These Are The Most Godless Cities In America

[SecularMotion]

America, you may have a new Sodom and Gomorrah.

The two least “Bible-minded” cities in the United States are the adjacent metros of Providence, R.I., and New Bedford, Mass., according to a study out Wednesday from the American Bible Society.

The study defines “Bible-mindedness” as a combination of how often respondents read the Bible and how accurate they think the Bible is. “Respondents who report reading the bible within the past seven days and who agree strongly in the accuracy of the Bible are classified as ‘Bible Minded,’” says the study’s methodology.

Christian missionaries can apparently steer clear of Tennessee, as the report suggests the state is the most devout in the union. Chattanooga was found to be the most Bible-minded city in America, a title it won from last year’s victor, Knoxville.

http://nation.time.com/2014/01/22/godless-cities-in-america/

[cbayer]

1. How often they read the bible and how accurate they think it is?

I guess that measure something, degree of fundamentalism perhaps.

But then the American Bible Society did the survey.

I think their results are accurate reflections of what they call "Bible mindedness", but not of godlessness.

[hrmjustin]

2. I see NYC was 89th on the list.

[cbayer]

3. The article states that it probably didn't come in the top because of the large Jewish population.

They left the definition of "bible" open and asked how often people read it "outside of your church or synagogue".

[hrmjustin]

5. Well they also leave out that church attendance is good here as well.

[cbayer]

7. Maybe, but they weren't interested in church attendance.

Just how often people read the bible and how true they think it is.

[TlalocW]

4. A surprise and a non-surprise

The non-surprise is Springfield, MO, which is home to Baptist Bible College. A friend of mine went there, and I learned all sorts of interesting things about it - they require their students to sign a contract that says they won't watch television, listen to certain stations on the radio, go to movies, etc. My friend happily ignored those requirements, but a lot of them don't and because of it, nearby Silver Dollar City sees a lot of repeat business from the college (everyone I talked to could tell me their high score on the boat ride where you shoot targets with light guns).

Tulsa is kind of a surprise though since I lived there for 10+ years, and you can't go a block without seeing a church on it.

TlalocW

[Humanist_Activist]

6. Not really surprised that St. Louis is 58th on the list, about middle of the road...

in most things, though you would think the impression is different, we have a couple of megachurches in the counties surrounding the city, and there are a LOT of churches around here, particularly Catholic ones, but a lot of Protestant ones as well.

We also host an American National Catholic Church parish, a liberal Catholic church not affiliated with Rome...technically, its complicated. Also have a few UUA congregations and an Ethical society or two in the area.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. What, this New Bedford?

How times change. Or Melville wasn't representing the town very accurately.

[rug]

9. Chapter 6 - The Street

If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society of a civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking my first daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford.

In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean mariners will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Street is not unknown to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live Yankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water Street and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only sailors; in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street corners; savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy flesh. It makes a stranger stare.

But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans, Pannangians, and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the whaling-craft which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still more curious, certainly more comical. There weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and a sheath-knife. Here comes another with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak.

No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one-I mean a downright bumpkin dandy-a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the comical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to his canvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly will burst those straps in the first howling gale, when thou art driven, straps, buttons, and all, down the throat of the tempest.

But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers, cannibals, and bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is a queer place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would this day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of Labrador. As it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten one, they look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough: but not like Canaan; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run with milk; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country?

Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that?

In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises a-piece. You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles.

In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples-long avenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the beautiful and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is art; which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces ot flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation's final day.

And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off shore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands.

[Brettongarcia]

13. So the whale is God?

[rug]

14. Here's Dave Barry's advice to students..

Never say anything about a book that anybody with any common sense would say. For example, suppose you are studying Moby-Dick. Anybody with any common sense would say Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand times. So in your paper you say Moby-Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland. Your professor will think you are enormously creative.

[SecularMotion]

10. Thanks for posting this.

Moby Dick is one my favorite books & films. I've visited the Seamen's Bethel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seamen%27s_Bethel

[kwassa]

11. Providence has the First Baptist Church in America

Founded by Roger Williams in 1638.

I used to walk by it every day when in college.

Beautiful building.

[okasha]

12. Lovely.

Very simple and elegant.