December 5, 2012
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Skeptics in America: Excerpt from Seven Faith Tribes Book.
So I took a look at these study results by Barna, found them fascinating in trying to understand my non-religious friends. Does this represent you?
Demographic Facts:
11% of Americans are skeptics (atheists or agnostics). The size of this group has doubled in last 25 years, representing 25 million adults.
Skeptics tend to be male (57%).
More Asian and less African-American than general population
Less likely to be married (44%)
Misunderstandings with People of Faith:
Skeptics strongly dislike being referred to as “lost.”
Skeptics overall are not interested in converting others (with a few notable exceptions)
The lack of a Skeptic “creed” makes it harder to reach out to skeptics as a group. They do believe in a set of core values (2/3rds) but not in moral absolutes. Some are very open to spiritual discussion, while others are more interested in debate for its own sake.
Many skeptics (35%) voluntarily absorb some religious materials in a month.
Almost 1/3 of skeptics believe that God exists in some form due to nature or personal experience, and 1/4 call themselves deeply spiritual.
More than 75% of skeptics see Christians as hypocritical.
Skeptics are not opposed per se to faith views being expressed in government and work.
Independence and Individualism:
Skeptics are less likely than average to see themselves as leaders, but prioritize their careers more than most. In fact, they sometimes prioritize work over family/friend ties.
60% describe the meaning of life as “work hard, do well, enjoy life however you can.”
Only 33% are interested in making the world a better place.
They donate to charity less, which stems from their concept that everyone makes their own choices and must bear consequences of those choices.
Politically, skeptics tend to be on the side of individual rights (pro gay marriage and believe that parental notification of minor getting an abortion should not be a law).
Thoughts?
Comments (11)
Interesting.
ok, 1st section, 1 out of 4. second section, mostly correct with a few minor discrepancies. 3rd section, 1 out of 5.
Sounds a bit like me!
Except I'm not anti-Christian at all, I don't put work above family, and I do donate a portion of each paycheques to good causes
and I think everyone can help make the world a better place
I wonder why women tend to be more religious even though the abrahamic religions are patriarchal. I wonder if there would be more women involved if religions catered more towards women.
Pats you on the back. Ah greek, still feeling insecure about christianity.
You can be "religious" and be lost, desperately lost, and oftentimes not even know it.
Though reading stuff like this can be somewhat helpful, it's more helpful to read the Bible to see what God Himself has to say about skeptics. God alone knows the secrets of the heart. We're all born as enemies of God, with a skeptic's heart, and minds hostile to God. Apart from the work of God's Holy Spirit, none of us can even seek God, much less know Him; we're spiritually dead.
I Corinthians 2:14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
John 3:3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
"Skeptics overall are not interested in converting others"
This one is the hardest for me to believe, just from my personal experience.
What about the unaffiliated groups? People who do not practice religion and don't describe themselves as atheist/skeptic? I read somewhere about 1/3 of people under 30 are unaffiliated. And in the last 5 years, 5% of the American population have since described themselves unaffiliated--about 1% per year.
And I bet I can convert you from the dark side.
@tjordanm - That could explain some of the issues I had with the data. The figure of 11% for atheists/agnostics sounded a little high based on what I and other friends knew of other surveys of number of atheists/agnostics. The book was published in 2009, which means data might have been gathered a bit before that. My suspicion is that Barna picked up this group in this data, but did not realize that this 3rd category was emerging and as such mixed it in with atheists/agnostics. Good point.
Very interesting... thanks for putting it up there. I think I need to chew on it awhile...
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