One nation under God? Americans are becoming less religious, study says

In the face of greater secularization it stands to reason that the “faithful” would see it as their role to hold strong and even retrench.

When asked if they believe in “God or a universal spirit”, 89 percent of adults in the United States say yes.

As TheBlaze previously reported, the Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study also found that the largest, single religious group among Democrats is now the “nones” – an umbrella group that includes atheists, agnostics and those unaffiliated with a specific faith. The majority of them still believe in and prays to God despite not following or observing religious practices.

The chart above, embedded in Pew’s update on that extensive survey, shows just how much most Christian Americans have changed when it comes to their attitudes towards their gay peers.

This percentage has remained steady since 2007, and similarly unchanged is also the rate of those who attend religious service once or twice a month (around 60%).

The post 3 ways Americans are becoming less religious appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Scores and scores of Americans are throwing their religious beliefs away and a new religious label is rising on the horizon.

The segment of Floridians who believe in God with absolute certainty has fallen from 72 to 64 percent over the seven-year period.

The poll had a margin of error of less than 1 percentage point.

Skepticism about religion is especially evident among young people. Six-in-ten (59 percent) Americans report feeling a deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being at least once a week and approximately half (46 percent) report feeling a sense of wonder about the universe. The Pew study found that barely a quarter of “millennials” (born between 1981 and 1996) attend church services on a weekly basis, compared with more than half of US adults born before 1946.

However, religious affiliation overall has decreased about three percentage points in recent years, primarily due to the growth in the share of “nones” who say they don’t believe in God.

Still, the study found, 77 percent of American adults identify with a religious faith, and fully two-thirds of that group told researchers they pray daily. “So this is the case for all of my ministry and most of my life”, she said. Only 38 per cent of adults born after 1990 say religion is very important in their lives, compared with 67 per cent of those born before 1945. But among those who believe in human evolution, there was disagreement over whether evolution was strictly a natural process or one guided by a supreme being. Hinduism does not allow beef to be eaten, and almost 7 in 10 Hindus (67 percent) say they do not eat it.