Rate of growth of atheism sources, can you help?

Wikipedia has an article on Demographics of Atheism. It points out that it's not easy to figure the percentage of atheists because some simply lack beliefs, some are expressly atheist, and some belong to disciplines or spiritual groups that simply don't center around God or gods, like Buddhism. There are also people who identify themselves as Christians or Jews or whatever but who don't actually share the prescribed beliefs, who are de facto atheists.

My feeling is that atheism hasn't grown quickly and suddenly in the last few years, but that atheists are 'coming out of the closet', largely in response to what they see as the abusive actions of Christians. That certainly seems to be the case here in the US for the last 30 years, since one of our political parties, at least in their rhetoric, have advocated giving special privileges to one religion, have denied the original intent of separation of church and state, etc. I think atheists (very understandably) are reacting to that.

And I think this also accounts for the relatively sudden prevalence of atheistic books on the NY Times Best Seller lists.

Just as with gays, 'closet atheists' seeing others come out are less reticent to come out themselves. Which I think is healthy, not just for themselves but for everyone.

Others here have shown statistics, we can only assume they are correct. I have something else, observation. Most every Sunday morning we head downtown for breakfast, hit Wally World, then head home. I will usually witness the comings, and goings of several local churches. Not all, but a large majority of the people attending these churches look like escapees from a nursing home. Wheel chairs, walkers, and oxygen tanks.

The numbers are rising and declining at the same time? I guess you can find that at an apologist site... none of their stuff makes any sense either.

The US Census isn't unbiased. I told the FFRF about their biased websites (Christian-centric) given as resources and the FFRF filed a complaint letter.

http://theresurgence.com/2011/04/19/organized-reli...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claims_to_be_the_fast...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_by_country

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_athei...

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/...

http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-Atheism-Is-Growing-i...

http://theweek.com/article/index/226625/the-rise-o...

You might try the US census ...

Probably the least biased and most accurate...

IMHO