Information from several Faith Surveys:
(1) From
Home page of the ReligiousTolerance.org web site,
International Belief Survey (click) - Two international surveys were conducted during 1991 and 1993 by the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). This is currently located at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. Some of the results for the USof(N)A were:
(62.8%) "I know God exists and I have no doubts about it"
(33.5%) "The Bible is the actual word of God and it is to be taken literally, word for word."
(35.4% --) "Human beings developed from earlier species of animals.."
They also had this note:
... since 1944, the Gallup Poll has been asking Americans whether they "believe in God or a universal spirit." The answers have always been 94% or more affirmative. These numbers have been so widely reported in academic articles, and the media that they have been almost etched in stone. However, the ISSP results are under 63%. The wide gap is probably due to the different wording of the question asked. The ISSP requires a degree of certainty of belief that is not present in the Gallup Poll. This shows that many Americans who believe in God are not that certain about their conviction.
That survey gives the {literal biblical fundamentalist} proportion to be 1/3rd of the general population. It does not give enough information to judge how many would be {secular \ non-religious}, but the {believe in 'macro'-evolution in human development} proportion is 1/3rd of the population (and presumably 1/3rd somewhere in between).
(
A comparison of the US numbers to those of other countries is instructive.)
(2) From
How Americans view religion in general (click) - A survey of American adults commissioned by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press was released on 2002-MAR-28. It found that:
(80%) believe that religion is beneficial
(13%) believe that religion is a bad thing
(65%) believe religion has had significant involvement in causing wars
This would indicate that 1/8th of the population is {anti-theistic} not just atheist or agnostic.
However, this datum does not tell us anything about the seriousness with which adults consider their faith. One source described the results of a 1993 in-depth survey of about 4,000 American adults. They concluded that:
(30%) are totally secular in outlook.
(29%) are barely or nominally religions.
(22%) are modestly religious.
(19%) regularly practice their religion.
This last survey would have the [secular \ non-religious] proportion at 1/3rd of the population and the [committed \ devout religious] proportion at 1/5th of the population, but it does not give enough information to judge how many of the (19%) would be [literal biblical fundamentalist] believers.
My
personal conclusion from all this is that:
(13%) are [anti-theist] (hard core atheist)
(17%) are [atheist \ agnostic \ apatheist \ deist]
(36.5%) are [in between in belief \ other beliefs]
(14.5% +) are [literal christian to some degree]
(19% --) are [devout literal fundamental christian]
(3) There is more data from the nationwide survey done by the People for the American Way
National Poll Data (click):
83% of Americans say Darwin’s theory of evolution belongs in the nation’s science classes
66% Support Evolution-oriented Positions:
20% say schools should teach only evolution, with no mention of creationism;
17% say schools should teach only evolution in science class, but would permit religious explanations for the origins of humankind to be covered in another, non-science class
29% would allow creationism to be discussed along with evolution in science class, but it should be made clear that evolution is scientific theory while creationism is a belief, not science
29% Support Creation-oriented Positions or both positions:
13% felt creationism should be taught alongside evolution
16% felt only creationism should be taught
5% are not sure
And there is more on other questions too:
[qs]Agree or disagree: Evolution is one of those issues that is too important to be decided by each and every school board across the country. There needs to be a standard, national approach to whether or not Evolution is taught in the public schools[/i]
66% Agree
29% Disagree
5% not sure[/qs]
They also found that 45% of Americans had never heard the term "creationism"
(4) From
A survey, commissioned by the People for the American Way Foundation "found that two thirds of respondents did not see anything contradictory in the two versions of the origins of mankind - concluding that it was possible to believe both in the scientific account of evolution and the Biblical story of creation."
"To put it simply, this poll shows that most Americans believe that God created evolution," said Ralph Neas, president of People For the American Way Foundation.
"One of the most remarkable things this poll shows us is that, with this kind of broad public support, there shouldn't be any controversy at all about teaching evolution," said Mr Neas.
"The fact that there is a debate shows us how effective a very small but very vocal group has been in imposing their views on our schools.
"The poll should also be a warning to public officials and schools. If they cave in to pressure to eliminate evolution or to force creationism into the science classroom, they will be acting against the views and wishes of most Americans. "
And we don't know how many of the 1/3rd that do have a problem between their beliefs and evolution belong to the creationist mold, but this is certainly no 90% of Americans ...
(5) lets go to Kansas ... from
Kansas Poll Reveals Strong Creationist Beliefs, But Majority Support Teaching Evolution73% of those questioned believed in the existence of a deity. Another 12% "have some doubts," but lean toward belief in a God.
45% of those surveyed believe that a God created humans as they are within the past 10,000 years. 49% reportedly accept some variant of evolution, "with the vast majority of those saying God guided the process" notes the paper.
Despite the tendency to accept creationist accounts, 81% reported that they thought dinosaurs lived "millions of years ago," while 65% considered fossils to be evidence that some sea creatures had evolved into land animals.
52% said that they disagreed with the move by the Board of Education to "downplay" the importance of evolution in classrooms.
If Kansas is a Creationist stronghold, how come only 19% believe the dinosaurs did not live "millions of years ago" ??? Looks like the number is down to a maximum of 19% here ...
Note that this does not contradict the previous results but supplies some more specific data for evaluation -- notice the agreement between 65% believing that land animals had evolved from sea creatures and the 2/3rd figure supporting evolution above ...
Personally I think that the real numbers for the pure literal fundamental creationists is less than 20% nationwide. I also think that this number gets conflated by a 10% to 20% more for people who don't understand the distinctions (another poll has 50% of Americans do not know what "creationism" is) and that this makes up the 1/3rd figure.
Does Kansas represent the US? This is the way the numbers look to me:
15% Atheist or not answering
12% Agnostic ("have some doubts")
54% Believe in [not necessarily Christian] God (by deducting last group from 73%)
19% Creationist Christians (young earth, no old dinosaurs)
Notice how this compares to my other breakdown above ...
Enjoy.
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