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3. Who Are America’s Atheists and Agnostics?

 Ariela Keysar 

 Atheism: from Greek atheos,

godless,

 a disbelief in the existence of a deity. Atheist: one who denies the existence of God.  Agnostic: from Greek

agnostos,

 unknown, one who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable.

(Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary)

A

theists and Agnostics are fringe populations in U.S. society. Considered by many to be deviant,

1

 Atheists are a distrusted group. According to a Gallup Poll from September 2006, a vast majority of the public (84 percent) thinks that  Americans are not ready to elect an Atheist as president.

2

 Although Atheists and  Agnostics are tiny minority groups, the attention they attract, particularly from the religious right, warrants a better understanding of exactly who they are in terms of social characteristics such as gender, age, educational level, ethnicity and political preferences. This chapter provides a demographic and social profile of three distinct groups: self-identified Atheists, self-identified Agnostics, and those who answered “none” to a survey question, “

What is your religion, if any? 

” The first two groups are quite small, together amounting to about 1 percent of the U.S. adult population. The third group, called the no-religion group, is about 13 percent of the population.  All are growing. Together, the three groups increased from about 14 million in 1990 to over 29 million in 2001, according to

Religion in a Free Market: Religious and Non-Religious Americans, Who, What, Why, Where.

3

 It takes a very large sample of the population to develop a reliable portrait of minority groups as small as Atheists and Agnostics. The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2001 is perhaps the only survey large enough.

 

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S

ECULARISM

 & S

ECULARITY

 With its random sample of 50,281 adult respondents, it estimated the number of American adult Atheists as 900,000 and adult Agnostics as 990,000. This data set presents a unique opportunity to distinguish between three groups previously lumped together—Atheists, Agnostics, and those professing no religion. Drawing on the fine detail available from the ARIS, this chapter is the first to show the differences as well as the similarities among these three distinct groups.

Gender

Both Agnostics and Atheists are predominantly male. In the U.S. population as a whole, 48 percent of adults are male, as are 47 percent of Catholic adults. By comparison, males account for 56 percent of the no-religion group, 70 percent of Atheists, and 75 percent of Agnostics, as shown in

Figure 3-1

. This may reflect men’s greater tendency to disbelieve and reject authority.

Age

 Atheists are young. Fully 55 percent are under age 35. Only 20 percent are 50 and over, as opposed to 37 percent of all Americans. Interestingly, Agnostics are older than Atheists, though still younger than the general population, as shown in

Figure 3-2 

.

Beyond the numbers shown here, ARIS data show that one-third of Atheists are under age 25. Half of them are age 30 or under. This age structure has major demographic consequences. It helps explains their marital status—41 percent are singles never married and only 40 percent are married. Among Agnostics and “no religion” adults, about 30 percent are singles never married and about 50 percent are married. Once again, the Agnostic and “no religion” are similar to one another while the Atheists’ marital status is more distinct. Comparing this 2001 data with the 1990 National Survey of Religious Identification (NSRI)

4

 provides clear evidence of a recent trend towards secularization among the younger American population. The diffusion of secular messages aimed at young people on TV and over the Internet may explain the correlations between popular youth culture and the demographic characteristics revealed by the ARIS. Of course, it is possible that this is an “age” rather than a “generational” effect, so that some of these young people may “convert” and become believers as they get older, and thus reassert the belief patterns of their parents and grandparents.

 

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3. W

HO

 A

RE

 A

MERICA

’

S

 A

 THIESTS

 

AND

 A

GNOSTICS

?

Figure 3-1

Percent Male Among Atheist, Agnostic and No Religion Adults

U.S. TotalNo ReligionAthiestAgnostic

48587075

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

 percent 

Source: American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2001Source: American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2001

80706050403020100

     p     e     r     c     e     n      t

 Atheist Agnostic No Religion U.S. Total

32 31211646301684029181355249 11

18-3435-4950-6465+

Figure 3-2 

Age Composition of Atheist, Agnostic and No Religion