WASHINGTON—In what researchers say marks a profound change in the nation’s attitude toward religion, a new Pew Research Center poll released Thursday found a significant decline in the number of Americans who believe they are God. “Our data shows that since we started studying the trend in the late 1970s, there has been a 60 percent decrease in the number of people in this country who believe they are the Lord incarnate,” said Pew senior research statistician Marianne Tomac, adding that the largest contributor to the drop was the dwindling number of parents who raise their children in households in which they are taught they are the Supreme Being. “We also found that of the respondents who grew up believing they were the Almighty, nearly 40 percent admitted that skepticism and disillusionment had caused them to question whether they were, in fact, omnipotent or even created the universe at all.” The poll also reported, however, a corresponding increase in the number of Americans who said while they no longer believed they were God, they did see themselves as the indescribable universal energy that connects all living things.

Advertisement