When Americans are asked to check a box indicating their religious affiliation, 28% now check ‘none.’

A new study from Pew Research finds that the religiously unaffiliated – a group comprised of atheists, agnostic and those who say their religion is “nothing in particular” – is now the largest cohort in the U.S. They’re more prevalent among American adults than Catholics (23%) or evangelical Protestants (24%).

…

“We know politically for example,” [Gregory Smith at Pew] says, “that religious Nones are very distinctive. They are among the most strongly and consistently liberal and Democratic constituencies in the United States.”

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    26·
    10 months ago

    About time they get some service, too. I’ve had it up to here with the theists, especially radical xtian evangelicals, constantly swinging their weight around, saying and doing outrageous things, thinking their little book club should rule over others, and thinking that’s normal.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
    141·
    10 months ago

    Trouble is, 10,000 Nones who aren’t politically organized have less power than one Church with fifty voters that politicians know they can count on.

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
      712·
      10 months ago

      They’ll never have anyone to vote for. One party is christofascists, and the other no longer does fair primaries, if they bother with them at all.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
        81·
        10 months ago

        I’ll tell you what. You go out and go to the local Democratic club house with the names of 1,000 dedicated voters and see if you get a reaction.

        • Uranium3006@kbin.social
          2·
          10 months ago

          why bother with the controlled opposition party if you can get that many people together? form a direct action group to improve your local community with that instead

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
      10·
      10 months ago

      There are a few things contributing to this:

      1. The child molesting done by the Catholic church has turned a lot of people away from what used to be one of the biggest churches in the country
      2. The rise of evangelical churches and the hollowing out of mainline Protestant churches. Now if you go to church you either have to be a conservative or you have to risk being ostracized.
      3. It’s clear god has abandoned us.
      • GladiusB@lemmy.world
        6·
        10 months ago

        God has abandoned us? Have you read of any history? Like there were many worse things happening in the 1000-1600s. Like everywhere. But I agree that the first two lead to the decline. I think it has more to do with a lack of proof the more and more we learn. If God does exist in some monitoring sort of way, they choose not to interfere and just observe. That’s a hard sell.

        • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
          3·
          10 months ago

          I mean, some Christian sects teach that we’re here to be tested, right? What kind of good teacher slips you answers during the test?!

          It’s fucking never made sense. At all. Either we’re being tested or we’ve been abandoned, or it’s all just a misconstrued allegory about parenthood and authority and passing down good lessons.

          My money’s on the last. The overtly religious are all morons.

        • Reptorian@lemmy.zipEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          Maybe, god works in mysterious ways?

          There’s also definition issue of god (I’m ignostic/igtheist), but honestly, I’d argue god is useless in any form.

  • ctkatz@lemmy.ml
    5·
    10 months ago

    I’ve got to believe that a huge reason for that these days is because of how the republican party has deliberately and openly declared themselves the party of jesus and then go do the most inhumane and cruel things to other people. how preachers are openly declaring democrats ungodly and satanic from the pulpit.

  • Lakes@lemmy.world
    5·
    10 months ago

    Does anyone else say “myself” when asked on a form or in person what they believe in?

  • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.comEnglish
    5·
    10 months ago

    Great. Now, my younger atheist self can see that it’s not only religious that leads to unnecessary suffering at the population scale. The economics of profit maximization can do it, too. No god required.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    3·
    10 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    A new study from Pew Research finds that the religiously unaffiliated – a group comprised of atheists, agnostic and those who say their religion is “nothing in particular” – is now the largest cohort in the U.S.

    Back in 2007, Nones made up just 16% of Americans, but Pew’s new survey of more than 3,300 U.S. adults shows that number has now risen dramatically.

    Gregory Smith at Pew was the lead researcher on the study, titled “Religious ‘Nones’ in America: Who They Are and What They Believe.”

    “And huge numbers say the desire to avoid hurting other people factors prominently in how they think about right and wrong,” says Smith.

    People of faith also say they use logic and the avoidance of harm to make decisions, but those factors are in concert with religious tradition and scripture.

    But digging deeper into the data shows that men are significantly more likely to say they’re atheist or agnostic whereas women are more likely to describe their religion as ‘nothing in particular.’

    The original article contains 690 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • alucard@sopuli.xyz
    2·
    10 months ago

    I saw nones and thought that was a new religion I was OOTL on. It makes sense that agnostics would see a boost eventually. I wonder - why now?

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      10 months ago

      The belief in xtianity has been going down by over a percentage point per year, year after year for a long time now.

      • Welt@lazysoci.al
        3·
        10 months ago

        Islam’s on the up-and-up globally though. India’s becoming very Hindu-nationalist too. There’s always a hidden enemy lurking somewhere.

  • Garbanzo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    I wonder what the results would be if “Christian, but too embarrassed by those that claim the label to apply it to myself” was an option

    • skydivekingair@lemmy.world
      0·
      10 months ago

      If ‘Christian’ were it’s own label it would nearly double the ‘Nones’. Nones = 28% Protestant = 24% Catholics = 23% Total of the two Christian groups reported = 47% That is just adding the highest reporting sects of Christianity, there’s probably a few % points that could be added in there as well.

  • Fapper_McFapper@lemmy.world
    01·
    10 months ago

    Although religious ‘Nones’ doesn’t necessarily mean atheist, anti-theist or agnostic, I’ve got to say, never in my wildest dreams did I think this milestone would be achieved during my lifetime.