In America, 46% of People Hold a Creationist View of Human Origins 1359
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."
Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Percentage of error greatly understated. (Score:3, Insightful)
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 huma
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn if these people firmly believe life on earth is less than 10.000 years old, or they are just saying that because they heard it in bible class. The fact is these morons vote, and they are ruining things for the rest of us.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn if these people firmly believe life on earth is less than 10.000 years old, or they are just saying that because they heard it in bible class. The fact is these morons vote, and they are ruining things for the rest of us.
if life began less than 10.000 years ago (and frankly I'm skeptical of such a precise estimate), how are they even old enough to vote?
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, 8 AC responses to the question so far. You should get a /. achievement for that or something.
It does amaze me how many people believe "anyone who disagrees with me is just to stupid to vote". Yeah, here's the thing: if we did have a dictatorship, you wouldn't get to be El Presidente for Life, the guy who disagress with you on everything would get the job. Stupid people voting beats stupid people in tyrannical control any day!
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid people voting beats stupid people in tyrannical control any day!
That's a pragmatical and defeatist argument, you are saying that although morons indeed "ruin it for us" in an ideal sense, there's no practical way to reach that ideal. Any practical method to restrict the vote of the morons would come back against "us", so this is the best of all possible realities.
Even accepting that argument as is, I still believe there's some leeway here for smart people: educate the morons by force, ridicule their belifes on every occasion, don't just sit back and take their crap in the name of religious tolerance.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly! Pragmatism is for chumps. The real man is an idealist who sticks to their beliefs in the face of all facts and reality.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't believe anyone should get to vote, because I don't believe the majority should get to tell the minority what to do.
My wife and I make joint decisions, because we are married. We like that arrangement, if that becomes intolerable for one of us, he or she can get a divorce.
Democracy is like being married to millions of people, against your will, with no possibility of divorce.
This is why so many people are so angry that people who disagree with them vote. They have no hope of getting out of the system of being subject to these joint decisions, but they can sure tell that it's wrong for those other people to force their will on them.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll insert myself here by saying "YES."
It's bad enough that these businesses in the US exist to collect donations which go to pay for their land, buildings and the ridiculously high salaries of priests, preachers, pastors or whatever they want to me called and do it all tax-free because it's "religion." But they go on to insult the whole educational process in every way possible by asserting things without evidence or experiment or verification of any kind. Some people even get real PhD's in this crap.
A PhD in ancient Greek or Roman or other mythologies is "okay" but to declare a difference between that and "religious studies" is simply ridiculous and I demand an explanation of the fundamental difference between "mythology" and "religion." You have to realize that today's "religion" will be tomorrow's mythology right? Just as today's mythology was yesterday's religion?
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
I'll insert myself here by saying "YES."
It's bad enough that these businesses in the US exist to collect donations which go to pay for their land, buildings and the ridiculously high salaries of priests, preachers, pastors or whatever they want to me called and do it all tax-free because it's "religion." But they go on to insult the whole educational process in every way possible by asserting things without evidence or experiment or verification of any kind. Some people even get real PhD's in this crap.
"The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary, sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other con man. But it is a lovely work if you can stomach it." [Lazarus Long, _Time enough for Love_, by Robert Heinlein]
A PhD in ancient Greek or Roman or other mythologies is "okay" but to declare a difference between that and "religious studies" is simply ridiculous and I demand an explanation of the fundamental difference between "mythology" and "religion." You have to realize that today's "religion" will be tomorrow's mythology right? Just as today's mythology was yesterday's religion?
Simple. Religion is what you believe; myths are what others believe or with another Heinlein quote:
One man's religion is another man's belly laugh. [Robert Heinlein]
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
being an athiest (or better yet, simply rejecting the bullshit that religion tries to force on us) means you are able to THINK on your own and not be swayed by fear of authority figures.
yes, I do think that makes better voters. I think religion, in today's world, is a form of mental disorder.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
being an athiest (or better yet, simply rejecting the bullshit that religion tries to force on us)
I think those are the same thing (atheist/rejecting religion). You are strategically excluding Agnosticism, i.e. people who try to remain neutral/skeptical rather than get into the religion war on either side.
