{"id":19406,"date":"2023-11-10T11:11:08","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T16:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=19406"},"modified":"2023-11-10T11:11:08","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T16:11:08","slug":"latest-poll-shows-more-americans-credit-god-for-current-state-of-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2023\/11\/latest-poll-shows-more-americans-credit-god-for-current-state-of-humanity","title":{"rendered":"Latest Poll Shows More Americans Credit God for Current State of Humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_19409\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-19409\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/11\/evolution-poll_credit-Adobe-Stock-scaled.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19409\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2023\/11\/evolution-poll_credit-Adobe-Stock-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"576\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-19409\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">A recent poll released by <\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/ncse.ngo\/evolution-new-suffolk-universityusa-today-poll\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Suffolk University\/ USA Today<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0reveals that more than half of Americans credit God with the current state of humanity in some way. The study was conducted amongst 1,000 registered voters from all 50 states and the District of Columbia and asked, \u201cWhat comes closest to your belief about humans and evolution?\u201d While two percent refused to answer, the poll found that 29 percent preferred the answer \u201cHumans evolved into their present form without divine intervention,\u201d while 37 percent preferred \u201cHumans did not evolve. They were created in their present form by God.\u201d Another 24 percent preferred \u201cHumans evolved into their present form, but God directed the process,\u201d meaning that 61 percent of respondents believed God had some part in the current state of humanity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Parsing the data more thoroughly, women were more likely to prefer a creationist perspective (God created man) than men (40 percent vs 34 percent), and Republicans were more likely than Democrats to take a creationist view (53 percent vs 23 percent). The poll appeared to show that education played a major role in who was more likely to take a creationist standpoint, with those who most had a high school degree taking a creationist standpoint at double those with advanced degrees (46 percent vs 23 percent). Thirty-six percent of those with some college or who had completed college took a creationist perspective.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Writing for <\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2023\/10\/31\/johnson-speaker-evolution-poll\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The Washington Post<\/span><\/em><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, Philip Bump noted how the election of Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House and his support of the\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/arkencounter.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Ark Encounter<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0in Williamstown, KY, has brought creationist beliefs to the forefront. The Ark Encounter is a life-sized model of Noah\u2019s ark, based on measurements from the Bible, with exhibits inside that imagine how Noah might have stored animals and food. The Ark Encounter is part of the\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/answersingenesis.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Answers in Genesis<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0ministries, which takes a literal interpretation of the Bible, meaning God created the world in six literal days and estimates the earth is somewhere around 6,000 years old. Bump also noticed education seemed to make in a person\u2019s views on evolution, noticing that even when church attendance remained the same amongst individuals, those with higher education held to more predominately evolutionary views than creationists. \u201cPerhaps the most striking comparison is education. Creationism is embraced by twice as many people with no more than a high school degree than those with a master\u2019s or other advanced degree \u2014 but they report going to church weekly at relatively equal rates. There isn\u2019t even a big gulf in the percentage of each group that says they never attend a religious service,\u201d wrote Bump.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> The implication by Bump and others is that more education is necessary in order for Americans to leave behind what Jon D. Miller of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan describes as the \u201creligious fundamentalism\u201d of creationism. Miller was the lead researcher of a\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/news.umich.edu\/study-evolution-now-accepted-by-majority-of-americans\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">study<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0by the University of Michigan on public attitudes toward evolution. The study found that American acceptance of evolution became the majority opinion in 2016, a change Miller credited to education. \u201cAlmost twice as many Americans held a college degree in 2018 as in 1988,\u201d said Miller\u2019s co-author, Mark Ackerman. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to earn a college degree without acquiring at least a little respect for the success of science.\u201d Answers in Genesis (AIG) states that such statistics are a result of indoctrination in schools. \u201cThe point that should concern Christian parents and teachers is that only one worldview\u2014a secular evolutionary worldview\u2014is taught as if it were established fact, contrary to the actual requirements of the National Curriculum,\u201d\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/answersingenesis.org\/theory-of-evolution\/in-schools\/presuppositions-in-the-classroom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">wrote<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0Paul F. Taylor for AIG regarding changes made in UK curriculum.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent poll released by Suffolk University\/ USA Today\u00a0reveals that more than half of Americans credit God with the current state of humanity in some way. The study was conducted amongst 1,000 registered voters from all 50 states and the District of Columbia and asked, \u201cWhat comes closest to your belief about humans and evolution?\u201d&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":19409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Latest Poll Shows More Americans Credit God for Current State of Humanity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A recent poll released by Suffolk University\/ USA Today\u00a0reveals that more than half of Americans credit God with the current state of humanity in some way.\" \/>\n<meta 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