The Number Of Nonreligious People Is Growing In U.S.

The last poll I saw (from the Pew Research Center) showed the percentage of nonreligious Americans was about 20% (with the youngest adults, the millennials, having about 30%). This new poll shows that may well have been an undercount of the nonreligious. It is the CBS News / New York Times / YouGov Poll done between October 16th and 23rd with only a 1/2 point (0.5%) margin of error. The margin of error is so small because the random national sample was so large -- about 98,411 adults.

This survey shows a massive 29% of Americans who say they have no religion (5% atheists, 5% agnostics, and 19% who just claim no religion). Perhaps even more important, a record low of 61% claim to be christian. That's just about 2 christians for every 1 nonreligious person. That may sound like a lot, but it used to be 4 or 5 christians for every nonreligious person. America is steadily becoming a secular nation, and it's happening much faster than expected.

And that's not the only bad news for christians. Only 51% of Americans attend church -- and only 29% of them attend regularly (at least once a week). Another 8% attends once or twice a month, and 14% say they attend a "few" times a year.

In addition, the evangelicals (the group that would like to legislate our democracy into a theocracy) currently makes up only about 31% of the population. The size of their group is not nearly as large as the noise they make politically and socially.