I think religion, in today's world, is a form of mental disorder.
That's not better than a position of a raving religious zealot. The only difference is that you sound like a raving anti-religious zealot. You know, many religious people are quite sane and do not believe that religious beliefs should be imposed on others or involved politics. Hopefully, you are aware of this.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Most of us are agnostic atheists. Including Dawkins, Hitchens, and the rest. You may have missed that.
a-theist means without God. One who does not accept that God exists is an atheist. One does not need to also hold the positive belief that God does not exist.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Science can't disprove God for the same reason that God can't be proven, but it can remove many of the rationalizations that supports the concept of God in the first place. What's left is something very implausible that you deliberately have to take on faith. The constant droning about imaginary tea cups in orbit (or not) around the moon are attempts to demonstrate why the same arguments wouldn't fly with anyone if you just changed the case from religion to something else that can't be proven. Without historical and cultural context, there's no reason to believe anything on the same premises other than simply wanting something to be true.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
"science can't disprove God..."
This is basically the "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" claim.
Actually, Victor J Stenger makes the very convincing case that absence of evidence can indeed be evidence of absence when such evidence should be abundant but isn't, and that this really is the case with the deist gods, such as the Christian God.
I wholeheartedly recommend him: a very good read.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what else about religions shouldn't be taken literaly?
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you define god to be unobservable then it doesn't really matter if god exists or not.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not an atheist because I can disprove the existence of God(s). I'm an atheist because I don't believe any of the claims theists have ever made. Your failure to understand atheism is the problem, not my disbelief.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
The whole idea of atheist - agnostic - theist is quite simplistic. We are dealing with two orthogonal concepts: on one hand there is agnostic versus gnostic, and on the other hand there is atheist versus theist. Gnotics know, agnostics don't. Theists believe, where atheists do not. I don't believe in a god because there is no reason to. I'm agnostic because I don't have knowledge about its existence. In theory, you can be an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist. Or you can be a gnostic theist or a gnostic atheist.
In respect of a general concept of a god, I'm agnostic, although the general concept of a god is so vague that it doesn't really matter much. If you believe in a god but admit you don't know anything about god, that's a rather moot point to make.
If on the other hand you arrive with a bible, I can be rather certain that it's all made up. Just take a look at all the mythologies, and that christian one doesn't really stand out. There are simpler explanations to why it came to be, and it has to do with unevolved people living in a world they don't understand, making up stories as they go.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I really wish more people understood exactly what Atheism means. Atheism is not a lack of belief like most think, but rather a belief that there is no god.
Um no. Atheism is a lack of belief in god. Christians simply cannot tell the difference between a lack of believing and a belief there is no god.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need science to disprove god - logic is sufficient.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but that level of cognative dissonance typically leads to compartmentalization... holding two contradictory beliefs in your head at the same time.
To go back on topic (with the grandparent or whoever, I'm not going to count how many far back in the stack it is, forgive me :-), I think it IS scary that these people vote, and I DO think that atheists and agnostics are better voters in that they're clearly (on average, not in every instance) more rational and knowledgable.
That nearly 50% of the American Public believes in creationism is really scary, a sign of a failure of our education system, and a scary foot-note to that same population's voting patterns (voting on myth and belief, not on fact).
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hitler
Would this be the Hitler who sent soldiers to war with the slogan "Gott mit uns"? The same one who said "Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord"?
Or perhaps he wasn't a True Scotsman?
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but YOU are in fact the moron. Athiests took over in the 70's? Since when? What delusional world are you living in?
Atheism isn't a "belief". It's not a religion. It's a rejection of THEISM. It is the very definition of rational thinking.
You clearly have no clue what you're even talking about. Which is just sad.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Got a time machine then? I mean, I'm no YECer myself believing more in Theistic Evolution (evolution as God's engineering methodology, as opposed to Intelligent Design, I'm a software designer myself and I know very little intelligence goes into anybody's design), but even I have to admit that absent a written historical record from 11,000 years ago, I can't actively disprove YEC. I'm pretty sure we have good evidence that is far older than that; BUT absent a time machine, I can't rule out that evidence being created as is 10,000 years ago.
