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In America, 46% of People Hold a Creationist View of Human Origins
An anonymous reader writes "The latest Gallup poll is out, and it finds that 46% of Americans hold the view that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years. According to Gallup, the percentage who hold this view has remained unchanged since 1982, when they first started asking the question. Roughly 33% of Americans believe in divinely guided evolution, and 15% believe that humans evolved without any supernatural help."
Thereâ(TM)s a big difference between what people tell pollsters because they think thatâ(TM)s what they *should* say, verses what they actually do or believe. For example most people say they go to church on a regular basis, yet other polls say church attendance is down, and the truth is that most people sleep in on Sunday. Most Americans say they are Christians because they think itâ(TM)s the âoerightâ thing to say, but most probably canâ(TM)t accurately quote a single significant paragraph of the Bible, new or old, nor articulate any significant bible theory. The truth is that most people are basically agnostic.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
you need to shut-up and quit mocking them. The idea of a divine creator is no sillier than the idea of creation from nothing.
Who actually answers these polls?
I bet even in 1982 it was mostly old people.
in other words, 46% of americans are dumb
It doesn't have to be either "take the Bible literally" or "science and evolution".
Some are perfectly fine with believing the science and the process of evolution, but also see religion as a framework of stories. Someone once said, "The Bible says what God did; science explains how He did it."
What if you believe in evolution as a divine creation?
2000+ commented article coming right up.
is this a story on Slashdot?
46% of americans are dumb sheep..
How does "divinely guided" work?
"Let's see, longer legs, smoother teeth, less fur,....um....fuckit man, let's go Vegas-style tonight: Be There a Random Mutation!"
Table-ized A.I.
So, roughly 79% of Americans believe in some form of a divine entity, yet we have to sanitize all public places from anything remotely religious so as to appease the ~21% that either don't believe or haven't decided?
Sounds about right.
My belief is that Human where created by advanced extraterrestrials, when I look at our progress as a species over past 50 years, I think that as long as we dont kill ourselves in the 50 years we should be at a place where we can create new humans from scratch, or from genetic modification. I believe us humans on earth where created by such a seeding operation, either as an experiment or a pay it forward or just that as a seeding exercise. So my creationism is based entirely on the notion that science and technology created us.
And people still wonder why this country is in such a mess....
...be so wrong?
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
A devoted Recursionist, I see
Table-ized A.I.
Not necessarily. I don't think Netanyahu, Hitler, the Pope, Negroes, Presbyterians, Gays, or Albanians are/were dumb either, in an intelligence sense.
They may be ignorant or have a lower rate in tests due to social reasons, but that is not necessarily the same as dumb, as in low intelligence. Uneducated may be cause. BTW, the Pope and Netanyahu are not uneducated, so, they must be stupid, or dumb as you put it.
Can you change America for United States in the title? As a canadian and a resident of the continent named America, I don't want to have anything to do with this bunch of retarded idiots.
Thanks
is bumming me out... I mean, really? Only 15%? Come on people!
Where's my spaceship.
I'm ashamed to be an American when polls like this are being discussed. Belief in angels is another one that really gets me... George Carlin covered this one at length.
You'd think this is actually just the ignorance of 'Dumb Americans.' That isn't so. The reason is evolution is a deal breaker due to the structure of the Christian religion.
Kalinka told me the following.
It doesn't have anything to say about the existence or non-existence of any gods. It is a problem with the way the Mythos of Christianity works in particular.
The Mythos of Christianity absolutely depends on a a literal understanding of Genesis. In Judaism, Genesis can be metaphor, it changes nothing. But the Sacrifice of Jesus is contingent on an event called the fall of man, where Eve and Adam ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge, angering Yahweh (God) and damning all Humans to Hell save for a few Jewish Prophets and anyone who accepts Jesus as the Savior.
The fall of man is considered the *Primary Sin* which sends us to Hell. (The main Reason.)
If The Book of Genesis is metaphorical, then Jesus died for nothing because no fall of man ever occurred for Yahweh to have a reason to send us to Hell to begin with. Ergo, Christianity is collapses because Saint Paul was a liar.
This is why Christians have a problem with Evolution and Jews do not.
The real reason that this doctrine that Paul created was put into place was to exclude the Jews from Salvation.
He didn't for see the evolution problem. That came along later.
If the Garden of Eden never happened, the fall never happened. then there would be no need for the death of Jesus Christ. Which means that Christianity was wrong all along. Biological evolution collapses a core foundation of Christianity.
Get busy right now! First step, get out of the basement. Second step, take a shower. Third step, get intoxicated in a bar. From there, viable opportunities for procreation will be viable and numerous. Go forth young fellow, spread your seed!
They are living embodiments of social Darwinism, just don't tell them that!
If they ask "Do human beings share a common ancestor with present day apes?" a lot more people say would say yes.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
First, I'm an American, as I live in America continent, but I have nothing to do with U.S.A.
The pool, as I read, was conducted in U.S. So, they dumb people here are the United Statians, and not Americans.
Please, do not mess with Mexicans, Brazilians, Canadians and all others that have nothing to do with this pool.
In related news, 46% of Americans believe themselves "above average".
Gallup and a few others have consistently gotten numbers between 40-48% for this data, but for reasons I don't fully understand, CBS polls on the same issue get slightly higher results. They get routinely in the 50-55% range http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500160_162-965223.html. I'm not sure why this discrepancy exists, but it isn't a single yearly issue and it doesn't seem to be connected to how the questions are phrased, which suggests there's some more subtle issue going on.
The data for both this years Gallup poll and previous years does show some fairly predictable patterns. For example, by most of the previous polls, around 60% of Republicans are Young Earth Creationists while a little under 40% of Democrats are Young Earth Creationists. http://www.gallup.com/poll/108226/Republicans-Democrats-Differ-Creationism.aspx. This should not however be taken as general evidence that Republicans or conservatives are dumb or uneducated. The GSS as part of their regular survey does a set about general science knowledge, and that data suggests that when not asking questions about evolution or age of the Earth, progressives and conservatives look very similar, and there's some evidence that the people with the least science knowledge are self-identified moderates http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/03/the-republican-fluency-with-science/ although exactly what is going on is not clear. http://religionsetspolitics.blogspot.com/2011/04/political-affiliation-and-scientific.html. This is part of a general trend which suggests that moderates in the US are often not very well informed.
Also, while Gallup says that the fraction of people who reject evolution has stayed roughly constant, there's a potentially more interesting trend in the data, over the last 30 years there's been a steady increase in people who say that evolution occurred with God taking no part in the process. http://www.gallup.com/poll/108226/Republicans-Democrats-Differ-Creationism.aspx. Most of that is movement not from the strict creationists but from a reduction in the size of the group that thinks that evolution happened with God guiding it. This may reflect the general decline of the moderately religious, especially so called "mainline Protestants" or it may be due to other effects such as general increases in partisanship.
Slightly less than half the population has below average intelligence.
More telling, religions don't deal with formal proofs and require that you show your work.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
No, it means the +/- 4% poll error is grossly understated. Look, we all know that the selection methodology used to generate the sample size leads to that sort of minimum percentage error. What people don't talk about is what the OP is - the difference between:
a) what people say they do and what they actually do.
b) whether people answer with the dogma of their faith vs. what they actually believe.
