Antiquitopia

In case you forgot, today is NOT March 1, but that rare date of February 29. For those of you who only get a birthday every four years, happy birthday! Feb 29 is a day that reminds us (as if we needed reminding) of the calendrical difficulties of basically almost all civilizations (except the Mayans) to create an annual calendar that matches the solar year (at least for those who tried). So, for example, the Egyptians attempted a 365-day solar calendar. And, it is increasingly becoming evident that the pre-Hasmonean calendar in Second Temple Judaism was also probably solar, as was the calendar of the Dead Sea sectarians of only 364 days, replaced by (most likely) the Hasmoneans by the distinctive luni-solar calendar. The 364-day calendar must have had some sort of leap-recalibration to keep the seasonal festivals to match their respective seasons, although there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of this. It is also a reminder (again, as if we needed reminding) that this is an el...

I continue to be fascinated by the Pew Forum's survey on the U.S. Religious Landscape. I am currently working through the chapter on changing religious affiliations. It primarily measures net gains and losses of different groups (which means that groups that have a net loss, are also gaining adherents but not enough to offset their losses, and vice versa). In terms of major traditions, more than one of four Americans (28%) have changed their affiliation from that which they were born in. If you consider those who change within a tradition (so, from one Protestant group to another, or going from Orthodox to REform Judaism, etc.), you end up with a number like 44% of Americans changing their religious affiliation from that which they were born in. Clearly Americans are on the move religiously. But who is winning and losing out? Evidently, the largest religious group (or the group gaining the greatest percentage increase in adherents) is "unaffiliated." That's righ...

If you haven't already seen it, check out the Pew Forum's new Survey on the U.S. Religious Landscape here . You can compare various demographic aspects of different religious groups in the U.S., such as geographical distribution, economic status, gender distribution, racial distribution, and so forth. I have yet to read the whole report, but I found the following information particularly interesting: One aspect of note is that, not really surprisingly, evangelical Christians constitute the largest religious group (or group of groups) in the U.S. at 26.3% (and of those, the largest groups are the Baptists at 10.8% of the entire U.S. population). What I had not realized is that the second largest group is Catholics 23.9%. And so, taken together, evangelicals and Catholics constitute roughly half of the U.S. population. Evangelicals have a higher percentage in the southern states, while Catholics seem to be relatively evenly spread out. Evidently, Hindus have the highest marita...