59. GOD — Part B

Twenty years ago in The Futurist magazine, philosopher Robert B. Mellert wrote an article that had the interesting title, “The Future of God.” Mellert wrote that God was not dead but that our scientific progress is changing our conception of God. He closed his article by saying, “The absolute, transcendent, changeless image of God inherited from our ancestors may well be dead, or at least in its last throes. But most people are loath to embrace atheism. Instead, they will save God by reconceptualizing Him.”

Q: Are we “saving” God or are we learning more about who God might be?

In this post, we will discover what the Pew Research Center (PRC) summarizes from its recent surveys about Americans’ belief in God. The following are excerpts from the PRC.

“In recent years, the share of American adults who do not affiliate with a religious group has risen dramatically. In spite of this trend, the overwhelming majority of Americans, including a majority of the religiously unaffiliated — those who describe themselves, religiously, as atheists, agnostics or ‘nothing in particular’ — say they believe in God or a higher power. … At the same time, only a slim majority of Americans now believe in the God of the Bible and roughly one-in-ten U.S. adults don’t believe in any higher power or spiritual force.”

“In the U.S., Christians are particularly likely (99%) to believe in God or a higher power, with 80% claiming faith in a biblical God. Three-quarters of Christians describe God as all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful. Like Christians, most Jews (89%) have faith in a deity. But just a third of Jews (33%) say they believe in God as described in the Bible, while 56% say they believe in some other higher power.

“Among those who describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated — also known as ‘nones’ — 72% say they believe in a higher power of some kind.”

“While roughly two-thirds of older adults say they believe in the biblical God, just 49% of those in their 30s and 40s — and just 43% of adults under 30 — say the same. Even with this age gap, an overwhelming majority of the youngest adults continue to believe in God or a higher power: Eight-in-ten of those ages 18 to 29 say they believe in at least some kind of spiritual force.”

“Democrats and those who lean toward the Democratic Party are less likely to say they believe in the God of the Bible than Republicans and Republican leaners (45% vs. 70%). Democrats are more likely than Republicans (39% vs. 23%) to say they believe in a higher power other than the biblical God. They also are more likely to say they don’t believe in any deity at all (14% vs. 5%).”

“Among religious minorities, the report shows Muslims with considerable growth doubling (from 0.4% of U.S. adults in 2007 to 0.9% in 2014). Recent Pew Research Center demographic projections forecast Muslims to surpass Jews as the largest of the ‘small’ American religious minorities. If this comes to pass, what, if any, impact is this development likely to have on the way Americans view Muslims?”

David Campbell, who is the Director at the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy at the University of Notre Dame, gave this interpretation of some of the research.

“It does appear likely that Muslims will eventually have a larger share of the population than Jews owing to immigration, a high birth rate and a high ‘retention’ rate within Islam. The question of whether this changes how Americans view Muslims, however, depends on more than just the size of the Muslim population.

“Jews have a high degree of inter-religious bridge building. … If Muslims grow as a share of the population but do not build interreligious bridges, they are more likely to be perceived negatively.”

PRC: “Among U.S. adults with a high school education or less, fully two-thirds say they believe in God as described in the Bible. Far fewer adults who have obtained some college education say they believe in God as described in the Bible (53%). And among college graduates, fewer than half (45%) say they believe in the biblical God.”

“The survey finds that three-quarters of American adults say they try to talk to God (or another higher power in the universe), and about three-in-ten U.S. adults say God (or a higher power) talks back. The survey also asked, separately, about rates of prayer. People who pray on a regular basis are especially likely to say that they speak to God and that God speaks to them.”

“Nearly all adults who say they believe in the God of the Bible say they think God loves all people regardless of their faults, and that God has protected them. More than nine-in-ten people who believe in the biblical God envisage a deity who knows everything that goes on in the world, and nearly nine-in-ten say God has rewarded them, and has the power to direct or change everything that happens in the world.

“Far fewer people who believe in some other higher power or spiritual force (but not the God of the Bible) ascribe these attributes and actions to that higher power. Still, even among this group, half or more say they believe another higher power in the universe loves all people (69%), is omniscient (53%), has protected them (68%) and rewarded them (53%).”

Q: Where do you and your beliefs fit within this data?