Despite the usual furor regard the theistic backwardness of Americans, I rather suspect (or maybe desperately hope) that real attitudes are not terribly dissimilar with these results.

I feel that it is likely that because of the self-interests of the politicians, churches, and the overly-excitable little-old-lady sector, it just hasn't been possible to design and perform a reasonably honest religious attitudes survey. Surveys here seem to be of the quick and dirty kind, and to feature questions with stock catch phrases that lead to an desired answer.

How can we go about getting a reasonably true evaluation of attitudes? So often, behaviors don't seem to mesh with the expressed beliefs. I sincerely hope that we aren't as hopelessly ignorant as we appear.