Over at Island of Doubt James Hrynyshyn says:
As far as I can tell, North Carolina's no different from the rest of America when it comes to religion. About a tenth of the population is free of religious conviction....
Well, I was pretty sure that there is a statistically significant difference between most Southern states and the rest of the country in regards to these things, so I decided to check out the data in detail. The US Religious Landscape Survey allows me to see what proportion of each state's population are atheists; that is, they don't believe in God. Unfortunately the margin of errors are relatively big because of small sample sizes from the unbelievers for most states, so I wanted an outside "check," and luckily the American Religious Identification Survey has state-by-state breakdowns as well. But, their breakdowns are for those with "No Religion," a category where the rule of thumb is only 1/3-1/2 are atheists. Out of curiosity I plotted the number of atheists on the X axis vs. the nonreligious on the Y axis.
The geographic patterns are interesting. Note that the West has many nonreligious, or those who are not affiliated. In contrast, parts of the Northeast have a great number of atheists, but lack of affiliation is relatively rare in comparison to someplace like Washington or Wyoming. The American South is a relatively distinctive cluster as well, with low levels of atheism and high rates of affiliation. The Midwest is a bit more diverse, but you can also see a discernible cluster there, with similar rates of affiliation as much of the Northeast but lower rates of atheism. The raw data is below the fold....
Does not believe in god | Has no religious affiliation | |
Vermont | 9 | 22 |
Oregon | 9 | 21 |
Connecticut | 9 | 12 |
Rhode Island | 9 | 15 |
New Hamsphire | 9 | 17 |
Massachusetts | 8 | 16 |
Maine | 8 | 16 |
Colorado | 8 | 21 |
New York | 7 | 13 |
California | 7 | 19 |
Washington | 7 | 25 |
Washington DC | 6 | 13 |
Iowa | 6 | 15 |
Nevada | 6 | 20 |
Arizona | 6 | 17 |
Maryland | 6 | 13 |
New Jersey | 6 | 15 |
Florida | 6 | 12 |
Virginia | 5 | 12 |
South Dakota | 5 | 8 |
Delaware | 5 | 17 |
North Dakota | 5 | 3 |
New Mexico | 5 | 18 |
Idaho | 5 | 19 |
Michigan | 5 | 15 |
Pennsylvania | 4 | 12 |
Ohio | 4 | 15 |
Wyoming | 4 | 20 |
Wisconsin | 4 | 14 |
Illinois | 4 | 14 |
Montana | 4 | 17 |
Kansas | 4 | 15 |
Minnesota | 3 | 14 |
South Carolina | 3 | 7 |
Missouri | 3 | 15 |
Utah | 3 | 17 |
Indiana | 3 | 16 |
West Virginia | 3 | 13 |
Louisiana | 2 | 9 |
North Carolina | 2 | 10 |
Tennessee | 2 | 9 |
Oklahoma | 2 | 14 |
Texas | 2 | 11 |
Arkansas | 2 | 13 |
Georgia | 2 | 12 |
Alabama | 2 | 6 |
Nebraska | 1 | 9 |
Kentucky | 1 | 14 |
Mississipi | 1 | 7 |
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In Canada, places in the far west like Alberta and British Columbia contain a higher percentage of atheists and other non-religious, but also a higher percentage of evangelical Christians.
So where are Alaska (where I live) and Hawaii? I'd really be interested to know...
both were not in the american identification survey, so i left them off. but they are here:
http://religions.pewforum.org/maps