What has happened to the number of people who identify as atheists or agnostic? Looks like it’s increased from about 4% to 9%.
It was more than that in the last one, wasn’t it? I’d have to look.
Nuns of the above
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The Catholic church I attend in the Portland area is mostly old people and thinning out long-term due to the pedophile scandals. The Hispanic immigrants I know in this area have mostly migrated to Evangelical demonimations. In general we rank-and-file Catholics aren’t big on marketing and boosting the numbers so it’s all good.
Yeah that boosts the Evangelical numbers as well, I was also just thinking. When I go back, the number of Latin American Evangelical churches in storefronts or old industrial/business properties always stands out.
It’s weird that there is a special label (“nones”? tf is that?) for people who don’t believe in organized large-scale superstition. Shouldn’t these just be called normal, educated, rational people?
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No.
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Anything that creates faith.
That’s not anything like a standard definition of gods, and it includes the ambiguous term “faith”. What do you mean by faith?
Things we choose to believe in because they give us hope.
And I don’t much concern myself with standards. 
Yep. Catholic Church has nearly always used a passive form of marketing in the last few centuries (if parents are, then typically you are (baptized, etc.)).
The big growth in the Church is in the youth (20-30+ years old) going to more traditional masses (Latin, etc.).
Some religious orders are actually seeing an increase in those studying to become priests (usually the more conservative orders). Don’t have #s on me, but it’s from what I’ve followed in last few years.
Of course you do. You don’t just go around changing the accepted definition of things willy nilly. You wouldn’t make it far in the world if you did.
Things we choose to believe in because they give us hope.
Do you think everyone does that?
It’s ‘not known,’ which is ever so slightly different to ‘not knowing’. It means there is no proof either way, rather than “I don’t know if there are gods or not.” Your definition implies to me that a person can’t make up their mind, rather than that a person is looking for proof and finds none. I’m agnostic, because I see no evidence for the presence of gods and I see no evidence for the absence of gods.
Less than you might think.
Nope. For example, the closet thing I have to a belief system is time.
Well, like I said, there are differing perceptions and self-identifications with it. Maybe subtly different for everyone! The difference between not known and not knowing is indeed subtle! I wasn’t trying to split hairs. I consider myself to be an agnostic atheist myself, in that I don’t know what our ultimate origins are (clearly something is going on there) but I don’t believe that “gods” exist–or at least any one I’ve heard people suggest exist.
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No mate, I was. 
Doesn’t that make you an atheist?
It’s all good.
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I know what you mean, but there’s a limit to how much you can change definitions. That’s far from what the great majority of people mean when they say god or how they think about god. You might be better off calling it “things you have faith in” and not “god”, YMMV.
I’d like to ask, why did you say: " The meat in our head demands it."?
Yes it does. But ultimately I don’t believe it. I don’t know that it’s not true. There are important questions that I am agnostic about.
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Guess we will find out one day. What an awfully big adventure!
2 things you will never have memory of in this world: your birth and your death.