{"id":1558,"date":"2013-01-08T20:45:39","date_gmt":"2013-01-09T01:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/?p=1558"},"modified":"2013-01-08T20:45:39","modified_gmt":"2013-01-09T01:45:39","slug":"god-is-alive-and-well-proclaims-head-of-polling-agency-that-predicted-a-president-mitt-romney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/2013\/01\/08\/god-is-alive-and-well-proclaims-head-of-polling-agency-that-predicted-a-president-mitt-romney\/","title":{"rendered":"God is alive and well, proclaims head of polling agency that predicted a President Mitt Romney"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
I will believe you on Romney’ inauguration day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Frank Newport, editor in chief of The Gallup Poll, discussed his book, God is alive and well: the future of religionn in America, in an interview<\/a> with Salt Lake Tribune. It makes for an interesting read.<\/p>\n

Despite a deep drop in the number of Americans who identify with a particular faith, the country could be on the cusp of a religious renaissance, says Frank Newport, editor in chief of The Gallup Poll.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No kidding? Not a single nation had something like that once they started down the path of secularization?<\/p>\n

One trend that I\u2019m asked a lot about is the rise of the “nones,” about which there\u2019s a huge amount of publicity, but which is often misinterpreted. When Gallup asked the question about religious identity back in the 1950s, almost zero would say they have “none.” People would say “Baptist” or “Catholic” even if they were not particularly religious. Now, 18 percent of Americans, according to Gallup polls, say they do not have a particular religious identity. That doesn\u2019t mean that 18 percent are atheists \u2014\u00ad only 5 or 6 percent say they don\u2019t believe in God \u2014 but people are changing how they express their religiosity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, that is what people say if you ask\u00a0if they are atheists, due to the strong negative connotation of this word. And yet-only a quarter<\/a> of “nones” are believers,\u00a0as it turns out, unlike what Newport says.<\/p>\n

Q: Despite the rise of the nones, you say that religion is poised for a renaissance in America.<\/p>\n

A: Well, I wouldn\u2019t predict it. But it certainly is a possibility that, rather than continuing to decrease, religious identity could increase. We\u2019ve been analyzing data from 350,000 interviews since 2008, and 2012 showed the lowest increase in the percentage who said they have no religious identity, so that might be leveling off.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sure, it is a possibility, but it would be surprising, given that you get the highest percentage of “none” among the youngest people<\/a>. And have you noticed how fast they are shedding the unquestioning belief?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So how are we going to have a religious renaissance?<\/p>\n

\u00a0If you look at age, the baby boomers are approaching 65-85 years old, which we\u2019ve seen as the most religious age group for decades. It\u2019s a reasonable expectation that the huge group of boomers is going to become more religious, and because they are so big, they\u2019ll make the country more religious in the aggregate.<\/p>\n

In addition, the country\u2019s increasing Hispanic population tends to be more religious. Religion has been correlated to health, so more people may seek out religion because it\u2019s good for them. And Americans are migrating to states that are more religious, which tends to make [the travelers] more religious.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, as you can see from the graph above, aging does not automatically make you more religious. What has happened until now is that the most religious segment of the pupolation have been the seniors, because they were religious to start with<\/em>.\u00a0 As previous research has shown (including data and analysis in the following book), finding signifcant gaps in religiosity between the young and old is a sign of progressive secularization: in agrarian societies, the young are just as religious as the old.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Immigration certainly can slow down the process of secularization, however, in the nations studied in the above book, it could not\u00a0offset the overall trend of secularization among the natives. And assuming that health benefits of religion are genuine (as opposed, to, say, conferred by belonging to a community and having a reliable social safety net), it cannot be concluded that it will make people more religious, because people don’t always do what is good for them!<\/p>\n

But he saves the best for last:<\/p>\n

Q: Why do you propose that the government and companies promote religion as a means to reduce health-care costs?<\/p>\n

A: That certainly is controversial. We have separation of church and state in this country. But the correlation between religion and well-being has been established by Gallup and many other organizations. The question is causality: Maybe healthier people choose to be more religious. But it\u2019s clear that religious [people] are less of a drain on our mental and physical health systems. So, a company may want to give discounts for employees who attend church four or five times a month, just as many give discounts for employees who go to the gym. If America were to become more religious, and this is controversial, it would become healthier.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It would be of highly dubious benefit, and would violate the Civil Rights Act (not to mention the Constitution). But hey, who says he shouldn’t put a little wishful thinking in the “empirical” book that he wrote?<\/p>\n

Luckily for secularists, Gallup hasn’t has an impressive track record in predicting the future recently. Remember they always overestimated Mitt Romney’s chances in last year’s elections? This is why<\/a>, according to Joel Benenson, Obama’s pollster:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s long overdue for an organization with a name as well-known as Gallup to recognize what the demographics of the American electorate actually are and figure out why their model has continued to skew too old, too white and less likely to be college educated than the nation\u2019s voters,\u201d Benenson said.<\/p>\n

In the Gallup surveys, their weighting for the youngest voters was less than where they were in the 2008 exit data. The same was true for some minority voters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It seems Gallup had an agenda to support during the election, and it has (by its own admission) an agenda with religiosity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frank Newport, editor in chief of The Gallup Poll, discussed his book, God is alive and well: the future of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}