With people living in a fast paced and modernized life, do they still believe in God? The number of Americans who pray or believe in God reached all-time low in 2014, a new study found.
A team of psychologists from San Diego State University studied data from nearly 59,000 participants of the General Social Survey, a national study of adults in the United States done from 1972 to 2014.
Twice as many Americans stated that they did not believe in God in 2014 compared with the early '80s and five times as many respondents said they never prayed.
Published in the journal Sage Open, the study sheds light on how people in the United States practice religious beliefs in the past four decades. The study also shows that in the past few years, people were less likely to join in religious activities and believe in what the Bible says.
About 14 percent of Americans believed that the Bible is just an ancient book of fables, legends and moral ideas written by men and not God in 1984. In 2014, however, this number increased to 22 percent, that's a 57-percent increase.
The biggest deteriorations in numbers were seen among people between the ages of 18 and 29 years old. In 1998, about 49 percent of people from this age bracket said they were moderately or very religious but in 2014, the number had decreased to just 38 percent.
The findings of the study may challenge the belief that while fewer Americans show their religious practices publicly, they still express their faith in their own private ways.
"That's no longer the case, especially in the last few years," said San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge.
"The large declines in religious practice among young adults are also further evidence that Millennials are the least religious generation in memory, and possibly in American history," she added.
After all the findings, they found that 80 percent of Americans still believe in after life by 2014, up from 73 percent in the '70s. The author said that it is quite interesting that most people believed in afterlife while the number of those who participated in religion declined.
Photo: Loren Kerns | Flickr
