Religious Minorities Overstated In America According To Survey

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/15/religious-minorities-overstated-america_n_1885427.html

Religion News Service | By Jeanie Groh
Posted: 09/15/2012 9:00 am Updated: 09/15/2012 9:00 am

(RNS) The typical American underestimates how many Protestants there are in the U.S., and vastly overestimates the number of religious minorities such as Mormons, Muslims, and atheist/agnostics, according to a new study.

Grey Matter Research and Consulting asked 747 U.S. adults to guess what proportion of the American population belongs to each of eight major religious groups: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, atheist/agnostic, believe in God or a higher power but have no particular religious preference, and any other religious group.

The average response was that 24 percent of Americans are Catholic, 20 percent are Protestant, 19 percent are unaffiliated, 8 percent are Jewish, 9 percent are atheist or agnostic, 7 percent are Muslim, 7 percent are Mormon and 5 percent identify with all other religious groups.

Respondents were correct on Catholics -- 24 percent of the country is Catholic. But
according to the 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 51 percent are Protestant, 12 percent are unaffiliated, 2 percent are Jewish, 4 percent are Atheist/Agnostic, less than 1 percent are Muslim, 2 percent are Mormon and 4 percent identify with all other religious groups.

more at link

[Igel]

1. This kind of report comes out every few years.

We keep hearing minority numbers, but they're not based on impartial surveys. Usually each group says its own percentage. Advocacy research. Years ago I read some demography research that looked at homeless and the origin of the number that was usually cited. It went something like, "8 years ago a homeless advocacy organization was asked how many people were homeless. The person interviewed said he didn't know, but when pushed said X thousands. The following year there was a downturn, so somebody reported that number and said it must be higher. The next report gave 'higher' a numerical value, a percent increase. Every year or two newspapers said that it must have increased with population and with recession, and increased the number. In the end, there were years of arbitrary increases to what started out as a guess."


In 2001-2002 the number of Muslims soared, from 1 or 2% to 6% and more. Their numbers didn't increase. CAIR and others kept adding to the #s as they got more data-like stuff.

Then it was reported where CAIR got its number. They took mosque rolls and census samples. If you ever belonged to a mosque, you were still at that mosque. Lots of double- and triple-counting. Arabs were all considered Muslims. Even if a very large percentage of Arabs are Xians.

Same for "Mormon." Once a Mormon, always on the rolls as a Mormon. Whatever you call yourself.


This kind of thing is always a good corrective to advocacy.

[dimbear]

2. The 4 per cent that identify with all other religious groups are a curious lot.

It's true that every day of the week will be a sabbath, but the total tithing is going to be financially staggering.