That question was asked of 350,000 persons over the age of 18 in all 50 states by researchers who conducted a four-part Gallup Poll daily tracking program in 2008. Three of the four topics in the program were party affiliation, consumer confidence and employer hiring/letting go. The fourth category was “Religion” which relates to this article’s title.

The 10 states whose citizens collectively answered “yes, religion is important in our daily life” were Mississippi, (with the highest answers in the affirmative at 85 percent), followed by Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Texas, descending in that order.

Ranking dead last Vermont, where only 42 percent of its’ citizens polled said “yes” to the question, leaving 58 percent on the “no” side. The other states that ranked at the bottom with Vermont were: Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. So, with the exception of four states, the entire New England region joined Vermont in recording the fewest number of persons who declared religion to be a part of their daily lives.

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In the pollsters’ final analysis of the combined figures, it was concluded that 65 percent of all Americans make religion an important part of their daily lives with at least 23 of the 50 states ranked in the 60 to 70 percent area in answer to the question as stated.

Vermont’s 58 per cent

If the Vermont percentage figures are correct, this means 58 percent of the state’s residents say they do not include religion in their daily lives. Looking at this figure superficially one might conclude that Vermonters are an atheistic bunch. Or at least agnostic. This explanation is too simple.

Does this suggest that all 58 percent are not spiritual or do not believe there is some sort of higher being who created the natural order of the world? Not entirely.

It would be a terrible mistake to assume the 58 percent are not, in any way, religious. However, the legend of the “true” Vermonter is that the worth of the individual is of utmost importance. He takes pride in being the “loner,” content to be about his own business, free of meddlesome neighbors and community. Content with his own company, shunning the communal requirements of an organized religion as the only way to accept the precept of a creator, this percentage figure does reflect, to some degree, the characteristic of the independence of thought (and industry) for which many Vermonters are known.

Robert G. Ingersoll, a famous orator and attorney general of Illinois, said of religion, “For the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of habits and mental customs. Our beliefs, like habits and the fashion of our garments, depend on where we were born. We are molded and fashioned by our surroundings.” As far back as 200 years, Vermont’s very remoteness offered an antidote to those who chose to settle in the state where a man could believe in a creator unencumbered by ritual and restriction.

Importance of “place”

In the mid 20th century “place” assumed an important aspect in the lives of people who migrated to Vermont. Hundreds of former urban and exurban dwellers came to the Green Mountain State seeking an agrarian approach to living. Beliefs became secondary to the search for a place of haven and peace away from the noise, competition and monetary facets of an industrial civilization.

This influx of new residents changed the overall demographic of the state.

It was brought about by a contingent of young persons fed up with the traditions and stifling mores of their elders. These young persons (known as “hippies”) sought to form their own communal societies and test their survival skills in the wilds of Vermont. Also, many students came to Vermont colleges and discovered their interest in an agrarian way of life. Instead of returning to their own homes in other parts of the country, they opted to stay in Vermont after graduation and establish homes, careers, and eventually enter into the politics of the state.

The burgeoning ski and tourist industries also brought persons to Vermont along with the scientists and engineers who came with the giant IBM plant in Essex Junction. They discovered they had the best of both worlds: good employment in the heart of an agrarian countryside.

In post World War II, the baby boomers (now approaching their 60s), fed up with the Vietnam War, looked for another way of life. They found Vermont to be a place where individuals could exist without criticism and the heavy hand of conformance, and without the bonds of a demanding society pressed upon them. They could be “spiritual” in their own way, to acknowledge a creator without the confines of a set pattern of worship. Vermont was where one could practice one’s own individuality, unfettered, unchallenged.

Living “the Good Life”

Other influences contributed to the demographic makeup of Vermont in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. As proponents of a back-to-the-land philosophy, homesteaders Scott and Helen Nearing were influential in persuading others to leave the city for the comfort of the country life as described in their book, “Living the Good Life.”

Scott Nearing, rejected by his societal peers for his anti-military stance during World War I and later his communist sympathies, in turn rejected his critics and, together with his wife, Helen, moved first to Vermont and then to Maine.

Finally, in a more recent time, the Roman Catholic Church’s problems with many of its priests may have turned more than a few Catholics away from the church. Being part of a religion that demanded the loyalty and respect of its members but not of its leaders, both lay and clergy, did not sit well with many of its churchgoers.

The Vermonter of the 58 percent gleaned in the Gallup Poll has chosen to make sense of life in his own way, at his own pace. No doubt he is as sincere as any other Vermonter practicing “religious” rites in the confines of a church building. He may prefer an open, unrestrained acknowledgement of a creator or simply find solace alone among Vermont’s hills and pastures and woods and lakes.

Margery Sharp is a freelance writer. She lives in Hinesburg.