According to Grey Matter Research<\/a>, Americans think our country is far more religiously diverse than it actually is. In a survey of 747 adults the research and consulting firm found that most underestimated the size of Christianity and over-estimated the size of atheists, Muslims, and other religious minorities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe typical American adult pegs religious affiliation in the U.S. as follows:\u00a0 24% Catholic, 20% Protestant, 19% unaffiliated, 9% Jewish, 9% atheist or agnostic, 7% Muslim, 7% Mormon, and 5% from all other religious groups.\u00a0In reality, according to the\u00a02008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey\u00a0from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Americans are right on target with the proportion of Catholics and the \u201call other\u201d category, but way off target on the rest of the landscape.\u00a0The typical American badly underestimates how many Protestants there are in the country, and way overestimates the presence of religious minorities such as Mormon, Muslim, and atheist\/agnostic.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In fact, if you check the Pew Forum data from 2008, you\u2019ll see that Muslims in America only comprise 0.6% of the population<\/a>. In contrast \u201cUnitarians and other liberal faiths\u201d comprise 0.7% and \u201cNew Age\u201d faiths (ie Pagans) comprise around 0.4%. There are more Buddhists in the United States than there are Muslims. Likewise,\u00a0respondents guessed large for\u00a0\u00a0atheists, agnostics, and the unaffiliated. Speaking with the Religion News Service<\/a>, Grey Matter president\u00a0Ron Sellers noted that media attention is a likely reason for the over-inflated guesses of non-Christian or non-religious populations.<\/p>\n Sellers also mentioned that with Mitt Romney running for president as a Mormon and the current emphasis on Islamic-American relations, \u201csmaller faith groups also may be getting disproportionate media coverage.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Likewise, younger Americans, who tend to have more friends who are atheists or religiously unaffiliated, guesses in favor of their own experience. Also unsurprising is the news that adherents of a particular tradition tend to guess high on their own numbers<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing that is clear from this research is that people tend to overestimate the proportion of their own faith group.\u00a0 Among people who identify with the Catholic Church, the average estimate is that 39% of the country is Catholic.\u00a0 Not only is this estimate much higher than it is among non-Catholics, it is far higher than the reality of 24%.\u00a0Similarly, among people who identify with a Protestant faith perspective, the average estimate is that 27% of the population is Protestant.\u00a0 While this is far higher than the numbers among non-Protestants, it is still almost half the correct figure.\u00a0Among people who identify as atheists or agnostics, the average estimate is that 16% of the American population is atheist or agnostic.\u00a0 As with Catholics, not only is this estimate far higher than among any other group, but it is much higher than the reality.\u00a0 Finally, among people who express no particular faith identification, the average perception is that 35% of Americans believe in God but have no actual religious preference.\u00a0 Again, this is nearly double the average American\u2019s perception, and far higher than the real figure in the U.S.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So what\u2019s the take-home message of this data?\u00a0Sellers says that \u201cthis skewed perception of religion in America may benefit smaller faith groups and be detrimental to Protestants.\u201d<\/em> In other words we are over-estimating the influence of religious minorities, and under-estimating the influence of Protestant Christians. This may seem like a good thing, a hastening of the demographic shifts many of us existing in religious minorities have been waiting for, but it could also feed into the fears of certain Christians who are increasingly uneasy with our mere existence. Then again, maybe feeling like a religious minority could teach a valuable lesson to those willing to encounter it.<\/a><\/p>\n Being a minority tests the temper of a faith, its resilience and fiber [\u2026]\u00a0Being a member of a minority entails the ability to bend and to negotiate. This, in turn, demands a deep understanding of the majority and local conditions, deeper than the majority may have about the minority; respect for them whenever possible; diplomacy; patience; and the building of relationships, infinitesimal gesture after infinitesimal gesture.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n People are over-estimating religious minorities, and those with no religion at all, but maybe this misconception will instill a willingness to embrace secularism once more<\/a>, to re-enforce those church-state separations so that the \u201cothers\u201d don\u2019t exert undue influence. In which case, beware Christians, Pagans are growing at an alarming rate! Quick! Everyone join Americans United for The Separation of Church and State<\/a>, it\u2019s your only hope!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to Grey Matter Research, Americans think our country is far more religiously diverse than it actually is. In a survey of 747 adults the research and consulting firm found that most underestimated the size of Christianity and over-estimated the size of atheists, Muslims, and other religious minorities. \u201cThe typical American adult pegs religious affiliation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[419,3610,1817,3382,1969,2125,2267],"class_list":["post-10343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paganism","category-religion","tag-christianity","tag-grey-matter-research","tag-pew-forum","tag-religion-news-service","tag-religious-minorities","tag-separation-of-church-and-state","tag-survey"],"yoast_head":"\n