Eight percent of Coloradans now identify as atheists, double the figure from just a decade ago, according to the recently released Pew Religious Landscape Study. Another ten percent identify as agnostic, and a total of forty percent say they’re religiously unaffiliated.
Not only have Coloradans grown less religious over time, they tend to be less religious than people in nearby states. Following is the percent of religiously unaffiliated people by state, compared to Colorado’s 40%: Texas (26%), New Mexico (30%), Arizona (31%), Utah (34%), Wyoming (34%), Nebraska (21%), Kansas (28%), and Oklahoma (26%).
Carl Raschke, a religion philosopher at the University of Denver, told Colorado Public Radio about these trends: “Colorado is one of the most educated states in the country. . . . Higher levels of education very much go hand in hand with higher levels of religious disaffiliation. Colorado has historically always been less religious than other parts of the country.”
True, 52% of Coloradans continue to identify as some variant of Christian, including Evangelical Protestant (17%), Mainline Protestant (13%), Catholic (14%), and Latter Day Saint or Mormon (3%). (As an aside, most people in my childhood Protestant church denied that Latter Day Saints count as Christians.)
Still, to be successful in Colorado at least in many areas, politicians increasingly need to be aware of the existence of atheists and the religiously unaffiliated and try not to alienate them.
Other Results Support the Atheism and Agnostic Stats
The categories are not always cut and dried. For example, we can debate whether some agnostics who say they lack evidence for God’s existence actually are atheists. And some people who claim to be religious may embrace the traditions or social philosophy of their religion without believing in a literal God.
Moreover, a 2017 paper by lead author Will Gervais, a psychological researcher, suggests that the true number of atheists may be substantially higher, since “many atheists . . . refrain from outing themselves even in anonymous polls” because “religious nonbelief is often heavily stigmatized.”
The specific questions that Pew asks people about their religious beliefs lend support to the broader statistics.
Again, 18% of Coloradans self-identify as atheist or agnostic. This matches closely with the 21% of Coloradans who say they “do not believe in God or [a] universal spirit.” Interestingly, only a minority of respondents, 46%, said they believe in God or a universal spirit with absolute certainty, while 32% said they believe in a God or universal spirit but are not certain about it.
Likewise, 16% of Coloradans say they do not “believe people have a soul or spirit in addition to their physical body” (while 82% do believe that). This again corresponds closely with the number of atheists and agnostics. However, I would note that this question is ambiguous. I’m an atheist who rejects the supernatural, yet I think we can sensibly talk about having a “soul or spirit” that refers to our consciousness. Obviously a dead person remains a physical body but no longer has consciousness.
Morals Don’t Require Religion
To me, the most interesting results pertain to the moral importance people place on religion. A full 79% of people in Colorado say “it is possible to be moral and have good values without believing in God,” compared with 17% percent who say “it is necessary to believe in God” for moral values.
When Pew asked, “How important is the Bible in your life,” a majority, 53%, said not very or not at all important. By contrast, 31% said the Bible is very important, while 15% said it is somewhat important. Meanwhile, 46% said religion is not too important in their lives, while 54% said it is very or somewhat important.
These results suggest a couple of important implications. First, the stigmatization of atheists (a strange word here!) that Gervais fears may not be as prevalent in Colorado. Second, most Coloradans probably won’t be content with political answers along the lines of “because God says” or “because the Bible says.” Instead, they’ll want to see solid arguments backed by convincing evidence, a case that transcends particular religious views.
Secularists also can take heart from the results on evolution, a good proxy for a general pro-science orientation. A full 46% of Coloradans said that “humans have evolved over time due to processes such as natural selection,” and “God . . . had no role in this process.” Another 37% said humans evolved with God’s guidance. Only 15% (still far too high!) said “humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.” Obviously scientists can make mistakes and get the science horribly wrong, but at least science (unlike religious faith) tends to be self-correcting process.
Of course we should not presume that atheists always are more rational than religious people. Generally “faith” boils down to belief without evidence, but many religious people cordon off their faith and go by reason in most parts of their lives. And atheism is not a positive philosophy; it just means disbelief in God. Many other forms of irrationality are available. Still, we can hope that the general trend is toward more rationality, and we can try to promote that trend.
We live in an era when several elected officials in Colorado publicly renounce the science of biological evolution, and the state Republican Party demonizes gay and transgender people in the name of distorted theology. Colorado secularists can hope that people increasingly look to natural reason over religious faith to address our cultural and political problems.
Header image by Deb Dowd on Unsplash
