Is there an educational component to proneness to "cultural religious identity"?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I thought recently this might be a big factor in it and part of why in my circles it seems so alien. It's not too odd after all to think that someone raised Catholic with a four-year college education is far more likely to convert to some other denomination (or anyone raised Christian converting to any non-Christian religion for that matter.) than what people are now defined as "working class." Furthermore getting a more cosmopolitan worldview also would make such a person less likely to cling to the notion of being "culturally Catholic" or even see this categorization as a big deal at all if they went non-religious as opposed to someone who lived in the same town their entire life.

I don't know of any statistical data collected in regards to this but I'm wagering for there's a huge correlation.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

It's not too odd after all to think that someone raised Catholic with a four-year college education is far more likely to convert to some other denomination (or anyone raised Christian converting to any non-Christian religion for that matter.) than what people are now defined as "working class.

Isn't it exactly the opposite? Evangelicals have gained converts in Latin America among working class Catholics.

I can only speak in anecdotes, but a friend who's a university professor and cultural Catholic once semi-jokingly told me down the pub that Catholicism is the only rational religion and that Protestantism was for idiots, and my other culturally Catholic lawyer friend agreed.  

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's not too odd after all to think that someone raised Catholic with a four-year college education is far more likely to convert to some other denomination (or anyone raised Christian converting to any non-Christian religion for that matter.) than what people are now defined as "working class.

Isn't it exactly the opposite? Evangelicals have gained converts in Latin America among working class Catholics.

I can only speak in anecdotes, but a friend who's a university professor and cultural Catholic once semi-jokingly told me down the pub that Catholicism is the only rational religion and that Protestantism was for idiots, and my other culturally Catholic lawyer friend agreed.  

Maybe a US-centric perspective, but I've noted before that my church (which is by default basically all converts) is also like near 100% college educated, Catholic churches are stereotypically not.

As for that point, I think transubstantiation defeats that pretty easily.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

It's not too odd after all to think that someone raised Catholic with a four-year college education is far more likely to convert to some other denomination (or anyone raised Christian converting to any non-Christian religion for that matter.) than what people are now defined as "working class.

Isn't it exactly the opposite? Evangelicals have gained converts in Latin America among working class Catholics.

I can only speak in anecdotes, but a friend who's a university professor and cultural Catholic once semi-jokingly told me down the pub that Catholicism is the only rational religion and that Protestantism was for idiots, and my other culturally Catholic lawyer friend agreed.  

Catholicism the only rational religion? I wonder then why the men of the Enlightenment constantly singled it out as superstitious, ignorant, intolerant, and repressive.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Maybe a US-centric perspective, but I've noted before that my church (which is by default basically all converts) is also like near 100% college educated, Catholic churches are stereotypically not.

Isn't this just selection bias?

I forgot to add that intellectuals converting to Catholicism has been a definite phenomenon in Britain, especially during the first half of the 20th century.  

As for that point, I think transubstantiation defeats that pretty easily.

This is actually a case in point: the 12th century Church tried to define how the mystery of the Eucharist worked in the language of Aristotelian philosophy. If that's not rational I don't know what is! 

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Maybe a US-centric perspective, but I've noted before that my church (which is by default basically all converts) is also like near 100% college educated, Catholic churches are stereotypically not.

Isn't this just selection bias?

I forgot to add that intellectuals converting to Catholicism has been a definite phenomenon in Britain, especially during the first half of the 20th century.  

Yeah that's a thing here too but explicitly conservative ones. The stereotypical Catholic convert here is something along the lines of a National Review writer. What do you think Catholic->mainline Protestant converts are like demographically? Probably heavily college educated and liberal.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Maybe a US-centric perspective, but I've noted before that my church (which is by default basically all converts) is also like near 100% college educated, Catholic churches are stereotypically not.

Isn't this just selection bias?

I forgot to add that intellectuals converting to Catholicism has been a definite phenomenon in Britain, especially during the first half of the 20th century.  

As for that point, I think transubstantiation defeats that pretty easily.

This is actually a case in point: the 12th century Church tried to define how the mystery of the Eucharist worked in the language of Aristotelian philosophy. If that's not rational I don't know what is!

Autos-da-fe and prohibited books lists.