Throw in things such as:
a) weak wording in the questions conflating or confusing two ideas: "God created human beings pretty much in their present form within the last 1,000 years or so" or "most closely represents your beliefs".
b) problems with interviewees not understanding the question or not giving a shit
c) inability in the survey to record whether the interviewee has been educated in evolution or basic science classes, let alone not failing them
d) strange slant towards Christianity
And there is no where near a 95% confidence the margin of error is 4% or less.
But the hokey bullshit talking about the results of the survey will continue and well end up with another 2000+ post thread with 90% "LOL, thems are idiots" comments, just like what happened earlier in the week.
As an American, I prefer to ignore your statistic for so many of us being creationists, and I am not interested in your so-called evidence that the figure is correct. The number just feels wrong, therefore it must be a lie. My gut tells me there aren't nearly that many creationists around here, because neither I nor the people I know, are anything like that!
Furthermore, I don't understand how many people could be creationists, so that's another argument that not nearly many of them could be.
Finally, your poll is biased and invalid, because .. because .. I want it to be.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Ad Populum, or the fallacy of appealing to popularity.
What X number of people believe in no way affects whether or not God exists / created mankind / etc..
wrote that summary? Whenever there are statistics, you really must say how many people were polled. Otherwise it's completely meaningless. And yes, it belongs to the fucking summary! Jesus!
... how many Slashdotters really believe Gallup polls?
Or do they believe Gallup polls because it just reinforces the prevailing Slashdot prejudices?
I guess the most interesting thing about this is that America isn't slowly going insane, as one might think. The religious nuts have just gotten louder and more obnoxious in the last several years, making it seem like they're taking over. Doesn't exactly fill me with confidence, but at least my perception that people are abandoning reason left and right in this country is incorrect. That's a good sign. I guess...
I've watched debates on this topic for almost two decades and they never seem to go anywhere. People who believe in supernatural entities tend to justify their beliefs through less logical arguments, and people who do not believe in them have logical reasons to support their view; ergo there's no satisfactory middle ground - there's no common language between believers and non-believers.
This is a case of a belief that'll die with their adherents, as new generations seem to hold less superstitious world-views than their parents. Hallelujah to that.
I can't believe there are 16% of people who do not believe that our evolutionary progress is not guided by His Noodly Appendage. How else can you explain midgets?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Rome is burning.
I refuse to believe 46% Americans hold the view that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years. A small fraction might, but not 46% no way.
The pastor has always said that the beginning of the bible is to be interpreted as an allegory. Consider the times it was written, with limited scientific understanding. Back then when people didn't understand something, they attached a supreme being to the idea (Thor or Zeus created lightening and thunder when they were mad) and explained it that way. The Universe may have been created in 7 days, but are those 7 days the same as our current understanding of 7 days. Seven days may equal 14 billion years in "supreme being" time. The same type of number distortions have been cited throughout history. Xerses didn't have a million-man army when he invaded Greece, it was more like 200,000. But back then 1 million was like saying a "gazillion."
Fast forward to today, and we understand larger numbers better, along with Math and Science. Therefore I'd argue that if the Bible was created today, it would have a more accurate depiction of events because we understand the Universe better, along with any potential beings out there. I like to look at it as the Bible did the best it could at the time. We know some of the stories to be true, we know others to be distorted due to the limited view of the original writers.
sudo make me a sandwich
...and thanks for playing.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Honestly, the Mythbusters need to do as an episode and end this "debate" once and for all.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
46% is a lot of stoopid (sp intended) people.
Based on my personal experience. That number seems about right.
Dumb is "in" in the US nowadays . . .
-- Mean People Suck
Dumb X insane X clever X Psycho still = dumb : )
Makes my lips itch to even think about it.
Then you don't believe humans were created IN THEIR PRESENT FORM WITHIN THE LAST 10,000 YEARS. You only believe the very first part, humans were created and therefore SHOULD answer no on the poll.
If the op jumped to conclusions as such, how many people on this survey did the same either not wanting to be bothered, not understanding or not giving a single shit?
TLDRTP - Too Long Didn't Read The POLL
It's with stupid shit like "USA = Americans" that we end up with "America = Americans".
Canadians are not Americans yet they live in America.
There's no way 46% of Canadians are stupid, that's a USA thing.
That people who assume the opinions of ~1,000 Americans, who fall within a particular demographic dependent on the intended outcome of the pollster, somehow magically represents the entire population of around 360,000,000, are fucking imbeciles.
Period. End of discussion.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
If only 100% people believed the truth that we share a common ancestor with a certain species of primate, then we'd all be on IPv6 and have cold fusion generators eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels!
The argument from superior intelligence doesn't hold water either. Newton was one of the most intelligent men who ever lived but he had some strange ideas, arising from the application of a very high IQ to false premises. As per his own quote, we are standing on the shoulders of giants, and so despite our inferiority, we can see further than they can.
Incidentally, as a good laugh, Wikipedia references Prime Mover as primum movens. The author of the article doesn't seemingly know that Aristotle wrote Greek, not Latin.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Sorry, I *think* I've met a few folks who think that way... but not 95+% of the folks I've met in my life, and that includes living around the country, east coast, midwest, and Texas.
I just do not believe those results.
Like to see the form of the question, and whether there was a bias in the way they were phrased.
mark
I am soo glad to know that ignorance and stupidity is a constant in the US - look at the up side - it least there is no growth factor.
I saw this on a different article quite some time ago and clipped it. The link to the article doesn't work any more so author "unknown"
Why, if Christianity is for fools and idiots and the Bible is a compendium of myths and fairy stories, are the atheists here so acrimonious and malevolent in their condemnation simply because Christians don't share their "superior enlightenment"? Christians are indeed saddened by the fact that not everyone has accepted the gift of Faith but they do not wish them any ill-will nor mock or insult them nor seek to persecute them on account of this. Rather they pray for their conversion for their benefit and for the glory of God and not for Christians to be able to gloat or feel self-satisfied.
From the article in the above /. story, 78% believe God had a hand in human development. 15% believe no "God" had a role in where we are today... We have a lot of people calling others stupid for what they believe... who is ridiculing who.
Lets all play nice, shall we?
if (it != oneThing) it = another;
In the early eighties, less than 20% of the college students in the USA (not America) could point where their home state was in a map.
So, let's make the survey again. In America (the continent) how many people are creationists?
Its divine creators all the way down!
Word game?
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
-- George Carlin, US comedian and actor (1937 - 2008)
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
WHO CARES?!
Believe what you want, just don't tell others what to believe. If believing in the spaghetti monster makes you a good neighbor, great!
That's the same percentage of people in the US who are complete fucking morons! Weird...
It often does not make sense to talk/think about USA as one country...
Ask this in Seattle or Minneapolis. And then try again in the countryside of Texas.
For how many states in USA is the figure 40-50% ?
What is the percentage of americans living in states where the figure is 40-50% ?
I do find it funny that people can be so radically against the idea of a 'divine guidance' in relation to evolution and creation of the universe. You can't really 'disprove' it... can you? Does it make me unrational to be skeptical of the idea of a bunch of random particles coming together in perfect order to create everything we experience? Doesn't the statistical odds lead a logical person to assume that there is something going on that is beyond our comprehension?
That is why the bible says 'without beginning and without end' because where there is no time there is no beginning or end.
