Baylor University has just released the results of a survey of religious belief in American culture. In this survey, they found that atheism is much less prevalent than other surveys had suggested – just 5 percent of the American population does not believe in divine beings.
For the majority who do believe in God, the Baylor University researchers divided belief into four classes, what could be called the Four Gods of America:
If you believe in God, which God do you believe in?
Or, don’t these categories cover the ground of your belief?
I believe Jimi Hendrix is god.
My views on an almighty haven’t changed, but you want to know the wonderful thing about this study? Even if it turns out to be a load of bunk it’ll still be touted by christians as an argument against atheism or in favor of their god or whatever for the next ten billion years regardless of what new studies say.
When it comes to religious people, the older the text is, the more credible.
As for this study, I’m going to wait for more evidence to back it up before I’ll believe it.
In reading the methodology it’s interesting to see that only 46.5% of individuals who received the surveys returned them. With regards to mail-in questionnaires, non-responders generally care less about a subject than responders do. In this case I would surmise that 53.5% who were non-responders were more likely to be non-religious than the responders.
Damen, you do realize today is the anniversary of Hendrix’s death in 1970? See God does work since there’s no such thing as coincidence.
Yes, Jimi does work in mysterious ways, but I have always held my belief that Jimi is god for as long as I have known of him.
Of course, I’m really an atheist and just say Jimi is god because it irritates christians. I love saying it with a straight face.
Here is the most interesting part of the survey, dealing with religion and politics, that starts on page 26. Basically it says those who interpret the Bible literally are the most politically conservative, regardless of which denomination they belong to.
As far as the 5% rate of atheism in the population compared to the 10-15% of GSS surveys from 1988, 2000, and 2004, this survey seems more inclined to measure shades of belief. GSS surveys asked the question “Do you, personally, believe in God.” This survey (Appendix B: question #26) asked “In your opinion does each of the following exist? a. God … absolutely, probably, probably not, absolutely not.” More shades of gray.
If you look at the results of “Belief about God by religious affiliation”, you find something like among mainstream protestants, 64% have ‘no doubts’ while .7% ‘don’t believe in anything’; among evangelical protestants 86% have no doubts, .4% don’t believe in anything; among Catholics 75% have no doubts and 1% don’t believe in anything. What about the missing 35%, 14%, 24% of people with religious affiliation who fall somewhere in between? I don’t think this survey necessarily negates other surveys, it just paints a more complex picture.