I did a pretty lengthy analysis of the story here where I note that the growth rate of non-Christians is about the same as for nones and that U.S. non-Christians have an almost equal and opposite political impact of partisan elections to Evangelical Christians (as measured by votes cast). About one in three Republicans is a white Evangelical Christian, about one in three Democrats is a non-Christian. Their degree of partisanship is very similar (non-Christians are slightly more Democratic than white Evangelical Christians are Republican but their numbers are slightly smaller).

Also in any given post-WWII cohort people get more secular as they get older contrary to conventional wisdom.

A somewhat stream of consciousness social history of modern American secularism follows in this post, using the same kind of cultural historical analysis found in Albion’s Seed.

In terms of forecasting trends and modeling secular “market share” in the U.S., I am inclined to think that a logistic curve starting at about 9% in 1990 and ending at some indefinite date at something on the order of the 65% found in Western industrial democracies where secular transition has pretty much run its course, probably comes close to the mark. This suggests something on the order of 4.7% annual growth in secular market share on average over the next twenty years with peak growth ca. 2020 and slower growth at greater distances in time on either end. This would put “nones” at circa 29% in about eight years.

Which brings me to my real point of curiosity – how many Razibs are there and what percentage of the total cohort of the US pop with Muslim backgrounds are they?

aziz ansari? but in any, there are many black ex-muslims. seems a lot of churn in the black muslim community (e.g., the whole ismail family of football fame went from muslim to christian).

http://www.pewforum.org/Muslim/the-worlds-muslims-unity-and-diversity-appendix-a.aspx

For one, the percentage of U.S. Muslims who report that religion is ‘very important’ is basically the same as the general public. Same with daily frequency of prayer category and weekly attendance.

However, I suspect that this may not be the case, as it depends on how Pew defined ‘Muslim’. Would they define Razib as a Muslim due to ancestry or merely self-reporting? If it not self-reporting, then many people who are from a Muslim background wouldn’t make the cut into survey. Which brings me to my real point of curiosity – how many Razibs are there and what percentage of the total cohort of the US pop with Muslim backgrounds are they? How do the unaffiliated ex-Muslims behave/believe in relationship to the greater U.S. unaffiliated community? I haven’t found any of this data.

In some countries the default is “nothing in particular”, and whatever believers there are usually have some degree of actual active commitment, though often they are also different in ethnicity, region, or class.

One would wonder if that effect would hold if Harry Reid, a Mormon, was running and his religion was widely known by Democrats taking a similar poll in the future.

As far as atheism goes, could the specter of Stalin be a reason that people are reticent to come out as atheists as politicians (one might point to Paul Ryan’s backtracking of his Objectivist beliefs)?

In an age where one can make a convincing argument that Obama is a secular progressive atheist humanist (his memoirs suggest as such) and like Ryan wearing the cloak of true Christian belief due to political necessity, can’t we also contend that a lack of atheist heroes being advertised as such, leaves many to couch their true beliefs with vague language and inaccurate responses to polls?

It has been shown that the term “gay” and “homosexual” and “bisexual” are so stigmatized that “men who have sex with men” is used in surveys to capture that group who would not self identify, even anonymously, as queer, but who do participate in same sex activity. Well, how many non-believers still call themselves “Christian” or related terms due to the stigma of the label “atheist”?

- That headline number (one in five have no religion affiliation) includes a lot of theists. 68% of the unaffiliated believe in God.

- The decline (contra #13) is slightly more rapid among younger generations but also exists in older generations. The % of Boomers with no affiliation has increased by 4% in the last 4 years, for example.

- I expect, in surveys like this, there is no meaningful difference between the people who identify as atheist and those who identify as agnostic. Most of the differences are arguments about what the words mean (cf #2, 3 & 6).

I agree with Razib’s sentiment about the effects of the new atheist propaganda. I expect that the new atheists are both a cause and an effect of the growing number of unaffiliated. The various new atheist campaigns (the brights, the scarlet A, there is probably no god) have helped make atheism more socially acceptable and the more the numbers increase the more acceptable atheism becomes. There is no longer a stigma – in much of the country – against atheists or, more importantly, about staying home on Sunday mornings.

And, echoing #36, I expect the trend will continue to be long and slow until the percentages in America mirror those in Europe. It’s the same trend – America just started late. 25 years ago, I almost gave my commanding officer a coronary when I traded in my ‘Church of England’ dog tags for ‘Atheist’ ones. now, I expect, it would barely raise an eyebrow.

yes. this is evident in the polling data. about half the people who are atheists label themselves as such, for the reasons you state. my main point is that my confidence in the *power* of these observations making a difference in reducing the popularity of atheists is reduced by these data. we’ve seen nearly 20 years of increased secularization in the USA. are atheists more confrontational than they were 20 years ago? i’d have to say in the aggregate, yes. does this limit the potential audience for atheism? perhaps. but what we do know is that the number of self-identified atheists has doubled. conditional on that fact i will continue to express my general disinclination toward associating myself with ‘new atheists’ (though i don’t shrug off the term atheist at all), but, i have to admit that i don’t see evidence at all that they’re causing a major public relations problem. on the contrary, the arguments of the new atheists re: ‘overton window,’ etc., are more persuasive to me than they were before, though i remain skeptical.

According to Gallup, in 1958 only 18% of Americans would vote for an atheist President. That number steadily improved until now, when 54% of people would vote for an atheist.

Atheists were far more mistrusted before the New Atheists, and while its not clear that the New Atheists have sped up acceptance, its pretty clear they haven’t done anything to slow it down.

Hi Razib,
No, I’m saying that I think the argument against superstition is a strong one in modern times for obvious reasons (power of science to explain), and the logic of the message itself is gaining steam among the masses. However many people don’t like to be associated with socially obnoxious atheists, so while they may not much believe in the supernatural, they aren’t much more likely to self-describe as “atheists”. To call oneself an “atheist” conjures up the mental image of a socially awkward activist who spams their friends Facebook news feed with repetitive anti-religion rants/juvenile memes. In essence I think “New Atheism” has been effective at spreading the message, but not at making friends (I am not saying they necessarily *should* be making friends either).

I am atheist myself but I hesitate to brand myself as an “atheist” to those who inquire for this reason. Instead, I just tell them I’m not religious and politely change the subject.

26 – I’m confused by what in my comment inspired your unhinged vitriol. (perhaps it unwittingly makes my point better than I have?)
I was adding to your point that “people don’t like atheists. ” I think you are right, they don’t, even if they start to agree with the atheists.

i think you are trying to hold on to your thesis here by any means. my own personal attitude toward ‘evangelical atheists’ isn’t really positive. but the data here are clear. your position isn’t irrational, it could be that the rate of growth is slowed by the people you speak of. but if the data showed stagnation? what would you say? i suspect you might offer that it is because of the ‘atheist jihad.’ in other words, your theory is insulated from empirical evidence which might push your posterior probability in a given direction. that’s fine, we don’t know. but i think it is the reasonable thing to do and admit that for all the complaining about how obnoxious new atheists are, they are not likely to be harming atheism’s image in the USA. you can’t prove it because of the dynamics you’re alluding too, but i’m 99.99% sure that if the data went in the other direction new atheist-skeptics would be all over it. therefore, the problem isn’t with the method, but the conclusion.

more honestly most humans are unsophisticated and stupid. the coarse and brutal attack style of new atheists may actually be winning more than we might think…. after all, evangelical/fundamentalist religion seems to be doing better than more liberal faiths.