At a time when religious extremism is taking its worst shape across the globe, Americans seem to be taking a different route towards "no religious affiliation."
In a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, it was found that one in five Americans and a third of adults under 30 claim no religious identity.
The trend of not wanting to be identified with any religions seems to be on the rise as in the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15 percent to just under 20 percent of all American adults.
There are around 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics in the unaffiliated group, which constitutes up to 6 percent of the U.S. population and 33 million (14 percent) in this growing sect are with no particular religious affiliation.
However, the survey conducted by Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life in collaboration with the PBS television program Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly revealed that out of the 46 million unaffiliated adults, many are religious or spiritual in some way. Although not affiliated to any particular religions, 68 percent of them said they belief in God, 37 percent termed themselves as spiritual but not religious and 21 percent pray every day.
As the "Nones" grew dramatically over the years, the Protestant share of the U.S. population shrunk. While 53 percent adults described themselves as Protestants in 2007, the numbers reduced to 48 percent in 2012.
The political leaning of the unaffiliated group us quite clear as the survey reveals that six in 10 religiously unaffiliated registered voters are Democrats (39 percent) or lean toward the Democratic Party (24 percent).
Generational replacement is found to be the major factor behind the growth of religiously affiliated adults. Although a clear majority of unaffiliated majority has been brought up in a religious tradition, there is a significant growth in the percentage of Americans raised without an affiliation.
The growth of the religiously unaffiliated indicates a paradigm shift in the religious views of the American population which has largely been a highly religious country. It looks like the U.S. public is gradually growing less religious as in 2003, nearly 25 percent of adults indicated they never attend religious services, the numbers increased to 29 percent in 2012.
