The SECOND leading religion in each US state.

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Any thoughts are welcomed.

They're claims of 50 states with Christianity as top in all is wrong on it's face. All you have to do is look at the makeup of Utah:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Utah

Add to that Buddhism is less than .5%.

I don't know if that's their only error but if they missed something that big I wouldn't put it past the person who made this to have gotten all kinds of other things wrong as well.

Bahai in South Carolina.

Hinduism in Arizona, and Delaware.

The traditional second biggest religion in America -Judaism- still dominates in the Northeast.

Buddhism starts in the Pacific (Hawaii, and Alaska) and moves east from California dominating as far east as Kansas.

Then both the South and the Midwest are...gasp...being overrun by the Moors!


Not necessarily. Its hard to tell what that map really means.

Its what "tradition" the person comes from, not "what religion do you actively adhere to now" thats being mapped. And "second place" can be a distant second. If 70 percent of a state is Baptists, and 29 percent are Hispanic Roman Catholics, and one percent are recent immigrants from the Middle east who are of "Muslim tradition" then the first two are lumped together as the one most popular one religion of Christianity, and the last is counted as "the second most popular religion in the state" even though they are hardly an important demigraphic at one percent.

The traditional biggest non Christian religion in America is Judaism. Only two percent of the American population is Jewish. So what that map really shows is which regions of the nation have such a small Jewish population that immigrants of other non christian traditions out number Jews (which dust mite is the biggest of the dust mites).

Also there is one religion which many both Catholics, and Protestants consider to be "non Christian" that is not counted as such on that map. That being Mormonism. Mormons class themselves as "Christians" but other denominations consider them so far out that they are not "Christian". If Mormons are counted as "non Christian" - then Christianity itself would be "the second most popular religion" in Utah, and Mormonism (Im guessing) might be the largest second religion in some other states.

The study is framed by how you define religious tradition.

You could say

Dharmic
Abrahamic
Traditional African religion
Chinese folk religion

,etc.

@techstepgenr8tion,

from lds.org:

"Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unequivocally affirm themselves to be Christians. They worship God the Eternal Father in the name of Jesus Christ. When asked what the Latter-day Saints believe, Joseph Smith put Christ at the center: “The fundamental principles of our religion is the testimony of the apostles and prophets concerning Jesus Christ, ‘that he died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended up into heaven;’ and all other things are only appendages to these, which pertain to our religion.” The modern-day Quorum of the Twelve Apostles reaffirmed that testimony when they proclaimed, “Jesus is the Living Christ, the immortal Son of God. … His way is the path that leads to happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come."

Baha'i
Druze
Rastafarian
Mormonism

are just a continuation the of how religions are recycled, in the same tradition of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Judaism was just recycling Canaanite religion.

As is modern Satanism, which is a counter to American conservative Christianity.

But what about Pastafarianism? As a reaction to conservative religions of all types, how does it fit in to that schema of continuation?

... and the religiously unaffiliated likely outnumber any second leading religion in each US state (except Utah, perhaps, if one goes with the non-Christian definition of Mormonism), since they make up about 20 percent of the total US population.

It could vary from county to county.There is a Buddhist retreat center in my county in AR,quite a few new people moved here to be near it.So here,Buddhism would be second place.Then estimating from people I know, pagans would be tied with atheists,then Judaism,and a few Sufis.

Many Christians dont consider the LDS Christian either (among other things they add on a whole third Testament to the Bible). Thats a serious heresy.

But if one does opt to classify LDS as Christian then that would make all non christian religions in Utah tied for second in the "less than one half of one percent" category in your wiki link,including the Jews.

So even with that small a Utah population Buddhist might well be the "biggest religion" in Utah after Mormonism and Christianity. So the map makers facts may be right. But their presentation of the facts may be very misleading for various reasons. The map makes it look like Buddhist are about to take over Utah when they are probably only one in three hundred of the Utah population.

@techstepgenr8tion, Christianity itself is a vast amalgam of otherwise incompatible beliefs, traditions and practices. The very history of the entire religion post-Jesus is that of appropriation and assimilation, is it not?