Just what the connection is, is open to debate. Maybe a lot more of these "no religion" people are atheists than are willing to admit it -- and given how much bigotry there is towards atheists, that's not unreasonable. Indeed, we should assume that there are at least a couple of percentage points of "in the closet atheists" out there. Another possibility is that the publicity surrounding atheist critics of religion is making it easier for people to explore doubts about religion.
Gallup began systematically tracking religion using this measure in 1948, asking Americans to name the major religion with which they personally identified. At that point, 2% of Americans volunteered "no religion" and another 3% had an otherwise undesignated religious identity. In 1949 and in the 1950s and 1960s, these percentages stayed low. The number of Americans with no formal religious identity began to increase in the 1970s, reaching 11% by 1990. After some fluctuations over the last two decades, 16% of Americans now say they have no religious identity or have an otherwise undesignated response.
Gallup's 53-year trend on this measure represents nearly a quarter of the history of the United States as an independent country. There is no systematic way of comparing this trend with what may have been the case stretching back to the earliest post-Revolutionary War days. The best conclusion therefore is that Americans are more likely now than at previous times since World War II to say "no religion" when queried in traditional fashion about their religious identity.
Source: Gallup
Wait a minute, aren't atheists constantly being told that they should just hush and not be so noisy in their criticisms of religion? Aren't atheists told that so much public criticism of religion is counter-productive? Well, counter-productive for whom: atheists, or religious apologists? Never blindly trust the "helpful" advice of a person whose political and/or ideological agenda is the opposite of yours.
Another interesting part of the Gallup survey is on Americans' belief about whether religion can solve problems facing us today or if religion is "old-fashioned and out of date." Currently 58% of people think that religion can solve our problems and just 28% reject this. While that first number may be depressingly high, it's better than it was a few year ago -- as with people answering "no religion," the trend is against religion.
The percentage of Americans who believe religion can answer all or most of today's problems has fluctuated since the mid-1970s, as has the number who believe religion is old-fashioned and out of date. When Gallup first asked this question in 1957, 7% of Americans said religion was old-fashioned. That percentage was generally at or around 20% during much of the 1980s and 1990s, but has risen to 29% last year and 28% this year.
Thus, although clearly still a minority, the segment of Americans who believe "religion is largely old-fashioned" is now modestly higher than it was a decade or two ago.
A vigorous, direct, and public critique of religion is what's needed to keep these numbers going in this direction. Atheists will not and cannot make any gains by being meek, quiet, and subservient. Deference towards religion is exactly the opposite of what you should do when criticism of religion is what society needs. If atheists' critiques of religion isn't helping these numbers move in this direction, then atheists surely aren't hurting the trend.
I’m not that concerned if people have religion, or become deists with their own self-developed religions and practices, whether they worship wolves, the great jum-jum bird, or a celestial teapot.
The most important issue isn’t whether people are atheists or theists, it’s organized religion which attempts to impose its will on others who don’t share or partake in it. Religion is nothing more than a form of masturbation, a waste of time. As long as they’re not wasting other people’s time, I don’t care what they do.
We’d probably all be better off of religion fragmented so much that there were millions of sects with no more than a few thousand followers each, no one willing to cooperate with each other on religion, and no group having the power to dominate.
Being a deist is a step in the right direction. Deists are probably closer to atheism than they are to theism. Victor Stenger (in The New Atheism) makes the point that a substantial number of Americans, 44% based a study at Baylor University, “do not believe in a god who plays an important role in the universe or their personal lives.” That means they are deists, whether they know it or not.
From my experience, there are people who call themselves theists but really aren’t. They cling to religious “beliefs” because: they couldn’t stand to live if they believed that “evil” wouldn’t be “punished,” even if only in another “life”; they feel unloved, so the idea of a “loving father” figure gives them comfort; they can’t bear the thought that they’ll never see dead loved ones again; they have a sense of “community” in church that they don’t have elsewhere; if there was no “afterlife,” life itself would be meaningless to them. Those are just a few of the reasons I’ve encountered. These people, if they were honest with themselves, don’t really believe these things. Rather, they use them just as some people use heroin — to escape the reality of their everyday lives. I think that the fact that so many alcohol/drug users turn to religion to help them “kick the habit” demonstrates this relationship. They simply exchange one addiction for another.
Same in Australia! At the most recent census in 2006, only 9% admitted attending church in the previous 30 days. 9%, I’m impressed. It would seem that those who admit to a religious delusion only do so ‘coz the sky fairy might be watching.