National Prayer Day – Not So Much Any More

by | May 7, 2015 | National Prayer Day, Uncategorized

nationaldayofprayer (1)On National Prayer Day, Many Americans Won’t Say One

More Americans have been saying that they never pray.

A group of young adults praying is pictured.

About 25 percent of Americans say they pray multiple times each day but now almost 13% – more than ever before- say they never pray.

By  US News and World Report, 
The first National Day of Prayer was proclaimed by President Harry S. Truman in 1952 as a means of differentiating the U.S. from the Soviet Union.

The official day, designated as such on a yearly basis by the president, likely isn’t going anywhere soon: Only 5 percent of Americans oppose it, according to a 2010 USA Today/Gallup poll.

However, more Americans this century have been saying that they never pray, according to figures from theAssociation of Religion Data Archives.

A graphic showing the percent of Americans who say they never pray.

And while the Pew Research Center predicts that people who aren’t affiliated with a religion will decline as a portion of the world population in coming decades, researchers say atheists, agnostics and the like will continue to grow as a share of the population in countries like the U.S. and France.

Even still, the majority of the U.S. population in 2010 said that they pray at least some, with about 1 in 4 Americans saying they pray several times per day.

A graphic showing the percent of Americans who say they never pray in different frequencies.
 Seeing the state of our union today, perhaps a little more prayer wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It appears that more people prayed in better, happier times.