The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey has just been released . Confirming earlier trends, the fasted growing segment of the American population is still the "Nones", especially in the Northeast. The Survey tables show how the 8.2% of Americans in 1990 who declared their atheism, agnosticism, or lack of belief in any religion has grown to 15% by 2008.

Confirming this lack of belief in religion is a new question asking people about their belief in God . 2.3% answered "there is no such thing" as God, while 4.3% said "there is no way to know" and another 5.7% said "I’m not sure." Adding together the atheists with the strongly skeptical and the personally skeptical reaches 12.3% which is similar measure of American skepticism and disbelief. With another 12.1% of Americans who think there is a god but it isn’t a personal theistic god, a grand total of 24.4% of Americans announce that the traditional supernatural God of Christianity, Judaism and Islam doesn’t exist.

We can applaud surveys of American belief/disbelief that use more nuanced questioning about what people actually do and don’t believe in. So far, as indicated by this latest definitive survey, these lines of questioning show that Americans are much more willing to express their skepticism than they are willing to label themselves as "atheist" or agnostic". The labels are holding people back, as many have suspected for a long time. Isn’t this a good time to remind everyone that the label of "skeptic" is perfectly fitting and ready for use?

The dividing line between ‘atheism’ and ‘agnosticism’ got too murky after the atheist was strategically defined as dogmatically knowing that God does not exist. Agnostics too willingly stepped into the new gray area between dogmatic belief and dogmatic disbelief. This verbal tactic worked admirably. Friends of religion can portray atheists as even more close-minded than they are (quite a feat in itself). Agnostics can look more open-minded than really necessary. (Is "I’m just agnostic" the trimmer hipper version of "I’m just spiritual"?) But putting your faith in a label might not be working.

The portion of the Nones who label themselves as "atheist" still remains small. But "agnostic" has not fared much better. Surveys show that more and more people are willing to express doubt about God, yet most don’t want to even call themselves "agnostic" much less "atheist". Pundits and atheologists endlessly debate what exactly is the big difference between an atheist and an agnostic (after all, neither believe in God). New flavors of ‘negative’ or ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ or ‘positive’ atheism, and ‘negative’ or ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ or ‘positive’ agnosticism are test marketed to the unfaithful. Which of these eight flavors is the most reasonable stance, since traditional supernaturalism is unreasonable? Yet the American people are leaving all that debate and semantics behind. Are the American people wrong-headed about this?

Why not return to the original meaning of atheism: simple skepticism. The most reasonable atheist is the skeptical atheist, unable to believe because reasonable support for any religious claim is lacking. The skeptical atheist only need worry about countering given evidence and arguments for gods with skeptical complaints. “Disproving god” once and for all is never a clear or attainable goal. (How many possible divinities would have to be proven non-existent?) Fortunately, this goal is entirely unnecessary for the atheist who avoids distractions. The skeptical atheist is not dogmatic, and not a ‘weak’ or ‘negative’ atheist – or some kind of agnostic. Such fine distinctions must be discarded. The skeptical atheist claims the strongest possible position concerning the existence of god: no one should believe that any god exists because of insufficient reasonable justification for belief. More and more Americans are coming to agree. The Nones are simply skeptical, and that’s atheism enough.