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New survey finds only half of Americans are sure God exists

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – A new report published by NORC at the University of Chicago on May 4 shows that only about half of Americans now say they are sure God exists, the Hill reports. The data was gathered as part of NORC’s biennial nationally representative General Social Survey (GSS) conducted in 2022.

The GGS found that just under 50 percent of Americans said they have no doubt that God exists, although only seven percent were sure there is no God, the Hill reports. Agnostics, who said the existence of God is unknowable made up another seven percent of those surveyed.

The GSS noted that there has been a significant drop in the number of those who are sure of God’s existence, compared to 2008, when that number was over 60 percent.

The reasons for the decline are not entirely clear and are likely manifold, analysts say. “The past three years were a period of great trial and change for the United States,” René Bautista, director of the GSS and associate director of Methodology & Quantitative Social Sciences at NORC, said in a statement. “Understanding how these times affected Americans’ thoughts, beliefs, and opinions is critical to understanding social change.”

In any event, while not being sure of God’s existence, nearly 75% of Americans said they believe in life after death, a figure which has remained stable for decades, the Hill reports.