Certain Atheists: still looking for pot of goldA newly released survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reveals all kinds of things we already knew—lots of American are religious, Pentecostalism is on the rise, faith and politics are closely linked—and a few fairly shocking revelations.  For instance, 21% of people who identify themselves as atheists believe in God. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Moving on, 12% of atheists believe in heaven and 10% believe in hell, which leads me to wonder what exactly that even means? Why would you call yourself an atheist if you believe in God, heaven, and hell? Is this some bizarre way of covering bases? I don’t believe in God, but I kind of do? I only believe in God on Tuesdays, Fridays and alternate Mondays?  They're asking a lot of these same questions over at Hot Air, where they notice 10% of atheists pray once a week.

If I’m doing my math correctly, that’s about 120 atheists who said they believe in God (35,556 respondents, 1.6% identified as atheists, 21% of those believe in God). There’s a word for people who opt out of religion but still feel connected to some kind of spirituality: agnostic. (More than 850 respondents identified as agnostic.)  This atheism confusion is almost as upsetting as the revelation that one in five Christians speaks or prays in tongues from time to time. Holy shit. Or should I say Baholloy Gutoirily Falswatahlisa?

Spin The Wheel: and see what you get!According to a recent survey of over 35,000 Americans, more than a quarter of adults in the United States "have left the faith of their childhood to join another religion or no religion." Not only that, but if you count shifts from one Protestant denomination to another, a whopping 44 percent of Americans have flip-flopped on religion. It seems that the grass is always greener, even when it comes to God. Conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the survey revealed that Americans are very likely to leave the faith in which they were brought up, and that "the group with the greatest net gain was the unaffiliated."

The Catholic Church is experiencing the greatest net losses: While one in three Americans was raised in a Catholic home, less than one in four describes him or herself as Catholic. These losses would have been even greater if not for the influx of immigration from Catholic countries in Latin and South America.

The group experiencing the greatest growth in numbers included Americans who have no religious affiliations: Now 16.1% of the population. Interestingly, only one-quarter of those in this group describe themselves as atheist or agnostic: The majority of the unaffiliated population simply describe their religion as "nothing in particular."

Other survey highlights:

• Nearly half of Hindus in the U.S., one-third of Jews and a quarter of Buddhists have obtained post-graduate education, compared with only about one in ten members of the adult population overall. Hindus and Jews are also much more likely than other groups to report high income levels.

• Men are significantly more likely than women to claim no religious affiliation. Nearly one in five men say they have no formal religious affiliation, compared with roughly 13% of women.

• Among people who are married, nearly four in ten (37%) are married to a spouse with a different religious affiliation. (This figure includes Protestants who are married to another Protestant from a different denominational family, such as a Baptist who is married to a Methodist.) Hindus and Mormons are the most likely to be married (78% and 71%, respectively) and to be married to someone of the same religion (90% and 83%, respectively).

• Of all the major racial and ethnic groups in the United States, black Americans are the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation. Even among those blacks who are unaffiliated, three in four belong to the "religious unaffiliated" category (that is, they say that religion is either somewhat or very important in their lives), compared with slightly more than one-third of the unaffiliated population overall.

Check out the rest of the results at the Pew Forum website.

Mechon Hadar and the S3K Synagogue Studies Institute are sponsoring a survey to find out more about the participants, members, partners, and "acquaintances" of indie minyanim and other new alternative Jewish spiritual communities around the country. The end results of this work will be a portrait of the interests, values, and concerns of not only your local community, but indeed of a critical innovative turn in American Judaism. Steven M. Cohen, a prominent sociologist, will be analyzing the data from the survey. It’s a painless and relatively quick way to help indie minyans and other alternative Jewish communities find out who they really are, and who they can be. Head over to http://www.communitysurvey.info to complete the survey. Your answers are confidential.
Indie Minyans: Rock the Shacharit
If you have any questions, please write to Kehilat Hadar at info[at]mechonhadar[dot]org or directly to Steven M. Cohen at
smcjewishresearch[at]gmail[dot]com.

Our third Faithhacker Survey comes to us from Jewcy reader "Sara", who describes herself like this… I was raised in an ultra-reform (my Dad let me stop going to hebrew school when I was ten so I could do community theatre). I considered myself a conservative Jew in college, and now I'm married to a man who was raised Baptist and live in a far-flung suburb of Atlanta.

Do you believe in "G-d?" If so, what does that word mean?

Yes. I find myself frequently referring to G-d as a male, but I like
the idea of the Shekinah. While I'm not sure what the face of G-d is,
I do believe that Christians and Jews look to the same G-d... even if
we don't agree on the Messiah. I'm not sure if G-d has a hand in our
every day lives, but there is no doubt in my mind that there is a Book
of Life and that the length of our days is in His/Her hands.

Does this question make you feel uncomfortable at all, and if so, can you explain those feelings a bit?

