Last month my posts Biblical literalism or low IQ: which came first? and Educational levels & denomination got a lot of play around the blogosphere. I used the US Religious Landscape Survey to get demographic data for denominations, but I had to cobble together numbers on Biblical literalism, etc. But with a further release of data I can now flesh out almost all the denominations plotting postgrad education % vs. belief that the Bible is the literal word of god.
Clarification: Y axis = % with postgrad education. X axis = % who believe the Bible is the literal word of god.
As you can see, the trend still holds with more denominations. I decided to do this since people were curious about denomination X, and I didn't have that included. Click the image or here for a larger version so you can see the labels. And here is a chart with all religious affiliations included (e.g., includes non-orthodox Christians such as Mormons as well as non-Christians). Below the fold I've put the raw data I used, but if you want to snatch it for yourself, here it is as a CSV file (if you do some statistical analysis of the data post a link in the comments and I'll link next week).
| Word of God to be taken literally | % Graduate Ed | |
| African Methodist Episcopal (Black) | 57 | 9 |
| American Baptist | 52 | 5 |
| Anglican | 13 | 24 |
| Assembles of God | 70 | 4 |
| Church of Christ | 50 | 6 |
| Church of God Cleveland | 75 | 4 |
| Church of God in Christ (Black) | 75 | 3 |
| Church of the Nazarene | 63 | 5 |
| Disciples of Christ | 35 | 17 |
| Episcopal Church | 9 | 27 |
| Evangelical Lutheran Church | 23 | 11 |
| Free Methodist Church | 50 | 7 |
| Independent Baptist | 61 | 5 |
| Independent Baptist (Black) | 68 | 3 |
| Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod | 42 | 9 |
| National Baptist Convention | 68 | 6 |
| Nondenom. Charismatic | 56 | 11 |
| Nondenom. Evangelical | 61 | 15 |
| Nondenom. Fund Church | 63 | 11 |
| Presbyterian Church in America | 35 | 13 |
| Presbyterian Church USA | 23 | 24 |
| Seventh Day Adventist | 48 | 5 |
| Southern Baptist | 63 | 7 |
| United Church of Christ | 15 | 21 |
| United Methodist | 25 | 14 |
| Mormon | 35 | 10 |
| Jehovah's Witness | 48 | 3 |
| Orthodox | 26 | 18 |
| Jewish | 10 | 35 |
| Muslim | 50 | 10 |
| Buddhist | 8 | 26 |
| Hindu | 12 | 48 |
| Unitarian & Liberal | 5 | 29 |
| New Age | 4 | 11 |
| Atheist | 3 | 21 |
| Agnostic | 0 | 20 |
| Secular Unaffiliated | 4 | 13 |
| Religious Unaffiliated | 25 | 6 |
I'm a little confused about the value represented by the y-axis.
percent of those surveyed who have completed a post-graduate degree? (side question, 3% of athiests believe that the 'word of god' should be taken literally?)
just looking for clarification, the linked-to graph has no axis labels.
percent of those surveyed who have completed a post-graduate degree? (side question, 3% of athiests believe that the 'word of god' should be taken literally?)
yeah.
y = postgraduate degree proportion
x = believe bible is literal word of god
Peter,
I think that basically means that 3% of self-professing atheists misunderstood the question during the survey. Just because IQ is correlated with atheism does not mean that all atheists have high IQs.
Nondenominational fundamentalist, charismatic, and evangelical score pretty high on education level (ahead of or on a par with Methodists, Evangelical Lutherans, and Presbyterians).
This strikes me as a misunderstood demographic: educated, prosperous conservative Christians. CCs tend to be caricatured as hillbillies, but they're not, or not always anyway. I suspect that this demographic mostly lives in the exurbs, and that their education tends to be technical and practical.
WTF? Catholics?!??!?
WTF? Catholics?!??!?
LOL. you're right. left them out of the some reason (i think i switched over from protestant denominations to all religious traditions starting with mormons, and catholics were up top).
This strikes me as a misunderstood demographic: educated, prosperous conservative Christians. CCs tend to be caricatured as hillbillies
i'm assuming nondenom. evangelicals are exurban megachurch/seeker types. e.g., saddleback or something.
3% of athiests believe that the 'word of god' should be taken literally?
I'm surprised they are not more: it's even easier to demonize "God" if you take "his word" literally. Some atheists are "evil", you know. ;)
Episcopalian AND Anglican - the US religious scene is more complicated than I'd have guessed.
Episcopalian AND Anglican - the US religious scene is more complicated than I'd have guessed.
i don't get that either. anglicans seem somewhat (very somewhat) more conservative though, so i suspect these are conservative episcopalians who now identify as anglican cuz of the leftward shift that denomination.
The best way to explain this is that the Episcopal church in the US (and world-wide) is mid-schism right now and trying to keep it quiet. I would actually expect people who identify as Anglicans in the States to be more conservative than that - perhaps there's some overlap with CoE immigrants.
The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin has more or less seceded at this point over a lot of stuff, including an athiest bishop, not taking the bible seriously, and the whole gay married bishop in New Hampshire business, and joined the Argentinian Anglicans. Pittsburgh will shortly follow. Several African Anglican churches have missions in the States, and some more conservative Episcopal churches have joined them. There are numerous ongoing legal battles.
For a look at this one the liberal side, check out http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/ , for the conservative side http://www.standfirminfaith.com/ is a good source. It's actually quite fascinating.
Believers in the literal word of god include -
12% of Hindus ?
8% of Buddhists?
What's dis literal word de talking about? Da Baable?