A leading researcher on the increasingly nonreligious make up of the United States is the guest on the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Sunday television show.
Eastern Illinois University Professor Ryan Burge specializes in religious demography. He’s the author of the 2021 book The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are and Where They Are Going. Burge’s newest book is 20 Myths About Religion and Politics in America, in which he postulates that the way most people think about religion and politics is only loosely connected to the actual data. (Perhaps surprisingly, Burge is a pastor of an American Baptist church.)
“Every single birth cohort is less religious; it’s not just young people,” Burge explains to “Freethought Matters” co-hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor how this country is becoming steadily more secular. “And people are not becoming more religious as they age. Actually, they’re becoming less religious as they age.”
If you don’t live in the quarter-plus viewership of the nation where the show broadcasts on Sunday, you can already catch the interview on FFRF’s YouTube channel. New shows go up every Thursday.
“Freethought Matters” airs in:
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- Seattle, KONG-IND (Ch. 16 or Ch. 106 on Comcast). Sundays at 8 a.m.
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Upcoming guests include reproductive rights researcher Professor Tiffany Green and ex-Christian nationalist Bradley Onishi, who has written a new book about the movement and his participation in it. You can catch interviews from past seasons here, including the fall 2022 season with author John Irving, actor John “Q” de Lancie and Washington Post columnist Kate Cohen. Previous interviews include Julia Sweeney and Reps. Jared Huffman, Jamie Raskin, Hank Johnson and Eleanor Holmes Norton, among many other notable authors, activists and freethinkers.
Please tune in to “Freethought Matters” . . . because freethought matters.
P.S. Please tune in or record according to the times given above regardless of what is listed in your TV guide (it may be listed simply as “paid programming” or even be misidentified). To set up an automatic weekly recording, try taping manually by time or channel. And spread the word to freethinking friends, family or colleagues about a TV show, finally, that is dedicated to providing programming for freethinkers — your antidote to religion on Sunday morning!
