God's own country prefers candidates seen as least religious, study finds

[webfact]

God's own country prefers candidates seen as least religious, study finds
By Dr. Stefan Grobe



WASHINGTON: -- Unlike in Europe, religion has long been a staple of politics in America. US presidents and candidates for the highest office believe that they have to continually evoke religious themes, whether addressing foreign policy, economic and social issues, or their own convictions.

Consequently, the conventional wisdom in American politics has long been that someone who is not religious cannot be elected president of the United States.

Yet, a new survey finds almost exactly the opposite: the leading candidates from both parties are not widely seen as religious, a new Pew Research Center study finds, published on Wednesday.

According to the study, just 30 percent of Americans view Republican frontrunner Donald Trump as a religious person.

And on the Democratic side, 48 percent of adults say they believe frontrunner Hillary Clinton is a religious person and 40 percent think her rival Bernie Sanders is “very” or “somewhat”
religious.

At the same time, the share of Americans who say Clinton is not a religious person now stands at 43 percent, which is sharply higher than it was in the summer of 2007, when she was seeking the presidential nomination for the first time.



The new survey, conducted from January 7 to 14, among 2,009 adults, also finds that the leading Republican presidential candidates are more widely viewed as religious people than are the top Democratic contenders.

Roughly two-thirds of adults (68 percent) say they think Ben Carson is “very” or “somewhat” religious, while 65 percent say the same about Ted Cruz and 61 percent think Marco Rubio is a religious person. By comparison, the notable exception to this pattern is Trump.

The new survey confirms that being an atheist continues to be one of the biggest perceived shortcomings a hypothetical presidential candidate could have, with 51 percent of Americans indicating they would be less likely to vote for a presidential candidate who does not believe in God.



The study also shows that having a president who shares their religious beliefs is important to many Americans, with about half of US adults saying it is “very important” (27 percent) or “somewhat important” (24 percent) to have someone in the White House who shares their religious perspective.

This view is particularly common with Republicans, among whom 64 percent say it is at least “somewhat important” to them that the president share their religious beliefs.

At the same time, many Republicans think Trump would be a good president despite his perceived lack of religiousness. Of the 56 percent of Republican voters who think Trump would be a good or great president, a substantial minority of them (17 percent of Republican registered voters overall) say they think Trump is not religious.

The pattern is very different for the other leading GOP candidates; virtually all Republicans who think Cruz, Rubio and Carson would be successful presidents (and who express a view about their religiousness) also say they view those candidates as at least somewhat religious.

Just 2 percent of Republican voters think Rubio would be a good president and that he is not particularly religious, with just 1 percent saying the same about Cruz and Carson.



The new survey shows that among religious groups, 52 percent of white evangelical Protestant voters (regardless of party affiliation) think Trump would make a “good” or a “great” president.

Evangelicals express a similar degree of confidence that Carson (52 percent) and Cruz (49 percent) would be successful presidents. They are less convinced that other Republican candidates would be good presidents.

And few evangelical voters think Sanders (16 percent) or Clinton (15 percent) would be good presidents.

The survey finds that 68 percent of voters believe that religion is losing influence in American society. And most who hold this view – 51 percent of all US adults – say they think religion’s declining influence is a bad thing for American society.

The survey also shows that 40 percent of Americans think there has been too little expression of religious faith and prayer by political leaders, compared with 27 percent who say there has been too much religious talk by politicians. These figures are considerably different from the results of a survey taken at a similar point in the 2012 presidential election cycle. At that time, there were more people who thought there was too much religious discussion (38 percent) than who said there wasn’t enough (30 percent).


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2016-01-28

[up2u2]

Good to hear.

[JetsetBkk]

Good to hear.

As an antitheist, I agree.

[stevenl]

Good to hear.

As an antitheist, I agree.

I don't believe it though.

[DrTuner]

There's some hope for the Christian fundamentalism to die then.

[Emster23]

"God's own country"

I wondered.... Israel? One of those Islamic republics? UK (Queen is head of CofE).

"Unlike in Europe, religion has long been a staple of politics in America."

Right. Holy Roman Empire, Divine right of Kings..... got it

[trogers]

They are worshipping the Golden Calf!

Heck with the Ten Commandments...

[Pinot]

Oh sweet baby Jesus, this can't be true.

America gets its marching orders from invisible people.

All that pandering in Iowa was for nothing?

