Atheism is on the rise in the United States. According to a 2012 Pew Research Center poll, 2.4 percent of Americans identified themselves as atheist. This was up from 1.6 percent just five years earlier, in 2007. The same poll revealed that most atheists tend to be male (67 percent) and are proportionally younger and more likely to have college degrees than the general American population. Books by prominent atheists like Richard Dawkins have been regularly appearing on the New York Times best-seller list in recent years. Dawkins’s The God Delusion reached number four on the list.
Given that atheism is on the rise, some questions ought to be explored. First, what is atheism? The simple definition, according to Oxforddictionaries.com, is “disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.” This definition of atheism and the reality of the beliefs of those who identify themselves as atheist differ. According to the Pew Research Center poll cited above, 14 percent of those who call themselves atheist still claim to believe “in God or a universal spirit.” 26 percent of atheists think of themselves as “spiritual,” and 82 percent say they feel a deep connection with the earth or nature.
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