Seriously? Has slashdot finally succumbed to "old man" disease, and can't resist rehashing the same old boring "news"?
We have the beginning of a face-eating (zombie) up-rising, the incipient demise of the euro, and a daily barrage of advances in science, medicine, and technology -- and all slashdot can come up with is that a whole bunch of Americans are weird? The fact is that the US is economically, culturally, and militarily the world's superpower. When you're not only #1, but #1 over the next two or three *combined*, only a fool would sneer at your "stupidity". For all anyone knows, the qualities that make the US insanely great require "irrational" optimism and exhuberance.
So, how about them zombies?
Meanwhile Monkey Boy scratches his head and lopes off back into the jungle...
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
It cannot explain how human culture developed. There is no biological reason to create culture, art, or anything in excess of purely surviving. If you found an ape that drew pictures, how does it drawing picture fit into evolution's idea of survival of the fittest? I see alot more evidence of creationism than evolution. I see more people that spout off on evolution are believing it more by blind faith than I see of Christians do creationism.
from a country where idiots seem to have the biggest yaps.
I just had to get in on this epic comment thread... Polls almost always rely on relatively small samples from certain areas.. 100,000 , 1,000,000, even 10,000,000 individuals in a poll cannot speak for 300,000,000... show me a poll where I actually got to put my 2 cents in and I'll believe it.. Point being, Why has Gallop never asked me about this stuff?? o.0
I'm willing to place a large wager that if you do a real examination of yourself you'll find a large portion of your life is not based upon reason but on faith. It may not be faith of a religious kind, but it is faith nonetheless. It's in your nature, you are human, not machine, you can't know or observe everything.
You love your wife / husband / family member? Ok. Prove it. Do they love you? Prove it. Bob your manager has got your back because he has never given you a bad review or stabbed you in the back, right?
Are you married? That takes a hell of a lot of faith.
If faith is a disability, then we are all disabled. Only some of us are too blind to see it, let alone their own hypocricy or the damaging effects of an un-tamed ego.
To spit on religious belief, no, check that, one portion of religious belief because of the concept of faith alone while standing on the pedestal of "reason" not only damages your credibility, but also spits in the face of "reason" and "truth".
Why? Your premise is Bullshit, something that is more insidious than a lie because it cares nothing for the "truth".
There IS a logical answer to the question "which came first, the chicken or the egg?"
A couple of correct, non-contradictory, answers. Here they are:
1) Egg-laying creatures existed before chickens evolved. Hence, eggs came first.
2) Both eggs and the creatures that lay them evolved simultaneously from simpler, more primitive forms (which do not qualify as their modern day, more-evolved counterparts). So, they both came at once.
This is inaccurate. Remember, like the label "Muslim," the label "Christian" is a blanket category encompassing a host of specific religions that are united by a common thread.
The reason for the necessity of a redemption is independent of the origins of humanity - if we choose to simply assume a conservation law for ethics exists, clearly some balancing force is needed to counter the simple fact that humans screw up and do some nasty things, then get away clean. For Christians, the assumption of that conservation law is termed faith, and further, the balancing force is attributed to the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. Further development of the framework defines a religion that falls under the "Christian" label.
I currently believe the Creation story is metaphorical and evolution is real. My views will further evolve in time as I continue to learn. Being related to a monkey isn't scary. I like my cat pretty well; maybe we're 10^7th cousins. The creation account in Genesis closely parallels the prevalent Babylonian creation accounts of the era, and that account contains metaphors useful for teaching ethical concepts to the ignorant, recently freed slaves who made up the original Jewish culture back when it happened. Is Santa an evil lie or a nice story? That's today, not 4000+ years ago.
If you are wrong, you still lose everything, because you believed in the wrong god, and the right one will send you to hell for it.
The Puritans (the ones who were "escaping persecution") only founded the New England colonies. They immediately set up their own theocratic governments and began their own vicious persecution, most famously the Salem Witch Trials. Religious persecution caused BY the Puritans was one of the main reasons for the Religious Test clause of the Constitution and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
The Continental Congress, the Revolution, and the eventual establishment of the Constitution was a completely different event than the Puritans founding a colony and happened around a hundred years after. Historically speaking, this is about as big a miss as confusing the Revolution and the Civil War.
It seems relevant to point out that even if we can infer the existence of a creator from the level of intelligent design that is evident in the universe, that alone tells us nothing about what the creator is like.
It is one thing to say "the universe was created." It is quite another to say "the creator of the universe wants you to fly an airplane into a building" or "the creator wants you to give me ten percent of your income."
Yahweh, the god of the bible is who they believe did this.
Not Shiva.
Not some random god.
They may wave hands a bit on "Allah" but the fact is most christians beliefs are exclusive of islamic beliefs. The islamics will go to hell or purgatory. The christians will go to a lower level of heaven (at best) or hell.
---
They willfully ignore mountains of hard facts which they could observe themselves directly in order to maintain this belief. Even tho the conclusion from that is that Yahweh for some unknown reason decided to create all kinds of false evidence of an older earth and to create dna patterns which are very similar to apes.
---
There is a huge gap from "a god created the universe" to "the god of the bible created the universe and wants us to worship it, ordered hebrew tribes to slaughter men, women, "suckling babies", and old people, ordered them to not mix two types of cloth, and had a few dozen kids attacked by bears for mocking elijah. Killed 99% of humans at least once- perhaps twice, and then repeatedly engaged in infanticide and genocide.
Sure-- an unknown god may have created the universe-- but that doesn't mean it is yahweh.
Most Theists disbelieve every god but one. Atheists just beleive in one less god than theists.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
What intelligent person can imagine that there was a first “day,” then a second and a third “day”—evening and morning—without the sun, the moon, and the stars? [Sun, moon, and stars are created on the fourth "day."] And that the first “day”—if it makes sense to call it such—existed even without a sky? [The sky is created on the second "day."]
Who is foolish enough to believe that, like a human gardener, God planted a garden in Eden in the East and placed in it a tree of life, visible and physical, so that by biting into its fruit one would obtain life? And that by eating from another tree, one would come to know good and evil? And when it is said that God walked in the garden in the evening and that Adam hid himself behind a tree, I cannot imagine that anyone will doubt that these details point symbolically to spiritual meanings, by using an historical narrative which did not literally happen. (p.71)
-- Origen (c.185-254 CE) “De Principiis“
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
I thought we were created by the apes...
Whether humanity evolved due to purely natural forces, was guided in a prolonged form of creationist evolution, or popped into existence 10,000 years ago is wholely irrelevant to daily life. It's one of those Big Questions which everyone has pondered at some point in their life, but since it has no bearing on how they wake up, make breakfast, get the kids to school, commute to work, perform their job, go home, cook dinner, watch TV, and go to sleep, they don't think much about it. Therefore, everyone believes something regarding the subject, but very few people care enough to really study the subject and form a conviction.
It's the same as most people's view on politics. I can spend several hours every evening studying the issues, researching each candidate's political actions on any given topic, and form a conviction about which candidate I should vote for in every political race I am permitted to vote in. Or, I can listen to the occasional advertisement and watch / read a news segment every once in a while, and still have time to play with my kids, wash the dishes so my wife doesn't nag me, and fall asleep watching a sporting event. To be honest, whether I vote for candidate A, B, C, etc. for Sheriff has little to no impact on my life, and not worth the time spent thinking about it.
