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. . . but there is less here than meets the eye. At first, the numbers seem alarming, and there is an alarming element to it. Since the last time such a poll was taken in 2008, the percentage of Americans identifying as Christians has dropped from 78 percent to 70 percent. Yes, 70 percent is still an overwhelming majority, but an 8 percent drop in just seven years is pretty big. So how does one account for those one-time devoted followers of Jesus Christ suddenly abandoning the Kingdom of God? One doesn’t, because that’s not what’s really happened here....

The last several decades, the Left has done its best to change America’s religious landscape. According to a new Pew study, they’re succeeding better than many thought possible: "The number of Americans who don’t affiliate with a particular religion has grown to 56 million in recent years, making the faith group researchers call “nones” the second-largest in total numbers behind evangelicals, according to a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday." Christians are still the majority, but their numbers have fallen from 78 percent to just under 71 percent. The main reason? Increasingly more Americans consider themselves “non affiliated” with any...

Christianity is in sharp decline in America, according to new research from the Pew Research Center, making for a significantly less Christian country than that of just seven years ago. The number of Christians dropped by almost 8 percentage points in seven years to 71 percent, and the trend holds across race, gender, education, and geographic dimensions, though Christianity still dominates American religious identity at 70 percent, USA Today said. "It's remarkably widespread," Alan Cooperman, director of religion research for the Pew Research Center, said, according to The Washington Post. "The country is becoming less religious as a whole, and...

An extensive study by the Pew Research Center has revealed that Christians are declining sharply in America in terms of population share, while the religiously unaffiliated are rising, and now make up a larger share than American Catholics. The rise of religious intermarriages was one trend linked to the growth of the unaffiliated. The report, which was released on Tuesday, stated: "The drop in the Christian share of the population has been driven mainly by declines among mainline Protestants and Catholics. Each of those large religious traditions has shrunk by approximately 3 percentage points since 2007. The evangelical Protestant share...

The U.S. has become significantly less Christian in the last eight years as the share of American adults who espouse no systematic religious belief increased sharply, a major new study found. For what is likely the first time in U.S. history – certainly the first since the early days of the country – the actual number of American Christians has declined. Christianity, however, remains by far the nation’s dominant religious tradition, according to the new report by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. The rapid increase in the number of adults without ties to traditional religious institutions has strong implications for...

The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing, according to an extensive new survey by the Pew Research Center. Moreover, these changes are taking place across the religious landscape, affecting all regions of the country and many demographic groups. While the drop in Christian affiliation is particularly pronounced among young adults, it is occurring among Americans of all ages. The same trends are seen among whites, blacks and Latinos; among both college graduates and adults with only a high school education; and among...

Interesting analysis from one of my readers: Recently, after reading parts of the Koran, I have become a bit frustrated that no one seems to understand the magnitude of the Muslim threat. People look at at the Pew report and they seem to think that the results are mixed, and that there really “aren’t that many” radical Muslims. So I sat down today and actually ran the numbers; I’m attaching a page from that analysis which shows my results. My hope is that you may wish to publish them, or portions thereof, in one of your columns. It doesn’t take...

The public has grown more supportive of the U.S. fight against ISIS, as about twice as many approve (63%) as disapprove (30%) of the military campaign against the Islamic militant group in Iraq and Syria. Last October, 57% approved and 33% disapproved. The possibility of sending U.S. ground troops to the region is more divisive, although the idea draws more support than it did four months ago. Currently, about as many favor (47%) as oppose (49%) sending U.S. ground troops to fight Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria; in October, 39% favored the idea and 55% opposed it. The new...

By now everyone knows about his transgressions. If even only some of the reports are true, Brian Williams is a serial embellisher, a self-aggrandizing fabulist. No doubt everyone knows somebody like this, and if you don't it's probably because you're that guy. But Williams' case is special. This isn't some sad Willy Loman at the end of the bar who needs to invent impressive stories about himself. If anything, he needed to not tell such stories, given that he reportedly makes more than $10 million a year to be a trusted name in news. Yet he couldn't stop himself. "To...

Recent TV news segments, op-ed pieces, public debates and letters to the editor have debated the issue of whether it is unfair, bigoted, overbroad or dangerous to implicate Islam in the reign of violence and terror that has embroiled much of the world over the past several years. Where does the truth, as difficult as defining "truth" is, lie? Rarely in the debate is there much factual data. In 2013 the PEW Research Center conducted extensive surveys on attitudes in the Muslim world. The results (at least to this writer) are stunning. • Three hundred million Muslims believe that Sharia-prescribed...

