WASHINGTON — The typical
member of a fast-growing atheist association is a highly educated, married
white male who grew up with religious parents.
The Freedom from Religion
Foundation, which grew from 5,500 in 2004 to about 16,000 members this year,
announced results of a survey of its members Dec. 1.
The Wisconsin-based
organization received nearly 4,000 responses to its survey, which was mailed to
all its members in May. Respondents replied to the nonscientific survey by mail
or online.
Asked about their primary
reason for being “deconverted from religion to freethought,” about a third of
respondents said “religion doesn’t make sense.” Seventeen percent said
religious hypocrisy or bigotry was the cause; 9 percent said reading skeptical
authors; 5 percent cited reading the Bible.
Most respondents said the
religious denomination they left behind was Protestant (42 percent), but 30
percent said they were raised Catholic and 27 percent were raised Jewish.
The overwhelming majority of
atheist respondents — 95 percent — are white, but foundation officials hope
that statistic will change.
“We’ve started to do more
outreach to the African-American and freethought communities of color, and
clearly, this is a great untapped source for new members who support reason and
secularism in this country,” said foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor.
She said the group’s
membership grew by 1,000 within a few weeks of an April decision by a federal
judge who sided with the foundation and declared the law creating the National
Day of Prayer unconstitutional.
Other findings from survey
respondents include:
- 88 percent describe
themselves as atheist, and 12 percent as agnostic
- 43 percent are retired
- 30 percent volunteer
regularly
- 24 percent are veterans
- 11 percent are vegetarians
- 9 percent are gay,
lesbian, bisexual or trangender.