Welcome to Seattle, Washington, America’s pagan paradise.
New data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey shows that 64% of residents in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties either don’t attend any religious services or go to church at most once a year. This makes the Seattle metropolitan area the least religious place in the United States, just ahead of secular San Francisco and easily ahead of third-place Boston.
At the other end of the spectrum of religiosity are Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta, where the percentage of people who don’t attend church is in the low 40s.
There are some surprising factors that explain the lack of religiosity in our region. This is where there is a higher proportion of young people and liberals, a group that is less religious than older people and conservatives. Seattle also has far fewer Black Americans than cities like Atlanta and Houston. Church attendance is higher in the Black community than any other demographic group.
However, these factors do not fully explain why the nonreligious population in other parts of the state is only 1 percentage point smaller than in the Seattle area. Washington is the fifth least religious state in the nation, even though some of the states outside the Puget Sound metropolitan area have many older, more conservative people. .
This phenomenon is probably due to all the white people living in rural areas of the Olympic Peninsula and Eastern Washington. White Americans are the least religious demographic group in this country. As mentioned earlier, black Americans are most tied to their churches, which explains why Mississippi is the most religious state.
There is another far-fetched hypothesis that may be responsible for the low level of involvement in formal religion in our country. When Americans moved west in the 19th century, the people who went furthest to the most remote places were often those who were especially keen to leave behind social ties from their home countries. Many immigrants ended up here, and their disinterest in attending church may have been passed down to their descendants.
Still, a census of church attendance does not necessarily measure spiritual connectedness. Perhaps many people in these regions find inspiration and upliftment on Sunday mornings, not in the congregation, but in the trees, mountains, and rippling waters.
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