Does that mean people are stupid? Hardly. In fact, it may mean they are even more intelligent than those who spend a lot of time thinking about such things, because they may be making a better economical decision about how to use their time. Then again, by wasting their time answering some irrelevant poll negates that somewhat.
You may do that, I wouldn't. And I don't know anyone retarded enough to do that.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Psychiatrists must be right in prescribing 46% of Americans some kind of prescription!
People really do have some sort of mental illness.
I mean if you have faith in an invisible man in the sky that banish's people to hell for the simple act of not believing, and controls all the wrongs and faults of the world because somehow it makes sense only to him, like illness, natural disasters, crime, poverty, eat or be eaten system of nature, etc etc then yeah you are definatly crazy in my opinion.
A thousand years from now I predict a total Inquisition against religion, complete with marooning them to their own private island. And it can't come soon enough.
Those evolving stick with science and what we can prove, and recognizing the fact we don't have the answer for everything (which is what religion partly tries to accomplish).
You know what the weirdest part is? So many people believe in a literal creation story. If you ask those people they say the Bible is literally true and not metaphorical in any parts. But the question remains, if the Bible is literally true and to be followed literally, why do all those people not follow this:
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.
So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not renounce all your possessions.
Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.
As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing.
Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
Coincidentally 46% is also the amount of Americans without education.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
God created the universe last Tuesday and any memories of earlier times were also created at that point.
Prove me wrong.
All these atheists... so closed minded.
is not evenly distributed. Apparently 46% of the American people have a ways to go yet.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
They dug it out of the gravitational well.
There is actually a school of thought that speculates that if you summed all the energy in the universe (radiation, kinetic, and mass-energy) and then subtracted all the gravitational potential energy (which is always negative and approaches zero only at an infinite distance from all other matter), the total would be exactly equal to zero. That is to say the entire universe could have quite literally arisen from nothing, the trick was just in getting nothing to separate out into interesting patterns for a while.
This actually underpins a number of current cosmological theories where various phenomena in an existing universe could spawn new, possibly similar universes in an ever-expanding metaverse, without having to contribute any energy to the creation.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
There are absolutely NO human beings who are in their right minds who can believe human beings can have arrived where we are today without Divine Guiding, and there are not that many who are total fruit-loops.
No human being can name one single human historical event in which Gods and concepts of Gods has not played a significant part.
What Human Beings have done, to each other and to their human environments, and to the natural environments around them, cannot be blamed on Nature or natural causes.
Nor can Gods be., Nature does not care about human prejudices and does not create Gods or any other Divine Beings for human beings to ascribe their prejudices to, to justify them, or to "order" human beings to do the vicious things they want to do.
So let's stop blaming Nature for what we, ourselves, are and do. Let's admit we make Gods for ourselves, make ourselves Gods and make our God-inventions "make" us do what we want to do.
These numbers make sense when you think of the demographic of who has a land line and bothers to answer surveys.
Oh My God!
Oh, yes: in theory, as it hasn't been found.
That's because you obviously haven't study or understood the survival value of societies, culture, altruism, cooperative behaviors, cultural memory and learning, etc.
On the flip side, the impact and extensiveness of cultural influences, societal behaviors, etc is far, far more intricate and developed than any original religious teachings have ever specified. So unless you are going to invoke the notion that God is surreptitiously guiding the life of every single individual, including all the "non-believers" (and I understand that many religions might claim this), including the believers of other religious traditions than your own, the overt ORIGINAL religious sources are insufficient to explain human cultural development and impact.
We now know that 85% of americans are egregiously superstitious, i.e. very stupid. Explains a lot: reaganomics, Bush, Iraq war, Viet Nam war, war on drugs, faith-based economics. I could go on but...
So 46% of people believing that God created humans in the past 10,000 years seems about right.
Looks like an overwhelming majority has consensus in creation or divine evolution.
The debate is over.
The only reason to dispute evolution is because you are a racist.
*Isn't debating like a liberal fun?
People like to trot out such statistics to show that Americans are less scientifically literate, but that's not true. When you test adults with actual scientific questions that require understanding, percentage of basic scientific literacy is low in both the US and Europe, but it is still about twice as high in the US than in Europe.
Europeans tend to mistake belief in the veracity of scientific results with scientific literacy. But believing in quantum mechanics doesn't make you literate in quantum physics. Believing that Shakespeare was a great author doesn't mean you know Shakespeare.
Both the US and Europe have a long ways to go until their populations are scientifically literate. But Europe has an uphill battle not only because people are even less scientifically literate, they don't even realize it.
In America, 46% of the 1012 people asked hold a creationist view of human origins
Is a 46-Percenter.
Spiritual people. There is something absolutely amazing about life and death. One minute a person is there and then suddenly, all that remains is a husk. Yes, I understand fully the mechanics of the process, right down to the baryons. That doesn't change the fact that in my experience, something profound and ineffable has vanished from my perception, my grasp, and has left the world that I can comprehend.
None of this is an excuse for willful ignorance and stupid, stubborn, hubris. No matter how hard I believe, the world will not stop. If it did, the thin skin of the planet would tear free from the mantle and continents would slide over one another. Life on the planet would evaporate in a magmatic cataclism that would make the eruption of Mt. St. Helens look like a popcorn fart in a hurricane. If there is a creator, I'm guessing she doesn't go around suspending physics to mess with the creation. Just a guess (having created a few virtual worlds of my own, I'm supposing we're well past the beta.) Our world is chock full of mythologies. Its a human penchant to come up with stories to explain what we don't understand. Its also a penchant to attempt to describe nature and observe its inner workings. Folks who have at an early age divorced themselves from reality are missing something. We live in a truly remarkable universe. Even more disconcerting is that some people who choose to ignore reality seem to treat reality as though it bends to their opinions. The harsh conservative element in our government seems to have faith that a government that gives all its money away to the wealthy and takes no taxes can work and its people (at least the ones that matter) can thrive. This is the danger of faith based thinking, policy, society. The belief is more important than the fact, and those who have faith in driving straight on a crooked road endanger themselves and all others on the road.
A wise person surrenders to reality that which is real, and leaves that which untestable, unexplainable, or just humanly ineffable to faith. In these people I have no problem, I find myself among them. I simply know where to draw the line, and as our science improves, so the line moves.
Guardian:
Science News
Unless you somehow could BE EVERYWHERE and KNOW EVERYTHING you can't say "FACT There Is No God"
besides Friedrich Nietzsche most famous for saying "God is Dead" is ... drumroll please
Dead Himself
besides as far as Lack of evidence lets talk about the ORDER in all things.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Conservatism is a disease which once it infects its host society beings to destroy it from within. Global warming denial, evolution denial, the magical thinking of senators and congresspeople.. the Sarah Palin-ing of America.. it's a disease that either we'll arrest through any means necessary or it will kill the country.
Oh good, another religious/political flame magnet on Slashdot.
Bow before me, for I am root.
I am a religious guy who believes in empirical observation. I find it interesting that the account in Genesis is roughly the story of evolutio: a progression from simpler to more complex creatures. If you interpret the word "day" as "period of time" then there is no conflict at all with the Geneis account of creation and conventional scientific views of evolution.
...what focus group do they keep asking to get these results? I don't know a single damn creationist.
Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and
phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, having an unlisted landline number, and being cell phone
mostly). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2011 Current Population Survey figures for
the age 18+ non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households.
It's easier to read one children's book than a bunch of hard ones.
MC
/. finds me to be 20% Troll, 80% Funny
You are asking someone to prove a negative. There has been quite a bit of historical discussion about why this is essentially impossible. For instance I cannot prove that pigs do not fly. There is a large amount of evidence that they don't but that is not a proof. So if your level of "religious nut job" requires simply taking a lack of ANY evidence for something as sufficient to not believe in it then I don't see how anyone doesn't fall into that category. Do you believe pigs fly?
I'm actually pleasantly surprised that a majority of people in this country accept evolutionary theory. While its a little scary knowing that 46% are young earth creationists and thus pretty much have eschewed everything that science has taught us, at least I can say in any political debate that the majority of Americans believe in evolution and science and have found a way to reconcile that with their spiritual beliefs.
This is, at least, a step in the right direction.
Like I tell anyone on either side (theist/atheist, conservative/liberal, star trek/star wars, etc), you aren't doing yourself and your belief justice if you just piss off and insult and alienate yourself from the opposing view. You have to accept first, present later, and slowly over time allow the other side to come around. This is how christianity has spread so far.. by accepting people and assimilating them. Its why Jesus, no matter what else you believe, was at least one thing for certain: a brilliant marketer.
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
They know about these issues. Their business depends on correcting for them. Good pollsters have included cell phones for a long time now, for example. This poll is no exception.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews
conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum
quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas among
landline respondents by region. Landline numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers, cell
phone numbers are selected using random-digit dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random
within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.
Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and
phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, having an unlisted landline number, and being cell phone
mostly). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2011 Current Population Survey figures for
the age 18+ non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of
sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.
I live in Argentina, and I always see the same pattern.
Analyzing the way people vote, how they define themselves politically and the overall way they behave, it seems that at least recently, all societies are divided in two halves.
Liberals vs conservatives - religious vs non religious - populists vs realists, etc, etc...
It's not only here, it's everywhere. If you see the latest elections in the US, in France, etc... societies are all divided in two parts.
Percentages vary slightly because of independents, pragmatics and people who change their mind according to each situation.
Am I the only one who see this pattern?
This really evokes in me a sense of pride that the way of life (termed religion in other parts of world) I am leading: Hindu.
Here is the Wikipedia entry about what Hinduism says about evolution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_views_on_evolution
"In a survey, 77% of respondents in India agreed that enough scientific evidence exists to support Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, and 88% of God-believing people said they believe in evolution as well "
Although we do have the theory of "Creator" crap, we are free to include current established theories that make sense.
Atheists *do* consider the question settled. So do "religous nutjobs." They both *believe* with insufficient evidence.
I don't think you understand atheism.
There's both strong and weak atheism - strong asserts that god doesn't exist (which is consistent with your statement), weak only asserts that there's insufficient evidence to believe in a god - that a god is improbably, not impossible. Similar to most people's position on the Loch Ness monster or abominable snow man - they're just unlikely but not impossible.
Almost every atheist I have ever met or heard of is a weak atheist, including people like Dawkins - I've never heard anyone who claims that the concept of a god is impossible.
They're going to have to put their stuff over there...
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
46% is a minority of the population. The not particularly important minority. Oh, if you think this matters when it comes to elections, think again. When a man casts a vote that could go to either a Republican or a Democrat, only the lizard people win...
Just when I start thinking there's hope for America, this crap proves me wrong *sigh* I'm going to go watch a Dawkins documentary to cheer me up.
Especially if you believe evolution. What others believe is then of no consequence. What there is, is a lack of respect by everyone. Everyone simply wants to be right to feed their egos and its a shame. Personally? I have absolutely nothing against a person wanting to believe a fairy tale that is more beautiful than reality. Can you blame them? Nope. Everyone wants fantasy, and for those lucky enough to be allowed to believe it more to em. Evolutionists have formed their own religion and they are just as scary as the creationists. Threatening, always derogatory, and the source of so much vitriol its a wonder no one wants to believe in it. Heck, even other evolutionists that I talk to are all assholes. Bar none. I understand the frustration with having to wade through lies probably for more then your life but come on. Is it really that important?
I'd pretty much characterize that not just as a failure of democracy , but of a failed democracy outright.
In the past, when the religious conservatives took over a society and crashed it, people were able to survive and civilization elsewhere went forward.
This time these suicide bombers mean to take us all with them. It's written in their holy book , this is the End Times and the Rapture is nigh, and they're not the least bit afraid to drive all of civilization straight off that cliff.
Democracy has failed and I authorize the President, the heads of the armed forces and the national security apparatus to do whatever it takes it do what needs to be done. If it means suspending the Constitution, then do it. If it means conducting a covert war on conservatives, taking out their "thought leaders", channels of communication and funding sources, then do it. If it means releasing a virus that wipes out denier states and their populations then do it. Democracy has failed and now it's not about rights and freedoms, it's about survival and who is going to survive and that is sure as shit not going to be conservatives no matter what else happens.
Do it Mr. President. Do it.
Government and Religion are both the same barbaric mind control products with different labels.
Neither product would exist if there was no demand for them.
What needs or wants are these products satisfying?
By the way I write this from the US, so the subject line is not
a slur against Americans. The statistical distribution of IQ
means that 50% of people anywhere have an IQ of 100 or less.
Stupid people like simple explanations even when a simple
explanation is not true. It's more comfortable for them. Those who
use propaganda to their advantage are very much aware of this.
However, such bullshit as creationism can be useful as a litmus test. If you know
someone who believes in creationist doctrine, you can be reasonably
sure that person is not the sort of person who engages in serious critical
thought, and you can then deal with them on that basis. In other words,
don't trust them with anything important. Like high political office, for example.
A single photon with a frequency of 10^98Hz has enough energy to create all the matter in the universe.
Photons are popping in and out of the quantum soup all the time.
Let there be light, eh?
Who cares about the margin of error, exact number of years, agnostic versus atheist, church versus state separation or any of the other hair splitting. We're talking that somewhere round 40% of Americans completely discount all fact and science (the proven stuff, no theories involved) and believe that God automagically created humans as they are now. Holy craps Batman! This is 40% of a population that controls the world's only superpower. Give me a minute while I breath into a paper bag. It's one thing for nutcases in Iran to run around screaming Allah is great. It's a totally different case when a substantial portion of the US voting population effectively believes the same thing. I gotta go back to my paper bag......
I just wonder what is meant by "they vote and are ruining things for the rest of us."
My child will be well-schooled on the Theory of Evolution no matter what the government decides to teach him, and he will know that ID is bullshit. And, I will make sure he understands evolution, unlike, I would estimate, 75% of the people who say they "believe" in evolution.
Nothing is being "ruined" until Christians are allowed to start killing heretics, Taliban-style. I don't think we're there yet.
You all piss on creationists, yet you are completely comfortable eating your genetically engineered food and receiving your genetically engineered skin, organs, and medications. I don't understand you people. You are the only species on the planet with language. You have no means to survive in your natural state, unlike every other species that evolved. And yet you think it's just an accident we jumped ahead millions of years beyond everything else crawling around, including what you think are our cousins.
