The new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) survey shows that Americans are less religious than they were when the first ARIS survey was conducted in 1990.
“Many people thought our 2001 finding was an anomaly,” Keysar said. We now know it wasn’t. The ‘Nones’ are the only group to have grown in every state of the Union.”
Only 1.6% of Americans call themselves atheist or agnostic. But based on stated beliefs, 12% are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unsure), while 12% more are deistic (believe in a higher power but not a personal God). The number of outright atheists has nearly doubled since 2001, from 900 thousand to 1.6 million.
