Why People Believe in God—The Data and Statistics
The source of the general survey sample was Survey Sampling, Inc., in Fairfield, Connecticut, the same organization that provides random samples of Americans for many of the most notable political, social, and cultural surveys conducted by social scientists and the media. Before the mailing we tested numerous versions of the survey on approximately a thousand people, refining the questions so that the answers accurately reflected what we hoped to measure. Based on the feedback from these test surveys, we believe that the instrument we used to collect the data provides an accurate reflection of what Americans believe about God, some of the most important influencing variables on their belief, and why they believe. The statistics were run on BMDP and SYSTAT. The graphics in this appendix were initially produced by Frank Sulloway using SYSTAT. These graphics were subsequently redesigned by Skeptic magazine art director Pat Linse using Adobe Illustrator. The footnotes that follow are linked to the discussion of this survey in Chapter 4.
END NOTES CORRELATIONS, DATA, AND STATISTICS
Click here The correlation between religious conviction and belief in God, in the skeptics survey, is r = .46 (N = 1650, t = 20.82, p < .0001).
Click here The correlation between religious conviction and belief in God, in the general survey, is r = .63 (N = 960, t = 25.07, p < .0001).
Click here The difference between the two correlations, r = .46 and r = .63, is significant (z = 4.82, p < .0001).
Click here What follows is a list of the reasons skeptics say they (a) believe in God, (b) do not believe in God, and (c) why they think other people believe in God, in order of the number of responses given in the written portion of the survey. Answers have been grouped under a summary response that represents a paraphrasing of the originals.
WHY SKEPTICS BELIEVE IN GOD
1. Good design/natural/beauty/perfection/complexity of the world or universe (29.2 percent).
2. It is comforting, relieving, consoling, gives meaning and purpose to life (21.3%).
3. Experience of God in everyday life/God is in us (14.4 percent).
4. Just because/faith/need to believe in something (11.4 percent).
5. Without God there would be no morality (6.4 percent).
6. The Bible says so (5.5 percent).
7. The universe is God (4.0 percent).
8. Raised to believe in God (3.0 percent).
9. God has a plan for the world, history, destiny, and us (3.0 percent).
10. To account for good and avenge evil in the world (.10 percent).
Cumulative total: 99.1 percent. Other answers included “God answers prayers.”
WHY SKEPTICS THINK
OTHER PEOPLE
BELIEVE IN GOD
1. It is comforting, relieving, consoling, gives meaning and purpose to life (21.5 percent).
2. Need to believe in an afterlife/fear of death and the unknown (17.8 percent).
3. Lack of exposure to science/lack of education/ignorance (13.5 percent).
4. Raised to believe in God (11.5 percent).
5. Good design of the world/natural beauty/perfection/ complexity (8.8 percent).
6. Culture is religious (7.2 percent).
7. Social/need for community (5 percent).
8. Brainwashed (4.5 percent).
9. Genetics/evolution (4.1 percent).
10. Just because/faith/need to believe in something (2.1 percent).
Cumulative total: 96.0 percent. Other answers included “I don’t know,” “religion is a meme virus,” “to account for good and avenge evil in the world,” and “schizophrenic/mad/nuts.”
WHY SKEPTICS DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD
1. There is no proof for God’s existence (37.9 percent).
2. There is no need to believe in God (13.2 percent).
3. It is absurd to believe in God (12.1 percent).
4. God is unknowable (8.3 percent).
5. Science provides all the answers we need (8.3 percent).
6. The Problem of Evil: pain, suffering, children dying, wars, holocausts, genocides, etc. (7.0 percent).
7. God is a product of the mind and culture (4.0 percent).
8. God is just another explanation for uncertainties and the unknown (3.1 percent).
9. God and religion are just a means of social control (2.4 percent).
10. Religion is bad for society, history, religious wars, religious crimes, etc. (2.1 percent).
Cumulative total: 99.4 percent. Other answers included “God is a product of primitive beliefs transferred to us,” and “the burden of proof is on believers to prove God, not on us to disprove God.”
Click here The correlation between religiosity and being raised religiously is r = .17 (N = 2084, t = 6.06, p < .0001 ).
Click here The correlation between religiosity and gender is r = .17 (N = 2084, t = 8.55, p < .0001).
Click here The correlation between religiosity and parents’ religiosity is r = .12 (N = 2084, t = 4.03, p < .0001).
Click here The negative correlation between religiosity and education (as one goes up the other goes down) is r = -.17 (N = 2084, t =–8.05, p < .0001).
Click here The negative correlation between religiosity and age (as one goes up the other goes down) is r =–.08 (N = 2084, t =–3.68, p < .0001).
Click here The negative correlation between religiosity and parental conflict is r =–.10 (N = 2084, t =–4.86, p < .0001).
Click here For the interaction between parental religiosity and parental conflict, as they relate to religious doubt, the partial correlation is r = .08 (N = 926, t = 2.36, p < .01); controlled for the two main effects.
Click here For the interaction between attending church when growing up and parental conflict, as they relate to attending church now is r =–.15 (N = 2595, t =–7.63, p < .0001); controlled for the two main effects.
Click here The negative correlation between interest in science and religiosity is r =–.26 (N = 2341, t =–13.33, p < .0001).
Click here The correlation between interest in science and education is r = .13 (N = 745, t =–3.70, p < .0001), between science and gender is r =–.24 (N = 745, t =–6.88, p < .0001), between science and conscientious is r = .09 (N = 745, t = 2.66, p < .0001), and between science and openness to experience is r = .21 (N = 745, t = 6.10, p < .0001 ).
Click here The negative correlation between being raised religiously and interest in science is r =–.26 (N = 2341, t =–13.33. p < .0001).
