the lecture below is about religion in the US

2. INTRODUCTION
 From the beginning of the Colonial period, religion has been a major factor in
shaping the identity and values of the American people.
 English and German settlers came in search of religious freedom; America has
been profoundly influenced by religion in American culture, social life, and politics.
 Several of the original Thirteen Colonies were established by settlers who wished
to practice their own religion within a community of like-minded people: the
Massachusetts Bay Colony was established by English Puritans, Pennsylvania by
Quakers, Maryland by English Catholics, and Virginia by English Anglicans.
 The First Amendment to the country's Constitution states that "Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress
of grievances."
 It guarantees the free exercise of religion while also preventing the government
from establishing a state religion. However, the states were not bound by the
provision and as late as the 1830s Massachusetts provided tax money to local
Congregational churches.

3.  According to a 2002 survey, nearly 6 in 10 Americans said that
religion plays an important role in their lives, compared to 33% in
Great Britain, 27% in Italy, 21% in Germany, 12% in Japan and
11% in France.
 In 1963, 90% of Americans claimed to be Christians while only
2% professed no religious identity.
 In 2014, the percentage of Christians was closer to 70% with close
to 23% claiming no religious identity.
 The largest religion in the US is Christianity, claimed by the
majority of the population (71% in 2014).
 46.5% of Americans are Protestants, 25.4% are Catholics, 2%
are Mormons, and 1% have affiliations with various other
Christian denominations.

4.  According to a 2012 review by the National Council
of Churches, the five largest denominations are:
The Catholic Church 68,202,492 members
The Southern Baptist
Convention
16,136,044 members
The United Methodist
Church
7,679,850 members
The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints
6,157,238 members
The Church of God in Christ 5,499,875 members

5.  After Christianity, Judaism is the next largest religious affiliation in
the US, though this identification is not necessarily indicative of
religious beliefs or practices.
 There are between 5.3 and 6.6 million Jews. A significant number
of people identify themselves as American Jews on ethnic and
cultural grounds, rather than religious ones.
 For example, 19% of self-identified American Jews do not believe
God exists.
 The 2001 ARIS study projected from its sample that there are
about 5.3 million adults in the American Jewish population:
2.83 million adults (1.4% of the U.S. adult population) are
estimated to be adherents of Judaism; 1.08 million are estimated to
be adherents of no religion; and 1.36 million are estimated to be
adherents of a religion other than Judaism.
 ARIS 2008 estimated about 2.68 million adults (1.2%) in the
country identify Judaism as their faith.

6.  Islam is the third largest faith in the United States, after
Christianity and Judaism, representing 0.9% of the
population.
 Islam in America effectively began with the arrival of African
slaves. It is estimated that about 10% of African slaves
transported to the United States were Muslim.
 Most; however, became Christians, and the United States did
not have a significant Muslim population until the arrival of
immigrants from Arab and East Asian Muslim areas.
 Islam later gained a higher profile through the Nation of
Islam, a religious group that appealed to black Americans
after the 1940s; its prominent converts included Muhammad
Ellija, Malcolm X , and Muhammad Ali.
 The first Muslim elected in Congress was Keith Ellison in
2006, followed by André Carson in 2008.

8.  The Christian share of the U.S. population is
declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not
identify with any organized religion is growing.
 While the drop in Christian affiliation is particularly
pronounced among young adults, it is occurring
among Americans of all ages.
 The same trends are seen among whites, blacks and
Latinos; among both college graduates and adults with
only a high school education; and among women as
well as men.

9.  The percentage of adults (ages 18 and older) who describe
themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight
percentage points in just seven years, from 78.4% to 70.6% in
2014.
 Over the same period, the percentage of Americans who are
religiously unaffiliated– describing themselves as atheist,
agnostic or “nothing in particular”– has jumped from 16.1%
to 22.8%.
 And the share of Americans who identify with non-Christian
faiths also has inched up, rising 1.2 percentage points, from
4.7% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2014.
 Growth has been especially great among Muslims and Hindus,
albeit from a very low base.

10.  Even as their numbers decline, American Christians –
like the U.S. population as a whole – are becoming
more racially and ethnically diverse.
 Non-Hispanic whites now account for smaller shares
of Protestants and Catholics than they did seven years
earlier, while Hispanics have grown as a share of all
three religious groups.
 Racial and ethnic minorities now make up 41% of
Catholics (up from 35% in 2007), 24% of evangelical
Protestants.

11.  Religious intermarriage also appears to be on the rise:
Among Americans who have gotten married since
2010, nearly four-in-ten (39%) report that they are in
religiously mixed marriages, compared with 19%
among those who got married before 1960.
 The rise in intermarriage appears to be linked with
the growth of the religiously unaffiliated population.
 Nearly one-in-five people surveyed who got married
since 2010 are either religiously unaffiliated
respondents who married a Christian spouse or
Christians who married an unaffiliated spouse.

12. Factors Behind the Changes in Americans’ Religious Identification
 One of the most important factors in the declining share of Christians and the
growth of the “nones” is generational replacement.
 As the Millennial generation enters adulthood, its members display much lower
levels of religious affiliation, including less connection with Christian churches,
than older generations.
 However, generational replacement is by no means the only reason that
religious “nones” are growing and Christians are declining.
 In addition, people in older generations are increasingly disavowing association
with organized religion.
 About a third of older Millennials (adults currently in their late 20s and early
30s) now say they have no religion, up nine percentage points among this
cohort since 2007, when the same group was between ages 18 and 26.
 Nearly a quarter of Generation Xers now say they have no particular religion
or describe themselves as atheists or agnostics, up four points in seven years.