{"id":13328,"date":"2015-11-11T11:08:05","date_gmt":"2015-11-11T16:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/religious-nones-are-not-only-growing-theyre-becoming-more-secular\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:19:26","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:19:26","slug":"religious-nones-are-not-only-growing-theyre-becoming-more-secular","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2015\/11\/11\/religious-nones-are-not-only-growing-theyre-becoming-more-secular\/","title":{"rendered":"Religious \u2018nones\u2019 are not only growing, they\u2019re becoming more secular"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Religious \u201cnones\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2015\/05\/13\/a-closer-look-at-americas-rapidly-growing-religious-nones\/\">are not only growing<\/a> as a share of the U.S. population, but they are becoming more secular over time by a variety of measures, a fact that also is helping to make the U.S. public overall somewhat less religious, according to surveys done as part of our <a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/religion\/2015\/11\/03\/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious\/\">Religious Landscape Study<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<figure><a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/religion\/2015\/11\/03\/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/10\/PF_15.10.27_SecondRLS_overview_NonesSecular640px.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"669\"><\/a><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The \u201cnones,\u201d a category that includes people who self-identify as atheists or agnostics, as well as those who say their religion is \u201cnothing in particular,\u201d now make up 23% of U.S. adults, up from 16% in 2007. But there is more to the story. To begin with, this group is not uniformly nonreligious. Most of them say they believe in God, and about a third say religion is at least somewhat important in their lives.<!--more--><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the same time, between the Pew Research Center\u2019s two Religious Landscape Studies \u2013 conducted in 2007 and 2014 \u2013 we also see consistent evidence that the \u201cnones\u201d are becoming <em>less<\/em> religious. For example, the share of religious \u201cnones\u201d who say they believe in God, while still a majority, has fallen from 70% to 61% over that seven-year period. Only 27% of \u201cnones\u201d are absolutely certain about God\u2019s existence, down from 36% in 2007. And fully a third of religiously unaffiliated Americans (33%) now say they do <em>not<\/em> believe in God, up 11 percentage points over that time.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Similar trends are seen on some other key measures of religious engagement. The share of religious \u201cnones\u201d who say they seldom or never pray has risen by 6 points in recent years, and now stands at 62%. And a bigger proportion of the unaffiliated now say religion is not important in their lives (65%) than said this in 2007 (57%).<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Data from the survey can be combined with U.S. population figures to estimate the total number of what might be thought of as \u201cnonreligious\u201d Americans at 36.1 million in 2014. (These are adults who are not affiliated with a religious group and who also say religion is not important in their lives.) As of 2007, there were only 21 million \u201cnonreligious\u201d adults who fit this description.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The question of <em>why<\/em> the \u201cnones\u201d are growing less religious does not have a simple answer. But just as is the case for <a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2015\/05\/12\/millennials-increasingly-are-driving-growth-of-nones\/\">why \u201cnones\u201d are growing as a share of the U.S. public<\/a>, generational replacement appears to be playing a role. Religiously unaffiliated Americans are younger, on average, than the general public to begin with, and the youngest adults in the group \u2013 that is, those who have entered adulthood in the last several years \u2013 are even less religious than \u201cnones\u201d overall.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fully seven-in-ten of these youngest Millennials (born between 1990 and 1996) with no religious affiliation say religion is not important in their lives. A similar share (70%) also say they seldom or never pray and 42% say they do not believe in God, all bigger percentages than among religious \u201cnones\u201d as a whole.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Religious &#8220;nones&#8221; make up 23% of U.S. adults, up from 16% in 2007. And only 27% of those \u201cnones\u201d are absolutely certain about God\u2019s existence, down from 36% in 2007.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_crdt_document":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[169,172,195],"bylines":[854],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[517],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-13328","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-non-religion-secularism","category-religion-politics-1","category-religiously-unaffiliated","bylines-michael-lipka","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-religion"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":466,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2015\/11\/11\/religious-nones-are-not-only-growing-theyre-becoming-more-secular\/","art_direction":{"A1":{"id":24472,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/11\/PF_15.10.27_SecondRLS_overview_NonesSecular640px.png","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/11\/PF_15.10.27_SecondRLS_overview_NonesSecular640px.png?w=564&h=317&crop=1","width":564,"height":317,"chartArt":false},"A2":{"id":24472,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/11\/PF_15.10.27_SecondRLS_overview_NonesSecular640px.png","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/11\/PF_15.10.27_SecondRLS_overview_NonesSecular640px.png?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"A3":{"id":24472,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/11\/PF_15.10.27_SecondRLS_overview_NonesSecular640px.png","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/11\/PF_15.10.27_SecondRLS_overview_NonesSecular640px.png?w=194&h=110&crop=1","width":194,"height":110,"chartArt":false},"A4":{"id":24472,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/11\/PF_15.10.27_SecondRLS_overview_NonesSecular640px.png","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/11\/PF_15.10.27_SecondRLS_overview_NonesSecular640px.png?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"XL":{"id":24472,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/11\/PF_15.10.27_SecondRLS_overview_NonesSecular640px.png","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/11\/PF_15.10.27_SecondRLS_overview_NonesSecular640px.png?w=640&h=405&crop=1","width":640,"height":405,"chartArt":false},"social":{"id":24472,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/11\/PF_15.10.27_SecondRLS_overview_NonesSecular640px.png","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2015\/11\/PF_15.10.27_SecondRLS_overview_NonesSecular640px.png?w=640&h=628&crop=1","width":640,"height":628,"chartArt":false}},"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Religious 'nones' becoming more secular","description":"Religious \"nones\" make up 23% of U.S. adults, up from 16% in 2007. 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