The FFRF Action Fund is highlighting new polling underscoring the growing political importance of secular voters ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

A new Pew Research Center survey reveals that 92 percent of atheists and 87 percent of agnostics disapprove of President Trump’s job performance, compared to just 8 percent and 12 percent, respectively, who approve. Overall, a whopping 82 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans disapprove of the president’s performance.

The findings also reveal overwhelming support for Democratic candidates among secular voters. More than eight in 10 atheists (81 percent) and three-quarters of agnostics (75 percent) intend to vote Democratic in the upcoming midterms, compared to only 9 percent and 13 percent, respectively, who plan to support Republican candidates. Overall, 61 percent of religiously unaffiliated voters favor Democrats, while only 17 percent favor Republicans.

“These numbers send an unmistakable message: Secular Americans overwhelmingly reject the direction this administration is taking our country,” says FFRF Action Fund President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Our voices and votes must counter the white Christian nationalists who have taken over our federal government and many state governments. Nonreligious Americans, who want a government that represents everyone, not one that imposes the religious beliefs of a favored few, are among the strongest advocates of secular democracy.”

The poll also reveals a striking erosion of Trump’s support among religious Americans, including groups that helped propel him into office.

White evangelical Protestants remain the only religious subgroup surveyed in which a majority approves of Trump’s job performance, but even that support has declined dramatically. Just 58 percent now approve of the president, down from 78 percent in early 2025.

Among white Catholics, Trump’s approval has fallen from 59 percent to 39 percent over the same period. Overall, Catholics disapprove of his performance by more than a two-to-one margin, with 67 percent disapproving and just 30 percent approving.

Black Protestants are among Trump’s strongest religious opponents, with 90 percent disapproving of his job performance. Hispanic Catholics similarly express overwhelming disapproval, at 78 percent. The results suggest that the administration’s political challenges extend well beyond secular Americans. Even among traditionally Republican-leaning religious constituencies, support for the president has weakened considerably.

The Action Fund says the findings emphasize the need for political leaders to recognize secular Americans, who at nearly a third of the adult population, outnumber any single Christian sect, including Christian nationalist-favoring evangelicals, as an increasingly consequential voting constituency.

The FFRF Action Fund will continue working to ensure secular voters are informed, engaged and represented, and that candidates are held accountable for their positions on religious freedom, state/church separation and the growing threat of Christian nationalism.

I've been an atheist for decades now and on the rare occasion I am confronted or questioned about the existence of a god I usually say these are the possibilities:

1. God doesn't exist

2. God does exist yet has no powers of any kind, does nothing and therefore doesn't deserve your worship

3. God exists and he/she/it are a sadistic psychopath who enjoys watching humans suffer while only rewarding the most vile & evil people on our planet

Obviously I believe the first option, but it's interesting to get people with these child like mentalities to think about it

Hey everyone!

I'm someone who's genuinely trying to figure out whether God exists.

I'm curious about different perspectives and want to understand the reasoning behind what people believe.

So, to the atheists here, what made you an atheist? I'm not talking about bad experiences with religious people or being forced into a religion growing up. I'm more interested in the strong philosophical arguments that convinced you God probably doesn't exist.

Was it the problem of evil? The lack of evidence? Something about the universe that made the idea of a creator seem unnecessary? Or did you come across an argument that completely changed how you looked at the question?

For example, if God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good, how do we explain the amount of suffering in the world? If the universe needs a creator, then why does that creator necessarily have to be God? And even if we establish that some kind of first cause exists, how do we get from there to the God described by religions?

I'm also interested in whether you think there's a difference between disproving a particular religion and disproving the existence of God altogether.

I don't want to believe or disbelieve something just because it feels right or because other people believe it. I want to understand the arguments, question them, and see where the reasoning takes me.

So, what is the strongest philosophical argument for atheism, in your opinion, and why?

I'd love to hear different perspectives, including arguments for God's existence that you considered seriously but ultimately found unconvincing.

If there's a book, philosopher or debate that helped you make sense of all this, please recommend it!

