There was a person asking the questions? That seems like a particularly bad way to get honest answers from agnostics and atheists to me. Normally I wouldn't be too worried about offending the survey caller with my answers, but religion is an area where I might feel uncomfortable with it.
Given they have a "nothing in particular" category, I might be tempted to use that rather than atheist. I might also be tempted to say "Wiccan", because although I have atheistic religious beliefs, I do follow some Wiccan practices; our wedding was CUUP, and we hold vigil at Yule. Something similar might account for, for example, the roughly 1% of Christians and up to 10% of other monotheistic religious people who "do not believe in God". In fact, I suspect the 5% who answered "do not believe in God" might be a better measure of how many atheists there are than those who used the word "atheist".
I also think that "universal spirit" can be pretty broad, and when I get questions like that, I tend to ask for clarifications that Pew may not have anticipated. Their policy should really be that the interviewer shouldn't clarify, but I've rarely had interviewers that stuck to that.
The fact that "God" can end up being an "impersonal force" in this survey I think again shows that the survey is not drawing clear lines for the purpose of categorizing atheists or agnostics. The laws of physics can be argued to qualify for "God" by the definitions used in this survey.
no subject
Given they have a "nothing in particular" category, I might be tempted to use that rather than atheist. I might also be tempted to say "Wiccan", because although I have atheistic religious beliefs, I do follow some Wiccan practices; our wedding was CUUP, and we hold vigil at Yule. Something similar might account for, for example, the roughly 1% of Christians and up to 10% of other monotheistic religious people who "do not believe in God". In fact, I suspect the 5% who answered "do not believe in God" might be a better measure of how many atheists there are than those who used the word "atheist".
I also think that "universal spirit" can be pretty broad, and when I get questions like that, I tend to ask for clarifications that Pew may not have anticipated. Their policy should really be that the interviewer shouldn't clarify, but I've rarely had interviewers that stuck to that.
The fact that "God" can end up being an "impersonal force" in this survey I think again shows that the survey is not drawing clear lines for the purpose of categorizing atheists or agnostics. The laws of physics can be argued to qualify for "God" by the definitions used in this survey.