The Big American City That Has a Stunning Number of Atheists and Agnostics

The Blaze ^ | 06/01/2015 | Billy Hallowell

[SeekAndFind]

Just 3 percent of Americans consider themselves atheists, but there’s one city in which a much larger portion of the population — a stunning one in 10 residents — identify as nonbelievers: Seattle.

In fact, according to the Seattle Sun Times, the city has the highest rate of atheists among the nation’s largest metro areas.

Overall, the percentage of unaffiliated residents in Seattle — those individuals who either don’t believe in a higher power or are unaffiliated with a faith — is 37 percent, compared to about 23 percent nationally, according to recently released Pew Research Center data.

And the total percentage of atheist and agnostic residents in Seattle is 16 percent, compared to just 7.1 percent nationally.

Meanwhile, 52 percent of Seattle residents are Christians, while the national proportion is 70.6 percent, showing just how different the city is from the country as a whole when it comes to matters of personal faith and religion.

[piasa]

Isn’t this an area that has a higher than average suicide rate?

[Pelham]

Well.... Microsoft. So where’s the surprise?

[PROCON]

Ah, Seattle, my beloved hometown and conservative until the mid-'80's when kalifornication began.

RIP.

[Redcitizen]

” what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?” “If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Seattle is like a bad jock rash. It spreads its infection all over the place. Many of that state’s leaders are either reds, crazy, or both. All are Democrats except for the commie on the Seattle City Council.

Let the reds and liberals run a major city and you have mini-San Francisco’s all over the west coast (Portland, included; Reed College; Evergreen/College, Oregon).

[Alex Murphy]

Overall, the percentage of unaffiliated residents in Seattle — those individuals who either don’t believe in a higher power or are unaffiliated with a faith — is 37 percent, compared to about 23 percent nationally, according to recently released Pew Research Center data. And the total percentage of atheist and agnostic residents in Seattle is 16 percent, compared to just 7.1 percent nationally. Meanwhile, 52 percent of Seattle residents are Christians, while the national proportion is 70.6 percent, showing just how different the city is from the country as a whole when it comes to matters of personal faith and religion.

Would you like to weigh in on this?

[who_would_fardels_bear]

People were moving to Oregon and Washington in the 70's.

They were moving there to get their perfect angels away from the bad influences of all the rest of us pot-smoking, sex-crazed, gangbangers.

Of course, maybe a few of those angels that moved up north weren't quite so perfect either.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Is this number surprising for a bunch of godless liberals?

[Alas Babylon!]

Ha! I was thinking Seattle when I clicked the link before it loaded!

[Secret Agent Man]

Not surprised AT ALL.

[EternalHope]

I live in the Seattle area, although well outside of the city itself.

The entire area is liberal, but the city core is far and away the worst.

It also has a history of magnitude 9 earthquakes (NOT an exaggeration), with a major fault running right through the metro area (the “Seattle Fault”). The subduction zone offshore has a history of spawning giant tsunamis causing major damage as far away as Japan.

We could have our own version of the movie “San Andreas”, for real. Obviously disasters at that level are rare, but it even appears we are “due”.

Many of our mountains are volcanoes that are certain to erupt again. When Mt. Rainier goes it will trigger a flood of debris all the way to Puget Sound. Tacoma (a large suburb of Seattle) is built on top of exactly this kind of debris from past eruptions.

On the flip side of things, the area is drop dead gorgeous.

[Glad2bnuts]

I used to post replies to articles and write editorials to the Seattle papers. If the subject had anything to do with religion, the top responses sounded a lot like this..... go ahead and worship your sky god, don’t be ridiculous, this is a logical discourse and there is no need to bring in your superstitions. Best or worst of all, you were making sense there for a minute, then I read a past post of yours, something about God....like I could take anything you say seriously now.

People really do not know how anti-Christian people are until you just invoke the name of Christ.

[flaglady47]

“It also has a history of magnitude 9 earthquakes (NOT an exaggeration), with a major fault running right through the metro area (the “Seattle Fault”). The subduction zone offshore has a history of spawning giant tsunamis causing major damage as far away as Japan.”

Doesn’t sound like the kind of place one would want to be an atheist or agnostic in, lol. One could meet one’s maker at any arbitrary time. Although I suppose one could choke on a drop of water as well. Life’s a crap shoot.

[PROCON]

LOL, well Seattle went through one heck of an economic downturn in the late 60's, early-70's; my Dad who had 20+ years with Boeing at the time was sweating his job.

The 80's, with the advent of Microsoft and Starbucks brought you "gangbangers" up here by the thousands seeking refuge and employment.

I was in construction then, an electrician and electrical contractor installing wiring in huge houses on the "Eastside" as we called it.

That now very affluent community has it's own city called Sammamish.

You Californians did help my 401K :-)

[PROCON]

Well, if it's any consolation, I populated a conservative female off-spring in that fair city, she loves it there.

Daughter lives and works near Green lake.

Perhaps she will start a conservative revolution in the area, who knows?

[arthurus]

Seattle? King County? Who could have guessed?

[21twelve]

The church I go to (Bellevue - east of Seattle) is big into the community. They have partnered with numerous other churches and now have two alternative Christian High Schools for kids that are trying to stay clean from drugs, etc. Amazing to hear these kid’s stories of love and success.

The churches are also involved a lot in several of the local public schools, and run the Junior High sports programs and some other programs as well. Just by having them in running the sports programs, the academic improvement has been huge - like the entire school going from 30% passing scores to 80%!

Other schools are on waiting lists to get involved in the program. Our pastor shows a fake magazine cover (like Time or Newsweek) with the cover showing a cross and a headline something like “The Pacific Northwest - God’s Country”.

“Hey - if God can raise Christ from the dead - He can resurrect this area too!”

[21twelve]

An excerpt about the program:

That is where Jubilee REACH comes in, providing wrap-around community services to close the gap for those in need.

“Jubilee REACH is the soul of the city,” former Bellevue city manager Steve Sarkozy said. “They are filling a need the government simply cannot fill.”

In filling the needs of the community, Jubilee REACH exists to answer the call, and provide a “hand up,”...

All of this exists in addition to an ever-evolving before, during and after school programs, Club Jubilee, which provides interscholastic sports teams (soccer, flag football, basketball, girls golf, cross country and several clubs) at each of the Bellevue Middle Schools, and engaged 2,600 students at eight schools in the 2013-14 school year.

One of the places where the need was most pressing was Highland Middle School...In 2011, only 46 percent of that group passed MSP testing standards for reading. With the help of Club Jubilee, which provided a positive outlet for students through sports teams, providing an incentive for achieving passing grades, 70.6 percent of the free and reduced lunch students at Highland earned a passing MSP reading grade in 2012.

****************

I was a bit off on the statistics (I tell fishing stories too...), but still - 46% to 70.6% is quite the improvement!

[ought-six]

“On the flip side of things, the area is drop dead gorgeous.”

If one likes rain.