Genuinely curious. I'm here to learn, not to argue. :)

I feel like over the last 6 years, theres a rise in people who act like one of those suburban moms during the satanic panic. And I dont remember there being so much of these types of people back in the 2010s. I grew up in the church and there wasnt even that many of them. Yeah, they didn't like horror or intense media but it was for content reasons. not "I think the real life devil is in this movie" Like so many people seem to think right now.

like real life people acting like medieval peasants. Youll see a slideshow of uncanny pictures and people comment "i claim no negative enegry".

I genuinely don't understand why there's an uptick in this mentality. Yes, lockdown gave a lot of people mental disorders and mental health struggles. But it shouldnt be this bad.

i feel like were able to head into a New Satanic Panic. It seems like the percentage of religious nutcases have jumped when these people were pretty far and view between back in 2019 or earlier.

Like do we know why this is happening? Is it just regular people getting more engrossed in the internet and bc theyre not able to parse through crazy people and bs nonsense they just believe everything? Im so baffled as to why this is happening

My husband and I live together with his family - it's a multi generational house with three separate units. We live in one, his sister and her husband live in the second one and his mom lives in the third one, each on different floor. We share the patio and terrace. We live in Europe in one of the most atheistic countries in the world.

We really like to decorate for Halloween and every year we add to our collection. This year we added a tablecloth for the patio, with Ouija board printed on it. Everything was fine for a few days until I talked to my MIL and she told me how SIL is concerned and freaked out because for the tablecloth. She couldn't even come to us to tell her herself, she went to her mom to complain. She says we shouldn't be playing with these things and that it brings "bad aura" - whatever it is, to the whole house. It's literally a piece of fabric with letters printed on it. We obviously never used it as an actual Ouija board as we don't believe in ghosts but sure, bad aura. We had to remove it. Sigh. I feel like I'm going crazy.

To preface, I specifically mean religious people who separate policy and faith, don't force their faith on others, and don't disrespect me or other atheists/agnostics/theists of other faiths in any way. I have zero tolerance for religious people who do any of those things.

I don't want to continue feeling this way because it feels like I'm sinking to the same level as fundamentalist religious people. I feel like it really shouldn't concern me what someone else believes in, so long as they don't try to force it on me, but it does. A lot.

I'm outwardly respectful to those who respect me, but internally, I find myself looking down on them. I don't know why it bothers me so much. I can't help but feel the need to grab them by the shoulders and shake some sense into them.

It's gotten to the point now that it's affecting my relationships with people. If I find out that someone is religious, I immediately lose some level of respect for them, no matter how kind they are to me. It's difficult for me to even be friends with religious people. Whenever anything even remotely related to religion comes up, I have to fight the urge to argue their faith into the ground.

I feel like a bigot and I don't know how to rewire my brain to stop doing this.

Edit to clarify: the people I’m referring to don’t believe in the Abrahamic god

The usual argument is blah blah blah they will use that as a pretext to get more into politics.

I say? Bring it. Public perception is largely against this and growing. When the number of religious nones grows much larger we will need to start doing what needs to be done. Mind you. There's a difference between a moderate Christian and the evangelical bullshit that even catholics may oppose.

This phrase always gets spewed out by Christians when you ask why God doesn't prevent bad stuff from happening. How do you counter this common argument?

My friend is an Ismaili Muslim, who firmly believes the whole "people are the problem, not religion" thing. This conversation came up because his cousin (also an Ismaili Muslim) is dating a Hindu girl whose family recently found out about their relationship, and is forcing her to end things with him. My friend said he doesn't understand why some people are so blindly hateful. I replied that religion, at its core, shapes a lot of the conflict that we see in the world.

He argued that isn't what religion teaches, and that people are bastardizing it to justify their hatred for others. I agreed that it isn't what religion itself teaches (for the most part), but that the vast majority of the world's issues, including the one that sparked this conversation, wouldn't exist if it weren't for religion. He said that isn't true because his Imam allows interfaith couples/families, and they even have a designated area in their place of worship for those who don't practice.

I didn't really know how to respond to that to be honest. I'm not entirely familiar with his sect or its teachings, besides that their Imam (in my friend's words, not mine) translates the teachings of the Quran so that they're applicable in modern times. Based on how he describes his faith, it sounds pretty progressive, but I don't think that negates anything I said.

I've tried explaining that just because his specific sect of his specific religion is accepting of other faiths that doesn't mean that religion as a whole is not divisive, but he just goes back to saying that people are the problem, not religion.

