Religion Continues to Decline in America

Pew Research has released its latest survey of religion in America, and it comes as no surprise that organized religion continues to shrink. Here’s the decline in a nutshell:

There’s something worth noting here: although the number of “religiously unaffiliated” has increased from 16 percent to 26 percent over the past decade, the number identifying as atheist has barely budged, increasing only two percentage points. What this says is that although a quarter of the population is nonreligious, very few of them are aggressive about it. Those of us willing to flatly own up to being atheists make up a tiny, tiny minority.

In other words, feel free to mock religion with your flying spaghetti monster stuff, but don’t act all surprised when most Americans take offense and feel reluctant to vote for your candidates. You know what you’re doing.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate