What the 'Six Types of Atheists' Mean for Christian Outreach

A new study highlights important differences between nonbelievers. But they have many things in common, too.

As Christians we know what it feels like to be stereotyped. Despite our commonalities, we recognize the great diversity among our faith, so we should be sympathetic to the recent efforts by researchers to document various types of religious non-belief.

Not all nonbelievers—be they atheists, agnostics, humanists, secularists, or some mixture of all of these identities—are identical, and we are mistaken if we develop a singular, cookie-cutter approach in our interactions with them. Just as we do not want to be reduced to a simplistic stereotype, we also should not reduce our ideas about nonbelievers to some image developed through media or a few past friendships.

In a prominent new project, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga researcher Christopher Silver documented six types of nonbelievers. Here's a very, very brief recap of each.... Read more

Also see

Non-Belief in America Research: Studying Non-Belief