The Nones are still on the rise, according to a recent Pew survey, CNN reported today. The number of Americans who say that they have no religion has increased 25% in the last five years. This means the number of people affiliated with a religion has been consistently in free fall in America for over 20 years. The younger generations are strikingly less religious:
- 34% of “younger millennials” – those born between 1990 and 1994 – are religiously unaffiliated.
- 30% of “older millennials,” born between 1981 and 1989, 30% are religiously unaffiliated: 4 percentage points higher than in 2007
- Nearly 42% religious unaffiliated people from that age group identified as atheist or agnostic
Now, we’re not speaking just of people who identify as atheist or agnostic. 68% of the the unaffiliated report believing in a god. Still, this is excellent news for several reasons. Number one, political candidates of any party will increasingly find the devout religious demographic less important, because it is shrinking, as the irreligious voter group is growing rapidly. Number two, this shift away from traditional religious practice and edifices mirrors the secularization process which has happened and is happening in europe. In places like the UK, there was never an atheist revolution against religion. People just stopped going (while perhaps still believing). Then those people had kids who never went to a church, and never put stock in it, and didn’t believe. Religion has always been highly dependent promulgation by family and community; through ritual and rite of passages. When those things vanish because even believers abandon them, the primary transmission mechanism of religion is severely impaired.