By the same token, there are many other religions in the world whose ideas directly conflict with yours (and have precisely the same amount of evidence: an old book purported to be nonfiction and a group of people that have practiced that religion for a long time), so you can't rule them out either. So what made you choose this particular belief? Clearly you already do some mental gymnastics to sidestep at least some of the obvious physical impossibilities (shoehorning the overwhelmingly probable concept of evolution into a belief system that traditionally includes nothing like it), so why bother holding to the rest?
Personally, I considered myself a Christian some time ago, but I started over when I realized how many modifications I was making to make it work scientifically, along with the realization that, had I been born to one of the other 67% of people in the world who have different beliefs, I also would have started out believing something different.
Also, I think explanations like god-guided evolution are evidence of the phenomenon that was posted earlier this week on Slashdot: scientific literacy doesn't help people approach the world more scientifically, it just makes them try to use that knowledge to justify (or fit that knowledge into) their existing world view.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum. "These are people who thought a lot about religion," he said. "They're not indifferent. They care about it."
I don't know, nor care about how knowledgeable you are about your own personal sky fairy, but generally, atheists have followed the narrative of being raised in a religion and then giving it up. Most religious people belong to their religions by an accident of birth (or politics in some cases), and there was no great reflection of the whys and wherefores of their religion. Because you believe in something through sheer cultural inertia does not make you more knowledgeable, in fact the opposite.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I remember correctly, escaping the dictatorial rule of people with your point of view was one of the primary reasons this country was founded.
People left England because of religious oppression.... Then you know what they did?
They set up their own theocratic territories which doubled down on the behaviors they had left England to escape.
To think that you know the "truth" about religion and everyone that disagrees with you is a moron pretty much makes you worse than most of those you despise.
Science isn't about Truths, it's about facts and (adequately) predictive models that explain those facts.
It's not bigoted to call someone a moron because they believe something that's factually wrong.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought science was about observation and describing what already exists.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a big difference between what people tell pollsters because they think that's what they *should* say, verses what they actually do or believe
Even assuming what you say is true, it's still a pretty strong reflection on how screwed up your society is that people are coerced into espousing a particular worldview due to pressure.
Land of the free indeed.....
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're not making me feel better. I don't know if there is a big difference between 'most people don't believe in evolution' and 'most people think they should say they don't believe in evolution.'
Actually, I'd say the later is worse. Whether you think we're here as a result of evolution or creation, you're not going anywhere without thinking for yourself. Someone who examines the evidence and concludes creation is most probable is (IMNSHO) mistaken, but can be reasoned with. Someone who believes in evolution just because that's what they've been told is lost.
Re: (Score:3)
... you're not going anywhere without thinking for yourself...
I find your leadership fascinating and would like to subscribe to your newsletter so that I will know what to think.
Rgds
Damon
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
A supporting anecdote:
When I took the PSAT (a common academic test), there was a small section where you had the option to put in demographic data. These being less paranoid times, I filled it out including listing under my religion: No Preference or Affiliation. Which was true and still is.
My mom saw that particular piece of data and flipped out. "Why did you mark No Preference? It makes you look like some kind of Atheist or something!" She reminded me that I was baptized and "confirmed" in the Lutheran church and therefore am Lutheran, apparently until death. Now, I have never seen her pray, she has only a very simple understanding of the Bible and nothing of theology, she never goes to church outside of weddings, as far as I can tell in day to day life God doesn't enter into it at all. Yet, I should have lied about my religious feelings because that would be the "normal" thing to do. What would people think?
I doubt my mom is the only one.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That is complete nonsense. Christians are expected to memorize several passages word-for-word, and though you are correct that the specific set and wording passages varies by denomination, they all have their set. In denominations with Confirmation, members are expected to basically memorize an entire catechism. Things like The Lord's Prayer are universally expected. If you attend church regularly, you will end up memorizing hymns, the more ritualistic parts such as the blessing and benediction, and oft
homework... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
More telling, religions don't deal with formal proofs and require that you show your work.
Very few subjects do. Formal proof was an option on the computing degree I did, other than that it's just philosophy and mathematics.
