It is a well-known phenomenon that people overestimate their capacities on traits that are deemed to be socially desirable. In the US, since being religious is seen as a good thing, people seem to feel obliged to put on a facade.
But it is becoming increasingly clear that Americans are less religious that they claim to be. The Pew survey of religious knowledge in the US says that 4/7 (about 55%) attend church once a week but a University of Michigan examination of actual time diaries kept by people indicate that the figure is only about 25%, much like many European countries, while self reports were about 35-45%. The gap between self-perception and reality in the US was around 18% whereas the highest gaps elsewhere in the world were only about 4-8%, and these were in Catholic countries.
Given that fact, should we believe the Pew results that say that “more than a third (37%) say they read the Bible or other Holy Scriptures at least once a week, not counting worship services”? I find that really hard to believe. The Bible is not a great read, frankly. There are a few occasional well written and poetic passages but most of it consists of turgid prose dealing with dreary lists of rules.
My guess is that even if we use the same inflation factor of two that exists for church attendance to arrive at about 20% for weekly Bible reading, that would still be too high.
I would wager that far more atheists read the Bible than Christians….but that’s just a guess.
I hope that the trend continues away from religiosity and toward a more secularized society. For the moment it seems to be headed that way as the American youth continue to become less and less religious. But with that being said, America seems to be more and more influenced by religion, namely Christianity. What an odd paradox?
But if the statistics aren’t reliable, for whatever reason, then you can’t rely on them in support of atheism either…it would seem.
Unreliable statistics are just…unreliable statistics.
JamesD,
Are you saying that either all statistics are reliable or all unreliable and that we cannot gauge their quality?
Self-reports on sensitive or emotional issues are known to be more unreliable which is why researchers try to find independent measures to corroborate them.