American Nonbelievers are now Third behind Catholics and Baptists

[and-justice-for-all]

March 9, 2009

The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey has just been released. Confirming earlier trends, the fasted growing segment of the American population is still the "Nones", especially in the Northeast. The Survey tables show how the 8.2% of Americans in 1990 who declared their atheism, agnosticism, or lack of belief in any religion has grown to 15% by 2008.

Confirming this lack of belief in religion is a new question asking people about their belief in God. 2.3% answered "there is no such thing" as God, while 4.3% said "there is no way to know" and another 5.7% said "I’m not sure." Adding together the atheists with the strongly skeptical and the personally skeptical reaches 12.3% which is similar measure of American skepticism and disbelief. With another 12.1% of Americans who think there is a god but it isn’t a personal theistic god, a grand total of 24.4% of Americans announce that the traditional supernatural God of Christianity, Judaism and Islam doesn’t exist.

We can applaud surveys of American belief/disbelief that use more nuanced questioning about what people actually do and don’t believe in. So far, as indicated by this latest definitive survey, these lines of questioning show that Americans are much more willing to express their skepticism than they are willing to label themselves as "atheist" or agnostic". The labels are holding people back, as many have suspected for a long time. Isn’t this a good time to remind everyone that the label of "skeptic" is perfectly fitting and ready for use?

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blog/american_nonbelievers_are_now_third_behind_catholics_and_baptists/

[chollybocker]

1. Still, 15% is pretty pitiful.

I wear my 'atheist' label with pride, and I'm not in the least bit 'skeptical.' Still, I agree that the words we use to label non-believers need to be de-demonized in our increasingly secular world.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. Now if only we can get politicians to pay attention to us

I won't wait for them to start pandering to us. Just being aware of us would help.

Obama has noticed our existence. That's a start, but only a start.