A new Trinity College study finds that the number of Americans claiming no religious faith is higher than ever:
Americans who don’t identify with any religion are now 15% of the USA, but trends in a new study shows they could one day surpass the nation’s largest denominations — including Catholics, now 24% of the nation.American Nones: Profile of the No Religion Population, to be released today by Trinity College, finds this faith-free group already includes nearly 19% of U.S. men and 12% of women. Of these, 35% say they were Catholic at age 12.
“Will a day come when the Nones are on top? We can’t predict for sure,” says lead researcher Barry Kosmin.
But if Nones, now 22% of all adults ages 18 to 29, continue to gain among young adults, to draw more people “switching out” from denominations and to replace more religious older people, researchers forecast one in five Americans will be Nones in 20 years.
Some other findings:
•Not all Nones are alike. Half (51%) still believe in God or a higher power.
•Nones also are the only major U. S. faith group that’s majority male. Even when girls grow up with unbelieving parents, they’re more likely to find a faith as adults than their brothers.
•The percentage of atheist Nones — who say there’s no such thing as God — hasn’t budged in years.
“It’s not as though dozens of people at the Methodist Church read (atheist Richard) Dawkins and suddenly decided God doesn’t exist,” says Kosmin.
(…)
“They’re a stew of agnostics, deists and rationalists. They sound more like Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine. Their very interesting enlightenment approach is like the Founding Fathers’ kind: Skeptical about organized religion and clerics while still holding to an idea of God.”
And if we had more Jefferson’s and Paines, and fewer Rick Santorum’s and Pat Robertson’s, we’d be much better off for it in the end.
