America Is Becoming More Secular And More Diverse

These maps are all from the Washington Post, and they reflect the results of a new Public Religion Research Institute survey.

Our Founding Fathers were emphatic in their belief that they were creating a secular nation -- a fact verified by the 1791 treaty unanimously ratified by the Senate and signed by the president (and which put into writing the fact that the United States is a secular nation). Their intention was to make the U.S. a country where all people had the freedom to practice any religion, or no religion at all -- so they gave us the First Amendment to our Constitution.

This study shows that we are now finally becoming a truly secular nation. The study said that their are now 22% of the U.S. population without any religious affiliation. That is a record number, and it is still growing for the "nones" (composed of atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and those who just don't care for religion). That's nearly a quarter of the population. The map above shows the percentage of those "nones" in every state.

And the charts below show another encouraging trend. Non-christian religious people are beginning to be spread across this nation. That is a very good thing also, because it shows we are also becoming a religiously diverse nation -- and that will help us to defend the religious freedom guarantee of the Constitution's First Amendment.