Atheism in the United States
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According to sociologists as of 2022, "the proportion of atheists in the US has held steady at 3% to 4% for more than 80 years."[4] According to the Pew Research Center in a 2014 survey, self-identified atheists make up 3.1% of the US population, even though 9% of Americans agreed with the statement "Do not believe in God" while 2% agreed with the statement "Do not know if they believe in God".[3] Other polling by Gallup in 2022 showed that 17% of respondents replied "No" when asked "Do you believe in God?", and another from 2023 found that 12% of respondents replied they "Do not believe in" God with 14% replying they were "Not sure about" the existence of God.[5] Regardless of question or polling service, there is evidence the number of people not believing in God is increasing.[5]
According to the 2014 General Sociological Survey, the number of atheists and agnostics in the U.S. grew over the previous 23 years. In 1991, only 2% identified as atheist, and 4% identified as agnostic; while in 2014, 3.1% identified as atheists, and 5% identified as agnostics.[6]
In 2009, Pew stated that only 5% of the US population did not have a belief in a god and out of that small group only 24% self-identified as "atheist", while 15% self-identified as "agnostic" and 35% self-identified as "nothing in particular".[7]
According to the 2008 ARIS, only 2% the US population was atheist, while 10% were agnostics.[8]
One 2018 research paper using indirect methods estimated that 26% of Americans are atheists, which is much higher than the 3%-11% rates that are consistently found in surveys.[9] However, methodological problems have been identified with this particular study; in particular, it has been posted that many people might not have a binary outlook to the question of the existence of God.[10]
Accurate demographics of atheism are difficult to obtain since conceptions of atheism and self-identification are context dependent by culture.[11]