Is so-called New Atheism in the US an elitist movement?

It’s obvious that in the US, the new atheism is a reassuring fundamentalism for the college educated: it provides them with the assurance of a brighter future and with an enemy (“The religious”) on whom can be blamed all the bewildering and humiliating changes in modern American society which are now beginning to grind down the professional classes just as they have already crunched up the working class.

(I am a little wary of someone asserting “it’s obvious” without some data.)

Theos, a Christian think-tank, did a survey to look at religion, class and atheism in the UK too:

Last year we at Theos, the public theology thinktank, commissioned a large survey (2,000+ respondents) looking into attitudes to evolution, a/theism and a whole host of related topics.

One of the questions, adapted from an earlier BBC/ICM survey, asked people not simply what they believed (about God) but whether they had changed their mind, and by cross-tabulating these results with standard demographic questions, we can get a reasonably detailed picture of the class composition of atheism and theism in the UK.

[I]n summary the study found that lifelong theists (“I have always believed in God”) are disproportionately from lower socio-economic grades (DE: semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers or those unemployed or on state benefits), whereas lifelong atheists (“I have never believed in God”) are disproportionately from upper social grades (AB: higher or intermediate managerial or administrative professionals).

No surprise there. The default position in the UK (and seemingly in humans themselves) has long been belief in God, so you would expect theism to be a mass movement and atheism a more select one.

What is interesting – and surprising – is that “converts” to theism (“I believe in God now but have not always done so”) are disproportionately from upper and upper-middle social grades (ABC1: as above plus supervisory, clerical, junior managerial or administrative professionals), whereas “converts” to atheism (“I used to believe in God but I no longer do so”) are disproportionately from lower social grades (DE).

Your thoughts?