Who answers these polls? (Score:5, Interesting)
Who actually answers these polls?
I bet even in 1982 it was mostly old people.
Re:Who answers these polls? (Score:5, Informative)
Results are based on telephone interviews conducted May 3-6, 2012 with a random sample of –1,024—adults, aged 18+, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
It's the very first line of the report. http://www.gallup.com/file/poll/155006/Creationism_120601.pdf [gallup.com]
Re:Who answers these polls? (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't tell you much about the demographics involved.
Those 1,024 adults could have been somewhat self-selected. What kind of person answers the telephone without first confirming who the call is from, then proceeds to answer a bunch of inane questions? A person stupid enough to believe in creationism, that's who.
Re:Who answers these polls? (Score:4, Informative)
Which means either old people or folks without jobs, but I repeat myself. Any poll like this is not much better than a slashdot poll, about the same level of self selection.
If they are calling landlines, it is pretty much just the elderly.
Re:Who answers these polls? (Score:4, Informative)
Any poll conducted by telephone is inherently biased. Assuming they're calling (predominantly? only?) land-line phones
"Predominantly" to the extent that "Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents by region." [gallup.com] (see the "Survey Methods" section at the end).
Some have a more nuanced view (Score:4, Insightful)
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."
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I would think that this view is the most common among the intellectual crowds. I have worked with hundreds of PHDs over the years, and had some long fun discussions regarding the subject. A few were agnostic, but most believe in a creator without the traditional Religious beliefs. I'd say at least half participated in traditional Religious practices and saw nothing morally wrong with them.
Evolution as a Creation (Score:4, Interesting)
What if you believe in evolution as a divine creation?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Explains a lot (Score:3, Insightful)
That last 15%... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
That meshes well, actually, with a pet(misanthropic) theory(and I don't mean in the scientific sense) of mine, that it takes an IQ of about 120 to really get the basics of science in a whole-cloth kind of way. Less native pattern recognition than that, and pieces don't just naturally fit together as well.
Yeah, I know the attitude is contemptible and ignores the value of effort in trying to understand, and that it doesn't have any sort of objective verification. I fully acknowledge both obvious faults. Th
The reason Christianity has this problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:The reason Christianity has this problem. (Score:5, Informative)
Catholic dogma treats the book of Genesis as an allegorical work.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
I'm admittedly not religious, but I don't follow your argument (well, not yours but the one you're relating). If 'the fall of man' is defined as mankind disobeying god why does the fall have to happen precisely in the way genesis describes? Is there a man alive who has followed all of God's rules (as defined in by the Bible since our discussion is already centered on Christianity)? I doubt it. We all disobey so logically we have all fallen (I'm sure an apologist could argue that even being tempted to di
Re:The reason Christianity has this problem. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:The reason Christianity has this problem. (Score:5, Informative)
The book of Genesis is definitely considered allegorical by most Christians, including the Pope. However most Christians also believe that left to themselves, humans quickly descent into sin, and from there war, pestilence, famine and whatnot. Jesus saves us not because he died on the cross, that is just a spectacular example of incomprehensible self-sacrifice. He saves us because if you believe in him, then you will not descend into sin, simply because by loving your neighbor, war, famine, whatnot becomes quickly impossible.
Anyway, even if the garden of Eden never happened, Christianity does not collapse. Christianity is a faith, it can explain away anything.
As Gandhi said, I love your Christ but I don't love your Christians.
Re:The reason Christianity has this problem. (Score:4, Informative)
Saint Paul is an interesting Bible figure, BTW. Even based on Bible, he never ever saw Jesus, except for the case where his "spirit appeared before him", which is only mentioned in the part *St. Paul* himself wrote! It is not clear whether he new any other disciples, the modern view is that he was way younger than any of them to personally know them.
Yet, this guy gets to write more then a half of New Testament!
Talk about fraud.
Biased question. (Score:3)
There's some degree of conflict (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [cbsnews.com]. 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 [gallup.com]. 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/ [discovermagazine.com] although exactly what is going on is not clear. http://religionsetspolitics.blogspot.com/2011/04/political-affiliation-and-scientific.html [blogspot.com]. 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 [gallup.com]. 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.
