Smith, is called “Goodbye Religion: The Causes and Consequences of Secularization.” Cragun talks on the show about this book and dissects the latest Pew national survey on religion showing that the religiously unaffiliated remain the largest segment by religious “denomination” at 29 percent.
“I’ve got this paper that’s forthcoming that shows a lot of people who say they believe in a soul, they see the soul as just the personality,” Cragun tells “Freethought Matters” co-hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor. “It’s nothing supernatural. It’s just a very different conception. And this is one of the areas where I would kind of take issue with how Pew frames this. It turns out you can say, ‘I believe in a soul,’ and not have any notion of spirituality or supernatural belief.”
You can watch the entire interview on FFRF’s YouTube channel now. New shows go up every Thursday.:
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- NOTE TIME CHANGE: New York City, WPIX-IND (Ch. 11), Sundays at 9 a.m., instead of 10 a.m., just on Sunday, April 20. It will return to 10 a.m. on future shows.
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Upcoming shows include an interview with Mary Trump, the niece of President Trump, and with former member of Congress Susan Wild. You can catch interviews from earlier this season and from previous seasons here, including with Gloria Steinem, Ron Reagan, author John Irving, actor John “Q” de Lancie and award-winning columnist Katha Pollitt.
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