We report on the “nones” for The Associated Press, The Conversation and Religion News Service. Ask us anything!

Secular and humanist chaplains are definitely one of the more interesting adaptations to the rise of the nones. There are some really interesting guide to parenting and to life in general that are intentionally secular as well. (A new book, called We of Little Faith, by Kate Cohen comes to mind).

Organized secular groups, like the Sunday Assembly, which try to function as churches for atheists, have struggled. That’s in part because the nones, in general, aren’t joiners — and a lack of religious beliefs doesn’t have the power to bind people together in the way that religion does.

— Bob Smietana

When we asked our Japan team to report on the nones in their country , which is about 70% secular, there is no way that I would have guessed the story would be about stamp collecting. I am particularly interested in fiber arts, papermaking, etc. so I found this especially fascinating.

Many folks visit various shrines not for religious reasons, but because they want one of the special, hand-made stamps with ornate designs.

— Holly Meyer

There is some interesting work being done on atheism and health that differentiates between people who are intentionally secular and those who are apathetic or disinterested in religion. A 2021 study found that folks who are intentionally secular have similar outcomes to people who regularly attend services — and both have better outcomes than those who are apathetic or disinterested in religion.

— Bob Smietana

One of the scholars who contributed to this series of articles actually focuses their research on chaplaincy, and wrote a piece on nonreligious chaplains — how they often feel “called” to this work despite lack of belief in a higher power; the challenges of working with patients across the whole spectrum of belief and nonbelief; and how they approach prayer requests. Here’s the article.

— Molly Jackson

In the latest AP project, we found some examples of this. The majority of Italians identify as Catholic, but so many of them don’t go to church nor do they practice some of the key sacraments – both core parts of the faith. One funeral director our reporter talked to said many folks still want Catholic funerals, but their funeral home has also added special rooms for nonreligious services.

In northern Nigeria, atheists — who live in fear for their lives — still practice, i.e. go to daily prayers and fast during Ramadan, so their loved ones don’t catch on that they’re not Muslim.

My colleague Kalpana Jain at The Conversation points out that in some of Hindu tradition and also the Jain tradition, atheism is one of the philosophies. For example: Samkhya is an atheistic Hindu philosophy and historically there have been debates about the existence of God. Here’s a good overview.

RNS’ Paul O’Donnell flagged this fascinating related column by Kalpana: “I also have to explain why I consider myself an atheist, despite belonging to a religious group: Jainism does not believe in a creator God. In Jain theology, the existence of evil in the world itself proves that there is no external God. The focus instead is on the paramatman — the divine nature of the soul.”

Our AP reporter who looked at India also touched on this, including that India has a millennia-old history of nonreligious movements.

And RNS' Roxanne Stone shares this: I also want to flag this article about LGBTQ nonreligious people, who feel a double whammy of stigma in many circles, especially if they have grown up in or live in very religious communities. A survey of nonreligious people reveals that LGBTQ persons regularly concealed their nonreligious beliefs.

— Holly Meyer

[NOTE: Accidentally deleted this reply. User error! Re-uploaded with nothing changed.]

Another factor is that in some countries being an atheist is punishable by death.

I think cultural norms are important. At one time, it was considered to be a mental illness if someone did not believe in God. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, there was intense pressure on young people to identify as a believer; I had a friend who got sent to the principal and their parents got called because they said they did not want to go to church anymore.

We now have a situation where not believing is becoming normal. Every religious adult in the US knows someone who is a non-believer. It is becoming socially acceptable. People are getting social permission to say they do not believe.

There’s no one driving force in the decline of religion. Instead, it’s one sign of the larger forces reshaping America. People have lost faith in religion in part because they lost faith in almost every institution of American life: marriage, the government, business, education, healthcare.

There’s also the “Bowling Alone” affect, the reality that Americans no longer join voluntary organizations or activities like they did 50 years ago. So a church or other house of worship is one more thing Americans don’t join. We’re also at the end of an era when churchgoing was commonplace — the 1950s were a high point of religious participation in the U.S. As older churchgoing Americans die off, they are being replaced by younger Americans who no longer see going to church (or other worship services) as something they are expected to do.

