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Encompassing atheism, agnosticism, deism, skepticism, freethought, secular humanism or general secularism and even some
forms of alternative spirituality such as New Age, various polls have put the population
of "non-religious" North Americans at between 20 and 35 million.
[1][2] An
American Religious Identification Survey released in March of 2009
indicated that 15% of Americans – roughly 45-million – "say they
have no religion" (up from 8.2 in 1990), while 1.6-million
self-identified as atheists (up from 900,000 in 2001). [3][4] Several
groups promoting no religious faith or opposing religious faith
altogether – including the Freedom From Religion
Foundation, American Atheists, Camp Quest, and the Rational Response Squad – have
also witnessed large increases in membership numbers in recent
years.[1]
Demographics
A Barna group poll found that about 20
million people say they are atheist, have no religious faith or are
agnostic, with 5 million of that number claiming to be atheists.
The study also found that "[t]hey tend to be more educated, more
affluent and more likely to be male and unmarried than those with
active faith" and that "only 6 percent of people over 60 have no
faith in God, and one in four adults ages 18 to 22 describe
themselves as having no faith."[1]
A 2007 Gallup
poll which asked the question
"Which of the following statements comes closest to your belief
about God: you believe in God, you don't believe in God but you do
believe in a universal spirit or higher power, or you don't believe
in either?"
showed that 78% believed in God, 14% in "A universal spirit or
higher power", 7% answering "neither", and 1% unsure.[5]
The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey
(ARIS) found that while 34.8 million U.S. Adults (15.2%) described
themselves as "without religion", almost 90% of these answered
"none" with no qualifications. Only 1.4 million positively claimed
to be atheist, with another 2 million professing agnosticism.[6]
The percentage of people in
North America who identify with a
religion as opposed to having "no religion" (2001 US) (1991,98,99
CA).
The continental U.S. states and Washington D.C. ranked by
percentage of population claiming no religion is as follows:[7][8]
Irreligion in politics
Many voters in the United States are rather distrustful of those
professing a lack of religious faith, with an "atheist" at the
bottom of the list of presidential candidates that people would
vote for. Over 90% of Americans are willing to vote for a Catholic,
Jewish, female or black President, but the number willing to vote
for an atheist is below 45%, lower than the result for homosexuals
and Muslims.[9][10]
Exit polls suggest that white Americans without religion vote
Democratic at roughly the same rates that white Evangelical
Christians vote Republican. In 2008, 71% of non-religious whites
voted for Obama while 74% of white Evangelical Christians voted for
McCain. [11]
On 20 January 2009, Barack Obama became the first United States President to acknowledge
non-believers in his inaugural
address[12],
although other presidents such as George W. Bush have previously
acknowledged non-believers in different speeches, although mostly
in a negative manner.[13]
See also
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