Complex Numbers

The Habits of Nones

Today's article, from The Conversation, pushes me into the territory of one of the Forbidden Subjects. But ultimately, it's about science, albeit the fuzzy branch known as "social science."

The number of religious ‘nones’ has soared, but not the number of atheists – and as social scientists, we wanted to know why  

One problem with polls is that, often, they don't ask the right questions. Or there's implicit or even explicit bias, like how a political party might send out a poll like: "Who do you plan to vote for at the next election? a) Our fine, upstanding candidate; b) The other party's incompetent fool; c) Not sure; d) Not planning to vote.

There, now, I've put politics out there, too. While we're on Forbidden Subjects.

The number of individuals in the United States who do not identify as being part of any religion has grown dramatically in recent years, and “the nones” are now larger than any single religious group.

Well, now, that's going to depend on how one defines "religious group," doesn't it? I don't have the exact numbers, but if you broke it down by "Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan, Other, None," I strongly suspect Christians would be in the majority here in the US. But if you further subdivide the categories, say, by separating Christian into "Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, LDS, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Methodist, Pentecostal, Mennonite, etc." then okay, I could believe the bit about Nones. Hell, some of those sects don't even consider some of the others to be Christian; it's only my outsider's perspective that would lump them all under one heading.

Not to mention "None" could be extraordinarily confusing in conversation, thanks to homonyms.

According to the General Social Survey, religiously unaffiliated people represented only about 5% of the U.S. population in the 1970s. This percentage began to increase in the 1990s and is around 30% today.

"Religiously unaffiliated" doesn't imply "atheist." People can be religious without identifying with a particular group, or not religious while identifying with a group.

At first glance, some might assume this means nearly 1 in 3 Americans are atheists, but that’s far from true. Indeed, only about 4% of U.S. adults identify as an atheist.

As noted above, how these things are worded makes a big difference. "Do you believe in God?" is, at first glance, a yes/no binary question, but it can get complicated, what with varying concepts of God and all. Also, "I do not believe God exists" is an entirely different assertion than "I believe God does not exist." Add to this the demand for self-labeling, and things get really murky (one reason I called social science "fuzzy" above). Hell, if someone were rude enough to ask me flat-out what my religion was, I don't think I could boil it down to one word. Unless I was in a joking mood, in which case I'd answer, "Beer."

According to the website of American Atheists,   "Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods."

Unfortunately, by strict application of that definition, monotheists would also be covered, as they do not believe in "gods" but in one "God."

So you see where some of this confusion might be coming from?

There is even diversity in how religiously unaffiliated individuals identify themselves. When asked their religion on surveys, unaffiliated responses include “agnostic,” “no religion,” “nothing in particular,” “none” and so on.

Break down the categories of belief/unbelief finely enough, and you get to the point where each individual is their own religious category.

Our recent research examines two questions related to atheism. First, what makes an individual more or less likely to identify as an atheist? Second, what makes someone more or less likely to adopt an atheistic worldview over time?

"Examines" is a good verb there. It would be wrong, I think, to take their findings as the one definitive, true answer, but it's interesting to see how they're looking at it.

Said examination follows, and it's brief, so I'll just skip to near the end:

On the other hand, we find that adults with more income... are more likely to adopt the stance that they do not believe in God...

This could be a function of income providing a buffer against any stigma associated with holding an atheistic worldview...

Some social scientists have suggested that both wealth and faith can provide existential security – the confidence that you are not going to face tragedy at any moment – and therefore a higher income reduces the need to believe in supernatural forces in the first place.

Which I think a lot of people have internalized, hence why religious groups tend to demand money. Keep the people poor and relying on them, not on their own financial independence. Your first clue that you're being fleeced should have been when they called you a "flock."

Agree or not, "In God We Trust" is on our cash. I think many houses of worship should have signs like "In Cash We Trust."

I want to try to be clear about this: I'm not ragging on religion in general with those comments. Only on the ones that are such naked money grabs that strippers are going "Okay, now that's a naked money grab."

In conclusion, I'm not coming down for or against the ideas presented in the article. But my skepticism moved me to comment on it.