The Pew Research Center has found that more Americans than ever before believe that you don’t need to believe in God to be moral and have good values.

In 2011, only 49% of Americans believed you could be good without God. That number has since risen to 56%. More than half. That’s not insignificant.

And while you’d expect the number to rise as we witness the growth of the “Nones,” these numbers also reflect the changing opinions of religious people who are having a harder time maintaining the lie that religion is what makes somebody moral.

In fact, says Pew, with one (very slight and statistically meaningless) exception, every single religious demographic is more likely today to say you don’t need God to be good than they did six years ago.

Now I’m just wondering who these 15% of religiously unaffiliated people are who apparently think you do need God to be good…

Anyway, this is all good news for atheists trying to make headway into breaking that God/good connection in people’s minds. I think a large part of that change can be attributed to non-religious people coming out as such, making it harder for people who know them personally to equate godlessness with evil. All the more reason to keep pushing for atheists to identify themselves publicly whenever possible.