[If my soul was made of stone]

Maybe a US-centric perspective, but I've noted before that my church (which is by default basically all converts) is also like near 100% college educated, Catholic churches are stereotypically not.

As for that point, I think transubstantiation defeats that pretty easily.

Couldn't this argument be extended to almost any tenet of faith and thus knock you off of your high horse? I'd think that you were above this New Atheist tier of discrediting everything you have a petty grudge with, but I guess you're still fundamentally BRTD.

Catholicism the only rational religion? I wonder then why the men of the Enlightenment constantly singled it out as superstitious, ignorant, intolerant, and repressive.

Is the Church of the Enlightenment era really the same as the Church of our era? It's very possible for institutions to evolve, but evidently it's not possible for your positions to evolve given that you still take delight in gratuitous Catholic-bashing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Maybe a US-centric perspective, but I've noted before that my church (which is by default basically all converts) is also like near 100% college educated, Catholic churches are stereotypically not.

As for that point, I think transubstantiation defeats that pretty easily.

Couldn't this argument be extended to almost any tenet of faith and thus knock you off of your high horse? I'd think that you were above this New Atheist tier of discrediting everything you have a petty grudge with, but I guess you're still fundamentally BRTD.

It's not like "New Atheist" junk at all, it's more like citing things like Native American and Jewish DNA evidence to disprove the Book of Mormon.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Maybe a US-centric perspective, but I've noted before that my church (which is by default basically all converts) is also like near 100% college educated, Catholic churches are stereotypically not.

Isn't this just selection bias?

I forgot to add that intellectuals converting to Catholicism has been a definite phenomenon in Britain, especially during the first half of the 20th century.  

Addendum: converting to Catholicism is still by definition rejecting "cultural religion". This kind of if anything proves my point!

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Catholicism the only rational religion? I wonder then why the men of the Enlightenment constantly singled it out as superstitious, ignorant, intolerant, and repressive.

Is the Church of the Enlightenment era really the same as the Church of our era? It's very possible for institutions to evolve, but evidently it's not possible for your positions to evolve given that you still take delight in gratuitous Catholic-bashing.

I don't think it was gratuitous in this case. I wanted to remind people that the men who brought reason to the forefront of Western thought in the 18th century would find a statement like that made by Stallius's friend completely backwards. So would, say, Galileo or Giordano Bruno.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

So... reading this charitably it seems like BRTD meant to ask whether people with a college education are more likely to reject their familial religious background and convert to another denomination, and then all got bungled up because in typical fashion of his he used Catholicism as an example. As to the substance of the question I suspect that it is possible, but I have no data or evidence.

For what concerns the part of the thread that went to shxt thanks principally to our Iowan fellow, there are many things to be said (some already stated by our friend from Baltimore), but the fundamental point is that I kindly urge him to step out of this role as a boilerplate early 19th century Protestant polemicist and use points with a factual basis in the hic et nunc if he wants to make an argument.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So... reading this charitably it seems like BRTD meant to ask whether people with a college education are more likely to reject their familial religious background and convert to another denomination, and then all got bungled up because in typical fashion of his he used Catholicism as an example. As to the substance of the question I suspect that it is possible, but I have no data or evidence.

Actually as noted converts to Catholicism kind of also prove my point, it's hard to imagine one without a college degree as well.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

So... reading this charitably it seems like BRTD meant to ask whether people with a college education are more likely to reject their familial religious background and convert to another denomination, and then all got bungled up because in typical fashion of his he used Catholicism as an example. As to the substance of the question I suspect that it is possible, but I have no data or evidence.

Actually as noted converts to Catholicism kind of also prove my point, it's hard to imagine one without a college degree as well.

Yes that's exactly what I was saying, that [college-educated] converts to Catholicism also prove your point. I just have never seen significant evidence suggesting that converts are more likely to have a college degree, even though it makes some intuitive sense to me.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

So... reading this charitably it seems like BRTD meant to ask whether people with a college education are more likely to reject their familial religious background and convert to another denomination, and then all got bungled up because in typical fashion of his he used Catholicism as an example. As to the substance of the question I suspect that it is possible, but I have no data or evidence.

Actually as noted converts to Catholicism kind of also prove my point, it's hard to imagine one without a college degree as well.

