Well, we’ve seen the past polls shows the growth of secularism in the US. Now, we get even better news: on campus, there are about as many of us as there are religious people; Richard Dawkins might call this a “tipping point“.
College students are almost evenly divided into three camps when it comes to faith, according to a new study released Thursday. About a third, 32%, are true believers. Another 32% are spiritual but not religious. And 28% consider themselves secular.
So what does this mean exactly?
Religious students go to church, are more likely to believe in creationism or intelligent design, and oppose assisted suicide, adoptions by same-sex couples and gun control. Secular students do not believe in God, endorse evolution, accept assisted suicide as moral, say gay couples should be able to adopt and want more gun control.
The spiritual students were split. They sided with the religious students on questions about God and with secular students on questions about politics and science.
Funny, despite all the talk of words such as “Islam” and “Christianity” conveying very little information about their self-professed followers, actual data show a remarkable degree of predictability of views of religion.
And yes, this does represent a sea change, despite all the denials by religionist Gallup.
Mark Forrester, chaplain at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said that the survey reflects changes he has seen in more than 20 years of campus ministry. He said that when he started at Austin Peay University in 1991, most students had some religious identity.
“They were either Protestant or Catholic,” he said. “The biggest question was, what kind of Protestant are you? ”
Now Jewish, Muslim, and other non Christian students are common as are those with no faith.
Contradicting Gallup further, researchers conclude,
The findings “challenge to the notion that the nones are just ‘religiously unaffiliated’ or religious searchers who have not yet found a religious home,” Kosmin and Keysar wrote. “This survey clearly revealed that today’s students with a secular worldview, who are mainly nones, are not traditional theists.”
(Of course this is not the first time that we find out the “none” are not between faiths, but have abandoned faith altogether. Don’t hold your breath that Gullup will drop its agenda-driven predictions, though.)
Even secularists are amazed at their own numbers.
McGraw is president of the University of Northern Iowa Freethinkers and Inquirers, which she said has about 150 members.
She said she was surprised to find so many other nonbelievers at a school in Iowa, where Christianity remains very influential.
“There are more of us than I thought there would be,” she said.
But guess what: exactly in Iowa, there are so many “nones” that they are already tipping the results of national elections.
And yet, the reality remains that despite the burgeoning numbers of secular people and their political weight, politician on the right and left continue to ignore us. Which is why some of us have decided this should change.
The good news for atheists, agnostics, and humanists is the creation of the Freethought Equality Fund, a new Political Action Committee (PAC) dedicated to expanding voters’ choices by backing the candidacy of open nontheists to public office. It is the first such PAC with a paid staff.
Launched by the American Humanist Association’s Center for Humanist Activism, the Freethought Equality Fund will support candidates who share our goals of protecting the separation of church and state and defending the civil liberties of secular Americans. And it will probably also support some theists and “closeted” atheists who advocate for our causes.
But wait, there’s more. In the future, the Secular Coalition for America will form its own PAC, and other freethought groups are also considering similar political engagement.
Times are changing. Stay tuned…