No. I wish that I could explain my feelings better, though. I do get
defensive when people question my faith because they know that I'm not
"affiliated" and because I'm intermarried. I always think that my
answers aren't good enough, that I'm some sort of fraud.

Do you believe in an afterlife of any kind? If so, can you tell us
something about it?

Hmm. Yes, I believe in Heaven, and there are people who I truly
believe are going to be spending time in some sort of Hell (or, at
least I hope so.) I don't think of Heaven as a place, per se, but
rather the way our souls live on. My Grandma is deceased, but I know
that I hear her sometimes (like when I was in Santa Fe last year for
the first time.. but it had been one of her favorite places to visit
and I was sure that she was with me) and, like the scene in "Fiddler
On The Roof", she appears in my dreams along with other relatives. I
also think that I believe in "previous lives". I'm honestly not sure
what the Judaism has to say about that.

Do you pray? If so… How? When? Why? Try to be as specific as you can… bearing in mind that prayer means many things to many people.

I pray all the time. Usually it is a very informal, "G-d, please...." I do always pray in the morning in the shower... but it isn't the formal Morning Blessing. I try to remember to give thanks before I go to bed, but I admit that I don't always remember. It is important to me to have a relationship with G-d. I don't believe that you have to be in a synogogue to pray. G-d knows my intentions and that is all that is important.I do go to synogogue for Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur. It is one of the few times that I believe in the power of communal prayer. My faith in the Jewish people as a community is always renewed when I go to temple. I should probably go more often. I pray for a multitude of reasons: for peace, for the well-being of my loved ones and for complete strangers, for my students, for strength in the face of adversity, for forgiveness. Even when I feel most disconnected from the Jewish community, prayer reminds me of who I am and what I believe.

Can you tell us something about how prayer makes you feel? Is there an
effect on you?

It reminds me that I am part of a bigger story. That I am one woman in
a long and proud line of Jewish women who prayed before me. It calms
me and (usually) restores my faith in the power of G-d. When I am in
temple praying the guilt that I frequently feel for NOT spending more
time on my faith is lifted. Especially Yom Kippur right after 9-11 and
Katrina. I cried during Kol Nidre because the words lifting up to G-d
were the same beautiful prayers said every year, but those moments
reminded me why we actually say and believe them.

Have you ever had an experience you'd call "spiritual" or "mystical"?

When I moved to Chicago after college, I thought that it would be a good time to join a temple. I was visiting different temples to see which one felt right and one Friday night I walked into temple and the Torah reading was about Sara laughing at G-d. I knew it was a sign.

My time in

Do you think that belief in G-d and prayer are important parts of being Jewish?

Yes. I don't think it matters how or where you pray, but I do think
that it is essential to connecting with your faith.

Are these questions important to you? Do they bug you?

They don't bug me at all and I think that they are important. One of
the great things, I think, about the Jewish faith is that it allows
and encourages us to question our relationship with G-d.

Thanks so much for playing, Sara!

Our second responder to the Faithhacker survey is Joel Schwartzberg.  He's a father, webbie, producer, writer, comic, and editor, and he does all these cool things! 

What do you think, folks?  Does Joel represent a brand of Judaism that sound like your own?

**

Do you believe in "G-d?"  If so, what does that word mean?

I interpret and define God as "goodness". That is, that which leads us to have a positive influence on our own lives and that of other people. It's the opposite of evil. Something inclines most of us toward Good and against Evil. It's this idea of "Good" that I define as "God", not as an actual supernatural individual being. I recognize this as a version of "cafeteria Judiasm", but I still identify myself as a cultural Jew, even if not so much as a religious one.

The bible is full of stories about people that demonstrate and inspire goodness. These are the parts I most admire and feel I can learn from. Mitzvahs, more so than miracles.

Does this question make you feel uncomfortable at all, and if so, can you
explain those feelings a bit?

It makes me self-conscious to the extent that people and family members I love and respect might not consider me not Jewish anymore as a result, or not a respectful Jew, as I was raised. That they might judge me poorly as a result.

Do you believe in an afterlife of any kind?   If so, can you tell us
something about it?

I'd like to, but I do not.

Do you pray?  If so… How?  When? Why?  Try to be as specific as you can…
bearing in mind that prayer means many things to many people.

No. But if my family was in trouble, I'd whisper a prayer that would just ask that our fate be pointed in the healthiest direciton, and that I'd recognize the best decisions.

Can you tell us something about how prayer makes you feel?  Is there an
effect on you?

Probably not applicable. I prayed as a kid at Temple, and it made me feel part of a community, but not much else.

Have you ever had an experience you'd call "spiritual" or "mystical"?

Not really, though I once had a dream that could be interpreted as an out-of-body experience. And moments of deja vu or random irony stymie me

Do you think that belief in G-d and prayer are important parts of being
Jewish?