Really? You gonna go there weak hairless ape? Your bone mass is half that of your nearest relative. You need to make clothing or else you die. What species other than homo sapiens evolved that way? Please tell me. I'd really like to know how our traits evolved when the thing in the Zoo, who is our cousin, has none of them- because it gets you killed in 12 hours.
You enlightened morons can't seem to put two and two together. We don't belong here. We never have.
I'm a former YEC (Young Earth Creationist). The fact that I was a YEC was not really my fault -- I was taught that from the time I was a child and all through adolescence. I was taught that there is virtually no compelling evidence for evolution and that scientists were obviously being guided by the hand of Satan. I was always interested in science and technology so my parents actually sent me to "Christian Science Camps" where I was taught about creation and all of the 'evidence' for it (different post for a different day). In my small town high school I can clearly recall three students walking out of our 10th grade biology class as soon as the teacher mentioned the word evolution.
I'm actually in my mid-30's now, so how did I find my way to truth?
Well, it starts with doubt. The doubt that I saw was honestly the Iraq war. I saw people travel down to Florida to protest Terry Schiavo having her life support pulled and those same people standing and waving flags and cheering when we invaded Iraq without just cause as required by Christianity. These were people that I had honestly respected and that placed enough doubt in my mind that I began to question everything I had ever been told about our faith. Then my brother-in-law gave me a National Geographic issue titled "Was Darwin Wrong?". I read the article and was floored. Everything I had ever been told was wrong. BTW, that issue continues to sit on the nightstand by my bed, and he gave that to me about 4 years ago.
I started reading -- seriously reading. I've read at least 15 books on evolution, including all of Richard Dawkins' books and several others. I say that now the evidence for evolution is overwhelming -- even staggering -- and if you read about the evidence with an open mind you would pretty much need to be a blithering idiot to continue to deny the fact of evolution.
I think the problem in our country boils down to basically the following: We have lots of people that go to church each and every Sunday and are taught about Adam and Eve, creation, etc. People get one, maybe two semesters of high school biology and that's it...and that's probably taught by a YEC if living in the Bible Belt! So basically it's no wonder people believe in creationism over evolution -- you're (maybe) taught evolution once in high school and get you creationism the rest of your life.
I guess what I'm saying is don't judge these people too harshly, you simply turn them off. They aren't stupid -- just ignorant as I was. Most YEC's are certainly close-minded and unwilling to listen, but occasionally you will find one that will actually remove their fingers from their ears and listen to what learned people have to say.
It's a tough row to hoe. My mother would probably disown me if she knew what I were writing right now (yeah, that's why I'm posting as AC). There are lots of societal pressures here. It's really easy to be an open rationalist if your parents and all your friends are rationalists...it's a little more difficult when every aspect of your life including family, friends. I mean, my mother honestly believes people that think like me are going to Hell, and I don't want her to believe that about me as she'd probably have a stroke.
It didn't live to the age of five million so is not currently hanging around the subway waiting to be found.
Just move on and understand that science and religeon deal with different things. Science has no answer as to whether evolution is the way God is continuing creation or not and doesn't care. Whether you believe your God built everything and then abandoned it all or is still doing things is not a question for science but for your own faith.
Anything is possible. The truth is that no one can be certain about our existence, and that does not set well with most people. Many people throughout history have lived on the edge of death with little hope of most things we now take for granted. Religion has offered hope and spurred trust which brought fellowship and collective progress. It reduced the infinite number of possibilities to a common vision. If it is completely wrong, then only the dead know. So far, I've heard no complaints from them.
Of course, religion has brought with it a lot of ugly. However, power tends to get abused, no matter the source. You take the good with the bad. One thing is undeniable, religion has staying power. Hate it or love it, but it is not going away.
Given the enormity of reality, it might be possible that no one could comprehend it if given the opportunity, and any recognizable abstraction might be too limited to accurately represent its truth.
Here is one possibility -- you are a simulation running in some future version of what we now call a computer. Long ago, when you died, you were frozen. Later, your brain was non-invasively scanned (read CIty of Bits) and mapped into a system that simulated all your neural activity. Now, you are running in a system that models all your sensory inputs like a virtual holodeck. Since you are no more than the simulation (a Matrix or TRON without the real humans), you cannot be aware of anything outside the simulation. Therefore, it would be as real as you are. Here's the kick -- they thawed your body out and reanimated it to run your simulation, making you the SysOp. Or another way of saying it - you are your god. Be sure to say your prayers, because you might answer them.
Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? Hardly.
Don't worry. You'll have your generation devoid of conscience soon enough.
The fact is that 99% of Americans (and 99.9% of the world) should be removed from the gene pool. They (aka, most of you) simply do not have what it takes to survive in this harsh, unforgiving universe. Those who believe in supernatural x y or z are dead ends and a waste of my ATP. Let those of us who get it take the remnants of this dying world and build the foundations for the next. Sol c will be uninhaitable in 500e6 years. Please. I'm begging you. Just let us, so we can get over this hump. That's all I ask. Once we find other homes in the galaxy you can start dreaming of obviously nonexistent omnipotents again. But we can't afford to just yet.
who cares what people believe in.. evolution is incomplete.. has many holes, or simply guesses to fill int he blanks.. pretty much like religion.. id say the truth is probably a bit of both, so many years past by when nobody was around to say NOBODY came down to earth and messed with our dna.
People tend to have only their self-interest or those they care about enough to spend money on or even die for. Otherwise, ultimately, you are seen as just a resource to be exploited and discarded once you are no longer useful to them.
I don't want to be that way so I try to be helpful and non-confrontational to others. This is mostly viewed as being an idiotic doormat or a clueless sheep. It is either that or I play this 'dog eat dog' game to the best of my abilities which I consciously struggle to refuse to due so becase, in the end, such conduct is eventually pointless and CAN lead to a violent death at the hands of others.
In the end, you can live your life like you have to answer to nobody...or Somebody like I do....
The rest is up to you....
CAPTCHA: safely [How apt!]
Just sterilize them already. What are we waiting for? Are we gonna let these stupid fucksticks hold us back? My, and our collective, genome deserves better.
Fuck anyone who refuses to accept objective reality. It's time we eradicate these slow-as-molasses shit-for-brains.
Lol, what? I'm sorry, did you just say 'god' in a serious context? Are you a fucking genetic defect? Why yes, you are, step into my booth for a sec so I can fix your little 'problem' (your unfortunate ability to reproduce).
Is the world really all that RATIONAL? what with people eating peoples faces in the news and war in afghanistan? I mean, COME ON!
Are on the left half of the bell curve.
I find it interesting that atheists cannot explain how matter came into existence or the universe, yet they always ask Christians about the origin of God. The problem is quite simple actually. You either believe in the eternal existence of matter/energy or you believe in the eternal existence of some intelligent being(s). Both evolution and Christianity require faith.
The One was and was-not, combined, and desired to separate the was-not from the was. So it generated a diploid sac which contained, like an eggshell, a pair of twins, each an androgyny, spinning in opposite directions (the Yin and Yang of Taoism, with the One as the Tao). The plan of the One was that both twins would emerge into being (was-ness) simultaneously; however, motivated by a desire to be (which the One implanted in both twins), the counter-clockwise twin broke through the sac and separated prematurely; i.e. before full term. This was the dark or Yin twin. Therefore it was defective. At full term the wiser twin emerged. Each twin formed a unitary entelechy, a single living organism made of psyche and soma, still rotating in opposite directions to each other. The full term twin, called Form I by Parmenides, advanced correctly through its growth stages, but the prematurely born twin, called Form II, languished.