— Bob Smietana

How deep we can dive into this is limited by the survey data we have access to. But in the U.S., we have a decent amount, including that many nones are younger as my colleague Roxanne at RNS points out to me. Pew Research Center says that 35% of younger millennials are religiously unaffiliated.

Here’s how we describe it in the U.S. story that is part of the latest project: The nones are “a diverse, hard-to-summarize group. … They’re the atheists, the agnostics, the “nothing in particular.” They’re the “spiritual but not religious,” and those who are neither or both. They span class, gender, age, race and ethnicity. While the nones’ vast diversity splinters them into myriad subgroups, most of them have this in common: They. Really. Don’t. Like. Organized. Religion.” Nor its leaders. Nor its politics and social stances. That’s according to a large majority of nones responding to the survey.

This information specifically is backed up by the latest AP-NORC poll about the nones. Here’s the link to those results.

Roxanne also wanted me to share this look at Latino nones in the U.S. that also has some of this demographic information.

— Holly Meyer

One way of answering this question is to consider what we mean by "nones."

Commonly, this is assumed to mean no connection to religion or a denial of religious affiliation. For some, being a none is synonymous with being an atheist, or someone who does not believe. But being an atheist does not guarantee that one is not affiliated with a church, as the rise of atheist churches suggest.

In other words, to think about the demographics and diversity of "nones" requires us to think about those who reject religion and do not belong to any identifiable religious tradition, to others who are more apt to describe themselves as spiritual but not religious.

For this latter group, to be spiritual but not religious might indicate belief in God but rejection of any tradition that localizes/defines what/who God is. More concretely, nones and the unaffiliated often manifest more among younger populations (19 to 30 years old), but recent years point to increases within 30 to 49 year olds. The PRRI 2022 census does a great job capturing this.

— Morgan Shipley

The politicization of every part of American life, including religion, is definitely at play.

As is the decline of Mainline Protestant Churches, where people from different parties and political beliefs used to mix. These days, if people go to church, they go to one where almost everyone is part of the same party — either Republican or Democrat. So religious groups can be just as divided as any other part of life.

— Bob Smietana

I would also love to hear a broader breakdown of the drive towards the nones. The article mentioned various people with anecdotal stories, but didn’t expand much on it.

It is vitally important to add this layer of nuance. Just as not all atheists are the same, so is it true of the spiritual but not religious (SBNR). Both are massively diverse categories.

One of the great challenges in tracing the demographics and diversity of the nones, of atheists, and of the SBNR is the very language that is used in studies. If studies ask for someone to identify their "religious affiliation," answering none might be an indication of indifference or atheism, or it might be more about positioning oneself as spiritual without the connection to (or baggage of) a religious identity.

For many SBNR, their identity is not an indication of a lack of belief or denial of affiliation, but rather a relocation, a movement from identifying with a system of belief and practice to an openness to uncover practices and communities that reflect one's understanding of self, meaning, purpose and belongingness. It can also indicate one's deep connection to a sense of divinity without the need to define this through a religious lens (such as, I believe in God but I am not religious). To define oneself as religious, then, most commonly means to claim a specific religious identity. To be described as spiritual is to indicate the ways in which someone attends to their fullness as a person, as well as the practices designed to enhance this understanding. Whether it be new age crystal work or mindfulness, to connect these to religion misses their role/use for certain people.

If, then, we want to understand the demographic makeup and expression of those outside religion, we must begin thinking about these groups with more nuance.

For example, if one is atheist but belongs to an atheist church, is this a religion? If one denies religious affiliation but turns to psychedelics or energy work to connect to a divine presence, is that religion? If one turns to new age practices to enhance their well-being, is this atheism? Religion? Spirituality?

— Morgan Shipley

As a recent Gallup poll illustrates, there is an increase in nones identifying as progressive/Democratic as opposed to conservative/Republican.

More broadly, a move away from religious affiliation or participation does not necessitate a rejection or shift in one's political understanding of the world. With that said, among younger generations of nones, the SBNR, and the unaffiliated, a move away from traditional religious participation is often a reflection of shifting social, cultural, and political understandings.

