According to a September 2003 Harris Interactive nationwide survey in America about how people view God, 48 percent thought of Him as a spirit that is able to take on human form; 27 percent as a spirit power that doesn't take on human form; 10 percent didn't believe in God at all and 9 percent thought of Him as a human being with a body (USA Today, Oct. 24, Atlantic edition).
According to a September 2003 Harris Interactive nationwide survey in America about how people view God, 48 percent thought of Him as a spirit that is able to take on human form; 27 percent as a spirit power that doesn't take on human form; 10 percent didn't believe in God at all and 9 percent thought of Him as a human being with a body ( USA Today , Oct. 24, Atlantic edition). Although Americans are 10 times as likely as Europeans to attend religious services on a regular basis, there is still no general consensus about His nature in the United States.
Across the Atlantic, the British are generally much less precise in the way they express their views. In Britain we hear and read about the term "devout skeptics" as people steadily turn away from organized religion in the thousands. The personal God of the Bible seems very far from their thinking.
And yet famous pollster George Gallup Jr. explains: "People are reaching out in all directions in their attempt to escape from the seen world to the unseen world. There is a deep desire for spiritual moorings—a hunger for God" ( U.S. News and World Report , special edition). This is true even of the secular world of Britain, Scandinavia and Europe—not only in America, which "has more churches, temples and mosques than any other country in the world."
But what does the Bible actually tell us about God? To find out, please be sure to request our free 72-page booklet Who Is God? (Sources: The Times [London], U.S. News and World Report , USA Today. )
