Beliefs & Practices

The phrase “spiritual but not religious” has become widely used in recent years by some Americans who are trying to describe their religious identity.

We sat down with Michael Hout, a professor of sociology at New York University, to examine possible reasons.

Americans place less importance on religion in their lives than do people in a number of countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia -- but more than residents of many other Western and European countries.

Only about half of Millennials say they believe in God with absolute certainty, and four-in-ten say religion is very important in their lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmNF813ZzHk Is the American public becoming less religious? Yes, at least by some key measures of what it means to be a religious person. An extensive new survey of more than 35,000 U.S. adults finds that the percentages who say they believe in God, pray daily and regularly go to church or other religious services […]

72% of Americans believe in heaven, while 58% believe in hell.

The vast majority of Americans still believe in God, but there are strong signs that many are less certain about this belief than in years past.

Highlights from the Pew Research report “U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious.” There has been a modest drop in overall rates of belief in God and participation in religious practices. But religiously affiliated Americans are as observant as before.

Making up just 0.5% of U.S. adults, Seventh-day Adventists are extremely devout and are one of the country's most diverse religious groups by race and ethnicity.

Our new report finds that whether U.S. adults are becoming more or less religious depends, in part, on how religious observance is measured.