Why do people choose to be a religious “none”?

New study gives deeper insight into non-religious Americans

Pew Research Center conducted a study to understand why a portion of Americans don’t affiliate themselves with any religion. They had conducted a similar survey in 2014, where they found out that 23% of the Americans said that they don’t follow any religion in particular. However, this figure was only 16% in 2007, which makes this study all the more important.

Why do people choose to be a religious “none”?[/tweetthis]

The new study, which consisted of over 1,300 participants, had a series of questions to find the real reasons why these Americans fall under the “none” category. The majority of the people in this category had come from religious families.

Findings of the study

The main reason why people don’t follow any religion is that they question the majority of the religious teachings, which accounts for 60% of the participants. 49% of the respondents, said they were unhappy with the positions taken by the churches on various political and social issues.

There are several other reasons why people don’t like religious organizations. For instance, 41% of the participants detest religious organizations, while 37% of them don’t place their beliefs in God. At the same time, 36% of the respondents stated that they don’t believe religion is relevant to them. 34% of the participants told the organization that they don’t like the religious leaders.

According to the Pew Research Center, it is quite common for these people to give various answers as to why they don’t associate themselves with religion. Due to this reason, the “nones” are not as monolithic as one would like to assume. For instance, nine out of 10 atheists stated that they lack religious identity as they don’t believe in God. On comparing these stats with the “nothing in particular” and agnostics category, the figures stand at 21% and 37% respectively.

Also, the survey found out that it is highly likely (63%) for atheists to state that religion is irrelevant. However, when compared to “nothing in particular” and agnostics, the percentages stand at 26% and 40% respectively.

There are also several other variations among these three groups which highlight their differences. For example, the primary reason why atheists are skeptics is that they don’t believe in the existence of God. On the other hand, only 8% of the “nothing in particular” and 17% of the agnostics gave the same reason.

Resources

• Pew Research Center
• Catholic News Agency

Follow the Conversation on Twitter