U.S. Religious Landscape Survey

The Pew Foundation released its U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, and it's been in the news. The big news that people are focusing on is that the number of Americans non-affiliated with religion is increasing over time. These include atheists, agnostics, and people who just join up. That group now constitutes 16% of the population. As shown below, in graph from the NY Times article, the number of Protestants is decreasing and the number of Catholics remaining about the same. (The Catholic stability is due to the large numbers of Catholic immigrants.)

Interestingly, the number of self-reported atheists and agnostics remains small (1.6% and 2.4% respectively). Rather, the growth seems to among respondents who respondent "nothing in particular" when asked about their religious affiliation.

You can read the report here, and do your own analysis of the data here.

Thanks Lauren!