Religiously Jewish, yes. Culturally Jewish, no.

Are these questions important to you?  Do they bug you?

They are important to the extent I recognize that I'm not a religious hypocrite, that I've defined my own version of Judiasm, one that I'm comfrotable with. The more I think about it, the clearer it becomes in my mind, so the more at peace I am with my self-identification as a Jew and connection to Jewish heritage.

Not asked, but FYI: I feel no connection to Zionism. I feel little connection to Israel. I have no desire whatsoever to travel to Israel any more than anywhere else interesting. And I detest fundementalist religion whether it be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or whatever.

Last week, Faithhacker asked some friends and aquaintences to take this survey. She also posted a call on the blog, asking readers if they'd be interested in participating. Now, responses are starting to come in, and they vary as wildly as expected.

I'm planning to post one a day for a week or two (unedited of course) ... though of course, if there's big news in Godland, any major miracles, I'll bump these surveys to get the word out (like, if the messiah arrives, fighting ceases in the middle east, or Christmas sales are banned in favor of good works and Christian charity).

Here, from Adam, a Jewcy reader living in Jerusalem, comes the first survey, a Jewish view of God and faith. What do you think? How does this reflect your own sense of faith/religion/Jewish identity?

Do you believe in "G-d?" If so, what does that word mean?

I do believe in God. The meaning of the word is a useless point. It's an English word that we generically apply to any deity of any religion, simply capitalizing the first letter when we are speaking about our God. I think perhaps you meant what the concept means.

I have had a lot of different beliefs about God over time. Many of them were quite poetic, though I'm certain I never actually believed any of them. In their stead and in the stead of any actual thoughts about whom and what God is, I'll say this: God is whatever we make God. To me God is. To some other people God is not. To still others God comes and goes. To a person with a developed theology, God is a developed concept. To a person who believes that God's chief attribute is the power to creator, God is The Creator. You see where I'm going with this.

Does this question make you feel uncomfortable at all, and if so, can you
explain those feelings a bit?

The question troubles me, but it does not make me uncomfortable. I am troubled only because I hate not having a solid answer for a religious question and this question is of course the religious question.

Do you believe in an afterlife of any kind? If so, can you tell us
something about it?

No. No afterlife, no resurrection. When you die, you are dead. There is not eternal soul, no means of living beyond your years. People ask me if I think this is rather depressing. Perhaps, but it gives everything I do during my time on Earth infinitely added significance.

Do you pray? If so… How? When? Why? Try to be as specific as you can…
bearing in mind that prayer means many things to many people.

I pray whenever my community does. At home, my Temple has three services a week and I regularly attend all of them. Here in Israel, the folks on my program tend to organize a service every day to every other day and I pray at those times.

It is part of my Jewish target to eventually pray three times a day. At this point in my life, I have neither the time nor the patience for that. Some day I hope to, and then I'll pray three times a day.

I really cannot say why I pray. I do not know the answer. I can say that I enjoy it. I can say that I think I am getting something out of it. Beyond that, I do not know.

I only pray from Reform or Progressive sidurim, mostly Mishkan T'filah and Ha'avodah Shebalev. I'll also pray from a weird indie sidur if there is one around.

Can you tell us something about how prayer makes you feel? Is there an
effect on you?

Prayer calms me. Unless it is badly led or the liturgy is hokey (Gates of Prayer, anyone?), in which case it does not calm me and instead it just pisses me off. Prayer, like all rituals, is to me secondary. I chose to do rituals only when they enhance my ability to carry out ethical commandments. Prayer happens to be one ritual that I think may be helping me with my ethics.

If you don't pray regularly, have you ever prayed before as an adult?

I'm seventeen years old, so… you know… no.

Have you ever had an experience you'd call "spiritual" or "mystical"?
No. In fact, I have a near-unbridled hatred for mysticism and spirituality. I dislike intangibles and things which no one who believes therein can seem to explain.

I once had a moving experience at Kutz, in the main prayer space there, which has no walls and juts out onto a picturesque lake. I picture it at the end of the Amidah every time I do it to try and get back there.

Do you think that belief in G-d and prayer are important parts of being
Jewish?

Yes. To deny God or not pray or to depart from the tradition in some way on these subjects requires an authentically Jewish reason. One cannot simply proclaim that one is bored by prayer and then cease to do it. One must explain that in one's boredom one is afraid that one is not giving it one's all or some such thing. Therefore, even if you don't pray and even if you don't believe in God, you must give the topics thought and have opinions on them. The Reform Jew cannot say, "I don't pray because I'm Reform and we can do whatever the hell we want." The Reform Jew can say "I don't pray because I am unmoved by prayer and it doesn't help me."

My point is, even if you don't pray and even if you don't believe in God, you must know why that is. Prayer and God are not ignorable subjects for our people.

Are these questions important to you? Do they bug you?

Yes, they are important. No, they do not bug me.