Last week we noted that some Religious Right groups were up in arms over news that representatives from the Secular Coalition for America were meeting with officials from the Obama administration.
Today, the Christian Broadcasting Network brought on Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice to discuss the meeting, who claimed that the group is “not just an anti-Christian, they are an anti-religious organization” that looks down upon and attacks anyone who has a deep personal faith.
Sekulow also warned CBN’s viewers not to underestimate the Secular Coalition for America, saying people are some times tempted to down play their influence since “99.9% of the American people, and that’s about accurate, acknowledge that there is some higher power … [very few] consider themselves ‘atheists,’ that’s a very small percent of the American people.”
I don’t know where Sekulow is getting his data, because the most recent American Religious Identification Survey reports that “1.6 percent of Americans call themselves atheist or agnostic” and further reports [PDF] that:
Based on their stated beliefs rather than their religious identification in 2008 … roughly 12% of Americans are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unknowable or unsure), and another 12% are deistic (a higher power but no personal God).
So almost 2% of the population self-identifies as atheist or agnostic and 12% are classified as atheist or agnostic based upon their stated beliefs … that seems to be significantly more than the .1% that Sekulow claims the Secular Coalition of America represents.
