Once vilified in this country, non-believers today make up roughly 1 in 5 Americans. This isn’t to say people like me should begin to impose our non-belief on others. On the contrary, the shifting numbers give all Americans an opening to focus more on coexisting and less on religious combat.
Demographers are already salivating ahead of the upcoming U.S. Census, which will no doubt show just how different 2010 America is from 2000 America. When it comes to the religious breakdown of the country, though, the waiting game is over. Try this pop quiz:
What is the fastest-growing religious group in our country?
A. Southern Baptists.
B. Roman Catholics.
C. Non-denominational Christians.
D. None. As in, no religion at all.
The answer is D, but fear not. This isn’t the end of the world or of religiosity in America.
First the numbers: According to the recently released 2008 American Religious Identification Survey by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., the percentage of people who identified themselves as having no religion has almost doubled since 1990, from 8.2 percent of the population then to 15 percent today, the largest gain in any group. That number may be low because some Americans still prefer to give no answer, and others identify with a religion, even if they no longer really believe in it. That “no answer” number grew as well, from 2.3 to 5.2 percent, meaning more than 20 percent of the population has no overt religious identity. Simply put, that means more people are willing to identify themselves as being outside of religion or without belief in a supernatural being. If this trend continues, expect even more atheists to come out of the closet in the years ahead.
This isn’t to say we’re taking over the nation, and that God-fearing Americans now have something else to fear. On the contrary, atheists like me are just content to be able to be religion-free without the social stigma that has been attached to “my kind”
