How God Changes Your Brain - Andrew Newberg, M. D_ [47]
Perhaps most surprising, nearly everyone in the student survey expressed varying degrees of doubt concerning the existence of God, and even those who said they were atheist—which represented 12 percent of the sample—expressed doubts concerning their disbelief. In fact, 60 percent of those who circled “atheist” on the form to describe their orientation also circled “agnostic.” Yet when they were asked the question, “Describe your current religious or spiritual orientation,” many wrote down “unsure,” “disinterested,” or other ambiguous terms.
I point this out to cast doubt on national polls showing that 70 to 80 percent of Americans are religious. Most surveys ask narrow questions or give limited choices, and this can taint the pollster's conclusions. Thus, I recommend that you take all survey findings—ours included—as suggestive, not definitive. With that caveat, I would say that our survey showed a much higher degree of agnosticism, at least among college students, than other studies. Of those who considered themselves atheist (12 percent, by the way, is much higher than the reported 1 to 3 percent found in various American polls), only 1 percent said they were certain that God did not exist.
If these young agnostics and ambivalent atheists hold on to these perspectives as they grow older—and prior research has shown that they will—we may soon have a nation where most of the population will be questioning virtually every dimension of traditional religious belief. Given such a scenario, I can barely imagine what types of spiritual communities will be born. But given the history of American religion, I'm sure it will rise to the task.
Current evidence supports the notion that changes in the spiritual beliefs of young adults will dramatically alter the spiritual landscape of America. Why? Because young Americans appear to be very critical of religious organizations, and in particular, mainstream Christianity. For example, research shows that only 20 percent of “churched” teens remain spiritually active by the time they reach age 30,26 and although most consider themselves Christian, it is in name only. According to research conducted by the Barna Group, a nouveau Christianity is emerging, filled with rootless values: “While young Americans have adopted values such as goodness, kindness and tolerance, they remain skeptical of the Bible, church traditions, and rules or behaviors based upon religious teaching.”27 David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, found that these young Americans see present-day Christianity as judgmental, hypocritical, old-fashioned, boring, overly political, anti-homosexual, insensitive toward others, and out of touch with reality.28
Similar sentiments are voiced by the distinguished Oregon State University professor of religion and culture, Marcus Borg. He found that many of his students view Christians as “literalistic, anti-intellectual, self-righteous, judgmental, and bigoted.”29 Furthermore, as we will explain in the following chapter, we see evidence that many Americans are rapidly moving toward religious and spiritual beliefs that embrace interfaith tolerance and acceptance, along with a more loving and mystical conception of God.
ADULT NONBELIEVERS
Here's where the real surprise came in. Of the twenty-three members of the Freethinker society, only 20 percent drew people and faces, far less than those drawn by the “freethinking” college students and the East German children described above. In fact, the quantity of anthropomorphic representations of God was only 5 to 7 percent higher than what we found in the members from the Church