So, slightly less than half the population... (Score:5, Funny)
Slightly less than half the population has below average intelligence.
Why I don't believe the poll (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Huh... (Score:3)
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...
Stupid ideas die with older generations (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Guided by His Noodly Appendage (Score:3)
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?
Obligatory (Score:4, Insightful)
Just to be clear- they believe in Yahweh. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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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.
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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.
I've never had a problem with... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Until you can prove them wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure it is.
Who created the devine creator?
In fact the idea of a devine creator is 2x as silly, since it requires that the devine creator was created and from nothing.
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A man was eating pizza one day when suddenly a guy eating a double cheeseburger approaches him and says, "You know eating pizza will make you fat."
You say that it is silly to believe in an uncreated creator while believing in an uncreated universe/multiverse/etc...
Not that it matters, but your logic is flawed anyway. The definition of a divine creator is an entity that just is and was never created. Since such a creator would have created even time itself, it is nonsensical to ask who created the creator
Re:Until you can prove them wrong (Score:5, Funny)
In the beginning was very low entropy and a lot of energy. Then it went downhill from there.
Re:Until you can prove them wrong (Score:4, Funny)
As it stands, I only have a brief history of time spent researching the subject.
Re:Until you can prove them wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that it matters, but your logic is flawed anyway. The definition of a divine creator is an entity that just is and was never created. Since such a creator would have created even time itself, it is nonsensical to ask who created the creator since that would imply that time existed before creation.
I think the problem is in the inability of religious people to come to terms with the fact that adding a "creator" into the equation only complicates things, it doesn't simplify them. Arguing against the notion of the relatively simple entity that was the primordial universe just springing up into existence, with the idea that universe was created by another entity "just existing", only much more complex, capable of human-like mental processes combined with vast knowledge and abilities, seems somewhat redundant and ridiculous to me. Ultimately, you are facing an even more difficult question.
Re:Until you can prove them wrong (Score:4, Informative)
The atheistic point of view means you know there isn't a God.
I'm sorry, but that isn't true. Atheists like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Dan Dennett, Sam Harris, A. C. Greyling - all have quite clearly said that they can't rule out the possibility that some kind of god exists.
Can you name any well-known, modern atheist (other than P. Z. Myers) who is completely certain that all gods are impossible?
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since it requires that the devine creator was created and from nothing.
Not really. Something "outside the universe" cannot be assumed to exist as what we know as "matter" or "energy", nor would it be subject to what we know as "time".
To argue that it would need to be "created from nothing" itself is making all sorts of assumptions.
Its absurd as a Princess Peach saying the Mushroom Kingdom universe must have been spontaneously created from nothing because its 2x as silly to think there is some sort of creato
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The who created the divine creator argument is almost as old as the chicken and egg paradox which, if you apply naive logic, shows that chickens and eggs, and other birds for that matter, do not exist, and cannot exist, because the question of which came first has no logical answer.
As for the distant past, the idea that it is illusory is a rational and logical one, and is as plausible as your Linux box being installed from a DVD by a user at a fixed point in its history, vs everything having been compiled
Re:Until you can prove them wrong (Score:5, Funny)
"It's turtles all the way down."
God exists outside the universe and time (Score:4, Informative)
Ah, Recursionism (Score:5, Funny)
A devoted Recursionist, I see
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Yes. it really is far sillier.
Re:Until you can prove them wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no evidence to support the idea of a divine creator. There is a growing body [amazon.ca] of evidence that the Universe could have been created from nothing (aka a quantum vacuum).
Re:Until you can prove them wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm wrong, I loose nothing. If I'm right, you lose everything.
So, you believe in God "just in case"? At least have a backbone about it, that's the worst reason you can have. At least those with *faith* are at about a level 5 of human motivation ("finding a higher purpose"), you haven't even climbed past level 1 ("survival").
Re:Until you can prove them wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea of a divine creator is no sillier than the idea of creation from nothing.
I'm tempted to agree with that statement. The problem I have with religious belief systems is when questioning the system is forbidden. A (good) scientist is willing to change his theory to suit his observations. Non-religious types "mock" those who are so attached to what they've been told to believe they can't accept new information.
