UC Riverside

Rates of religious non-affiliation continue to rise in the United States, with roughly 20% of Americans reporting no identification with any church or religious group. Generally, scholars have assumed these religious "nones" were atheists or agnostics with an active dislike of religious faith. This study explores the demographic, family background, political and moral worldview variation among a large sample of non-affiliates using various statistical regression analyses. Additionally, using a novel coding scheme, non-affiliates were modeled according to their self-reported levels of religiosity and spirituality, revealing further differentiation within this subpopulation. Results suggest that "nones" are not homogenously atheist or agnostic and that they likely vary in terms of their moral worldview and their political attitudes towards the family, among other things.