This is especially true for individuals who grow up in more orthodox (or fundamentalist) settings that include very rigid understandings of gender, for example. As people encounter the diversity of gender expressions, or come to a realization about themselves, such understandings can fundamentally upend the coherency of religious teachings and corresponding socio-cultural and political stances that reflect orthodox teachings.

The result, then, is both a shift in religious participation and a transformation of political positioning. The counter is also true. Someone might become disenchanted with a religious setting or tradition, but maintain core beliefs, such as former Catholics who support abortion bans.

— Morgan Shipley

Another big question about “nones” and politics is how often they vote, and what impact they do or don’t have at the ballot box. As some of you noted, there’s a common assumption that “nones” are more similar than they really are — that they share interests or values beyond a lack of religious affiliation — and that shows up in politics, too.

Given religion’s significance in U.S. politics, some people assume that nonreligious voters will become an important bloc — but given the huge diversity among them, that’s complicated. One of the articles in this series was written by a sociologist who does a deep dive on voting patterns among nonreligious voters, who cautions against treating them as one big group.

— Molly Jackson

On the question of political affiliation, this piece from Ryan Burge shows that atheists and agnostics are often left-leaning in their political persuasion, and their rapid ascendance in the American religious landscape is proving much more consequential to the Democratic Party than the GOP.

— Kalpana Jain

Here is one report that found nonreligious people face discrimination and stigma, conceal their nonreligious identities and largely see themselves as atheists and humanists. But examples like The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a nonprofit watchdog on separation of church and state issues, are attempting to raise awareness and normalize the atheist/unaffiliated/nones experience.

FRF, for example, launched a campaign aimed at calling attention to the growing political voice of nonreligious Americans. You also have Jamie Raskin, a humanist in congress, and part of the congressional freethought caucus. But, politicians remain highly religious, much more so than the people they represent.

— Roxy Stone

This 2020 Gallup poll points out that being atheist is still a political liability. I’m also reminded of a story I wrote about an atheist running as a Democrat in a Republican majority district in Tennessee. They lost by a lot – now was that because they were a Democrat or an atheist or both?

In terms of voters, the nones were “small but mighty” in the midterms as this fascinating look by my colleague explains: Voters with no religious affiliation supported Democratic candidates and abortion rights by staggering percentages in the 2022 midterm elections.

— Holly Meyer

The DoD does track the religious affiliation of members of the armed forces. The NIH cites some of that data from 2019, which showed 2% as atheists and 24% as “other/unclassified/unknown."

— Bob Smietana

Those are the definitions we use as well. In surveys and interviews, we rely heavily on self-identification as well as explanations about how that particular identity shows up in their lives. There are limitations to the various ways of measuring and we explain those when it’s helpful for clarity.

For example, see this explanation in our India piece: “It is possible that nones in India are underrepresented in such surveys due to societal taboos and shortcuts taken by interviewers, said Stephanie Kramer, a senior researcher at Pew Research Center who led a 2020 survey about the nation’s religious makeup.”

Also, your atheist-agnostic identity resonates with a lot of what we see when reporting on this topic. Religious (or lack thereof) identity is complicated and rarely fits into a box.

— Holly Meyer

Then we must all, believers and nonbelievers alike, be classified as agnostic, because this is something that cannot be known or proven one way or the other.

In many popular forms of reporting, this is quite true and results, to speak generally, from a tendency to create a binary between "the religious" and the "nonreligious."

This binary often assumes that being religious is the natural category — to be nonreligious, then, is an expression of one who has left religion. In other words, the only way to understand "nones" is to first accept the reality/contingency of religion and the religious.

However, the reality is vastly more complex and does require that we seek to overcome the tendency to define religion only through the lens of the already religious. By bringing in the voices of nones, the unaffiliated, atheists, and the spiritual but not religious, what we learn is not simply about the perceived inevitability of religion, but rather various ways that people seek to make sense of their lives, find meaning, and enhance community with, without, and beyond religious concerns.

— Morgan Shipley

One common non-religion thread we have consistently found among nones is a strong concern over climate change. They are the group most likely to say climate change is a crisis.

