The Pew Research Center has released its yearly report on religion in the United States. That report shows that organized religion is still declining. In just the last seven years, the percentage of those unaffiliated with any organized religion has grown from 16.1% to 22.8% of the population -- and the number of unaffiliateds has grown from 36.6 million people to 55.8 million. That makes the "nones" the largest group in this country -- larger than any single religious group.
The charts below show some other interesting facts about the religious groups in this country.
There's a lot of really interesting information in that! I find it especially interesting that only 66% of Catholics believe in Evolution when the official Church position on it has been in support of it since at least around 1955. But that's just more evidence that religion doesn't mean much. It is just another form of tribal identification. But your headline is deceptive. The "nones" are made up of New Atheists, "Atheists But" (what I am), agnostics, and quite a lot of vaguely "spiritual" people. But even if they were all atheists, you would have to compare them to all theists, not particular kinds of theists. Still, I'm pleased by the numbers. But I don't think there are that many people changing their minds. I just think that most people who call themselves religious are pretty casual about it. As time goes on, it gets easier for them to admit that, yes, they think all the religious mumbo-jumbo is nonsense.
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