The Fifth National Survey of Religion and Politics conducted by the University of Akron was released last week and sheds interesting light on where various religious groups stand on issues like environment regulation, the economy, and the Iraq war.

The poll was done between June and August of this year and divided up those who identified as “Unaffiliated” into three categories: Unaffiliated Believers (meaning they have some traditional religious beliefs and practices), Seculars (few religious beliefs or practices) and self-identified Atheists-Agnostics.

The Unaffiliated block as a whole favored Barack Obama over John McCain, 50.5% to 21.3%. However, there was overwhelming support by those who identified as Atheists-Agnostics (67% favored Obama) compared with Seculars (51.3%) and Unaffiliated Believers (38.9%). Compared with Democratic Candidate in 2004, John Kerry, Obama’s support was 5% higher among the “Unaffiliated” group as a whole.

In terms of economic issues, the Unaffiliated viewed improving the economy as the “top priority” for the next President. 19.8% said that foreign policy should be the top priority while 7% said that social issues should be the top priority for the new administration.

Differences in opinion within the Unaffiliated block were minor except that only 30.3% of Atheists-Agnostics viewed the economy as the top priority compared with 56.7% of Seculars and 54.1% of Unaffiliated-Believers.

With respect to increasing government services and government spending, only 30.4% of the Unaffiliated population thought that the government should offer few services and cut spending. Atheist-Agnostics were the anomaly within the breakdown of the Unaffiliated group; only 17.5% thought the government should offer fewer services, while 39.2% said the government should increase spending and services for the American public.

Interestingly, when looking at the numbers for 2004, 31.7% of Atheist and Agnostics thought the government should offer fewer services and cut costs. No explanation for why the Atheist-Agnostic group voted for more government services in 2008 than in 2004 was given.

In response to the statement “Strict rules to protect the environment are necessary even if they cost jobs or result in higher prices,” 60.7% of the Unaffiliated block agreed with this statement, while only 23.9% disagreed. These numbers varied little from 2004 when the same question was posed. Among Atheists-Agnostics, 26.8% opposed increased environmental regulation, while 61.9% agreed with the statement.

When asked if the Iraq War was completely/probably justified, or completely/probably unjustified, 32.1% of Unaffiliated voters said that the war was justified, while 67.9% said it was not justified. 

Among Unaffiliated Believers, the number of people who thought that war was justified was higher (48.5%) than it was for Secularists (29.6%) and Atheist-Agnostics (11.5%). 88.5% of  Atheist-Agnostics thought the war was unjustified; however, in 2004, only 69.1% did.

Among all the religious groups surveyed, Atheists-Agnostics were the most supportive of same-sex marriage (72.4%) followed by Seculars (60.6%). 53.5% of Unaffiliated Believers though that only marriage between a man and a woman should be legally recognized.

In terms of embryonic stem-cell research, only 14.5% of Unaffiliated thought that it should be banned. Among Atheist-Agnostic, 80.7% thought stem-cell research should NOT be banned, while 73.3% of Seculars and 55.7% of Unaffiliated Believers thought the ban should be removed.