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YouGov Poll on 35 Religious Groups, Orgs, Etc.


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Posted

Americans' views on 35 religious groups, organizations, and belief systems

Quote

A recent YouGov poll explores Americans' attitudes toward 35 religious groups, organizations, and belief systems. Belief systems that encompass the largest shares of Americans — including Christianity, Catholicism, and Protestantism — are among the ones the most Americans view favorably. Viewed least favorably are Satanism and Scientology. 

The poll asked 1,000 respondents whether they viewed a random sample of 17 of the 35 religions or groups very favorably, somewhat favorably, neither favorably nor unfavorably, somewhat unfavorably, or very unfavorably; respondents also could select "not sure" instead of any of these. To produce a net score for each religion or group, we subtracted the share who said they view each one unfavorably from the share who said they view it favorably.

Is 1,000 respondents a sufficient sampling?  Just curious.

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Using this metric, Christianity is by far the most highly favored belief system, receiving a net score of +34. Protestantism, the next most popular, falls 19 points behind Christianity at +15. Just a few points behind Protestantism is the Amish (+11), Judaism (+11), Buddhism (+10), and Catholicism (+10). (This method tends to give higher positive or negative scores to things that are more widely known, since people who are unsure or have neither a favorable or unfavorable opinion don't count either way toward net scores; that accounts for some of Christianity's big lead over the rest.)

"Christianity" has "a net score of +34."  Hold that thought for a moment.

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Which religions are viewed least favorably? Tied for last place are Satanism (-49) and the Church of Scientology (-49). Other groups that receive net negative ratings are Jehovah's Witnesses (-31), the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (-27), Islam (-24), Christian Science (-22), and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (-21). Belief systems that are viewed favorably and unfavorably by a roughly equal share of Americans include Pentecostalism, the Assemblies of God, Hinduism, and the Mennonite Church.

A few thoughts:

1. The FLDS folks and all their terrible media coverage yields an unfavorable view of -27, and we are only 6 points more favorable (or less unfavorable) than that, at -21.

2. I wonder how much "guilt by association" is imputed to us by the commonality in names with the FLDS folks.

3. I am curious why the broad umbrella category of "Christianity" has such a high score (+34), while each of its constituent subparts gets substantially lower scores:

  • Protestantism: 19 points lower (+15)
  • Amish: 23 points lower (+11)
  • Catholicism: 24 points lower (+10)
  • Presbyterianism: 26 points lower (+8)
  • Methodism / Church of God in Christ / Lutheranism: 29 points lower (+5)
  • Anglicanism / The Episcopal Church: 31 points lower (+3)
  • Eastern Orthodox: 32 points lower (+2)
  • Mennonites: 33 points lower (+1)
  • Assemblies of God: 34 points lower (+0)
  • Pentecostalism: 34 points lower (-1)
  • Southern Baptists: 39 points lower (-5)
  • National Baptists: 40 points lower (-6)
  • 7th Day Adventists: 46 points lower (-12)
  • Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 55 points lower (-21)
  • Christian Science: 56 points lower (-22)
  • FLDS: 61 points lower (-27)
  • Jehovah's Witnesses: 65 points lower (-31)

If my math is correct, the average score for these 20 subsets of Christianity is -2.85, as compared to the "+34" favorability rating for "Christianity" as a whole.  That's . . . interesting.

4. Atheists score poorly, but still substantially better than the Latter-day Saints (-13 v. -21).

5. I wonder how much of this is attributable more to media and social media treatment of these groups, as compared to respondents actually knowing much about these groups, interacting with them, etc.  This might explain why Falun Gong and Sikhism get mediocre scores (-10 and -8, respectively), while more well-known / prominent groups score notably worse (such as Islam, us, Scientologists, etc.).

6. I wonder why Jehovah's Witnesses (-31) score so poorly.

7. Here's a graphic that breaks things down a bit more:

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Interesting stuff.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

-Smac

Posted (edited)
33 minutes ago, smac97 said:

am curious why the broad umbrella category of "Christianity" has such a high score (+34), while each of its constituent subparts gets substantially lower scores:

Maybe unorganized, individual religion is seen in more positive ways than organized. One can practice Christianity without belonging to a ‘subpart’.

Edited by Calm
Posted
1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Is 1,000 respondents a sufficient sampling?  Just curious.

That would only be 0.003% of the US population, so no it is not.

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, smac97 said:

I am curious why the broad umbrella category of "Christianity" has such a high score (+34), while each of its constituent subparts gets substantially lower scores:

People in their own individual faith may have stronger issues against beliefs of certain other faiths, but they are favorable to the idea of Christianity in general.
 

Edited by JAHS
Posted
41 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

When your only interaction with a group is them knocking on your door early morning on a Saturday your view tends to be negative.