Click here The correlation between religiosity and age of serious doubt is r = .15 (N = 464, t = 3.19, p < .0001).
Click here The negative correlation between religiosity and political liberalism is r =–.40 (N = 916, t =–13.34, p < .0001).
Click here The negative correlation between openness to experience and religiosity is r =–.14 (N = 736, t =–3.75, p < .0001).
Click here The correlation between openness and religious doubt is r = .18 (N = 744, t = 4.88, p < .0001).
Click here The negative correlation between openness and change (diminution) in religiosity is r =–.09 (N = 719, t =–2.40, p < .01). ).
Click here The negative correlation between openness and the rate of church attendance is r =–.11 (N = 557, t =–2.55, p < .01).
Click here The correlation between birth order and openness is r = .11 (N = 526, t = 2.55, p < .01).
Click here The correlation between openness and political liberalism is r = .28 (N = 705, t = 1.77, p < .0001). The correlation between tender-mindedness and religiosity is r = .12 (N = 435, t = 2.40, p < .05). The partial correlation between birth order and liberalism is rp = .09 (N = 554, t = 2.10, p < .04, where rp is a partial correlation). Finally, the correlation between birth order and tender-mindedness is (rp = .14, controlled for the variables in the model).
Click here The correlation between gender and “rational” reasons for belief in God (apparently intelligent design of the world, without God there is no basis for morality, the existence of evil, pain and suffering, and scientific explanations of the world) is r =–.16 (N = 2085, t =–7.49, p < .0001).
Click here The correlation between gender and “emotional” reasons for belief in God (emotional comfort, faith, and desire for meaning and purpose in life) is r = .19 (N = 2054, t = 8.92, p < .0001).
Click here The correlation between education and rational reasons for God’s existence is r = .14 (N = 2085, t = 6.36, p < .0001).
Click here The negative correlation between education and emotional reasons for God’s existence is r =–.16 (N = 2054, t =–7.13, p < .0001).
Click here The correlation between openness and rational reasons for God’s existence is r = .11 (N = 714, t = 2.84, p < .005).
Click here The negative correlation between openness and emotional reasons for belief in God is r =–.12 (N = 710, t =–3.16, p < .002).
Click here The negative correlation between preferring rational reasons for God’s existence and being raised religiously is r =–.10 (N = 2085, df = 9/2075, t =–3.30, p < .001).
Click here The negative correlation between preferring rational reasons for God’s existence and parents’ religiosity is r =–.07 (N = 2085, t =–2.48, p < .01).
Click here To the two questions (a) In your own words, why do you believe in God, or why don’t you believe in God? and (b) In your own words, why do you think most other people believe in God?, the reasons people say they believe in God, and why they think other people believe in God, in order of the number of responses given in the written portion of the survey, are presented here. To control for possible experimenter bias in placing subjectively written answers into discrete categories, I had a research assistant score the same answers and found an interrater agreement—that is, consistency between raters in scoring—above 90 percent, more than acceptable in social science research. For example, for the more-frequent answer for why people believe in God—“Good design/natural beauty/perfection/complexity of the world or universe–—the interrater agreement was 91.4 percent; for the number-one answer for why other people believe in God—“It is comforting, relieving, consoling, gives meaning and purpose to life”—the interrater agreement was 98.4 percent.
WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE IN GOD
1. Good design/natural beauty/perfection/complexity of the world or universe (28.6 percent).
2. Experience of God in everyday life/God is in us (20.6 percent).
3. It is comforting, relieving, consoling, gives meaning and purpose to life (10.3 percent).
4. The Bible says so (9.8 percent).
5. Just because/faith/need to believe in something (8.2 percent).
6. Raised to believe in God (7.2 percent).
7. God answers prayers (6.4 percent).
8. Without God there would be no morality (4.0 percent).
9. God has a plan for the world, history, destiny, and us (3.8 percent).
10. To account for good and avenge evil in the world (1.0 percent).
Cumulative total: 99.8 percent. Other answers that did not seem to fit into any category (and too few in number to justify a category of their own) included “because God is most powerful,” “because He loves us,” “the Jews survived,” “near-death experiences,” and “no other explanation.”
WHY PEOPLE THINK OTHER PEOPLE BELIEVE IN GOD
1. It is comforting, relieving, consoling, gives meaning and purpose to life (26.3 percent).
2. Raised to believe in God (22.4 percent).
3. Experience of God in everyday life/God is in us (16.2 percent).
4. Just because/faith/need to believe in something (13.0 percent).
5. Fear of death/unknown (9.1 percent).
6. Good design/natural beauty/perfection/complexity of the world or universe (6.0 percent).
7. The Bible says so (5.0 percent).
8. Without God there would be no morality (3.5 percent).
9. To account for good and avenge evil in the world (1.5 percent).
10. God answers prayers (1.0 percent).
Cumulative total: 94.0 percent. This question doubled the number of categories into which answers could reasonably be classified (compared to the first question), including (in order of quantity): “I don’t know,” “Jesus/God saved them,” “the culture is religious,” “fear of death,” “conversion experience,” “need to believe in an afterlife,” “need for community,” and a few unique answers including “stupidity,” “they are alive,” “because of the narcotic effect,” and “it is the right thing to do.”
HOW WE BELIEVE AND DISBELIEVE
THE VARIABLES THAT SHAPE OUR RELIGIOSITY AND BELIEF IN GOD
These graphs present the most important variables that shape our religiosity and belief in God, including:
1. Belief in God in relation to being raised religiously;2. Religiosity in relation to being raised religiously;3. Religiosity in relation to education;4. Belief in God in relation to age;5. Religiosity in relation to age;6. Belief in God in relation to parental conflict and being raised religiously or nonreligiously;7. Religiosity in relation to parental conflict;8. Being raised religious or nonreligiously.
