Atheist Majority

I was thinking today about how long it would take for a disbelief in religion to be a majority in the US. There has been a push back on anything not Christian in the 20th century, but there are obvious factors that show religion has been a progression over the years. The common concept of progression is Mythology to Religion to Science. Sometimes Philosophy is put in there near the end, but the point is we go from many gods to less gods to one god to understanding nature and ourselves.

So what factors lead to a increase skepticism in religion? The first is parental influence. If your parents are skeptical or atheist you will be much more likely to follow. The second is intelligence and education. The good news is that with higher education rates climbing every year there are more and more given the tools to open some skepticism.

The first study I saw was from USAToday.com, which did a study of those who responded "none" to a religious survey. This is up from 8% in 1990, but is likely not a large grouping of non-believers and more just the uninvolved. This is still a strong movement and creates a future generation who are not indoctrinated as children.

The factor of parental influence and increasing higher education rates support a exponential increase in non-believers over the next 20-30 years. This would support the thought that we could see a US that is a majority non-believers in our lifetimes.

A limit I can see, but is not based on any study might be reproduction rates among the different groups. Especially groups supporting beliefs like no birth control or supporting abstinence programs should produce more offspring then the agnostics.

More support for this increase is found in a Gallup.com poll here. If you head down a bit there is the no religious identification chart. This has increased from 2% in 1948 to around 9% in the late 80's, but held there with a strong push back by religious groups and religion becoming a bigger player in the Republican Party. Since 2000 though the increase has returned and as of 2008 we have reached a level of 12%.

This is mainly a drag on Protestantism, which is still greater than 50% of the population, but appears head to less than 50% in the next 10-15 years. Catholicism is also dipping after a rise in the 70's.

It will be difficult to know what this means since so many non-believers could be labeled many different ways. You have Agnostic, Atheist or just separated from the church and not really interested in what they believe at time of polling. The importance is an overall drop in religiosity. I would think this number is over 20% in these polls by 2020, but how long it takes to reach a majority is anyones guess. Religion will not go quietly and a push back could occur again to slow the progress of Atheism.

(h/t to The Religion Virus)