[mrwebb8825]

It's OK. God LOVES Donald and will elect him to be the next president. He's already sent Bernie to smite Hitlery.

[hugh2121]

God's own country??????????????????

[elgordo38]

Seems like the founding fathers went to great lengths to separate church from state when they wrote the constitution so where did it all go wrong. Why are rich Republicans all bible thumpers. It seems to me its says somewhere in the good book "thou shall be they brothers keeper" All the early presidents warned against what is happening today. They insisted that church and state must remain separate.

Edited January 29, 2016 by elgordo38

[camble]

God's own country??????????????????

Take it up with Stefan Grobe, he's German. An American would never create such a news title.

[djlest]

They are not bible thumpers, they are buying votes... By appearing to be religious they gain more of the populations votes...
Also the founding fathers were masonic, can believe in any religion as long as its a supreme entity. But most of government is masonic so they have their own rituals..

[bark]

"God's own country"

I wondered.... Israel? One of those Islamic republics? UK (Queen is head of CofE).

"Unlike in Europe, religion has long been a staple of politics in America."

Right. Holy Roman Empire, Divine right of Kings..... got it

Agreed. Americans try to take ownership of everything. Besides the Yanks came from Britian, Italy, Spain, France( sorry) and Africa; in the 1600's . God is Everywhere !

[camble]

"God's own country"

I wondered.... Israel? One of those Islamic republics? UK (Queen is head of CofE).

"Unlike in Europe, religion has long been a staple of politics in America."

Right. Holy Roman Empire, Divine right of Kings..... got it

Agreed. Americans try to take ownership of everything. Besides the Yanks came from Britian, Italy, Spain, France( sorry) and Africa; in the 1600's . God is Everywhere !

You forgot Germany, and some people are just so jealous

[Scott]

A post with an aberrant spelling of Politician's name has been removed. Please use the correct name for politicians, not doing so is inflammatory to some, trolling to others.

[willyumiii]

As an American I am offended to hear my country refered to as "god's own country"!

America was founded on religious freedom, and that includes freedom from religion.

What god are they referring to

?

There are hundreds of gods.

They are all fantasies.

Edited January 29, 2016 by willyumiii

[BeLars]

"God bless America" and Trumpy

[sgtsabai]

Many of those bible thumpers are dominionists, as was Cheney/Bush et all. They believe America should be ruled by their version of the bible. I grew up in an extremely religious baptist family, my father "talked to god" and gawd answered. As I explained to my dear 'ol insane dad, that is called schizophrenia, which led to a fit on the floor. Today's bible thumpers are dangerous, endanger women's health, are racist, homophobic misogynists. I used to teach sunday school when I was 15, had a perfect attendance record for many, many years, what a waste of time. I've only darkened the door since several times, once to keep a promise to whatever "god" saved, or didn't, me one night when the mortars and RPG's were slamming the crap out of us at Nui Dang and that damn mortar man was walking them straight at me, he missed, the others for funerals and weddings, not many of them, thankfully. Those pretending to be "christian" are the most un-christian people I have ever met. As I questioned one member of "the family" in my whistle blower law suit, " is it ok to lie if you lie for god?" Funny he got very upset. Oh, I won. I have no use for those people and frankly I wish their "rapture" would hurry up and get them the hell of the face of this earth so people could get on with living. Trump will be a disaster for the US and the rest of the world if he somehow gets elected, as will any of the Repulican clown bus. Ahem, Hillary won't be much better but at least her social policies are on the right track, about the only policies of hers that are.

[craigt3365]

This article was written by a German for Euro News. Religion is on the decline in the US, but still plays a big role in the Republican party. Sadly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States

Agnosticism, atheism, and humanism

A 2001 survey directed by Dr. Ariela Keysar for the City University of New York indicated that, amongst the more than 100 categories of response, "no religious identification" had the greatest increase in population in both absolute and percentage terms. This category included atheists, agnostics, humanists, and others with no stated religious preferences. Figures are up from 14.3 million in 1990 to 34.2 million in 2008, representing an increase from 8% of the total population in 1990 to 15% in 2008.^[27] A nationwide Pew Research study published in 2008 put the figure of unaffiliated persons at 16.1%,^[62]while another Pew study published in 2012 was described as placing the proportion at about 20% overall and roughly 33% for the 18–29-year-old demographic.^[72]