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In the United States, between 4% and 15% of citizens demonstrated nonreligious attitudes and naturalistic worldviews, namely atheists or agnostics.[2][3][4][5] The number of self-identified atheists and agnostics was around 4% each, while many persons formally affiliated with a religion are likewise non-believing.[6][7][8][2]
The percentage of Americans without religious affiliation, often labeled as "Nones", is around 20-29%. According to Gallup, the "None" answer to "religious preference" has grown from 2% in 1948 to 22% in 2023.[9] "Other" and "No answer" have been somewhat stable.People who identify as "nothing in particular" accounting for much of the growth of this demographic.[9] All the subgroups that together make up the religious “nones” have grown over time.[10] The atheist subgroup had been somewhat stable for decades.[11] Most of the increase in the unaffiliated comes from people who had weak or no commitment to religion in the first place, not from people who had a religious commitment.[3]: 8 Still, "Nones" is an unclear category.[12][13] It is a heterogenous group of the not religious and intermittently religious.[14] Researchers argue that most of the "Nones" should be considered "unchurched", rather than objectively nonreligious;[13][15][16][3][4] especially since most "Nones" do hold some religious-spiritual beliefs and a notable amount participate in behaviors.[13][17][15][18][19] For example, 72% of American "Nones" believe in God or a Higher Power.[20][21][22] The majority of the "Nones" are not nonbelievers.[23] The "None" response is more of an indicator for lacking affiliation than an active measure for irreligiosity, and a majority of the "Nones" can either be conventionally religious or "spiritual".[24][15][25]
Social scientists observe that nonreligious Americans are characterized by indifference.[26] Very few incorporate active irreligion as part of their identity, and only about 1-2% join groups promoting such values.[26]
- ^ "The Economist/YouGov Poll: February 11 - 14, 2023 Survey" (PDF). YouGov. February 14, 2023. Retrieved February 15, 2023.
- ^ a b Lipka, Michael; Tevington, Patricia; Starr, Kelsey (February 7, 2024). "8 facts about Atheists". Pew Research Center. Archived from the original on May 10, 2024.
Atheists make up 4% of U.S. adults, according to our 2023 National Public Opinion Reference Survey. That compares with 3% who described themselves as atheists in 2014 and 2% who did so in 2007.
- ^ a b c Hout, Michael (November 2017). "American Religion, All or Nothing at All". Contexts. 16 (4): 78–80. doi:10.1177/1536504217742401. S2CID 67327797.
- ^ a b Robert Fuller, Spiritual, but not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America, Oxford University Press (2001). pp. 1-4.
- ^ Burge, Ryan (February 24, 2021). "Most 'Nones' Still Keep the Faith". Research. Christianity Today.
while many people have walked away from a religious affiliation, they haven't left all aspects of religion and spirituality behind. So, while growing numbers of Americans may not readily identify as Christian any longer, they still show up to a worship service a few times a year or maintain their belief in God. The reality is that many of the nones are really "somes."...The center of the Venn diagram indicates that just 15.3 percent of the population that are nones on one dimension are nones on all dimensions. That amounts to just about 6 percent of the general public who don't belong to a religious tradition and don't attend church and hold to an atheist or agnostic worldview.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Pewforum.orgwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. October 17, 2019.
- ^ "Measuring Religion in Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel". Pew Research Center. January 14, 2021.
28% are "nones" (including 4% who describe themselves as atheists, 5% who are agnostics, and 18% who are "nothing in particular")
- ^ a b "Religion". Gallup, Inc. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
- ^ "About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated". Pew Research Center. December 14, 2021. p. 1. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
- ^ Johnson, Byron; Stark, Rodney; Bradshaw, Matt; Levin, Jeff (2022). "Are Religious "Nones" Really Not Religious?: Revisiting Glenn, Three Decades Later". Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion. 18 (7). Baylor University. Retrieved November 4, 2024.
As briefly noted above, proportions of atheists and intense, practicing Christians appear to be somewhat stable across time, casting some doubt on a major decline in religiosity (Stark 2008, 2011; Hout and Smith 2015; Stetzer 2015). According to Stark (2008:177), data from multiple population surveys show that the proportion of the U.S. population that identifies as atheist was unchanged for at least 70 years, from the 1940s until the past decade, at about 4%.
