In the News

"Nonaffiliated" Now 16 Percent

The religiously unaffiliated are at 16% now, according to a study released in February by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. One in 4 adults ages 18-29 claims no affiliation with a religious institution. A majority, 12%, describes religious views as "nothing in particular." Seven percent were unaffiliated with faith as children. Nearly 1 in 5 men has no formal affiliation, compared with 13% of women. Pew found self-identified atheists or agnostics at 4%.

More than a quarter of adults have left the faith of their childhood for another religion or no religion at all.

The survey of 35,000 adult Americans found that 78% of U.S. citizens consider themselves Christian. But the Protestant majority has slipped from 75% in the 1970s to 51% today--with evangelicals a slight majority of Protestants.

Nearly 1 in 3 Americans (31%) was raised Catholic, but fewer than 1 in 4 (24%) is self-described as Catholic today. The Roman Catholic Church has lost more members than any other denomination, with roughly 10% of all Americans being ex-Catholics. Due to an influx of immigrant Catholics, mostly from Latin America, the Catholic population remains stable at 25%.

The survey found that Hindus in America claim the highest retention of childhood members, at 84%, while Jehovah's Witnesses have the worst retention, at 37%. Muslims or Buddhists are less than 1% of the population, and Jews are 1.7% of the population.

Clarke Keeps Funeral Secular

Freethinking science fiction writer and inventor Arthur C. Clarke, who died at age 90 on March 19 in Sri Lanka, left written instructions that his funeral be completely secular:

"Absolutely no religious rites of any kind, relating to any religious faith, should be associated with my funeral."

Clarke, who wrote the screenplay to the film, "2001: A Space Odyssey," and who suggested communications satellites in 1945, described himself as "an aggressive agnostic" and called religion "the most malevolent of all mind viruses."