3.

Who Are America’s Atheists and Agnostics?

Ariela Keysar

Atheism: from Greek atheos, godless, a disbelief in the existence of a deity. Atheist:
one who denies the existence of God.
Agnostic: from Greek agnostos, unknown, one who holds the view that any ultimate
reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable.
(Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary)

A theists and Agnostics are fringe populations in U.S. society. Considered by

many to be deviant,1 Atheists are a distrusted group. According to a Gallup
Poll from September 2006, a vast majority of the public (84 percent) thinks that
Americans are not ready to elect an Atheist as president.2 Although Atheists and
Agnostics are tiny minority groups, the attention they attract, particularly from
the religious right, warrants a better understanding of exactly who they are in
terms of social characteristics such as gender, age, educational level, ethnicity
and political preferences.
This chapter provides a demographic and social profile of three distinct
groups: self-identified Atheists, self-identified Agnostics, and those who
answered “none” to a survey question, “What is your religion, if any? ” The first
two groups are quite small, together amounting to about 1 percent of the U.S.
adult population. The third group, called the no-religion group, is about 13
percent of the population.
All are growing. Together, the three groups increased from about 14 million
in 1990 to over 29 million in 2001, according to Religion in a Free Market:
Religious and Non-Religious Americans, Who, What, Why, Where.3
It takes a very large sample of the population to develop a reliable portrait
of minority groups as small as Atheists and Agnostics. The American Religious
Identification Survey (ARIS) 2001 is perhaps the only survey large enough.

33
34 Secularism & Secularity

With its random sample of 50,281 adult respondents, it estimated the number
of American adult Atheists as 900,000 and adult Agnostics as 990,000.
This data set presents a unique opportunity to distinguish between three
groups previously lumped together—Atheists, Agnostics, and those professing
no religion. Drawing on the fine detail available from the ARIS, this chapter
is the first to show the differences as well as the similarities among these three
distinct groups.

Gender
Both Agnostics and Atheists are predominantly male. In the U.S. population as
a whole, 48 percent of adults are male, as are 47 percent of Catholic adults. By
comparison, males account for 56 percent of the no-religion group, 70 percent
of Atheists, and 75 percent of Agnostics, as shown in Figure 3-1. This may reflect
men’s greater tendency to disbelieve and reject authority.

Age
Atheists are young. Fully 55 percent are under age 35. Only 20 percent are 50
and over, as opposed to 37 percent of all Americans. Interestingly, Agnostics are
older than Atheists, though still younger than the general population, as shown
in Figure 3-2.
Beyond the numbers shown here, ARIS data show that one-third of Atheists
are under age 25. Half of them are age 30 or under. This age structure has major
demographic consequences. It helps explains their marital status—41 percent
are singles never married and only 40 percent are married. Among Agnostics
and “no religion” adults, about 30 percent are singles never married and about
50 percent are married. Once again, the Agnostic and “no religion” are similar to
one another while the Atheists’ marital status is more distinct.
Comparing this 2001 data with the 1990 National Survey of Religious
Identification (NSRI)4 provides clear evidence of a recent trend towards
secularization among the younger American population. The diffusion of secular
messages aimed at young people on TV and over the Internet may explain the
correlations between popular youth culture and the demographic characteristics
revealed by the ARIS. Of course, it is possible that this is an “age” rather than
a “generational” effect, so that some of these young people may “convert” and
become believers as they get older, and thus reassert the belief patterns of their
parents and grandparents.
 3. Who Are America’s Athiests and Agnostics? 35

Figure 3-1
Percent Male Among Atheist, Agnostic and No Religion Adults

U.S. Total 48

No Religion 58

Athiest 70

Agnostic 75

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
percent
Source: American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2001

Figure 3-2
Age Composition of Atheist, Agnostic and No Religion
18-34 35-49 50-64 65+

80

70

60

50
percent

40

30
55
20 40 46
30 32 31
24 29
10 21
18 13 16 16
9 11 8
0
Atheist Agnostic No Religion U.S. Total

Source: American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2001

36 Secularism & Secularity

Education
Agnostics clearly have the highest educational attainment, with 42 percent being
college graduates or having post-graduate education. This is far higher than
Atheists and the “no religion” group, as shown in Figure 3-3. The relatively low
educational level of Atheists may come as a surprise, because various researchers
have argued that Atheists are concentrated among the intellectual elite. Beit-
Hallahmi has called academia and science “the Atheist bastions.” Youth may be
one reason that fully 47 percent of Atheists have no more than a high school
diploma, vs. the national average of 41 percent. Some Atheists may not yet be
old enough to have earned a college or post-graduate degree. Atheists may also
have a bimodal distribution in terms of education, with large proportions at the
top and the bottom of the educational ladder.
The attribute of high educational level among Agnostics sets them apart
from Atheists and adults who profess no religion. One possible explanation
is that “Agnostic” is a sophisticated technical term; thus for someone to self-
identify5 as such suggests a well-educated person.
Overall, Americans who profess no religion or self-identify as Atheist or
Agnostic are more likely to be white non-Hispanic or Asian and less likely to
be African American, as compared to the general adult population. The small
sample size by ethnicity precludes detailed tables.

