According to this survey, 76.5% are Christian and atheists make up .7% of the population

[calmdude]

I am not skeptical of surveys - IF they are done by qualified Statisticians and the right (not leading) questions are asked. There is a whole proven science behind this. Gallup and other organizations employ a bunch of statisticians whose job is to construct surveys that give meaningful, accurate results with minimal cost. Typical Gallup polls can be VERY representative of the nation with sample sizes as low as about 1200 (http://janda.org/c10/Lectures/topic05/GallupFAQ.htm). Hundreds of millions of marketing & campaign dollars rely on such studies.

By the way, there was a thread on this a while ago:
//www.city-data.com/forum/athei...trends-us.html

-------------------------

Interesting excerpts from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism

The most recent ARIS report, released March 9, 2009, found in 2008, 34.2 million Americans (15.0%) claim no religion. Of which, 1.6% explicitly describe themselves as atheist or agnostic, double the previous 2001 ARIS survey figure.

and

In the U.S., 55 percent of atheists are under age 35

and

Atheism is more prevalent in Canada than in the United States, with 19–30% of the population holding an atheistic or agnostic viewpoint.

and (best for last)....

Although the demographics of atheism and irreligion in Mexico is hard to measure because many atheists are officially counted as Catholic

[SoCalbound12]

Originally Posted by 90sman

While agnostics make up .9% of the U.S. population.

69.5% of Americans believe there is definitely a personal God, 12.1% say there is a higher power but no personal God, 5.7% are unsure, 4.3% say there is no way to know, and 2.3% say there is no such thing.



http://b27.cc.trincoll.edu/weblogs/A...eport_2008.pdf

Definitely a sign of widespread Christian Persecution at the hands of the evil atheists.

[rifleman]

Originally Posted by achickenchaser

If you ask some people what's their religion, they'll say christian. But it really goes no further than that. It's something they claim to be by name only. I don't see much of a difference in the average christian and non-believers such as myself, really.

This is probably a bit of a carry-over from the earlier but sadder age of cultural abidence and social inertia, the sort of survey contamination that soiled the minds of our forefathers. You remember, when they all claimed to be Christians, but of course were not. To make a claim of atheism or agnosticism back then would be to invite social scorn and derision "...right here in Godlyville, USA!".

So now, many hopeful Christians try to sell the false idea that our entire country is thus based on Christian, rather than common sense, reasons. And thus, they press on, we should enforce a Christian lifestyle on the greater population. Especially, since only, what, 0.7% of us, a truly insignificant amount, are ungoldy evil atheists! But equally oddly, we or our extroverted ungodly behavior, is somehow "...directly responsible for our society's total moral decay! Kill the damned atheists! Burn their ungodly hides in the village square!"

What interesting [but statistically unsupportable...] conclusions, huh?

As well, some seem to think that a majority belief in some hair-brained idea somehow makes it correct. One's personal spirituality is hardly up for democratic vote. And as to one's personal belief, simply "knowing' there is a God is also not proof of His existence, just of your determined belief, often in direct contradiction of all the accumulated evidence. Or more recently, all the scientific proofs of how things really happened back then, and still do. Like, you know, Evolution, geology, cosmology and a whole host of other "stuff".

But that's OK; we love statistical diversity in our population here in the US of A. That's what makes it great, if somewhat scientifically illiterate and poorly educated.

Originally Posted by Boxcar Overkill

It entirely depends on how the sample is picked, you are correct about that. It must be either truely random or otherwise representative.

But the size of the sample is large for a study of this type. I suppose it has to be large to get a somewhat accurate number on the smaller sub-groups (like the estimated number of atheist.)

Originally Posted by Dewdrop93

I think it depends on how you pick the 54,000. The population of the United States is over 300,000,000.

Quite right, but for different reasons, BoxCar & DewDrop. I read an intriguing short dissertation a few years back about how even tallying a small percentage of the population can provide very accurate results, if the statistical set-up and the right questions are asked. But of course, given the sincere self-interest of the surveyors, the probability that a religious college would do an unbiased survey about religious beliefs is hard to believe.

Then again, even if 98%% of the entire US population believed with all their heart in the Southern Baptist version of Christ and God, so what? That only means that 98% of those asked are wrong. Simple, huh?

[SeekerSA]

It would be interesting to see how the questions were framed, don't have adobe and not bothered to install if it is in the pdf.

There of course should be a breakdown isolating the various folk and to determine the true xians(tm) from the rest. After all we keep hearing that we heathen were never true xians(tm) to begin with. It has already been posited in this thread but how many of these have a true relationship with god, simply believing is not enough.

That said, it is obvious they do not even have a sound definition anymore as can be seen in the christian forum.

One would expect mormons, catholics and protestants to fall in the category of 75% but all these groups think the others are wrong. They are however pretty good at ignoring these differences when it comes to politics and stuff like Prop 8.

It merely an appeal argumentum ad numerum that tries to show that the believers still belong to the biggest group. Folk like to back a winning team, much like a popularity contest in HS where it is perceived better to belong to the cool group than the nerd group.

[perry335654]

ABCNEWS.com : Poll: Most Americans Say They're Christian

ABC News did it by telephone survey with a sample size of 1022

[agnostic soldier]

According to these statistics the non religious make up 16.1% of Americans.

Church Statistics and Religious Affiliations - U.S. Religious Landscape Study - Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

These statistics show the percentage of nonbelievers in other countries. Countries like Sweden have between 46-85% nonbelievers in god and Vietnam has 81% nonbelievers. Japan has about 65%. That means there are countries where the vast majority of people are atheist or agnostic.

http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html

The fact that the majority of Americans are christian doesn't mean christianity holds more truth than atheism. It just means more people in the U.S. believe in unsubstantiated nonsense.