Scholars compiling 2008 edition of the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) have just publicized some of their numbers--and they show an American populace that is rapidly becoming more secular, less Christian, and less theistic.
Following up on ARIS 2001, which discovered that the "no religion" demographic had exploded in the eleven years since the previous Survey, ARIS 2008 finds the trend continuing. Compiled from telephone surveys of 54,461 adults between February and November of last year, the 2008 study has a margin of error of less than 0.5%. The authors of the study have published a preliminary statement of some of their findings. Among them are the following:
In broad terms, ARIS 2008 found a consolidation and strengthening of shifts signaled in the 2001 survey. The percentage of Americans claiming no religion, which jumped from 8.2 [percent] in 1990 to 14.2 [percent] in 2001, has now increased to 15 percent--more than thirty-four million people. Given the estimated growth of the American adult population since the last census from 207 million to 228 million, that reflects an additional 4.7 million "Nones."
[....]
The percentage of Christians in America, which declined in the 1990s from 86.2 percent to 76.7 percent, has now edged down to 76 percent. Ninety percent of the decline comes from the non-Catholic segment of the Christian population, largely from the mainline denominations, including Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians/Anglicans, and the United Church of Christ. These groups, whose proportion of the American population shrank from 18.7 percent in 1990 to 17.2 percent in 2001, all experienced sharp numerical declines this decade and now constitute just 12.9 percent.
[....]
Only 1.6 percent of Americans call themselves atheist or agnostic. But based on stated beliefs, 12 percent are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unsure), while 12 percent more are deistic (believe in a higher power but not a personal God). The number of outright atheists has nearly doubled since 2001, from 900 thousand to 1.6 million. Twenty-seven percent of Americans do not expect a religious funeral at their death.
These findings echo the results of related sociological analyses that show the same trend of burgeoning secularism worldwide:
Disbelief now rivals the great faiths in numbers and influence. Never before has religion faced such enormous levels of disbelief, or faced a hazard as powerful as that posed by modernity. How is organized religion going to regain the true, choice-based initiative when only one of them [Islam] is growing, and it is doing so with reproductive activity rather than by convincing the masses to join in, when no major faith is proving able to grow as they break out of their ancestral lands via mass conversion, and when securely prosperous democracies appear immune to mass devotion?
Indeed, as that article notes, the United States has for a while been the lone non-secularizing holdout among industrialized nations--but the ARIS numbers indicate that we may be following the lead of Europe and East Asia.
USA Today has extensive coverage of the ARIS results, including a nice set of graphics laying out the Survey's findings. Most eye-opening to me is the graph illustrating the finding that irreligion, unlike every religion, has grown in "market share" in every state in the union [except Alaska and Hawaii, which apparently ARIS doesn't cover--odd] since 2001 1990:
As yet, there have been few political consequences of the explosion in the secular population of the United States. But if our numbers continue burgeoning the way they have been--"Nones" growing from 8% to 15% of Americans in eighteen years, self-declared atheists quadrupling over the same time period--that condition can't hold. At some point, the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance (we aren't) and "In God We Trust" on currency (we don't) may, finally, become politically untenable. We may at long last get some open representation in government; how many other demographics that claim 15% of the population (again, over thirty-four million people!) lack a single (uncloseted) member of Congress?* The exclusion of nonbelievers from government-supported organizations such as the Boy Scouts may eventually end, and American courts might actually stop openly discriminating against irreligious parents in child custody disputes. U.S. Senators might stop trying to hold on to their seats by accusing their opponents of being atheists--or at least the opponents might start to say more in response than merely (to paraphrase) "How dare you accuse me of being an atheist?!"
At some point, we're just going to be too big as a demographic to be pushed around this way. A wan reference in an inauguration speech just isn't going to cut it for a lot longer.
(Hat tip: Friendly Atheist.)
* No, Congressman Pete Stark, from California's Thirteenth District, is not an exception. Stark is an open atheist (the only one I'm aware of in elected office in federal or any state government; his lonely status is a troubling fact in itself). However, Stark is also a self-declared Unitarian Universalist. Unitarian Universalism (or "UUism"), according to its national Association, is religious--and it's counted separately by ARIS. Stark is thus not one of ARIS's 34,000,000+ "None"s.