openeyes

I heard/saw two things yesterday that got me wondering what percentage of the U.S. consider themselves non-believers. I had thought that conservatively the percentage was around 6, and depending how you asked the question, you may get up to 14%.

The first story was on NPR about stem cell research and how Britain is much more open about obtaining lines from discarded embryos than the US and how religion played into the differences. They said that 96% of Americans professed a belief in god versus about 45% of people in England. (One person said England "blew themselves out" as far as religion back a few centuries with the problem of the Puritans in power).

There was also a "Short Cut" in the paper yesterday from "The Economist." It also discussed the differences in religious beliefs/activity between the US and Europe. This article said that only 2 % of Americans are atheist.

Obviously different polls are being cited, or different interpretations of the polls are being used. What's the latest information that you are aware and where is it documented? Do you think there is a "movement" to minimize the number of atheists in the US, or is it just old polls or conservative interpretations? Are we really that few in number?

Does the average American have any idea how we compare? It doesn't appear that crime is running rampant and civilization is declining in these countries that have low belief/church attendance as one might expect from the preachings of some here in the U.S.

Undercurrent

No doubt there are fewer people who self-identify as "atheist" than who self-idenitfy as "non-beliver" since the former is a subset of the latter. I think the 14% number commonly cited is any form of non-believer, including atheists, agnostics, and people who just don't think about it all that much.

The only real way to get an accurrate tally of religious belief is to break it down by specific doctorinal points (e.g. Do you believe there is a god? Do you believe there is a personal god? What do you think the best guess for the age of the earth is? Do you believe in an afterlife? &c.) To my knowledge, no such poll has ever been done.

m.

Eudaimonist

If I remember correctly, the 14% figure refers to the "non-religious", which may include many theists who identify themselves as spiritual-but-not-religious.

openeyes

I realize the 14 % was a broader definition, not just atheists, but I was still surprised at the 4% and 2% numbers that were cited as atheists. I thought recent polls had atheists at 6% at least. I am concerned when these low numbers are used, especially if they're not up to date, because it gives people (such as politicians) even more reason to not acknowledge our existence.

Tom Sawyer

If I remember correctly, the latest census had 4% of the population specifically identify themselves as atheists, which was a subset of the 14% who simply said 'non-believer', which can mean any number of things from atheism to simply not identifying wiht any established religion or not wanting to answer. I used to have a link to these numbers, but I've lost it.

Openeyes,

That's a good point, however the low numbers are, in fact, accurate. I think it's very important for all of us to use the real numbers when talking about this or it will just give people we're arguing against some ammunition to show that we're not correct in our counts, which diminishes the strength of the rest of our arguments and gives them a strawman to attack rather than dealing with the points we're making.

As an example of that, I saw an interview with Michael Newdow (of the unconstitutional Pledge of Allegiance trial) in an interview on CNN's Crossfire and the interviewer just kept bringing up that his daughter actually went to church with the mother and wasn't really an atheist herself (which is a side issue not really relevant to the constitutional question) and not talking about the constitutional issue itself. It distracted from the main topic at hand and made Newdow look bad, which took credence away from everything that he was saying.

Most people become atheists because they are honest about what they believe and pumping up numbers to make it look like there are more of us goes against this principle of honesty that brought us to this point. Use the real numbers and if anyone uses the larger ones, be sure to correct them - it shoes you're the type of person that looks into the facts and uses them even when they go against you which can do nothing but help your arguments.

Carlos

The ARIS work done at CUNY is the one that yielded the 14% figure, which can be broken up as follows:

"Denomination" / Number / % (N = 207,980,000)
Atheist / 902,000 / 0.4%
Agnostic / 991,000 / 0.5%
Humanist / 49,000 / 0
Secular / 53,000 / 0
Not Religious / 27,486,000 / 13.2%

Refused to answer / 11,246,000 / 5.4%

Going by these figures, those who admit to being non-believers are under 1% of the population. This seems too low, though; even GWB has admitted that roughly 95% of Americans believe in God. The "Not Religious" group must include a number of non-believers who choose not to use the labels that draw the most ire from believers.

Possibly more interesting is the following question they posed: "When it comes to your outlook, do you regard yourself as ..."

Religious 37%
Somewhat religious 38%
Somewhat secular 6%
Secular 10%
Don't know, refused 9%


It appears that the Census Bureau cannot ask about religious preferences. Although they have compiled some figures from other surveys, the relevant figures are not very helpful. The 1999 numbers showed that 8% of the population had no religious preference - but that group also includes those that "did not designate" an answer.

The Barna Group has some data as well. 2002 survey: 8% of Americans are either atheists or agnostics. Note that while Barna is a Christian and his interpretation of the results shows his bias, he is generally regarded as being very objective when it comes to gathering data.

openeyes

Thanks for the responses peteyh and Carlos. I think I had the 8% figure from the Barna survey in my head, which made me think the other numbers low. I suppose one could go round and round with the percentages and labels such as atheist or agnostic, non-believer, non-religious, etc.

If we actual "atheists" are still a low percentage, I guess that should give me all the more reason to speak out when appropriate. Maybe some day, our numbers will approach those found in many European countries.