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Barna's Polls on Americans' Religious Beliefs

 
 
 
lpetrich

lpetrich

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From Americans Draw Theological Beliefs From Diverse Points of View - Barna Group (2002)
Questionagreedisagree
the Bible can only be correctly interpreted by people who have years of intense training in theology1976
praying to deceased saints can have a positive effect in a person’s life5139
when people are born, they are neither good nor evil; they make a choice between the two as they mature7421
God is one being in three separate and equal persons – God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit7913
every person has a soul that will live forever, either in God’s presence or absence7912
the Bible, the Koran and the Book of Mormon are all different expressions of the same spiritual truths4438
truth can be discovered only through logic, human reasoning and personal experience5443
the Bible does not specifically condemn homosexuality2753
With some interesting breakdowns by demographic. Also such tidbits as
More than one-third of the public (35%) also believes that it is “possible to communicate with others after they die.” This perspective is related to a person’s age: half of all adults under age 38 endorse this view, compared to one-third of the Boomers (mid-thirties to mid-fifties) and just one out of seven older adults. Three out of ten non-evangelical born again Christians believe in communication with the dead. Once again, Catholics were more likely than Protestants to embrace this view (45% of Catholics, 26% of Protestants).

Although most adults are aligned with either a Protestant (54%) or Catholic (22%) church, a large minority of Americans believes that when Jesus Christ was on earth He committed sins. Currently, slightly less than half of the public (42%) holds this view, while half (50%) say Jesus did not sin. The people groups most likely to contend that Jesus sinned include people under age 38 (49%), notional Christians (51%), and atheists and agnostics (62%).

... Half of all adults (50%) argue that anyone who “is generally good or does enough good things for others during their life will earn a place in Heaven.” ... four out of ten Protestants accept this view of salvation ensured by good deeds. Almost half of the non-evangelical born again Christians also adopt this view.
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"truth can be discovered only through logic, human reasoning and personal experience 54%"

Yeah, I'm going to need the people in that 54% to define "logic" and "human reasoning". Chances are for most, it just means "how I interpret the Bible".
 
Most American Christians Do Not Believe that Satan or the Holy Spirit Exist - Barna Group (2007)
Four out of ten Christians (40%) strongly agreed that Satan “is not a living being but is a symbol of evil.” An additional two out of ten Christians (19%) said they “agree somewhat” with that perspective. A minority of Christians indicated that they believe Satan is real by disagreeing with the statement: one-quarter (26%) disagreed strongly and about one-tenth (9%) disagreed somewhat. The remaining 8% were not sure what they believe about the existence of Satan.
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As before, another common belief is that Jesus Christ had committed sins.
Much like their perceptions of Satan, most Christians do not believe that the Holy Spirit is a living force, either. Overall, 38% strongly agreed and 20% agreed somewhat that the Holy Spirit is “a symbol of God’s power or presence but is not a living entity.” Just one-third of Christians disagreed that the Holy Spirit is not a living force (9% disagreed somewhat, 25% disagreed strongly) while 9% were not sure.

...
A slight majority of Christians (55%) strongly agree that the Bible is accurate in all of the principles it teaches, with another 18% agreeing somewhat. About one out of five either disagree strongly (9%) or somewhat (13%) with this statement, and 5% aren’t sure what to believe.
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Then a variety of inconsistencies.
 
Meet Those Who “Love Jesus but Not the Church” - Barna Group -- largely orthodox, but they do much less Bible-reading and the like.

Meet the "Spiritual but Not Religious" - Barna Group -- not surprisingly, much less orthodox. The Barna pollsters divide the SBNR into two groups. Though many of the first group identify with some religious tradition - (22% Christian, 15% Catholic, 2% Jewish, 2% Buddhist, 1% other faith) - some of them do not - (6% are atheist, 20% agnostic and 33% unaffiliated). The second group identifies as either atheist (12%), agnostic (30%) or unaffiliated (58%). Of those who claim no faith, 34% claim to be "spiritual".

Each of these two groups is 8% of the US population, with a total of 11% -- about 5% of each of them overlap. They are mainly concentrated in the southeast and the west.
But their political leanings are where it gets interesting: Both groups identify as liberal (50% and 54%) or moderate (33% or 35%), with only a fraction identifying as conservative (17% and 11%). Yes, conservatism and religiosity tend to go hand-in-hand, but this divide is unusually stark. It may be that left-leaning spiritual seekers feel they are without a spiritual home in the church, a place they likely view as hostile to their political attitudes, particularly around hot button—and often divisive—issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.
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God is...
[TABLE="class: grid"]
[TR]
[TD]What
[/TD]
[TD]All Adults
[/TD]
[TD]SBNR#1
[/TD]
[TD]SBNR#2
[/TD]
[TD]Prac Xians
[/TD]
[TD]Evangelicals
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Only one
[/TD]
[TD]78
[/TD]
[TD]48
[/TD]
[TD]48
[/TD]
[TD]97
[/TD]
[TD]100
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Omnimax creator and ruler
[/TD]
[TD]57
[/TD]
[TD]20
[/TD]
[TD]30
[/TD]
[TD]85
[/TD]
[TD]100
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]State of higher consciousness
[/TD]
[TD]12
[/TD]
[TD]32
[/TD]
[TD]22
[/TD]
[TD]5
[/TD]
[TD]0
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Everywhere
[/TD]
[TD]65
[/TD]
[TD]42
[/TD]
[TD]41
[/TD]
[TD]92
[/TD]
[TD]98
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
"There is only one God", "God is the all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect creator of the universe who rules the world today", "God represents a state of higher consciousness that a person may reach", "God is everywhere"

