Encouraging results from the latest poll: http://www.harrisinteractive.com/Ne... Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/1353/Default.aspx December 16, 2013 - A new Harris Poll finds that while a strong majority (74%) of U.S. adults do believe in God, this belief is in decline when compared to previous years as just over four in five (82%) expressed a belief in God in 2005, 2007 and 2009. Also, while majorities also believe in miracles (72%, down from 79% in 2005), heaven (68%, down from 75%), that Jesus is God or the Son of God (68%, down from 72%), the resurrection of Jesus Christ (65%, down from 70%), the survival of the soul after death (64%, down from 69%), the devil, hell (both at 58%, down from 62%) and the Virgin birth (57%, down from 60%), these are all down from previous Harris Polls. Belief in Darwin's theory of evolution, however, while well below levels recorded for belief in God, miracles and heaven, is up in comparison to 2005 findings (47%, up from 42%).
For what it's worth, Wikipedia says that roughly 2,200,000,000 people are Christians. Muslims are the second-largest group at about 1,600,000,000. Hindus are third, with somewhat more than one billion. Apparently Buddhists are difficult to count, but there are probably 350 to 550 million of them. Many Buddhists, particularly Americans, do not consider Buddhism a religion because it does not require belief in a god or any other superstition--although it also does not forbid it, and many American Buddhists are also Christians or Jews. This is probably one of the reasons they're so difficult to count. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! To complete the tally of the Abrahamic faiths, there are only about 13,000,000 Jews (still 3 million fewer than before the Holocaust), about 8,000,000 Baha'i, and probably not 100,000 Rastafarians.
