First the good news: approximately one quarter, 26% of adults in the USA may be atheist. That is a lot more than previous estimates. The bad news: the tyranny of the majority is very hostile in suppressing and alienating open expression of the views of atheists. (But we already knew that.)
A recent article on the 538 Statistical website addresses this issue:
Way More Americans May Be Atheists Than We Thought, by Daniel Cox:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/way-more-americans-may-be-atheists-...
The article describes the problem with telephone surveys where people self-identify as atheists: essentially the perceived social stigma and hostility against atheists decreases self-identification. It then details a recent study that used a different method to estimate atheist prevalence.
The actual study “How many atheists are there?” by Will Gervais and Maxine Najle, University of Kentucky Psychology Department, can be accessed at: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/edzda
I reviewed it and it seems valid to me. However, my knowledge of epidemiology and study design is basic, and my understanding of Bayesian inference (that they used to analyze the data) is virtually non-existent, therefore I would welcome its review by those of you who possess those skills.
If the results of this study stand up to scrutiny and are replicated, then the road ahead for atheists becomes a little less onerous.
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The only problem with atheism is there's no money in it. If there was you can make a safe wager that your percentage of atheism would skyrocket. (Um...is there any other kind of rocket?)
If just one of the blue chip companies openly embraced atheism Washington would be back-tracking on its religiously-tainted focus, people would be openly scrawling their atheist preferences in the top margins of job applications and the Vatican would be busking on street corners for their daily bread.
Well, maybe not all that quick, but how long would it take for other companies who dispense with false imagery to whittle the 1.2 billion cathaholics down to a paltry number of followers leaving the Vatican a powerless shadow of its past?
The religious posturing is becoming very fragile and tipsy. We may well see some serious falterings in its ranks before the current generation of youngsters dies out.
I'll bet there's one big group of atheists that are never going to answer this question honestly--clergy. When reasonably intelligent people spend a few years studying the bible and church history in seminaries, etc., a significant percentage are bound to realize that it's all crap. However, it's warm and comfortable crap with good job security and perks.
I am only certain of one true atheist. I can't attest to anyone else.
I believe there are some atheists in every religion, but they won't admit it. People are afraid to be atheist because of the consequences from their religious friends and atheist haters.
I will attest to that.
I read about the survey in the FFRF newsletter. They said it had been replicated.