A few days ago Ross Douthat started a blog-conversation about the rise of secularists as a conscious cultural movement or tribe, and of course there's been plenty of talk about the new atheism. So I thought it was interesting that fundamentalist Christian pollster George Barna has a new survey out titled Atheists and Agnostics Take Aim at Christians. Barna finds that:
20 million Americans are of "no faith," that is, they are atheists, agnostics or avow their nonaffiliation with a religion
Of those 20 million 5 million accept the label "atheist."
Those with no faith tend to be youger, more male and college eduated
Those with no faith tend to give less to charity and volunteer less
The proportion of those with no faith increases from 6% for ages 61+ to 19% for the 18-22 range. Comparing to results from 15 years ago there seems little change, suggesting that this isn't just a matter of the young being less attached to religion as a phase.
My main quibble is that Barna, not being a social scientist, didn't bother controlling for variables. Some of the trends that he found for those with no faith might simply be due to the disproportionate representation of young college educated males in this group.
