It is an easy and entertaining setup. Recruit one fervent believer and one atheist, give them microphones, and let them have at it. And that is exactly what happened when Catholic New York Times columnist Ross Douthat debated atheist psychologist Steven Pinker on the subject, “Do we need God?” inside Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church earlier this year.
Asked by moderator Sarah Isgur whether America had replaced the tribalism of religion with the tribalism of politics, Pinker claimed, “That is not true. If that was true, then the least religious people would be the most politicized and polarized. But in fact, the most politically committed faction in the United States are evangelical Christians, and they are the most polarized in the sense of thinking the worst view of the other side.”
“However, the nones,” Pinker continued, “the people who say when asked what their religion is they say ‘nothing in particular,’ they are the least politically polarized. That is, they have the most centrist and the most charitable view of the other party. So it is not the case that the more religion, the less politics, and vice versa. If anything, they seem to be correlated.”
Pinker is being a little too clever for his own good here. While it is true that people who tell pollsters their present religion is “nothing in particular” are also the least polarized religious grouping of Americans, what Pinker fails to mention, or perhaps does not know, is that the vast majority of these “nothings” actually do believe in God, and many even pray regularly. As a group, these nothings are, in fact, not the least religious Americans.
That honor would go to Pinker’s own atheists, who, in addition to not believing in God, are every bit as politically polarized as evangelicals, perhaps even more so, just in the opposite direction.
According to Pew, an overwhelming 78% of atheists identify as Democrats, compared with just 72% of evangelicals who identify as Republicans. Meanwhile, the nothings are more evenly split, with 54% identifying as Democrats and 37% as Republicans.
What Pinker and Douthat may find even more surprising is that Pinker’s atheists represent just a tiny minority of the nones. Less than one-fifth of nones consider themselves atheists — 17%, to be exact — while 83% of nothings believe in God or a higher power.
And the nothings are becoming even less partisan as time goes on. Those who were raised in a religion but left it — the “nonverts,” if you will — are far more likely to be partisan Democrats than the average adult. But among those of us who were raised without any religious identity — the “always nones” — just 24% of the most recent generation identify as Democrats, while more than half identify as independent.
FOR THE FOUNDERS, COMMON GOOD CAME BEFORE LIBERTY
So the next time someone tells you they don’t belong to a church, don’t assume they are a Democrat. The nones are not a secular voting bloc marching uniformly to the Left. Many are believers, many are politically moderate, and among younger Americans raised without religion, independents now dominate.
Losing religion does not necessarily mean finding the Democratic Party.