Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Relatively few Americans say they look to religion as the primary source of their views on social and political issues. Nevertheless, the Landscape Survey confirms the strong links that exist between Americans’ religious affiliation, their beliefs and practices, and their basic social and political attitudes. Religion may, in fact, be playing a more powerful, albeit […]
This chapter examines the diverse religious beliefs and practices of American adults. It looks first at the various degrees of importance Americans assign to religion in their lives and explores their views of God, Scripture, miracles and other religious beliefs. It then moves into a discussion of worship and other congregational activities, followed by a […]
Overview The broad contours of religion in the 2008 election campaign remain largely unchanged from previous election cycles. White evangelical Protestants remain overwhelmingly Republican, and they favor McCain over Obama by roughly the same margins that they favored Bush over his 2000 and 2004 Democratic opponents. But white evangelical Protestants express far less enthusiasm for […]
Overview The broad contours of religion in the 2008 election campaign remain largely unchanged from previous election cycles. White evangelical Protestants remain overwhelmingly Republican, and they favor McCain over Obama by roughly the same margins that they favored Bush over his 2000 and 2004 Democratic opponents. But white evangelical Protestants express far less enthusiasm for […]
A major survey confirms the close link between Americans’ religious affiliation, beliefs and practices, on the one hand, and their social and political attitudes, on the other. The social and political fault lines in American society run through, as well as alongside, religious traditions.
Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in December 2008 for the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life to look at the impact of religious voters in the 2008 election. John Green, a senior fellow in religion and […]
Part II of U.S. Religious Landscape Survey details Americans’ religious beliefs and behaviors as well as their social and political attitudes Washington, D.C.—The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life today released its second report on the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, which finds that while many Americans are highly religious, most are not dogmatic in […]
For some, there is an inherent conflict between science and religious belief. Indeed, some scientists, including famed evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, argue that an understanding of the natural world logically leads to atheism. But for Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project and an evangelical Christian, scientific knowledge complements rather than contradicts belief in […]
In October 2007, the state of Illinois passed a law requiring its public schools to lead students each morning in a moment of silence for “reflection and student prayer.” Illinois already had a law on the books permitting schools to lead such moments of silence. But the Illinois General Assembly, overriding Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s veto, […]