I really never realized how much content existed on youTube. By that I mean, the variety. Inn the past, I used YouTube to find out how to make some home or automotice repair. I never really thought of it as a source of education or entertainment, even though I knew people that did. Recently I have discovered how much I’ve been missong. ill probably write more about it in the fiture but right now I want to focus on one particular topic: Atheism.

There seems to be more atheist channels that I ever expected. In fact, I really never expected any as I’ve complained here before about the lack of atheist content online in recent years, yearning for the time just a decade ago when you couldn’t turn around without discovering a blog, podcast, or one of several conferences or meetups throughout the year that theists and skeptics (anyone actually) could attend. Not so much anymore but guess what, there are some atheist channels on YouTube. I won;t reccomment any right now because, well, I’ve just begun to peruse a couple of them and I’d like to make sure that indeed these are really atheist channels as well as the quality of what these people are producing.

It’s not that I need to listen to an atheist online to prop up my disbelief. I am just curious as to why these exist. Are they attempting to evangelize atheism? Or is it more, “Here is who we are, no different than you really.” I don’t tink so. I really think it’s a way of validating oneself, as I do here from time to time. I don’t mean as a person, but as an atheist, and I have found some of those new podcasts (new to me) to be very refreshing in that they aren’t preachy in any way that I have seen and are more, well, declaratory than anything else.

The latest Pew Poll on atheism, in fact shows that the number of people openly declaring themselves as atheist has risen in the past decade. The last poll I looked at was in 2014 when approximately 3% of those interviewed identified as atheist. Now, that number s up to 5% and the number of agnostics (people who believe the existence of god is unknown or unknowable) is around 6% with a further 19% identify as “religiously unaffiliated” which just means they don’t follow any particular denomination or religion and says nothing about their belief in any god.

This number of atheists is up around 2% in the last decade showing that slowly, Americans are coming to the realization that what they’ve been force fed their entire lives is no more than the mythology that their forebearers rejected in centuries past. Of course, 2 of the 3 Abrahamic religions gathered their believers through tactics that at least one of their founders probably wouldn’t have approved. The data, however, may just be a blip on the screen as religious fervor waxes and wanes almost like the phases of the moon. the difference recently though, is the lack of public debate as people are more locked into their positions today than in previous iterations.

If atheism is really growing in America, then in order to see a change in the religiously oriented culture that exists currently, we’ll have to see the number of people being disaffected with religion in general, increase dramatically.