To Know or Not to Know -- That is the Question

Natural disasters such as the tsunami in the Bay of Bengal, the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, and the earthquakes in Pakistan always bring out statements such as "It was God's will," or "It was God's punishment." Whenever I hear statements like this I wonder what percentage of people really believe them, and how many simply go along so as to avoid religious confrontation. So, last week I went on a quest to find polling results showing what people really believe about God.

I found a lot of data, but, from the standpoint of an old quality control engineer, I didn't find anything truly useful for my purpose. In most cases questionnaires were written to obtain information about what groups people identify with rather than what they think. If the questions did ask about what people thought, they were too broad to be of real use. In other cases the questions only muddied the issue rather than providing useable information.

What I really wanted to find out is how many people, by percentage, looked to a god or higher power for help, or for solace, or to take responsibility for the things beyond their control. Also, I wanted to understand, in factual terms, the relationship between age, education, profession, income, and a persons belief. I was looking for a clearer picture of what we think to ourselves versus what we say in public in order to get along.

Here are three of the sites I looked at. The first was www.adherents.com ". . . a growing collection of over 43,870 adherent statistics and religious geography citations: . . . researchers can use this site to answer such questions as "How many Lutherans live in Florida?"" This is a good place to find data on what people say about themselves, but not about what they truly believe. Another such site, www.religioustolerance.org, has asked some deeper questions, but not quite what I was looking for. One more place to get polling results is www.pollingreport.com/religion, however, the data on this site mostly reports opinions of the major religious issues of the day.

Since I didn't find what I was looking for, I decided to attempt writing my own survey. To say that it is a difficult task is sort of like calling the Pacific Ocean a puddle. Remember the old response to name calling when we were young, "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me." Yeah, right. When it comes to religion, people are easily offended by whether or not the word god is capitalized, or even if the word is replaced by "higher power." If the questionnaire asks "Do you believe in god?" some might say "No, I believe in God!" If they are asked "Do you believe in God?" they might very well answer, "No, I believe in a higher power." You get the picture.

I only got the first three questions of a possible survey completed after several rewrites, but here they are.

Which of these statements is closest to your belief?

• I firmly believe that a god or higher power exists.
  
  
• I accept that a god or higher power exists.
  
  
• I'm not sure if a god or higher power exists.
  
  
• I don't care if a god or higher power exists.
  
  
  
• I don't think that there is a god or higher power.
  
  
• I am positive that there is no god or higher power.
  
  

If you believe a god or a higher power, which description are you most comfortable with?

• God or a higher power is a single entity who is, was and always will be. He created all else that exists. He watches over His creations, continually passing judgement and intervening in all things.
  
  
• God or a higher power is a single entity who is, was and always will be. He created all else that exists. He watches over his creations but does not interfere. He passes judgement at the time of death.
  
  
• God or a higher power is the sum of all souls, and is, was and always will be.
  
  
• God or a higher power is the sum of human consciousness brought into being by the existence of man.
  
  
• Some other definition.
  
  

What do you believe about an afterlife?

• I will be sent to Heaven or Hell
  
  
• I will join with and become part of the higher power.
  
  
• My spirit or soul will continue to exist in some different plane or dimension.
  
  
• At death I will cease to exist, there is no afterlife.
  
  
• I don't think about it.
  
  

At this point I began to wonder why the data to answer these questions doesn't already exist. Is it because no one else thought about it? I don't believe that any more than you do. Is it because society at large is afraid of the answers? That's one possibility. Is it because organized religions don't want the questions asked? I'm sure they would rather not know, but I doubt that they could influence pollsters. What value could the answers have anyway?

There have been many reports in the media which have stated that belief in a god is overwhelmingly stronger in the United States and in Arab countries than in other industrial nations. However, the statement is derived from church attendance rather than a true knowledge of what people think. In the U.S. and in Arab countries, the church is a cultural norm which is constantly self promoting. Attendance at church is one of the behaviors of a person that is often proclaimed as a reason to believe that person or to take them seriously. This is an enormous pressure to participate in a religion regardless of private belief. Suppose that the survey resulted in only a small percentage of people who proclaimed a firm belief in the existence of a god. Consider the consequences if society were to be suddenly faced with that knowledge. People might very well begin to feel comfortable questioning their beliefs in public. Church attendance might fall off. Worst of all, the proclamations of the Christian churches and the fatwa's of Muslim churches might lose some of their power over society. Then where would we be?

Perhaps, if some polling organization sees merit if providing this information to the American public we may get to find out.