One of the most powerful tools for marginalizing non-religious thought in America has been the perception of a "moral supermajority" - the idea that believers outnumber the rest of us by a huge margin. Poll after poll has suggested that, indeed, a huge majority of Americans believe in God, and that many of those who do believe in the literal words of the Bible, including a young Earth and that evolution is a sham. Right or wrong, believers win by being numerous - after all, might, defined by numbers, makes right in a democracy.
I always felt this seemed far removed from my own experience in terms of how people I knew personally viewed religion. Of course, I live in a pretty liberal part of the country, so I kind of explained it away by figuring that there must be a huge enough number of religious people SOMEWHERE ELSE that it would offset my own experience.
While I'm sure geography is a factor here, it turns that it may not be THE major factor. Pew Research recently conducted a study specifically focusing on the differences between generations, one part of which was a number of questions about religion.
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