Yes that's exactly what I was saying, that [college-educated] converts to Catholicism also prove your point. I just have never seen significant evidence suggesting that converts are more likely to have a college degree, even though it makes some intuitive sense to me.

Anecdotally,

So exactly what religious faiths are being caught on to working class adherents in the United States then?

A lot of the so-called "nones" aren't the urban secular progressives we normally assume but working-class people who are running low on social capital and social trust in general, in their spiritual lives not least of all. Upstate New York and Upper New England are lousy with with disengaged blue-collar Obama-Trump-Biden types who checked out from their local Congregationalist or Methodist parish after it started being driven by the pronouns-in-bio set, or their local Catholic diocese after it started being driven by very-online canon lawyers who wore Brooks Brothers suits for their high school yearbook photos.

So, yes, I think there's something to the idea that people with more social capital who are dissatisfied with their cradle religion are likelier to look for a specific new one rather than just disengaging.

[afleitch]

Converting to any faith as an adult can require an investment of time, which if you're say, working two jobs might be a bit difficult even if your faith group tries to lighten the load somewhat.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

It still seems odd to me that anyone would say Catholicism is the only rational religion when historically it was abhorred by enlightened society. Voltaire et al. despised the Church for its dogmatic hatred of free-thinking and consistently showed a clear preference for Protestantism. I recently discovered this quote by Samuel Johnson that illustrates well the enlightened view of Catholicism:

If you join the Papists externally, they will not interrogate you strictly as to your belief in their tenets. No reasoning Papist believes every article of their faith. There is one side on which a good man might be persuaded to embrace it. A good man, of a timorous disposition, in great doubt of his acceptance with God, and pretty credulous, might be glad to be of a church where there are so many helps to get to Heaven. I would be a Papist if I could. I have fear enough; but an obstinate rationality prevents me.

It seems that the obstinate rationality that prevented men like Dr. Johnson from becoming Catholics is missing among Statilius's culturally Catholic friends.

[Donerail]

It still seems odd to me that anyone would say Catholicism is the only rational religion when historically it was abhorred by enlightened society. Voltaire et al. despised the Church for its dogmatic hatred of free-thinking and consistently showed a clear preference for Protestantism. I recently discovered this quote by Samuel Johnson that illustrates well the enlightened view of Catholicism:

It seems that the obstinate rationality that prevented men like Dr. Johnson from becoming Catholics is missing among Statilius's culturally Catholic friends.

It seems odd to me that anyone would cite a bunch of long-dead guys writers from the 1700s as having anything meaningful to say about 21st century Catholicism. It does not seem odd to claim that Catholicism, a religion governed by a well-developed legal framework and present in the national culture, first and foremost, through its large network of schools (often better ones than their public alternatives), could be described as a "rational" faith.

[afleitch]

It still seems odd to me that anyone would say Catholicism is the only rational religion when historically it was abhorred by enlightened society. Voltaire et al. despised the Church for its dogmatic hatred of free-thinking and consistently showed a clear preference for Protestantism. I recently discovered this quote by Samuel Johnson that illustrates well the enlightened view of Catholicism:

It seems that the obstinate rationality that prevented men like Dr. Johnson from becoming Catholics is missing among Statilius's culturally Catholic friends.

It seems odd to me that anyone would cite a bunch of long-dead guys writers from the 1700s as having anything meaningful to say about 21st century Catholicism. It does not seem odd to claim that Catholicism, a religion governed by a well-developed legal framework and present in the national culture, first and foremost, through its large network of schools (often better ones than their public alternatives), could be described as a "rational" faith.

A belief system having both structure, legalistic process and a shroud of respectability is not the same as 'rationality' and it's wise to remember that. Very irrational systems of belief or philosophy can adopt or have these attributes.

[Donerail]

It seems odd to me that anyone would cite a bunch of long-dead guys writers from the 1700s as having anything meaningful to say about 21st century Catholicism. It does not seem odd to claim that Catholicism, a religion governed by a well-developed legal framework and present in the national culture, first and foremost, through its large network of schools (often better ones than their public alternatives), could be described as a "rational" faith.

A belief system having both structure, legalistic process and a shroud of respectability is not the same as 'rationality' and it's wise to remember that. Very irrational systems of belief or philosophy can adopt or have these attributes.

For a semi-joking anecdote at the pub? Yes it is.