Data from The American Religious Identification Survey is floating around the blogosphere right now. One of the points noted is that the number of Americans who avow "No Religon" has gone from 8.2% to 14.1% of the American population between 1990 and 2001. Now, one meme floating around is conflating this increase with an increase in the number of atheists. But, one has to be careful, just because someone rejects organized religion does not imply that they reject theism ( belief in a personal God). In fact, just because someone rejects theism does not imply they reject organized religion (many Unitarian-Universalists, Buddhists and Jains and some Hindus reject theism but are members of an organized religion). The aggregate total for The American Religious Identification Survey for atheists and agnostics is ~1%, and this is probably an underestimate (the term "atheist" and "agnostic" are scary to many people), but it gets to the point that the majority of people with no religion are probably believers in a God or Higher Spirit. This is what is reported in One Nation Under God, the 1994 book which analyzes the findings of the 1990 survey. Now, I do think there is a trend against traditional organized religion in this country as more and more people seek their own individualized solutions to their "problems," but this might lead to an increase in the sales of The Mountain Astrologer as opposed to The Skeptic. I see this in my day-to-day life, I live in a town where religion isn't cool, but "spirituality" is in, and hard-headed rational empiricism is definitely a sour note. Instead of rejection of Christianity leading to a constraining of the field of magical possibilities, for these people a whole new world of superstition has come into play. Books like The Cultural Creatives argue that this non-religious but still magical mindset is what is going to fill the vacuum as the "Old Time Religion" goes into decline. Of course, just because someone is silly doesn't mean they are dangerous, much better karmic mumbo-jumbo than theonomy.
Related: For an international perspective on these issues of belief and non-belief, I recommend Religion in the world at the end of the millennium and What the world thinks of God (PDF).
- Log in to post comments
I am not sure about your conlcusion that "the majority of people with no religion are probably believers in a God or Higher Spirit.". In British Columbia, Canada the last census data (2002 I think) indicates 35% no religion. This includes atheists and agnostics as well as a substanial population from Asia, largely India and China. Many Chinese are not theists and do not have a religion in the sense of attending a "church". I think the 35% figure is probably including some new age mystic types but there is a solid core of people that either through lack of religous indoctrination as children (many of my Chinese friends)or through exploration and rejection of religion do not beleive in a god or gods.
I am not sure
well...stipulate, for the USA. how can you not be sure?
1) we know for a fact than in 1990 the majority of the 8.2% who had no religion believed in god or a higher spirit, they were asked by the primary researchers.
2) you can see the breakdown of those who explicitly consider themselves atheists & agnostic in the link i provided, the american religious identification survey indicates that 1% fess up to the label. if you assume that all of these are are subset of "no religion," then you have less than (this is probably not true as some jews and unitarian-universalists probably gave those as their religions even though they were atheists and agnostics) 10% of non-religious people being atheists or agnostics.
3) even if you assume that the high bound numbers for 5% atheists and agnostics is correct (those who will fess up to not being in god or higher spirits, see the second link in related), that gives you less than 50%.
in other words, there really isn't a doubt here. you make some good points about BC, but BC isn't similar to the united states in many ways, so i don't think the comparison is relevant (FYI, the pacific northwest of the USA is probably more similar to BC than the rest of the USA regards religion, especially if you compare whites with whites).