According to a recent Pew survey, 21 percent of atheists in the United States believe in “God or a universal spirit,” and 8 percent are “absolutely certain” that such a Being exists. Sam Harris, author of Letter to a Christian Nation and The End of Faith, wonders if they were also “absolutely certain” they understood the meaning of the term “atheist.”

Since that really didn’t make any sense, he recently conducted a much more detailed poll of atheists and devout Christians through his website. Some of the results were as expected, others were a bit shocking. The results can be viewed via the links below. “For each statement the number of respondents averaged around 5000, 80-90% of whom were atheists. The numbers of Christian responses ranged from 254-787.”

Personal Data and Attitudes towards Science, Journalism, Politics, etc.

Psychological Beliefs

Religious Beliefs

Some of the finds include:

The links above show MANY MANY more results. The volume of charts showing the differing view is a lot to scroll through. However, it does provide insight into the difference of belief among those who completed the survey and is definetly worth checking out.