The Pew Research Center logo. Photo: Pew Research Center.

JNS.org – Jews, Catholics, and Evangelical Christians are the most warmly regarded religious groups in America, while Muslims and Atheists are viewed the least favorably, a new survey by the Pew Research Center found.

The Pew survey asked respondents how they would rate religions on a thermometer scale from 0 to 100, with 0 being the coldest and 100 being the warmest. Jews scored the highest temperature rating of 63, followed by Catholics at 62 and Evangelicals at 61. Atheists and Muslims scored the lowest at 41 and 40, respectively.

When it came to attitudes among religious groups towards each other, the feelings between Jews and Evangelicals are not mutual. While Evangelical Christians view Jews with an average thermometer rating of 69, Jews only have a thermometer rating of 34 towards Evangelicals, which is even lower than the Jews’ thermometer rating of 35 towards Muslims.

Partisan politics also played a role in how people view religions, and Jews scored well on both sides of the aisle. Republicans gave a very high thermometer rating to Evangelical Christians, 71, to Jews, 67, and to Catholics, 66, while giving lowest ratings to Atheists, 34, and to Muslims, 33. Democrats rated Jews the highest at 62 and gave Mormons their lowest rating at 44.

The survey was conducted from May 30 to June 30 among 3,217 adults.