Geography
Where are Atheists, Agnostics, and people who profess no religion to be found?
Atheists concentrate in the West and the Northeast and are scarce in the South.
Agnostics and the no religion group also concentrate in the West, but are
comparatively less common in the Northeast, as seen in Figure 3-4. The Pacific
Northwest has been identified as the “None zone” by Killen and Silk.6 Pasquale7
focuses on a special group of religiously unaffiliated Americans, which includes
but is not restricted to Atheists or Agnostics. He calls them “Nots” and finds they
are most common in the Pacific Northwest.

Political Party Preference

The general U.S. population is about evenly distributed among Democrats,
Republicans, and independents. In contrast, a clear majority of Atheists are
politically independent, as seen in Figure 3-5. Atheists are far less likely than the
general public to be Republicans. The percentage who are Democrats is about
the same as that among the total U.S. population for all three of the irreligious
groups under discussion. Agnostics and the no-religion group lie between
 3. Who Are America’s Athiests and Agnostics? 37

Figure 3-3
Educational Level of Athiest, Agnostic, and No Religion
High School Grad or Some College College Graduate or Post Grad

80

70

60

50
percent

40
68 66 66
30 58
20 42
34 34
32
10

0
Atheist Agnostic No Religion U.S. Total

Source: American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2001

Figure 3-4
Regional Distribution of Atheist, Agnostic, and No Religion
Northeast North Central South West

60

50

40
percent

30

20
36 36
32
27 28 28 29
23 24
10 19 18 17 19 19 23 22

0
Atheist Agnostic No Religion U.S. Total

Source: American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2001

38 Secularism & Secularity

Atheists and the general public in their political leanings, but are considerably
closer to Atheists. Not only are Atheists disenchanted by the divine power, but
they are also the most likely to detach themselves and so be alienated from the
two main political parties.

Figure 3-5
Party Political Preferences of Atheist, Agnostic and No Religion
Republican Democrat Independent Don’t Know & Refused

80

70

60

50
percent

40

30
50
20 43 43
33 30 30 32 30
26
10 17
16
10 11 6 8 7
0
Atheist Agnostic No Religion U.S. Total

Source: American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2001

Summary
Both academic research and public opinion polls have a tendency to blur
distinctions among Atheists, Agnostics, and what has come to be called the
no-religion group, or Nones. But the large sample from the 2001 ARIS allows
distinctions to be made. ARIS data show that Atheists are by far younger, more
likely to reside in the West, and more politically independent than Agnostics.
Both Atheists and Agnostics are predominantly male. And Agnostics are by far
the most educated group. In political preferences, age composition, and
geographical residency, Agnostics and Nones are similar. On educational
attainment, on the other hand, Atheists are more similar to Nones than Agnostics.
By gender, Atheists and Agnostics are more male than the Nones.
This illustration of clear inter-group distinctions should discourage the
practice of lumping together Atheists, Agnostics, and the “no religion” population
into an undifferentiated mass.
 3. Who Are America’s Athiests and Agnostics? 39

Endnotes
1. Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin. Atheists: A Psychological Profile. In M. Martin (ed.)
The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. New York: Cambridge University Press,
2006.
2. For comparison, 38% of the public believes Americans are not ready to elect a wom-
an as president, 42% to elect a Jew and 91% to elect a gay or lesbian (the only other
group to attract more negative feelings).
3. Kosmin, Barry A. and Ariela Keysar. Religion in a Free Market: Religious and Non-
Religious Americans, Who, What, Why, Where. New York: Paramount Market Pub-
lishing, Inc, 2006.
4. See, Kosmin, Barry A. and Seymour P. Lachman, One Nation Under God: Religion
in Contemporary American Society. New York: Harmony Books, 1993.
5. Note, ARIS 2001 methodology was based on self-reporting and an open-ended
question: What is your religion, if any? Respondents chose their own category of
religion and were not read a list of pre-coded religious groups.
6. Killen, Patricia O’Connell and Mark Silk. Religion and Public Life in the Pacific
Northwest: The None Zone. Alta Mira Press, 2004.
7. Pasquale, Frank. The Non-Religious in the American Northwest. In Secularism and
Secularity: Contemporary International Perspectives, 2007.