Rising Non-Belief: Only 81% of Americans Believe in God in Historic Low

Belief in God in the US has dropped significantly in the past five years, a new Gallup study finds. According to the report published in June this year, belief in God dropped from 87% in 2017 to 81% in 2022.

The six percent dip in the number of Americans who believe in God is the lowest point in Gallup's trend. In 2013, the movement started dropping from 90%, the report said. The data remained roughly the same between 2013 to 2017, sitting between 90% to 87%.

The study was first published in 1944 when Gallup asked Americans if they believed in God or not. The study was later repeated in 1947, 1953, 1954, 1965, and 1967.

In the initial run of the study, the lowest point was 94%, with the rest of the results consistently showing that 95% of the Americans believe in God.

Last year, a paper published in the online Public Understanding of Science journal revealed a parallel trend. The study authored by professors in the US and Spain showed that an increasing number of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

John Miller, the lead researcher, said between 1985 and 2007, the number of those who believed in the theory of evolution and those who did not were almost equal. Miller called the period a "statistical dead-heat."

Like Gallup's study, the belief in the theory of evolution also saw an unprecedented increase in the last five years.

According to Miller, one of the reasons Americans do not believe in the theory of evolution is religious fundamentalism.

In Gallup's 2022 survey, Americans who subscribe to conservative ideologies only had a -1% change while liberals dropped 11%. Republicans and Liberals have had a 3% drop, and the number of Democrats who believe in God dropped by 12%.

Although the trend in the data is a significant change, Gallup noted that "the vast majority of Americans [still] believe in God."

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