Background Probability

The Agnostic Popular Front has moved to its new home at Skeptic Ink, and will henceforth be known as Background Probability. Despite the relocation and rebranding, we will continue to spew the same low-fidelity high-quality bullshit that you've come to expect.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Bible Belt Discover Between NE, SW

Turns out (against conventional wisdom) that the belt runs roughly from the SE tip of Florida to the NW tip of Idaho. Here is the map of those states where at least one in three Americans take their scriptures very literally:

Map of Bible Belt
Percentage of population that view scripture as the
Word of God literally true word for word.

Good news for Okies - we aren't the buckle after all! If the data from the Pew Forum's new Religious Landscape Survey are to be trusted (and I'm none too skeptical for once) that dubious distinction goes to to the Old South, both geographically and in terms of raw data.

Note that if you mentally block out the mustard-coloured states, you still get a contiguous belt centered upon Dixie, but aligned roughly east-to-west. That would be, I suppose, the traditional (fuzzy) conception of the proverbial belt. It is this inner-belt which votes most reliably in favor of the GOP, and which borders upon such key swing states as Florida, Ohio, Missouri, and Colorado, where a slim majority of citizens have not yet drunk the Kool-Aid.

5 comments:

ERV said...

Excuse'm, but Missouri is a purple state-- not a red state.

We have cycles-- a Dem majority comes in and makes things great. So great, people feel comfortable voting Republican. Then things do down the crapper again, and they all vote Dem.

John Ashcroft killed public schools in MO. Then we got Carnahan (D), and things got good.

Now Matt Blunt (R) is killing everything he touches... so hopefully we will swing back to blue after this November.

Anonymous said...

Hi! I found you through erv! I've got one question for you ... Do you know what happened to the popular agnostic front? :-)

muse142 said...

That is a frightening picture there. Nearly half the damn continental US, in fact.

I notice an epicenter around Mississippi that's kind of startling. Looks almost even like the Tomato Salmonella map I've seen tossed up on the nightly news. The Meme/Gene comparison gains a little support here.

Anyhoo, very nice blag. I may have to pop my head in more often and see what's what. :)

Damion said...

Hey now I'm not trying to knock the show-me state. I thought that "key swing states" are purple more-or-less by definition.

:)

Damion said...

Muse - The map was designed to display all the states with greater than average literalism, so it should be about half of the nation.

I don't find the epicenter in the Old South particularly surprising. Religion and poverty and illiteracy tend to be positively correlated for reasons as yet misunderstood.