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The Rise of the Nonreligious Population THE RISE OF THE NONRELIGIOUS POPULATION: THE VIRTUAL GEOGRAPHIES, CREATED COMMUNITIES, AND SOCIO-POLITICAL IMPACTS OF THE RELIGIOUS “NONES” IN THE UNITED STATES ____________________________________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Fullerton ____________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Geography ____________________________________ By Elizabeth Higgins Thesis Committee Approval: Jonathan S. Taylor, Department of Geography and the Environment, Chair Mark Drayse, Department of Geography and the Environment Zia Salim, Department of Geography and the Environment Summer, 2018 ABSTRACT This thesis seeks to understand the sociocultural, political, and economic influences of the growing nonreligious population in the United States. This study will be conducted through examining the demographics of the nonreligious population, their socio-political involvement within society, as well as the creation of a community specifically designed for those who do not claim belief in a religious dogma. As the nonreligious do not have formal physical places to congregate such as their religious counterparts do, I argue that the population of those in the United States who claim to be religious “nones” has created a community of their own. This has gained much momentum in the 21st century with the use of social media as a platform, that in turn resulted in the creation of a virtual geography, with a time and a place that exist online for the nonreligious to meet. Once these virtual geographies were established and strengthened, especially in more recent years, this led to the creation of physical communities for the nonreligious population through conventions and regular monthly meetings. As the nonreligious has grown into an active community of people seeking to make change in the culture around them, they have become more involved in activism, policymaking, and have begun to make impacts in the political and sociocultural sphere. The extent to which the community is impacting society has been underreported in academia, and this study seeks to inform and fill in some of those gaps. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................. vi Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE RISE OF THE NONRELIGIOUS POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA .............................. 1 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................... 10 3. THE NONRELIGIOUS COMMUNITY IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION........... 23 Social Media in Creating Communities ................................................................ 26 Conventions in Creating Communities ................................................................. 31 Academia in Creating Communities ..................................................................... 33 4. THE FUTURE OF THE NONRELIGIOUS POPULATION .............................. 40 Diversifying the Nonreligious Community .......................................................... 42 The Possible Global Decline of the Nonreligious Population .............................. 46 5. IMPLICATIONS OF THE GROWTH OF THE NONRELIGIOUS POPULATION ..................................................................................................... 49 Political and Economic Implications .................................................................... 49 Socio-cultural Implications ................................................................................... 66 1. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ...................................................................... 69 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................. 74 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To my biggest champion, who never gave me an option but to pursue higher education, because he never had the opportunity, my late father William E. Higgins III. I cannot express enough my appreciation for my eternal cheerleader, my mother, Lynne N. Higgins, for her support, encouragement, and ever enthusiastic feedback, especially in the moments where I struggled most. To the rest of my friends and family, especially those who would not let me participate in any fun when they knew I should be working, I appreciate them all. The words “Liz go work on your thesis” will be ingrained in my thoughts forever. A special thanks to the department of Geography and the Environment for providing me a home away from home for my many years at Cal State Fullerton. I want to thank the faculty of the department for encouraging and supporting my generally out- of-the-box learning style especially because I was never able to fit in the general mold of a graduate student. Thank you for allowing me to take a risk on research on a very unexplored topic. Thank you for allowing me to fit the needs of my research into the classes I took. Thank you for your patience and support. This research would not be possible without those members of society who are willing to break social stigma and push boundaries. iv 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE RISE OF THE NONRELIGIOUS POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA "An atheist loves his fellow man instead of God. An atheist believes that heaven is something for which we should work now – here on earth for all men together to enjoy. An atheist believes that he can get no help through prayer but that he must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it, and enjoy it. An atheist believes that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment. He seeks to know himself and his fellow man rather than to know a God. An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. He wants man to understand and love man. He wants an ethical way of life. He believes that we cannot rely on a God or channel action into prayer nor hope for an end of troubles in a hereafter. He believes that we are our brothers’ keepers and are keepers of our own lives; that we are responsible persons and the job is here and the time is now." -Madalyn Murray O’Hair (Murray v. Curtlett 1959) The evolution of progressive thinking relies on the expansion of knowledge, education, science, and the unending advancements and availability of these things. This type of growth is not always visible, especially because societal progress seems to be reminiscent of the story of a frog trying to climb out of a well, where every two steps he gains, he falls back one step, making progress rather onerous. Within today’s society, traditional religious thought has been a major challenge to progressivisms. Contemporary conservative and fundamental religious views bring forth arduous challenges to the nonreligious community, because traditional Gnosticism and today’s theism have 2 emotionalism and tradition/custom on their side as well as the ever-existing battle to link religion as the basis for morality. The global nonreligious community and its people go by many names, and the meaning behind terms like “atheist”, “agnostic”, “secular humanist”, and “skeptic” does differ and depend on the individual, however for this research I will use “nonreligious” or “nones” as a shorthand overarching referral for all of these terms. If we look at the popularity of books such as God is not Great by the late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins’s books The God Delusion and The Greatest Show on Earth, or Sam Harris’s The End of Faith, we can see that there is a large audience interested in the consideration and understanding of nonreligious philosophy. Furthermore, the creation and strengthening of national and international organizations like the Secular Student Alliance, American Humanist Association, and Freedom from Religion Foundation also exemplify a changing religious realm. This presents my research questions: where does the nonreligious community currently stand? Does an increase in the size of the larger nonreligious community signify a movement towards secularism? There has been a correlation between rising scientific literacy, education, and lower rates of religious faith (Lawson et al. 1992, Schwadel 2011). If science literacy continues to increase, scientific advancements become more readily available, and the population becomes more educated, does this impact religiosity, and how? A number of studies in the past few years have implied that the amount of nonreligious people in the United States has increased quickly (Kosmin et al. 2009, Smith 2013). At the same time, many of these same studies show that there has been an increasing amount of political influence from mostly conservative religionists (Smith 3 2013). This hints at a polarization within the political realm in the United States; and projected on a larger scale, a polarization in politics. Where we can look to see the demographics of this contradicting shift seems to come from the population of people that identify as either secular or extremely religious. Many nonreligious view the future optimistically, especially with regards
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