How Many Atheists… Really?

It’s interesting to me how often the subject of atheists has come up in conversation lately. Maybe it’s because I just re-read the final edit of my book titled CONNECT, a book that devotes an entire chapter on the type of kid I call the “No-Way-Kid,” a kid who is quick to tell you, “There is no way you’ll ever find me in church!”

Youth workers keep asking me about these types of kids. It seems that I’ve been hearing a lot of conjecture about the growing number unbelieving kids.

Notice the semantics there… I didn’t say “atheists.” We have to be careful with our word choice. If we were talking about atheists… the numbers are much smaller.

How many athiests are there really in the U.S. right now?

Do you want the quick answer? 1.6 percent. That’s right. Not even two percent. Check it out yourself on the chart on page 5 of this “Religious Landscape Study” from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Now, if we expand that definition to include anyone who is “unaffiliated” with any religion, then that percentage would grow to 16.1 percent. That includes atheists, agnostics and those who simply refer to themselves as generally “unaffiliated” with any faith.

If you want to take a closer look at young people specifically, check out the chart on page 40 from the same study. You’ll find that 25 percent of 18-29 year olds (the youngest group surveyed) claimed “unaffiliated,” with 3% claiming to be atheist and 4% claiming agnostic.

25% sounds a little bigger. Think about it. 25% of 18-29 year olds claim no affiliation with any religion.

This is a slight increase from previous data. David chimes in on this increase, looking at this study and others in this week’s Youth Culture Window article.

This isn’t our first article about this study. I referred to it in a blog about the changing U.S. religious beliefs, and David referred to it before in his article about shrinking church attendance.

I encourage you to check out those articles and studies first hand (each article links the original studies so you can investigate it yourself). Fascinating stuff!