Many Americans don't believe in organized religion. But they believe in a "higher power," poll finds
CBSN
A third of Americans say they are "spiritual" but not religious, according to a poll released Thursday by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago.
As the number of adults who belong to a church, synagogue or mosque has dropped — in 2021, membership fell below half for the first time in eight decades — another form of religiosity has emerged: spirituality. And there are many different forms spirituality can take.
"If 'religion' for many has become a toxic brand, 'spirituality' has become the term to describe all those good things one wants to retain from religion: a sense of the transcendent, first and foremost, but more generally a vocabulary to talk about what one experiences in love, in art, in nature, in meditation or introspection. The need for these things hasn't gone away," Matthew Hedstrom, an associate professor in religion at the University of Virginia, told CBS News.
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