text: Certainly your underlying assumption is borne out in statistics.\n\nIn the U.S., polls show people self-identifying as atheistic less than half a percent of the time, though as much as 13% say they're non-religious (which I infer means they're IN a religion, but they don't really care about it).\n\nWorld-wide polls, however, have as much as 10% of the population identifying themselves as atheists and 16% in addition as non-religious.  In the U.K. there's even a segment of the population where 40% (!) identified themselves as atheists.  (Link to statistics below)\n\nAs to why that is... I think most would just chalk it up to the equally nebulous 'societal influence'.  And even Americans are hard-pressed to deny it's there, though sometimes you have to phrase the question correctly.  The one I like to use is, "What do you think are the chances of an outspoken atheist being elected president?"  In a democracy of fair-minded people, you'd think the issue wouldn't be a non-starter.  Yet most Americans I speak to rate the likelihood as zero (or less!).\n\nFor the record, I can sympathize with how the atheists feel.  Polytheists like me don't do much better in America either!