It looks like you picked the wrong county if you were hoping for less God. Looks like we're one of the most Godly Western Washington counties as a matter of fact.

It would be interesting to see how "religion" was defined. There are plenty of godless Unitarians out there.

Some caution needs be offered --

We do not like the scam that organized religion represents.

High spiritual index, no fear of religon per se, but not liked to mainstream churches.

Of God and Country ... and NASCAR girls

CONCORD, N.C. (AP) -- Greg Biffle's girlfriend faces a reprimand from NASCAR about her pit-road confrontation with Kurt Busch's fiance after the two drivers wrecked at Texas Motor Speedway.

Busch hit the back of Biffle's car early in Sunday's race, causing an accident that ended Biffle's day. Biffle, the defending race winner, had led 49 of the first 82 laps before the crash and wound up 42nd.

Moments after the wreck, TV cameras caught girlfriend Nicole Lunders slamming a water bottle on Biffle's pit box. She then marched down pit road and climbed halfway up Busch's box and had a heated exchange with Eva Bryan.

I love that last sentence. I'm officially a NASCAR fan. Oh yes I am. Color me red.

This map is soon to be outdated, as it does not reflect the impact of the Christian Faith Center's EASTER IN THE NORTHWEST at Qwest Field, with both Pastor Casey Treat (and how!) and Shaun Alexander (hubba hubba!)

Finally! A fusion of sports, Christianity, and miscellaneous manliness on Our Most Holy Holiday, at our most overblown Civic Facility. Paint our state RED, and Praise His Name!

There are a lot of relatively godless red states on that map - Arizona, Nevada, West Virgina, Alaska, etc.

Aah! Where's my godless New York City? I hope it's that tiny, tiny beige spot on the end of long island. It's way too red in the metro NY area...

I wouldn't be too sure that NYC's that godless. It's not all downtown hipsters. Huge numbers of city residents are Dominican Catholics, Irish and Italian Catholics, old-school WASP Episcopalians, and the world's largest collection of Jews.

Don't confuse this map with the political one. Most religion-affiliated people are not right-wing kooks or Bush supporters. They're just getting all the press these days. As Boston Hearts Seatac points out, there are as many godless (really, organized-church-less) red states as there are religious blue states -- check out Minnesota and Iowa, both filled with Lutheran farmers but both tipping blue these days; Minnesota has historically been the most liberal state in the country (think Humphrey and Mondale).

And that other famously liberal state, Massachusetts, is absolutely THICK with registered Catholics.

In defense of my home state, I would like to point out that Iowa is basically blue, and only tipped over to the dark side in '04 by 15,000 votes. Their religious wackos are not very vocal - most everyone is a moderate Catholic or Lutheran. In fact, when growing up, I didn't think there was any such thing as a Republican Catholic, and the Bishop of Des Moines was always getting himself arrested for trespassing on military bases.

Speaking of that, I credit Iowa's moderate vibe to the fact there are no miliatry bases in the state.

People migrated West in search of religious freedom, first because of freedom to worship, and then, moving further West, freedom to NOT worship....

Hey, can someone with computer skills overlay the 2004 election map that was in the New York Times, breaking down the blue/red election results by county? Bet the low-religion bits in this map in the south and appalachia (West Virgina?!) overlay the blue spots in red states.

Betcha they don't. Not even close. The relationship between religious affiliation and Republican voting is nil. In fact there may actually a correlation between high-religion spots in red states and blue voting islands.

Look at that big red spot on Miami. Votes blue. Atlanta ditto. New Orleans.

Hey, what's up with my old stomping ground, the Kentucky/Ohio/West Virginia tri-state area? This place is positively CRAWLING with bible-thumpers and snake handlers. I don't know about this survey...

Maybe the bible-thumpers don't belong to one of the organized groups included with the Pentecostals. Maybe the bible-thumpers make a lot of noise out of proportion with their actual control over the community.

The article with the different religions mapped out separately is very interesting.

As a Pastafarian, I for one am not suprised that so few adherents to His Noodlyness can be found here.

This will all end badly, unless someone remembered to bring a fork.

From: Jesusland
To: Dan

Consistent with The Stranger style guide, I was going to type something obscene & unChristian here, but will instead suggest that you read Better For All the World, a recent book about eugenics, one of the greatest pregressive hits of the Progressive Era.

Fine free thinkers such as Margaret Sanger led the left-wing crusade to ethnically cleanse America of its (dark hued) wretched refuse, a crusade carried forward today by the Big Abortion lobby. Christian fundamentalists led the fight against progressive eugenics. Progressive national socialists in Germany followed Sanger's lead.

I find that odd, given I've never seen as many giant churches in any city or region, including the Deep South, as I've seen in Seattle.

I'm surprized at the relative beigeness of the southeast.

If you read the map's fine print some of the counter intuitve results become clear.

This is just the comparison of registered parishoners or members for 140 reporting churches over the total population of the county.

This means that small churches (think snake handlers or Zen Gnostics maybe) aren't counted inthe total.

This map isn't a very good read of how many people of faith live in each county, but of how many mainstream church registerd parishioners live in each county.

I know at my Catholic church easily 1/2 the people in the pews aren't parishioners.