If America Was A Village Of 100 People, 89 Of Them Would Believe In God

If the population of the United States was distilled into a village of just 100 people, just nine of them would be atheists.

Nearly everyone else, 89 people, would believe in God and 63 of these would be "absolutely certain" that God exists.

Pew Research has taken data on the religious affiliations of the 245 million adults of the United States from the 2014 Religious Landscape study and analysed it as if it applied to a small community of 100 souls.

In this small town, 36 people would attend religious services each week and 33 would go monthly. Another 30 would never go.

Belief would be higher than practice. On top of 63 people "absolutely certain" of their belief, a further 20 would be fairly certain.

More than half the village would believe in heaven and hell. Just 17 would believe in heaven but not hell while three people would believe in hell but not heaven. More than half would pray daily and 42 would have moved on from the faith they were brought up in.

The Religious Landscape study found overall, people were becoming less religious, but that those who remained affiliated were as observant as they had ever been. If anything, the study found, religious people were becoming more devout. The decline in overall religious observance was due to the growing numbers of "nones", the minority that claims allegiance to no faith at all.