Religious Guidance in Daily Life

There's this standard survey question that asks folks how much religion guides their day-to-day lives. I came across it looking for something else one one number is striking in that it's not changed since 1980. You can see the graph here or just take my word for it, the percentage of people who say "a great deal" sticks quite close to 35 percent of U.S. adults from 1980 to 2008 (they haven't entered the 2012 survey data into these graphs yet but I've looked at the numbers and they're basically unchanged). A similar measure is the question asking how important a part of your life religion is. That, too, remains largely unchanged. The resilience of these numbers is fascinating.