Friday, November 28, 2003
30 million in U.S. claim no religious ties
Their numbers have more than doubled in a decade, to nearly 30 million. Organized as a religious denomination, they would trail only Catholics and Baptists in members.
They are the "nones," named for their response to a question in public opinion polls: "What is your religion, if any?"
Some nones are atheists, others agnostics, still others self- styled dabblers in a variety of faiths and philosophies. Despite their discomfort with organized religion, many consider themselves quite spiritual.
Nones are especially prevalent in the Pacific Northwest. In Oregon and Washington, where 21 percent and 25 percent, respectively, claim no particular faith, nones outnumber any single religious category.
"If people are interested in hiking on Sunday morning rather than going to church, that's fine. The culture won't say that's unacceptable. In fact, the culture will say that's perfectly acceptable," said Mark Shibley, a sociologist at Southern Oregon University who has studied and written about nones.
Nones grew from 8 percent of the U.S. population in 1990 to more than 14 percent in 2001.
That's the conclusion of religion experts who compared results of the National Survey of Religious Identification, conducted in 1990, and the American Religious Identification Survey, which in 2001 sought to update the earlier poll.
"That makes nones the fastest- growing religious group in the United States, if you think about them as a religious group," said Patricia O'Connell Killen, a professor of religious history at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash. "We're just coming to grips with the reality that this group even exists."
Nones could form a powerful constituency for marketing or political causes. But few see them that way, and even fewer try to communicate with them.
"Because of their indifference, they're not in one place," said John Green, a professor specializing in religion and politics at the University of Akron. "It's hard to put together a mailing list. It's difficult to get them on the phone. You can't call them together for a meeting."
Yet thanks to the American Religious Identification Survey, much is now known about nones.
Young people are more likely to profess no religion. One in three nones is less than 30 years old compared with one in five of all survey respondents. More are single (29 percent) than the adult population as a whole (20 percent). Fifty-nine percent are male. Their education level (23 percent college graduates) is virtually the same as the national average for adults. Seventeen percent are Republicans, 30 percent are Democrats, and 43 percent are independents.
Many nones believe in God. Nearly half "agreed strongly" that God exists. "It is more accurate to describe them as unaffiliated than as nonbelievers," said Ariela Keysar, study director of the American Religious Identification Survey.
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