(ANALYSIS) I give a lot of talks about the “nones.” This includes Zoom meetings, webinars, lecture series and sermons at various venues such as churches, colleges and social organizations. My slide deck is as dialed in as it can be. I know which statements will resonate, how to elicit a quick laugh, when to speed through a graph and when to pause to let people take photos of a slide.

I aim to provide the audience with a few key takeaways from the talk. One of them is this: Most “nones” are not atheists. I believe that when most people hear the term “none,” they immediately picture an atheist. However, I emphasize the “nothing in particular” group more because it’s significantly larger.

I do, however, believe that atheists are crucial for the future of American society and politics. As I’ve previously written, they are among the most politically active groups in the United States.

But how many are there? The Cooperative Election Study can help us with an estimate.

According to this data, about 3% of the adult population was atheist in 2008. This number has slowly risen over the last 15 years. It was 5% in 2014, then increased to 6% by 2016.

What’s striking is that there hasn’t been any appreciable increase between 2015 and 2022; it’s remained around 6%.

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Ryan Burge is an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, a pastor in the American Baptist Church and the co-founder and frequent contributor to Religion in Public, a forum for scholars of religion and politics to make their work accessible to a more general audience. His research focuses on the intersection of religiosity and political behavior, especially in the U.S. Follow him on X at @ryanburge.