How Do Organized Nones Differ from All Nones?

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In May of last year, Tom Edsall - a columnist at the New York Times asked me a question that I had never thought about before:

I mean - it’s a really obvious query and I am kind of ashamed of the fact that it hadn’t crossed my mind at least once before that moment. The nones were 5% of the United States in 1972. They are about 30% of the population today. They are overwhelming voting for Kamala Harris in 2024. They are a very reliable voting bloc for the Democrats. Yet, Trump might very well win the 2024 election.

I go through several different reasons why this is the case in the above post but there’s one possible explanation that was looming in my head that I just couldn’t answer very well with the data that I had at the time.

The nones just aren’t a coherent ‘thing’ like Catholics or evangelicals. They are united by what they are not. They don’t have regular worship services. I think it’s fair to say that there isn’t a dominant worldview among the non-religious. They are a herd of cats, to put it bluntly. And that weakens their political power.

But now because of a collaboration between the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Paul Djupe and myself we can have an unprecedented view into the differences in organized nones vs nones in general. Here’s what we did.

We conducted a survey of non-religious Americans using the Qualtrics platform - it was about 2,400 of them in all. The only thing that unified them was that they identified as atheist, agnostic, or claimed no religion in particular.

We also conducted a survey of members from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The response rate was incredible - we collected over 11,400 responses.

We asked a bunch of the same questions in both surveys, which means we can now understand how organized nones look like compared to those who were non-religious but not part of any formal organization like FFRF.

Let’s get to it.

Both samples were asked a series of questions about the household that they grew up in. It’s pretty apparent that people who are currently non-religious are more likely to have a non-religious father than a non-religious mother. But here’s what really jumps out to me - the FFRF members are much more likely to have grown up with a religious mother or a religious father compared to the random sample of nones that we collected.

That’s especially true when looking at the question about siblings. In the random sample of nones, about half of them said that they had at least one sibling who was non-religious. That was twenty percentage points higher than the FFRF sample. It just looks like FFRF folks grew up in much more religious households than unorganized nones. Hold that thought for a minute, I will circle back to it.

We also asked them about the process of leaving religion - was it a slow or quick one?

Among the Qualtrics sample of non-religious folks - 72% said that their departure from faith was somewhat quick or very quick. Among the FFRF membership survey, that share was significantly lower (61%). I don't know if I would have guessed that before I actually did the analysis.

That got me thinking through what factors could lead to these two results. And after poking around the demographics of the two samples, I hit absolute paydirt.

This is the biggest upshot for me from this project - members of the Freedom From Religion Foundation are significantly older than the average non-religious person in the general population.

The average adult none in our sample: 47.6 years old.

The average member of FFRF: 67.6 years old.

This becomes crystal clear when looking at this graphically. In our random sample of the nones, over half of them had not seen their 45th birthday. About 16% were between the ages of 18 and 29 years old. Another 36% were between 30 and 44 years old. In comparison, about 1% of the members of FFRF are in that lowest age bracket and 6% are 30-44 years old.

The bottom two rows tell the whole story. Nearly half of the members of FFRF are between the ages of 60 and 74 years old (46%) - that’s double the rate found in the random sample of the nones. And, three in ten members who filled out the FFRF survey have celebrated their 70th birthday compared to only 6% of the folks in the random sample.

This is why the FFRF folks so much different than the other nones when it comes to questions about religious upbringing - 75% of them were born before 1965 when the United States was almost entirely Christian.

How about why they left religion? We had a nice battery about that in the survey.

As you can tell by just glancing at the graph, the FFRF folks were much more likely to check a lot of boxes compared to the random sample of nones. There’s not a single reason that was clearly chosen more by the Qualtrics sample compared to the membership of FFRF. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn some things about these two groups from this data.

It’s notable that there wasn’t a huge gap on religious hypocrisy between the two groups (55% vs 42%). But there were other reasons that were much more compelling for the FFRF crowd. For instance, members of the organization were twice as likely to say that ‘religion doesn’t make sense’ compared to the the Qualtrics sample (61% vs 35%). They were nearly three times more likely to say that reading the Bible led them away from religion, too (24% vs 9%). And 4.5 times more likely to say that ‘reading skeptical authors’ was a cause for them to leave religion.

We also included a series of questions about the amount of stigma and social isolation that they feel because of being non-religious.

It’s striking here that the members of FFRF are 50% more likely to agree that “I am wary of letting others know I reject religion” compared to nones as a whole. I would have assumed that being members of FFRF meant that they were proud of their religious status, but the data points to the opposite conclusion. Additionally, 35% of FFRF folks said that they often felt like they were the only nonreligious person in their area compared to just 23% in the random sample.

But the flip side of that is the statement, “I speak freely about my lack of religion.” 76% of FFRF members agreed with that one compared to only 58% of non-religious people in the random sample.

Before I move on I have to point out the results of that last question - “The opinions and values of the non-religious are respected in society.” The gap between the two samples is huge. While among the random sample of nones 45% of them agree with that statement it was just 15% of members of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. It seems like FFRF crowd is joining such an organization because they want their voice to be heard more clearly.

Our unprecedented survey of FFRF members and unaffiliated nones has revealed striking differences between organized and unorganized non-religious individuals in America. The most significant finding is the substantial age gap: FFRF members are, on average, two decades older than the typical none. This age difference explains many of the other disparities we observed, from religious upbringing to reasons for leaving faith.

These findings have important implications for understanding the political landscape of non-religious Americans. While the nones have grown to represent nearly a third of the U.S. population and tend to support Democratic candidates, their lack of cohesion as a group may indeed be limiting their political influence. The FFRF, with its older and more organized membership, represents a small but potentially influential subset of nones who are more likely to speak out about their views, despite feeling greater stigma.

As we approach the 2024 election, these insights into the diversity within the non-religious population could be crucial. The challenge for political strategists and social scientists will be to understand how to engage with both the older, more organized nones and the younger, less cohesive majority. Future research, including our upcoming analysis of FFRF members' political views, will be essential in painting a complete picture of this growing demographic.

The rise of the nones is undoubtedly one of the most significant shifts in American religious and political life in recent decades. As their numbers continue to grow, particularly among younger generations, organizations like the FFRF may play an increasingly important role in mobilizing this diverse group. However, the question remains: Will the nones ever become a unified political force, or will their diversity continue to be both their strength and their limitation in the political arena?

Code for this post can be found here.