How The Different Religious Groups Are Viewed In The U.S.

I thought the charts above were interesting. They were made with information from a recent Pew Research Center survey taken between May 30th and June 30th of a random national sample of 3,217 American adults (with a 2.2 point margin of error). Respondents were asked to rate their feelings for the different groups (with 0 being totally negative and 100 being totally positive). The chart numbers above are the averages of those responses.

There weren't a lot of surprises. Jews, catholics, and evangelicals were rated pretty high by all groups. Democrats rated non-christian groups higher than Republicans did. And younger people rated non-christians higher than older people. Blacks rated muslims higher than Whites or Hispanics. Whites rated jews the highest, Hispanics rated catholics the highest, and Blacks rated evangelicals the highest.

But perhaps the biggest factor in how a group was viewed was whether a person knew anyone in that group. Those knowing someone in the group consistently rated the group higher than those who didn't. In other words, it's harder to demonize a group when you know someone in that group. Even the atheists got up to 50% for those who actually knew one or more of us.