The next step in the One's plan was that the Two would become the Many, through their dialetic interaction. From them as hyperuniverses they projected a hologram-like interface, which is the pluriform universe we creatures inhabit. The two sources were to intermingle equally in maintaining our universe, but Form II continued to languish toward illness, madness and disorder. These aspects she projected into our universe.
It was the One's purpose for our hologramatic universe to serve as a teaching instrument by which a variety of new lives advanced until ultimately they would be isomorphic with the One. However, the decaying condition of hyperuniverse II introduced malfactors which damaged our hologramatic universe. This is the origin of entropy, undeserved suffering, chaos and death, as well as the Empire, the Black Iron Prison; in essence, the aborting of the proper health and growth of the life forms within the hologramatic universe. Also, the teaching function was grossly impaired, since only the signal from the hyperuniverse I was information-rich; that from II had become noise.
The psyche of hyperuniverse I sent a micro-form of itself into hyperuniverse II to attempt to heal it. The micro-form was apparent in our hologramatic universe as Jesus Christ. However, hyperuniverse II, being deranged, at once tormented, humiliated, rejected and finally killed the micro-form of the healing psyche of her healthy twin. After that, hyperuniverse II continued to decay into blind, mechanical, purposeless causal processes. It then became the task of Christ (more properly the Holy Spirit) to either rescue the life forms in the hologramatic universe, or abolish all influences on it emanating from II. Approaching its task with caution, it prepared to kill the deranged twin, since she cannot be healed; i.e. she will not allow herself to be healed because she does not not understand that she is sick. This illness and madness pervades us and makes us idiots living in private, unreal worlds. The original plan of the One can only be realized now by the division of hyperuniverse I into two healthy hyperuniverses, which will transform the hologramatic universe into the successfull teaching machine it was designed to be. We will experience this as the "Kingdom of God."
Within time, hyperuniverse II remains alive: "The Empire never ended." But in eternity, where the hyperuniverses exist, she has been killed—of necessity—by the healthy twin of hyperuniverse I, who is our champion. The One grieves for this death, since the One loved both twins; therefore the information of the Mind consists of a tragic tale of the death of a woman, the undertones of which generate anguish into all the creatures of the hologrammatic universe without their knowing why. This grief will depart when the healthy twin undergoes mitosis and the "Kingdom of God" arrives. The machinery for this transformation—the procession within time from the Age of Iron to the Age of Gold—is at work now; in eternity it is already accomplished.
If Gallup's pollsters call only land lines and no cell phones, then they're going to reach an older and poorer sample than they should. I suspect a high fraction of college grads under 40 don't even own land line phones any more. I don't.
Biasing the sample downward in this way could help to explain the poll's rather bizarre results.
Tree falls in a forest. No one sees it happen. Did it make a sound when it hit the ground? Of course it did.
"There is no evidence for the existence of god, point. There doesn't have to be an evidence for non-existence of something to rationally assume it doesn't exist. See Russel's teapot." - by alendit (1454311) on Friday June 01, @07:00PM (#40188043)
Just because you didn't see it fall or hear the tree I noted above crashing to the ground (to get your "evidence") didn't mean it didn't make a sound during its fall to the dirt.
* Natural laws still hold true even IF/WHEN no one sees or hears it happening - the landing would have made a sound, due to rationality & assumptions of it.... even if/when nobody witnesses it happening. No questions asked.
APK
P.S.=> So, your referring to "Russel's teapot"? It's about as "clever" as Schroedinger's cat & superpositional wave states - mere games, no real proof... apk
"There is no evidence for the existence of god, point." - by alendit (1454311) on Friday June 01, @07:00PM (#40188043)
QUESTION: Who/What created the construct we live in (Universe) then?
* Whatever/Whoever did, they qualify as "GOD" to myself @ least... because I surely know I couldn't do it, and neither could you.
APK
P.S.=> Answer the question above (who/what created the cosmos we live in)... apkquote
Let's assume for a moment that most people didn't really believe in this creationist crap but were conformist enough to respond this way. Now let's assume that the same radical-christian-creationist-freaks who spew this creationist crap all over the place would like to burn some scientist because in their opinion he's a heretic ? What would this "silent majority" do ? Would they be conformist like in this poll ? Would they show enough determination to stop radical idiots from killing others for their misguided beliefs ? How does it differ from casual good muslims becoming conformist or passive to actions of radical isamists ? Why is majority of people passive to something that might push us into dark ages once again ?
We are entering dangerous times. Someone is investing lots of money in order to make hard facts and beliefs blend. See all those mega-churches that are in fact nothing more than just dangerous sects, see all those "museums", publications. See lobbyists and their money pushed to politicians in order to make creationism credible and taught in schools. Such big money does not come from nowhere. Who needs it and for what purpose ?
You don't need science to disprove god - logic is sufficient. If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
I really love club dresses ,
"15% believe that humans evolved without any supernatural help"
Wow, I would say this 15% is a pretty noisy group given all the concessions granted to them then.
I guess this places you (i.e. the "rest of us") firmly in the 15%?
Amekian over crowding birther bible third world is coming - it will soon become like uneducated Muslim country and pollution third world. North Europe Green socialism no god is the only model that respects human, living being and planet.
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me" - to me it is an acknowledgement that there are other gods. Why is this one is better than others (for non Jews, who he saved and led to promised land)?
Americans are stupid, the sky is blue.
Reading TFA, you can have a look at the curve showing the evolution of believes (lets call it like that) over time. Only Q3 denies evolution ; question 1 merely shows that about 35% of US citizens believe in evolution AND in god - thus they cannot deny that god could have an influence on the evolution. Thus Q1 and Q2 should be counted together when speaking about believes in evolution. A simple first-order (y=ax+b) curve fitting over the 3 possible answers (A gives an estimated fraction of people in 82, and B the rate of change over time) gives these results: -Q1: a: 38.54%, b: -0.08% (RMSD= 1,99) -Q2: a: 7.72%, b: 0.23% (RMSD= 1,19) -Q3: a: 45.80%, b: -0.06% (RMSD= 1,86) What does it tells us? To cheer up, lads! In 82 there were 46,2% of evolutionists against 45,8% of creationists. Without having computed the error bars, we could only say that they were on equal terms at this time. From then on, the proportion of evolutionists increased by about 1% every 7 years, and now the proportions are 50,9% evolutionists against 44,0% of creationists. This is most probably statistically significant, given the relative mean square deviations over the fits. Thus, evolution theory is winning! That's why the 44 remaining % are starting to be nervous... Moreover, these results support the fact that people are less and less religious - Q1 and Q3 are decreasing overtime - while the fastest growing population are the scientifically literate agnostics. And this population almost DOUBLED since 1982, from 7,7% to 14,6% today! Always do you stats lads, always do your stats...
That's just BS. There's no way that even stupid people could still believe that. Nobody that went to public school in the US could believe that. I wonder how they did the poll to get such bad data. Did they only call folks that went to Catholic school?
Even Gallop does bad work sometimes.
The survey sample was of adults, not registered voters or likely voters. Samples like this tend to be skewed toward the less-educated and toward those who vote Democrat.
