Ask Americans what their religion is, and nearly 1 in 3 say this -- none. That’s according to the U.S. adults surveyed by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Mike Dulak grew up Catholic in Southern California, but by his teen years, he began skipping Mass and driving straight to the shore to play guitar, watch the waves and enjoy the beauty of the morning. “And it felt more spiritual than any time I set foot in a church,” he recalled.

Nothing has changed that view in the ensuing decades.

“Most religions are there to control people and get money from them,” said Dulak, now 76, of Rocheport, Missouri. He also cited sex abuse scandals in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches. “I can’t buy into that,” he said.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
      918·
      1 year ago

      None of my family were pilgrims. I don’t think you can just ignore the tens of millions of immigrants from Europe who weren’t pilgrims

      • vonbaronhans@midwest.social
        401·
        1 year ago

        I think their point is that the pilgrims set the cultural precedents for what would later become America, to which later immigrants would be beholden.

        I don’t know how true that is, but I think “protestant work ethic” is at least one example of that sort of thing.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
          317·
          1 year ago

          The Pilgrims didn’t come here first (of the Europeans). They were beaten by multiple different European groups.

          Like, not just “would they have wanted to” but would the Native population have repopulated the shoreline by then and repelled any settlers like they did the vikings?

          I don’t know. Why don’t you ask the French traders that came before or the Spanish pushing upwards from the entire continent they had control over?

          The pilgrims were successful at gaining a foothold because they showed up in a place and time the local population had mostly just died off from sickness and the survivors initially helped the pilgrims.

          Not relevant to your argument. Also I am fairly confident you are mixing up the Pilgrims and the Purtains. But hey facts don’t matter anymore so believe whatever you want.