Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County

How Many UUs Believe in God

Several places on our web site tell you that just under half of us believe in a supreme being. Exactly how many is hard to tell. In 1997 the UU World, our national magazine, took a lengthy survey of its readers. Nearly 10,000 people responded. One question asked people to describe their "theological perspective". The responses:

• Humanist: 46.1%
• Earth/Nature centered: 19.0%
• Other: 13.3%
• Theist: 13.0%
• Christian: 9.5%
• Mystic: 6.2%
• Buddhist: 3.6%
• Jewish: 1.3%
• Hindu: 0.4%
• Muslim: 0.1%

You will notice several things. First, "Atheist", "Agnostic" and "Deist" were not options. Most UU congregations have some. Second, the numbers add up to 112.5%. Some people checked more than one box.

We're the church of choice when a Christian marries a Jew, or a Hindu marries a Muslim, or, indeed, for any religiously mixed marriage, when neither spouse wants to convert and they want to attend the same services. That is part of the reason you see those Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim responses.

If you count the Earth/Nature, Theist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim responders as firm believers in a supreme being (or beings), and add half of those who responded "other", you get 49.95%, which is just under half. If, on the other hand, you count just Theist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim, leaving out the Earth/Nature folks and assuming no one who checked "Other" believes in a supreme being, you get 24.3%. Our web master used the generous estimate.

[Results above from the UUA, with permission.]

If you came to this page directly from a search engine, your BACK button isn't going to help you explore our site. You may want to start with our Beliefs page.

Some handy definitions:

Humanists believe humans are basically good. (ie, no original sin.) Most describe themselves as "Secular Humanists", but if you look long enough you can find a Humanist who believes in God.

Atheists believe God does not exist.

Agnostics believe the question of God's existence is too complex for humans to understand.

Deists believe God created the universe, but does not watch over the earth.

Theists believe God created the universe, and does watch over the earth.

[People who describe themselves as Deists or Theists rarely believe the Jewish, Christian or Muslim prophets were really prophets.]