Did the Religious Right Fuel the Growth of the 'Non-Religious Left'?

A study released this week by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, along with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, offers a bit of evidence that the dramatic growth in those who say "none of the above" when asked about their religion is a reaction against religious/political conservatism.

Some background: The percentage of Americans who identified as "none" in polls about religion shot up during the 1990s, from about 7 percent at the start of the decade to about 15 percent at the end (and is now about 17 percent in recent surveys). In 2002, a paper in the American Sociological Review by Michael Hout and Claude S. Fischer of the University of California at Berkeley suggested that "part of the increase in 'nones' can be viewed as a symbolic statement against the Religious Right."

That is, people were so unhappy with the positions taken by religious/political conservatives that they chose to depart organized religion altogether – even though there were (and are) plenty of religious traditions available with less conservative positions. At the time, I found this to be intriguing speculation long on logic but short on data.

Jump to this new poll (about which I'll be doing more journalism anon) that takes a look at how the public views science and scientists and how scientists view themselves and the general public. Buried in the higher-profile points was this:

60% of those who seldom or never attend services believe science and religion are "often in conflict," compared with 48% of Americans who attend church weekly or more often.

One way to interpret these results: The less affiliated with organized religion that people are, the more likely they are to view religion (and science) as rigid and exclusionary. Whereas people who are more conventionally religious, at least as measured by attending services, are more likely understand their own faith to be broad enough to accommodate scientific theories.

If that's true, and people who are on the fringes of organized religion have an understanding of religion that is particularly unbending, then some may well choose to jump ship entirely. And boost the number of "nones."

The connection with the religious right? Conservative religious groups -- the Southern Baptist Convention, to cite a large example -- are more likely to project an image of organized religion that fits the exclusionary concept. So to the extent that they craft the public image of religion, they may be responsible for nudging some people away from organized religion completely.

Caveat emptor: Correlation is not causation and there are clearly many other factors at play. But this is an interesting new bit of information to add to the discussion, don't you think?