About half of the SBNR thought that organized religion is a bad thing, and a large fraction believe that all religions teach the same thing. They like to spend a lot of time in the outdoors for contemplation, much like the love-Jesus-but-not-the-church people, and unlike the practicing Xians. SBNR's also like to mediate and practice silence/solitude. Not surprisingly, hardly any of them read the Bible very regularly.
 
The "Spiritual but Not Religious" cohort is incorrectly labelled "No Religion" on many surveys, thereby artificially inflating the presumed number of atheists.
 
Lion IRC said:
The "Spiritual but Not Religious" cohort is incorrectly labelled "No Religion" on many surveys, thereby artificially inflating the presumed number of atheists.
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So what? Truth isn't a popularity contest.

If there was an all powerful being who wanted people to know of him and worship him, and who didn't want anyone to be an atheist, then there could not be any atheists at all.

The existence of just a single atheist is proof the either there are no gods, or that gods don't care if people are atheists, or that god is powerless to prevent atheism. It's logically impossible for all three of these to be false; Which one(s) do you think is/are true?
 
bilby said:
Politesse said:
You wouldn't be saying that if you had an obvious majority. :biggrina:
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Maybe I wouldn't be saying it, but it would still be true. :)
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Another interesting thing is that many people will tell pollsters what they think is the appropriate answer over the truth. Since one cannot really know what another person thinks in their head for sure, regular church attendance is instructive towards what is really going on. If it doesn't look like a duck, nor quack like a duck, nor walk like a duck...it probably isn't a duck.

https://churchleaders.com/pastors/p...ose-look-at-church-attendance-in-america.html
Less than 20 percent of Americans regularly attend church—half of what the pollsters report.
While Gallup polls and other statisticians have turned in the same percentage—about 40 percent of the population—of average weekend church attendees for the past 70 years, a different sort of research paints quite a disparate picture of how many Christians in American attend a local church on any given Sunday.
<snip>
What Hadaway and Marler, along with Mark Chaves, author of the “National Congregations Study,” discovered was at play is what researchers call “the halo effect”—the difference between what people tell pollsters and what people actually do. Americans tend to over-report socially desirable behavior like voting and attending church and under-report socially undesirable behavior like drinking.
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socially desirable behavior like voting and attending church and under-report socially undesirable behavior like drinking.
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I guess that depends greatly on the society.

Sailors and high school students overreport drinking. Or maybe it's just that they overdrink and then, whaddayacallit, 'report.'
 
Lion IRC said:
The "Spiritual but Not Religious" cohort is incorrectly labelled "No Religion" on many surveys, thereby artificially inflating the presumed number of atheists.
Click to expand...


I've known atheists that considered themselves to be spiritual. The word spiritual has a lot of different meanings, some of which have more to do with emotions and good works, than with religion. I've also known a few Christian atheists. They attended church on a regular basis and loved much of the Christian mythology, yet they denied that any aspect of that mythology was meant to be taken literally. Would you consider them spiritual, Christian, or atheists? It gets complicated, doesn't it?

In the south, a lot of Christianity is cultural. It gives people the chance to do charity work, to form communities and to have a sense of purpose. At the same time, the actual beliefs are often glossed over or given little importance. This isn't always the case, but I've found it to be fairly common.

I see value in many black Christian churches as most of the black folks that I'm friendly with have found a very tight knit supportive community among their fellow believers. I have found myself almost envious of this type of warmth and community as it's very difficult to find it among atheists. We have our own organizations but we never seem to be able to develop as close a community as some churches do. I think that may be what Humanism attempted to do, but it's fallen short of reaching that goal. Perhaps humans need mythology more than we like to admit. :consternation1:

The information that Loren provided is over ten years old. Is there information that is more current, that may show a different trend?
 
Keith&Co. said:
southernhybrid said:
yet they denied that any aspect of that mythology was meant to be taken literally. Would you consider them spiritual, Christian, or atheists? It gets complicated, doesn't it?
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Meh.
Lion would just consider them 'liars' and be done.
Click to expand...

It's all about the label. But observe a person's behavior and you will know their beliefs.
 
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