Or leaving zucchini on your porch every few weeks.

Posted
25 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

I need to get on that JW visit list. I'd love free zucchine.

Just move to Utah. In the Spring and Summer you will have more zucchini on your porch than you can shake a stick at.

Posted
Just now, Peppermint Patty said:

Just move to Utah. In the Spring and Summer you will have more zucchini on your porch than you can shake a stick at.

The big ones make good door stops until they rot.

Posted

The third chart shows why things likely look the way they do.

  • People that don't think religion is important don't have favourable views of religions.
  • The survey[1] didn't say that it weighted for importance of religion.
  • Pew found that in 2020, religion wasn't important to about a third of people [2]

So straight up you have a large statistical bias against all the religions listed.

 

[1] https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/v7tkzd5tem/poll_Favorability_of_Religions_20221122.pdf

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/01/14/measuring-religion-in-pew-research-centers-american-trends-panel/

Posted

When I see untruths about the COJCOLDS told on social media, I call them out and correct them always. The church doesn't deserve that. They are too often bunched in with the likes of the FLDS by people that are naive. My son who bought a home not too long ago said he's grateful for his LDS neighbors, since they keep nice yards etc. haha. But I agree too! Not only nice yards, but they seem to be living good lives and it feels safe to live by them. 

Posted

Zucchini bread anyone? :P 

Posted
On 12/24/2022 at 2:15 PM, Peppermint Patty said:

Or leaving zucchini on your porch every few weeks.

Seriously is this a "thing" in Utah?

It seems there are several responses perhaps implying this is a common practice among JW's?

We are on their hit list for bible discussions (yes, I have not alienated them yet- reMARKable, huh!!  😇) but haven't gotten a single zucchini!

They OWE me bigtime! ;)

 

Posted
1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Seriously is this a "thing" in Utah?

It seems there are several responses perhaps implying this is a common practice among JW's?

We are on their hit list for bible discussions (yes, I have not alienated them yet- reMARKable, huh!!  😇) but haven't gotten a single zucchini!

They OWE me bigtime! ;)

 

I don't think you will find a single person who lives in Utah that hasn't had zucchini or other vegetables left on their porch. I think it's great. 

Posted
9 hours ago, Peppermint Patty said:

I don't think you will find a single person who lives in Utah that hasn't had zucchini or other vegetables left on their porch. I think it's great. 

I remember asking if anyone would like some, but never just left them. But not saying that's a bad thing, they could pass them along to someone or the garbage. ;)

Posted
14 hours ago, Peppermint Patty said:

I don't think you will find a single person who lives in Utah that hasn't had zucchini or other vegetables left on their porch. I think it's great. 

We have a ward member who gives us a certain type of grapefruit that my wife loves, (the grapefruit not the member) ;)but it is not a general practice to have stuff just show up.  We would have to call the bomb squad if that happened. 😜

Posted
On 12/24/2022 at 8:34 PM, Tacenda said:

When I see untruths about the COJCOLDS told on social media, I call them out and correct them always. The church doesn't deserve that. They are too often bunched in with the likes of the FLDS by people that are naive. My son who bought a home not too long ago said he's grateful for his LDS neighbors, since they keep nice yards etc. haha. But I agree too! Not only nice yards, but they seem to be living good lives and it feels safe to live by them. 

+1 (since, Alas!, I cannot upvote you the "regular" way!) :) 

Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I remember asking if anyone would like some, but never just left them. But not saying that's a bad thing, they could pass them along to someone or the garbage. ;)

I don’t drop off without asking either because I project my own discomfort at throwing gifts away on to others too much. I am intolerant of strawberries and chocolate and hate having to just dump what others give me (thankfully my family usually likes what I can’t eat).  I always worry when it’s homemade that someone wIill ask me how I liked them and if I want more as I don’t want to embarrass them or make them feel they wasted time and money by telling them I couldn’t eat them…but it is needlessly worrying because I can say I appreciated the treat for my family, but in the future this ____ might work better.

My neighbours often put out boxes with Free signs.  I have started posting when we have fruit we aren’t harvesting on FB, so we have a few regulars now we can call up to tell them to come pick the vines clean (I get nervous about home canned fruit and we use grape vines both for fruit and decoration of ugly fences, so have tons more than we use).

But dropping off zucchini isn’t a big deal even for me because it’s most likely excess that everyone knows would just get thrown away if not passed on.

Edited by Calm
Posted (edited)

Also people need to be aware of ants if dropping off food on the porch in summer.  We had to toss a full box of gorgeous cookies that were just left on our porch without being sure we heard the doorbell.  It was so sad.  They were the expensive boutique type as well.  It was a thank you gift.

Edited by Calm

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