Re:Until you can prove them wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Until you can prove them wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:in other words, 46% of americans are dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
They are not dumb. They are victims of an virulently infectious and devastating mental illness (faith). They can't really help it and they should not be insulted for it any more than a kid with polio should be insulted about being in a wheel chair.
Re:in other words, 46% of americans are dumb (Score:4, Informative)
So, who's working on a faith vaccine?
We have one, it's called 'critical thinking'.
Re:in other words, 46% of americans are dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
The minister who believes all gays should be jailed believes that because his faith in his religion demands that he condemn homosexuality.
Where do your morals come from?
Do they have an objective rational basis?
Or do you believe them because someone or something you are not permitted to question told you to believe them?
Morality dictated by authority is not moral. It is just as likely to be abhorrent as it is to be good. It is arbitrary. It is the exact same thing if it causes you to believe as the minister you mention, or to respect your parents, to not eat pork, to not kill, or blow up airplanes.
My morality is a superior morality. It is formed from an objective rational basis. Justice, liberty and equality are not well served by irrational thought based on the crumbling edifice of religions built on a mountain of skulls.
Why do I say that faith is a mental illness? Because it is. It behaves exactly like a virus The mechanism of infection takes over the mental machinery of the host and modifies it to ensure that it propagates throughout the population, just as an organic virus infects a cell and takes over its genetic machinery to propagate itself. The faithful are strongly compelled to spread their faith to others.
Faith itself is belief in the absence of reason, belief in the face of contradiction. It makes it easier for someone to believe in things that are objectively and morally wrong. And these sometimes malevolent and violent memes follow in the wake of faith like secondary infections follow the compromised immune system of an HIV victim. These memes con often not be separated from the basis of faith and they form a complementary complex that further spreads the infection (often by eliminating the uninfected or those infected by a competing vector by violent force).
I used to be very religious. I was a fundamentalist christian once. The more I learned about God, the happier I became to realize that he was nothing more the dark specter of a fevered mind.
Re:in other words, 46% of americans are dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
in other words, 46% of americans are dumb
If by "dumb" you mean "below median intelligence", that's approximately correct.
They aren't wrong (Score:3)
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How does "divinely guided" work?
Well, there's nobody who could reasonably claim to answer that question with any authority, but if you'd like speculation then it *might* work like the Monolith did in 2001: Find an animal that's close to what you want and nudge it in a direction that favors the traits you're looking for.
If you're only interested in results rather than specific means, you don't necessarily have to mess with genetic engineering. Potentially you could do this on an entirely behavioral level then let natural selection take car
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In related news, 46% of Americans believe themselves "above average".
I can assure you that at least 46% of Americans are "above average" for Americans.
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We keep trying to put them up for you. But you keep complaining about the Star of David on the capitol lawn and quotes from the Qur'an in the general assembly.
FWIW - there's nothing "undecided" about the other 21%. I might quote several prominant Christians in saying "Our beliefs are the truth, and the only truth. You may disagree with me all you want, but I have read the [Bible|Science Books] and you are simply wrong."
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There is no separation of church and state in the constitution. Rather that the government shall not impose religion or establish a state religion and all people are entitled to practice whatever religion they so choose. Those are two fundamentally different things.
Incase it's hard to understand let's take it right from the page itself.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
Re:Why (Score:5, Insightful)
46% of the US population rejects the entire foundation of modern life (science), and you wonder why it's news for nerds? It shows exactly how small a space the technologically literate occupy in this world.
Re:Why (Score:5, Informative)
Evolutionists reject what is essentially the Prime Directive of Biology: Life cannot come from nonlife.
Science is finding it increasingly difficult to draw the line between life and non-life. Viruses have just DNA replication ability without anything else needed for life. They borrow these from others. People were arguing whether viruses are alive or not. Now prions are basically chemicals (mis folded amino acids) with replication ability without DNA, not even the single stranded version of DNA called RNA. In fact there is a such a gradual chain of things linking life with non-life, it is not impossible to construct a sequence of events where life could emerge from non-life.