In my publication with Environmental Values, I explore some interesting, if unintended findings from an earlier survey of nearly 300 American vegans I conducted in March of 2017. When asked to report their religious affiliation, 55% reported that they were atheist and 18% reported some variation of agnosticism. Nearly 3/4th of my sample, in other words, did not identify as religious.
Although I did not conduct interviews to qualify this relationship, some interesting correlations did emerge. Atheists were considerably more likely to report having gone vegan for ethical, anti-speciesist reasons when compared to agnostics and other religious groups. Atheists were more left-leaning politically, as well. Both atheists and agnostics were more likely to be intersectionally minded and involved in a variety of social movements beyond veganism.
Although women and people of color in the survey were more likely to report feeling alienated or unwelcome in the movement, atheists did not (the majority of female, male, non-binary, white, Black, Latinx, and Asian folks reported no religious affiliation). I suspect that atheist vegans avoid this stigmatization for their non-belief primarily due to the silence around atheism in American culture, and, more specifically, the American vegan movement.
With non-believers dominating the vegan movement, this begs the question as to why movement leaders do not actively engage the atheist community. Presumably, this demographic would be especially receptive to veganism. I suspect that the severe stigma of atheism in the United States likely accounts for this. Movement leaders may be hesitant to add to the stigma already associated with veganism.
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Readers can learn more about vegan atheism in my 2016 publication, A Rational Approach to Animal Rights. Receive research updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to my newsletter.
