Religion

Evolution remains a contentious issue. When asked about it, highly religious Americans' responses can vary depending on how the question is asked.

Measuring public opinion on evolution has never been an easy task for survey researchers.

Almost 160 years after Charles Darwin publicized his groundbreaking theory on the development of life, Americans are still arguing about evolution. In spite of the fact that evolutionary theory is accepted by all but a small number of scientists, it continues to be rejected by many Americans.

In many countries, actively religious people are more likely than their less-religious peers to describe themselves as very happy.

People who are active in religious congregations tend to be happier and more civically engaged than either religiously unaffiliated adults or inactive members of religious groups, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of survey data from the United States and more than two dozen other countries.

On a number of issues, Catholic partisans often express opinions more in line with their political parties' positions than with their church's teachings.

About half of black Muslims are converts to Islam, a relatively high conversion level. Black Muslims, like black Americans overall, have high levels of religious commitment.

Ukraine is an overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian nation, and 46% of Orthodox Ukrainians look to the Ukrainian national church leaders as the highest Orthodoxy authority.

The new Congress is slightly more religiously diverse than its predecessor, but it remains overwhelmingly Christian.

The new, 116th Congress includes the first two Muslim women ever to serve in the House of Representatives, and is, overall, slightly more religiously diverse than the prior Congress.