Poll Finds Americans’ Favorite Faith Group Is Their Own
Washington — Are you sitting down? New research shows that when people are asked to rate their own faith group compared with others, they rate it more positively.
A survey out Wednesday by the Pew Research Center asked respondents to identify their feelings about various faith groups on a “cool” to “hot,” 1 to 100 feelings thermometer. A 50 was described as neutral, not having “particularly” positive or negative feelings.
Every group, from atheists to Catholics and black Protestants to white evangelicals, felt most warmly about people like them. For example, Catholics get an 80 thermometer reading from other Catholics, compared with a 58 among non-Catholics, and evangelicals get a 79 from people who call themselves born-again or evangelical, compared with a 52 from non-evangelicals.
Rating one another sounds like a harsh high school popularity game, but the survey shows a clear correlation between knowing someone of another faith and feeling more positively about them. For example, Jews get a 69 reading from people who know Jews, compared with a 55 from people who say they don’t know anyone Jewish. Atheists receive a neutral score of 50 among people who know an atheist, compared with a cold 29 by people who say they don’t know any atheists. People who know a Muslim give a neutral number (49) compared with a cooler one (35) from people who know none.
http://www.vnews.com/news/nation/world/12793788-95/poll-finds-americans-favorite-faith-group-is-their-own
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