This argument has come up between us a few times (always in good faith), and I keep struggling to make a rebuttal to his final point. How would you guys respond? I'm also wondering if there even is a rebuttal to be made, so if there isn't then that's fine too. I'd just like to stop wasting time with this argument if that's the case.

Basically the title. I don’t know the bible well enough to have any go-to’s, but looking for some more subversive ideas here to help me out

This is so disrespectful to the non-religious. Will this teach AI that atheism isn't morally good? Is this basically teaching AI to push religious propaganda?

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-morally-good-tech-companies-105918597.html

6 years ago, I experienced a brain event which changed my life fundamentally. My personality has changed, and my memory is affected to the point where I can't even work in my career field anymore.

About a year ago, I recovered enough to get cleared to attempt to work part-time, and started retraining.

After about 6 months, I finally found a job just to tie me over the winter. It's simple, has nothing to do with my career, minimum wage type thing, for which I had to dumb down my resume and remove all of the executive and managerial type experience out of it.

What I told my mother, the first words out of her mouth were, "Thank the lord, I have been praying for you."

So I fired back and said "thank me, because I'm the one who's done all the work.' She said "no, God did it." She just doubled down on giving a god credit.

Now look. I'm in my mid-50s. I'm an adult who has long go stopped being affected by the things that my family says about me and my atheism.

But this hurt a little bit. Like, fuck you. I have struggled for 6 years with this goddamned brain stealing every part of my life. I had to sell my house, my vehicle, quit my career, spent months in a brain recovery ward in a hospital, and all of this I did by myself.

I've had very little family support, because I am partially estranged from my family due to being an atheist, as well as by choosing career over marriage. I am a female who chose to not marry and never have kids because I love my career.

I have a great set of friends, and they rallied around me and I am very grateful for them. It should be my family doing that rallying but I know better.

But to tell me that all of that work over the last 6 years was not me at all whatsoever but some invisible entity that nobody can prove exists, just fucking kicked me in the gut.

I really don't have a whole lot to say, I just wanted to bitch a little bit with people who can understand what it's like to have the rug pulled out from underneath your feet and all of the credit attributed to something that doesn't exist.

I just read this article that talks about how well American respondents in a survey trust different professions. Scientists and medical professionals were some of the most trustworthy, based on results. I'm glad.

Here's where it gets interesting: Members of the clergy were in the negative trust group. That means the people answering overall consider priests/ministers/etc less trustworthy. Sure sounds accurate for me.

(Both of us 19F) Something positive that happened literally yesterday was me seeing my bff (i have known her for over 3 years) posted a reel to her story with the caption of "when your family lectures you to pray 5 times a day even when you're a tired agnostic". I asked her what that meant and she told me. And then I finally told her I'm atheist cause I was low-key feeling so guilty hiding things from her when I know most of her secrets and whatnot. She said she already kinda knew and I was like "HUUH" but then she said it's because I do forcefully wear the hijab. We also found out that we both wanted to cut contact with most of our family (except for some people) and then we literally said I love you and thank you to eachother before saying Goodnight and we are planning to meet in November AAHHHH. I'm so happy telling this to... 2 people. BUT THATS PROGRESS. So yeah :3

I was forced to go to church today by my religious family and in sacrament I had to pass the bread and water (which I didn't eat or drink) they had this "youth program" which is basically 40 minutes of brainwashing and indoctorating children. They made them all sing religious songs and talk about why the gospel is sooooo great one by one. No fucking wonder why so many people belive in this shit brainwashing people while they are young and vulnerable. I went to class and I decided to be a pain in the ass and ask tons of questions. One of the points that I brought up was that Christianity has only existed for 2,000 years and humans have existed for more than 200,000 and he yapped about some shit like "that's why we do baptisms for the dead" And I said we don't have records that far back and he just dodged my fucking question by saying "Maybe god has a plan for them" The rest of my questions in both my classes just got dodged I went home mad about the cult I can do nothing about. Mind my Spanish pero, ¡Que te jodan Christianity!

Any atheist in/near Bulverde TX, Spring Branch TX, or Canyon Lake TX? Feels like my husband and I are the only atheists around here. Also not conservative.

I realized I was atheist December of last year, I realized when I was in deep thought about it. I think I’ll be atheist for the rest of my life.