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December 17, 2013
Americans' Belief in God Still High, But Falling
Interesting poll. Not sure what it means, but I was actually curious about the numbers.
A new Harris Poll finds that a strong majority (74 percent) of U.S. adults say they believe in God, but that's down from the 82 percent who expressed such a belief in earlier years.
Belief in miracles, heaven and other religious teachings also declined in the latest poll...
Specific details omitted as I can't steal the whole article.
The same poll also found that belief in Darwin's theory of evolution increased to 47 percent, up from 42 percent in 2005.
...
Other findings:
-- Absolute certainty that there is a God is down vs. 10 years ago (54 percent vs. 66 percent in 2003).
-- Outside of specific religious samples, the groups most likely to be absolutely certain there is a God include blacks (70%), Republicans (65%), older Americans (62%), Baby Boomers (60%), Southerners (61%) and Midwesterners (58%), and those with a high school education or less (60%).
...
-- 19 percent of Americans describe themselves are "very" religious, with an additional four in ten (40%) describing themselves as "somewhat" religious (down from 49% in 2007). Nearly one-fourth of Americans (23%) identify themselves as "not at all" religious – a figure that has nearly doubled since 2007, when it was at 12%.
That's the most surprising number to me-- I didn't imagine less than 20% of the public would call themselves "very religious." I thought it would be over 30%.
Sorry: It's slim pickin's these slow-news pre-Christmas weeks.
I could do a post on whether Santa is white or black, but... Eh, I guess I'll do that.