Why do you say they are ruining things for the rest of us? What does it matter to you? Do you need unanimous agreement with your beliefs, in order to feel good about yourself?
after taking their Workplace Survey or whatever they call it now. That one is used by the ivory tower types to paper over deep-seated issue in an organization, attempting to measure engagement at the workplace, all the while tap-dancing around and accomplishing very little of any substance; kinda like Six Sigma.
So are we evolutionists a majority or are more than 5% undecided if they evolved from dinosaurs?
The finding on creationist belief is just the tip of the iceberg. A large protein of Americans believe many things that are flatly wrong. These things thing get purple killed. A lot of people. WMD in Iraq? The lies a Guns make people safer, despite 30,000 being killed every year? bout nukes in Iran? Neo-liberal economics? The list goes on and on.
Only boring people are ever bored.
I believe in God. I enjoy science. There is no contradiction between science and the belief in God.
This should be more than enough proof for the rest of the world to stop fawning to this bankrupt - morally and financially - state and isolating them to the their continent where they can't hurt anyone but themselves. Coventry time.
People believe all sorts of absurd and ridiculous fictions to get through their booing and banal day to day lives.
Too much emphasis is placed on a supposed controversy between the so-called "scientific" and people with almost equally superstitious and cop-out beliefs based on crap that has no practical significance to 99.999% of the population anyway.
Then again, there's something to be said for statistics that make you feel all smug and outraged and superior. There's a value there, but I wouldn't exactly consider it something to strive for.
What is there to say to this other than the obvious: 46% or some similar number of Americans are ignorant and/or stupid. No surprise there.
Everyone seems so shocked and upset at this but no one is actually doing anything about it. I challenge all of you to spread logic and show everyone that it's okay to be atheist.
So, for convenience, why don't we just abbreviate it to 'Cre'ti'n's'?
I like how the poll says only 46 believe in creationist view and yet there is another category that believe evolution occurred but with divine intervention. Isn't the two the same? If the poll was speaking towards Evolution only and Creation only the percentage would be 79% believe in creationist view and 21% believe in evolution. To me that seems more accurate for this poll.
What this really proves is that 85% of those who do not believe in God are rude and hung up on the callers.
HAHAHA!
Pastafarians are under represented in these polls, so no wonder it's pretty skewed towards the book burning crowd.
Test -MC
46% of people consider 2+2=5. It is actually 6.
Yo, @bitt3n, I suspect that @Stellian is either 1) outside the Anglosphere, or 2) fat fingered. Obviously, you're banking on #2.
Both sides, religion and science, are external memory ignorant. They do not separate themselves from what was installed into them.
So many posts I may repeat what is already said. Both sides of this discussion are based on THEORY. It is unproven, based on some facts but can't be observed directly. Me - I go for the creation theory. But I don't put down those who are of the other view. But each view does create a worldview philosophy that do conflict. But saying people like me are 'morons' and such makes the discussion about people, not the theory. let's keep it about the theories. I am cool with that.
You shall know The TRUTH, and THE TRUTH will set you free.
are a moronic race...
Grar II
I find this survey immoral, as its main aim seems to be testing the intelligence (not the beliefs) of USAmericans.
The verdict is that 15% pass the test, 46% prefer to believe than think, they may retake in a few years, and 33% are plain stupid and fail the test.
It would be interesting if Gallup coupled this survey with one asking the education level, including the performance in the highest degree obtained.
They may be correct, although it beg the question of: Where did this power force called by so many names come from?
"Evolution' is almost never explained properly, and there are several different forms postulated.
In order for events to unfold as the creationists believe, laws of physics, determined by experimental observation, would need to be changeable. They may well be, every 'Big Bag' theory requires the laws of physics to have been different during some part of the process. Observation tells us that if a thing transforms once, it may do it again.
Religion states that: Such and such is how things began. It offers security, in that dogma seldom changes, and is always stated as ridge and eternal truth fact. In a world full of change and threats, such certainty makes things much easier.
Our court system came out of church courts, Courts regarding theology are simple--you are either a believer or a hertic.
Unfortunately, the real world, things aren't as simplistic.
Just as economics is not required to be a zero-sum system by any natural law. There are multiple possible situations in a court case. For starters, both sides could wrong, and the actual event doesn't fit either side's story. Both could be partially correct.
Human law is in fact, a guide rather than a rigid blueprint...this is why we have judges and juries--so that the law can be interpreted in context with the intent of modifying the results tailored to the current incident.
I have no problem with people believing that the universe was recently created by some sentient entity. Anymore than care about the flat earthers. Of themselves, such beliefs are of little danger even to the believer--until their beliefs take the form of actions which infringe upon others rights.
We've found, over the past few centuries, that observation, experimentation, and a willing to drop/change a belief if experience shows it unable to fit our observed Universe, works far far better to predict future events than consulting the invisible unknowable creator.
And knowing what will happen, is one of the most valuable types of information we can have to help us survive,
Religion offers TRUTH./ The price is that you must believe without evidence.
Science offers, this is the way we currently think things happen--subject to change if conflicting data appear.
I'd have far less quarrel with organized religion if they bothered to follow their own rules--but usually they say one thing and do the opposite. For instance; the Christian Bible (that religious 'pocket reference' created to reduce the large magnitude of religious documents, says that God gave Mankind dominion over living things. It doesn't say "Do whatever you want with them."
The first commandment is "Don't kill." Note it doesn't say 'don't kill others of your kind.' It doesn't say 'Except for others who you dislike."
But the people who wish to force all fetuses to term, an usually object to sex w/ birth controls, are applying rules which worked well up until the Industrial Revolution. Because both rules make sense when your numbers are limits, and your infant mortality rate is huge. We are capable, like all life we know, of creating far more offspring than needed to replenish te population...life does thinks because if it doesn't the species will dissapear quite rapidly, because in nature the majority offspring don't survive.
These rules apply when you loss large proportion of the population regularly.
They stop make sense when your population is growing rapidly because you've lowered the death rate, because under those circumstances you will inevitably reproduce to the point that your food supply can't keep up. As omnivores we can and do eat nearly anything that was alive, so we will not run out of food until we've eaten everything but ourselves--whereupon we will devour each other until enough die to permit the environment to support the population. If we have, in fact eaten all life the environment can no longer support us
Haha! Stupid americans. //Russian guy
You are incorrect. Predictive properties are essential to test theories. This does not mean something profound like "predicting the future" or anything like that--it simply means 'if theory X says the universe works in such a way, then if we do Y, we should see the physical world respond in some manner Z. Does it? Then that's evidence for the theory." Essentially, I can observe gravity as propose a 1/r^3 rule for the force. That would be consistent with my earthbound observations of falling apples. However, studying the heavens--well, I'd have to conclude 1/r^2. Then later I could note some things inconsistent with my old Newtonian observations. Then Einstein could come along a make a new theory. However, his theory would make predictions of things I have not seen. I could test them and discover that frame dragging is real. Not only did he explain what I've already seen, but he PREDICTED new things I haven't, and sure enough, I go to test them and I do see they are real.
Key word: PREDICTED.
I was looking at my related links on another page, and I see these two stories right next to each other: "1342 In America, 46% of People Hold a Creationist View of Human Origins" and "1226 Debate Over Evolution Will Soon Be History, Says Leakey" So which is it?
46% of americans should be considered legally retarded.