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Questions 5 – 10

Question 5

Do you identify with any of the following religions? (Please select all that apply.)
Answer Options		Response Percent	Response Count
Protestantism		11.4%	29
Catholicism		13.8%	35
Christianity		22.4%	57
Judaism		6.7%	17
Islam		2.0%	5
Buddhism		8.3%	21
Hinduism		1.2%	3
Native American		2.8%	7
Inter/Non-denominational		11.0%	28
No religion		48.4%	123
Other (please specify)			29

 

Not surprisingly, the majority of people, who selected a religious affiliation, selected a relationship to one of the Abrahamic religions. The next largest group was Buddhism followed by Hinduism. However, those who selected no religion far outweighed the rest. 29 people selected the “other” option. The two most given answers were Wiccan and Taoist.

Question 6

Are you an atheist?
Answer Options		Response Percent	Response Count
Yes		34.3%	87
No		65.7%	167

 

A relatively large number, 34.25%, of respondents self identified as atheist. This may indicate that the sample was too small to fully capture the population. It is difficult to understand where this bias came from. It is true that people who use the internet tend to be younger (citation 1) and that atheists also tend to be younger (citation 2). This could be the cause.

Question 7

Does science disprove the existence of a god?
Answer Options		Response Percent	Response Count
Yes		15.4%	39
No		84.6%	215

 

The percentage of participants who said that science disproves the existence of a god was quite small: only 15.35% This view is not held by every subgroup of the participants and those differences will be addressed in the cross analysis section of this document.

Question 8

How much exposure have you had to religion?
Answer Options		Response Percent	Response Count
A great deal		36.6%	93
A lot		27.2%	69
A moderate amount		26.4%	67
A little		8.7%	22
None at all		1.2%	3

 

Only 1.18% said that they have had no exposure to religion, while the relative majority, 36.61%, said that they had a great deal of experience with religion.

Question 9

Is there a relationship between how religious a person is and their intelligence?
Answer Options		Response Percent	Response Count
People who are religious are more intelligent		2.0%	5
People who are religious are less intelligent		16.5%	42
Religiousity and intelligence are not related		81.5%	207

 

A very large percentage of the overall sample said that religious people were no more or less intelligent. Only 16.54% said that religious people were less intelligent. As with the question of whether or not science disproves the existence of a god, this question has very different results when analyzed by various subgroups. This too will be addressed in more detail in the cross analysis section.

Question 10

Have you ever left an organized religion?
Answer Options		Response Percent	Response Count
Yes		49.2%	125
No		50.8%	129

 

The results of this question are puzzling. While it’s not too surprising that it’s about an even split overall, but it seems that it doesn’t matter what subgroup is selected. The results are still pretty much split down the middle. I am not sure if this is related to whatever caused the skew towards a high number of atheists or if it is just common for people to left an organized religion.