- ^ Wuthnow, Robert (2015). Inventing American Religion : Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation's Faith. Oxford University Press. pp. 151–155. ISBN 9780190258900.
- ^ a b c Johnson, Byron; Stark, Rodney; Bradshaw, Matt; Levin, Jeff (2022). "Are Religious "Nones" Really Not Religious?: Revisiting Glenn, Three Decades Later". Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion. 18 (7).
- ^ Blankholm, Joseph (2022). The Secular Paradox : On the Religiosity of the Not Religious. New York: New York University Press. p. 7. ISBN 9781479809509.
- ^ a b c Johnson, Todd; Zurlo, Gina (2016). "Unaffiliated, Yet Religious: A Methodological and Demographic Analysis". In Cipriani, Roberto; Garelli, Franco (eds.). Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Volume 7: Sociology of Atheism. Leiden: Brill. pp. 58–60. ISBN 9789004317536.
- ^ Hout, Michael; Fischer, Claude S. (October 13, 2014). "Explaining Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Political Backlash and Generational Succession, 1987-2012" (PDF). Sociological Science. 1: 423–447. doi:10.15195/v1.a24.
- ^ Davis, Jim; Graham, Michael; Burge, Ryan; Hansen, Collin (2023). The Great Dechurching: Who's Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back?. Zondervan. p. 121. ISBN 9780310147435.
What is often overlooked is that when people say they no longer go to church or affiliate with a religious institution, that doesn't mean they leave all vestiges of religion behind...They left the religious label behind but not their belief. In the same way, a lack of church attendance doesn't necessarily mean someone has given up on the idea of God. Among those who report never attending church in the General Social Survey, the share who don't believe in God is about 20 percent. But the share of these never attenders who say they believe in God without any doubts is also about 20 percent. Despite the fact that about 40 percent of Americans never attend church and 30 percent say they have no religious affiliation, just one in ten Americans says God does not exist or that we have no way to know if God exists. Religious belief is stubborn in the United States, and while someone may not act on that belief by going to a house of worship on Sunday morning, that doesn't mean they think their spiritual life is unimportant.
- ^ Drescher, Elizabeth (2016). Choosing our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of America's Nones. New York. pp. 21–26. ISBN 9780199341221.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Cox, Kiana (March 17, 2021). "Nine-in-ten Black 'nones' believe in God, but fewer pray or attend services". Pew Research Center.
- ^ "Key findings about Americans' belief in God". Pew Research Center. April 25, 2018.
- ^ "Religious 'Nones' in America: Who They Are and What They Believe". Pew Research Center. January 24, 2024.
No, not all "nones" are nonbelievers. They are far less likely than religiously affiliated Americans to say they believe in God "as described in the Bible," but most do believe in God or some other higher power. Just 29% reject the notion that there is any higher power or spiritual force in the universe.
- ^ Lipka, Michael; Tevington, Patricia; Starr, Kelsey (February 7, 2024). "8 facts about Atheists". Pew Research Center. Archived from the original on May 10, 2024.
About three-quarters of U.S. atheists (77%) do not believe in God or a higher power or in a spiritual force of any kind, according to our summer 2023 survey. At the same time, 23% say they do believe in a higher power of some kind.
- ^ "Are all religiously unaffiliated adults in the US nonbelievers?". Pew Research Center. January 24, 2024. Archived from the original on May 7, 2024.
Not all 'nones' are nonbelievers. Far from it. While the "nones" include many nonbelievers, 70% of "nones" say they believe in God or another higher power, and 63% say they believe in spiritual forces beyond the natural world.
- ^ Frank Newport, God is Alive and Well: The Future of Religion in America. Simon and Schuster (2013). pp 14-15.
- ^ Pearce, Lisa; Gilliland, Claire (2020). Religion in America. University of California Press. pp. 7, 137–138. ISBN 9780520296428.
- ^ a b Zuckerman, Phil (2014). Living the Secular Life : New Answers to Old Questions. New York. pp. 123–124. ISBN 978-0143127932.
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