Atheism still has a stigma associated with it here. Not sure now, but there were surveys less than 10 years ago saying that Americans were less likely to vote for an atheist than for a convicted felon (and this was before Trump!). Other polls often use the term “Nones” to refer to people who don’t affiliate with a major religion, but that tends to include atheists, agnostics, areligious people, and some others thrown in there.
That shows that people under 50 are way different. 73% atheist of 69% None is about 50%, which means that a full half of Americans under 50 identify as atheist. So, a BIG generational gap.
I mean yeah, I don’t identify with the term atheist because it ended up shifting meaning to anti-theist on the internet in my opinion. I guess I just conflated it with “no religion” in my head, which is what the Australian statistic is.
I also don’t relate to the term cause I just don’t participate in religion at all. From my experience most people who call themselves atheists are (ironically) religiously opposed to religion. It’s just as exhausting as the fundamentalists even if I relate more to the belief.
Atheism still has a stigma associated with it here. Not sure now, but there were surveys less than 10 years ago saying that Americans were less likely to vote for an atheist than for a convicted felon (and this was before Trump!). Other polls often use the term “Nones” to refer to people who don’t affiliate with a major religion, but that tends to include atheists, agnostics, areligious people, and some others thrown in there.
There’s a good explainer here: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/01/24/religious-nones-in-america-who-they-are-and-what-they-believe/
That poll has 17% of Nones as atheist, which would be about 5% of the population, just above the 3% in the chart from OP. Although I bet part of the “agnostics” are agnostic atheists, but don’t use the term. That being said, Pew also has this page: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/age-race-education-and-other-demographic-traits-of-us-religious-groups/#age
That shows that people under 50 are way different. 73% atheist of 69% None is about 50%, which means that a full half of Americans under 50 identify as atheist. So, a BIG generational gap.
I mean yeah, I don’t identify with the term atheist because it ended up shifting meaning to anti-theist on the internet in my opinion. I guess I just conflated it with “no religion” in my head, which is what the Australian statistic is.
I also don’t relate to the term cause I just don’t participate in religion at all. From my experience most people who call themselves atheists are (ironically) religiously opposed to religion. It’s just as exhausting as the fundamentalists even if I relate more to the belief.