Shocking Survey Finds That Americans Find More Meaning In Life From “Money” Than They Do From “Faith”
by Michael Snyder
EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
November 20, 2018
What gives you a sense of meaning and purpose in life? That may seem like a very unusual question, but I believe that it is a very important one considering how deeply unhappy our society currently is. Everyone needs a reason to get out of bed in the morning, because there wouldn’t seem to be much point to living a life that was completely void of meaning and purpose. So what motivates most Americans to do what they do? Well, a new survey that was just released by the Pew Research Center has some rather startling results. When people were asked an open-ended question about what gives them a sense of purpose and meaning in life, 69 percent mentioned family, 34 percent mentioned career, 23 percent mentioned “money” and only 20 percent mentioned faith.
In other words, Americans find more meaning and purpose in life from money and from their careers than they do from faith.
Wow.
I have previously written about the stunning decline in church attendance in America, but I still would have figured that more than 20 percent of all Americans would mention faith when discussing what gives them a sense of meaning and purpose in life.
And the question was not limited to just one answer. If you will notice, the combined total for just the top four answers was well over 100 percent. So respondents could have actually chosen to mention as many factors as they would have liked.
But only 20 percent mentioned faith at any point during their answers.
As you can probably guess, conservatives were far more likely to mention faith than liberals were…
Spirituality and faith are commonly mentioned by very conservative Americans as imbuing their lives with meaning and fulfillment; 38% cite it in response to the open-ended question, compared with just 8% of very liberal Americans – a difference that holds even when controlling for religious affiliation.
That is a huge gap, and I think that it helps to explain some of the division that we are witnessing in our nation right now.
Of all of the religious groups, the survey found that evangelical Protestants were the most likely to mention faith in their answers…
Spirituality and religious faith are particularly meaningful for evangelical Protestants, 43% of whom mention religion-related topics in the open-ended question. Among members of the historically black Protestant tradition, 32% mention faith and spirituality, as do 18% of mainline Protestants and 16% of Catholics.
The Rest…HERE