— Roxy Stone

Pew Research projected that Nones could be a majority by 2070, if the % of people who leave organized religion continues to grow at the same rate. We have some reporting here.

— Bob Smietana

I cannot address the rise of more extremist/radicalized expressions, but an interesting aspect of megachurches is often how "secular" these settings are becoming.

As more and more local, small scale churches close, we see a corresponding rise of megachurches, spaces often defined by what they include than by specific belief structures. This is illustrated, for example, in megachurches including coffeeshops within their spaces, religious leaders dressing in less formal (and often very hip) attire, sermons addressing issues and realities beyond the specific frames of religious texts, and the shift away from traditional music to contemporary sounds that reflect secular music.

In certain ways, these shifts are designed to bring in more members, to connect with younger audiences, and to counter the tendency to rely on secular spaces as opposed to religious spaces for community. If church can be both a space for faith AND a space to connect in contemporary, secular ways, it enhances viability. NPR offers a recent interesting article on this phenomenon.
Here is also a more localized example.

— Morgan Shipley

The megachurch question is super interesting. One of the interesting trends in American religion right now is that most people, if they attended services, are part of a large congregation, even though most congregations are small. They often tend to attract folks who are well off, well-educated and married — and who tend to be more religious. Ryan Burge has written about religion and marriage and education as “luxury goods” — and the megachurch trend, in some ways reflects that. This is one thing that gets lost in the discussion of the nones and folks who are disaffiliated from religion. There’s a stereotype that as people become more educated, they become less religious. But in the U.S., at least, that’s not the case for nones in general. Instead, they are often disaffiliated from all kinds of institutions, including religion.

— Bob Smietana

I think the question implies that there is no space for anyone to be an atheist in Muslim majority countries. That might not be so and we again need to reconsider what being an ‘atheist’ means. Often times, some Muslims, as I have seen, especially those who profess being liberal, see their faith as personal and more part of identity than religious belief. They may, or may not go to the mosque or observe regular fasting, but still celebrate Eid culturally.

— Kalpana Jain

There are numerous ways that secular people establish communal spaces that fulfill some of the core aspects of "religious church." Church and affiliation is not simply about belief, but connects directly to a sense of belonging. It provides people with community and connection, while also binding people together through shared virtues and morals.

In leaving religion, however, one is not stripped of opportunities for community —though options are not as immediately present as participation in a local religious community. For many atheists and unaffiliated, they turn to alternative sites and experiences, some that mirror religious expressions and others that suggest community is what we encounter in/through our experience with others. On the one hand, we can identify the rise of atheist churches initiated intentionally to fill the gaps that traditional church once held. These settings are sometimes referred to as "churches without God." ReligionForBreakfast provides a great breakdown.

On the other hand, we can move away from a mirroring/rethinking of church to consider ways of intentional community building among secular people. This ranges from cheering on a local sports team to participating in bowling leagues to group exercise, such as yoga. Social media further provides a way to establish community beyond the restrictions of space and geography.

— Morgan Shipley

This is my question, too

_ In fact, 43% of the group known as the “nones” say they believe in God, even if they largely dislike organized religion._

We are being lumped together with spiritualists and believers who’re not registered to a church or other religious organizations; but there’s no warranty they are moderate or liberal. I’ve seen more and more christians online who don’t go to church but extremely fanatic when it comes to religious or social issues. But obviously they’re just anecdotes.

I think that name, “nones” actually describes exactly how they’re identified. The term “none” comes from the census where you’re asked to check what religion you are such as Christian, Muslim etc etc and at the bottom is the catagory “none”.

You should read the article, it’s actually pretty good.

I agree. It implies that atheist are missing something, or lacking something, and implies that religious people must “have” something. This seems like a pretty egregious oversight, presumably the authors are religious themselves, calling into question the validity of their research due to bias.

There must be a better catchall term. But only a negative can define that which is without.

This has always been my concern when considering this population. There are world's of difference between a hardline anti-theist and a milquetoast 'nothing in particular '.

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massive global increase in depravity and despair that surely must be occurring as church attendance wanes

Are you sure such a thing is happening?

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