The world according to Barack Obama, as revealed in an unreal interview on CNN: "… 99.9% of Muslims who are looking for the same thing we’re looking for — order, peace, prosperity..." Dear Heavenly Father above, where to begin? With the Islamic definition of "order" as dictated/mandated by Allah, or with the civilized world's traditional english definition of "order"? A "peace" dictated by Islamic submission (jihad) or the "peace" that exists through recognition of man's free will, our unalienable rights and a respect for individual liberties? And lastly, a "prosperity" as defined by whom? By government czars, regulators and administrators...

Pew Research poll also shows Israel as staunchly pro-U.S. and most supportive of drones and surveillance in the fight against terrorists. The fact that Isrealis are one of the most staunchly pro-American people in thw world is not new. But that their confidence in Barack Obama's ability to handle world affairs climbed dramatically to reach an all-time high? ...

Jews, Catholics and evangelical Christians are viewed warmly by the American public. When asked to rate each group on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from 0 to 100 – where 0 reflects the coldest, most negative possible rating and 100 the warmest, most positive rating – all three groups receive an average rating of 60 or higher (63 for Jews, 62 for Catholics and 61 for evangelical Christians). And 44% of the public rates all three groups in the warmest part of the scale (67 or higher).Buddhists, Hindus and Mormons receive neutral ratings on average, ranging from 48 for Mormons to...

In case you were wondering why CPAC was so light on traditional-marriage rhetoric from the podium, here’s why. An event populated mainly by young conservatives and libertarians isn’t a good venue for that anymore.You’ll hear more of it, I’m sure, at the convention two years from now. But at the rate we’re going, probably not too much more. Where will the 30-49 group be in 2016?The most striking numbers there, actually, are how small the differences are between various Democratic age groups. It’s an astounding consensus to have 18-year-old and 65-year-old Dems both above 60 percent support and within 15...

When it comes to increasing partisanship in the United States, it seems no issue is immune. And that includes evolution. A new Pew Research Center poll shows a widening political gap over theories about how humans came to be, with Republicans growing increasingly skeptical about the idea that humans evolved over time. …

President Obama leads Mitt Romney nationally by 10 points, according to a new poll released Thursday. Obama took 51 percent compared to Romney’s 41 percent of the vote when the Pew Research Center asked which candidate people would vote for if the election were held today. That’s a much wider gap between the two candidates than most recent polls show; the RealClearPolitics national average puts Obama in the lead with an average of 3 points.

New polling data out from Pew Research Center finds President Obama with a double-digit lead over Mitt Romney nationally: Currently, 51% say they support Obama or lean toward him, while 41% support or lean toward Romney. This is largely unchanged from earlier in July and consistent with polling over the course of this year. Across eight Pew Research Center surveys since January, Obama has led Romney by between four and 12 percentage points. Obama holds only a four-point edge (48% to 44%) across 12 of this year’s key battleground states. While the data does not allow a state-by-state analysis, the...

President Barack Obama has one of the biggest leads we've seen for him in quite a long time in a new Pew Research Poll: He's up 10 points over Mitt Romney. Don't take much from it, though. Pew's sample of registered voters is highly skewed, oversampling Democrats by almost 20 points. Pew surveyed 1,956 registered voters. Of those, 42 percent were Democrats and just 23 percent were Republicans. We can't remember a poll being that imbalanced. Pew's poll in June also slightly oversampled Democrats and gave Obama a 7-point lead. So what we can take from this is that Independents...

I'll give Pew this much credit -- they did a better job of sampling in their latest poll than Reuters. That's a bit like saying that Scary Movie 4 was a better film than Battlefield Earth, however. Pew finds that Barack Obama's job approval has bounced back up to 50/41, but it took a sample that underrepresented Republican voters to get there: Mitt Romney has retaken a significant lead nationally in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, even as he has fallen further behind Barack Obama in a general election matchup. Moreover, ObamaÂ’s own job approval rating has reached...

Are you more news-savvy than the average American? Pew Science Knowledge Quiz Test your knowledge of prominent people, major events and other important facts in the news by taking our short 13-question quiz. Then see how you did in comparison with 1,168 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions in a national survey conducted Sept. 30-Oct. 11, 2011 by the Pew Research Center. When you finish, you will be able to compare your News IQ with the average American, as well as with the scores of college graduates and those who didn't attend college; with men and women; and with...