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http://www.metrotimes.com/culture/story.asp?id=13588#comments
ARONSON: If you look at surveys done by the Gallup Organization, for example, you get that 92 percent of the people believe in God, 5 percent say they don't and 3 percent aren't sure. But I recently wrote an opinion piece for USA Today where I contended that nonbelievers are really a much larger share of the population.
In reality, and other polls show this, one-quarter to one-third of Americans are not religious. I'll give you a mind-boggling statistic that nobody has mentioned but me. In a massive Pew Poll, when people were asked, "Where do you primarily get your morality from" — and they are given a list of areas that includes religion, daily life experience, reasoning, philosophy, science to chose from — only 29 percent of Americans overall say they get their morality from religion. Only 29 percent! That's astounding. What it means is that more than two-thirds of Americans have a secular morality.
Now, if you are talking with friends and you say, "I don't believe in God," what's the first issue that comes up constantly? They ask, "How can you be sure you are moral without God?" ( Or "what made you "fall out" with God ") It's a constant theme. I get that from my students all the time. Well, it turns out that most Americans don't get their morality from religion, and to me what that's saying is that most Americans are really secular despite the fact that some among us go to church, believe in God. I find that absolutely fascinating, because when people talk about the 92 percent who say they believe in God, I want to say, "Come on. What percent really say they are guided by God?"
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