So 40% of the US believes God created us as is within past 10,000 years?

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StinkyPinky

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2002
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Every other English-speaking country has outgrown this medieval crap but for some reason we're still there, trucking along, believing in a Sky Wizard. :rolleyes:

I know from experience from my time in Australia and NZ that probably only 16% even believed in a god.

Why are we so different?
 

Rainsford

Lifer
Apr 25, 2001
17,515
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No, "atheism" is the religion of atheists, in that they maintain there is no God. Science does not disprove the existence of God.

Maintaining a lack of a belief in something due to a complete absence of convincing evidence is not itself a belief (much less a "religion"). If atheists had a point of view where God can't exist as an article of FAITH, your argument might be valid...but that's not how atheism works. Atheism is a lack of belief in God, not a belief in a lack of God. The difference isn't splitting hairs at all...
 

Rainsford

Lifer
Apr 25, 2001
17,515
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Every other English-speaking country has outgrown this medieval crap but for some reason we're still there, trucking along, believing in a Sky Wizard. :rolleyes:

I know from experience from my time in Australia and NZ that probably only 16% even believed in a god.

Why are we so different?

I don't think the significant difference is about belief in God or not. I think it's about the depth of that belief. I know plenty of people who are religious for whom their religious beliefs are an intensely personal choice and focused inward. I personally don't share that belief, but I see nothing at all wrong or harmful with that kind of attitude towards religion.

The problem in the US is that we have a lot of religious people who are NOT like that. What we have a lot of is the type of religious people who would be more at home in the Crusades (or indeed, the "modern" Middle East), where religion is all about trying to shape society around your belief system.
 

pcgeek11

Lifer
Jun 12, 2005
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what are you talking about? 52% of republicans think god created the world 10k years ago. pathetic.

40% of democrats think we evolved with god guiding the process. Both retarded stances, yes. But who is completely detached from reality?

What is the reality? There is no absolute known proven reality for this subject. Just theories.
 

MovingTarget

Diamond Member
Jun 22, 2003
9,002
115
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I'm not surprised at the results. However, a lot of people miss the point of the book of Genesis. Did God really create the world from nothing in 7 of our calendar days approximately 6k years ago? Probably not, but those numbers really shouldn't matter in the context of the book. No surprise there.
 

Elfear

Diamond Member
May 30, 2004
7,126
738
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And yet this is the very heart of the matter for those who actively believe there is no G-d. All mass in the universe was concentrated in one little ball. We don't know why or where it came from, but we certainly know G-d had nothing to do with it! Then for some unknown reason it blew up - NOT because of G-d, that much is certain! Then one day life just sprang into being - which is perfectly natural! Then that life became more and more complex over millions of years, even though much of that complexity involves expending energy with no return over long periods of time - just by chance, thank you! And that complexity led to different species, different genera, different phyla, different kingdoms - even though many of these changes necessarily make creatures not inter-fertile - purely through chance.

By contrast, those believing in a Creator needs must believe only that something operates beyond our universe, beyond our perception. The description of that Creator, and the degree to which it touches our universe and lives, are merely nuances in ideology. I have no problem with people believing that there is and can be no G-d, ever, but I am most amused when they ascribe to themselves great wisdom for doing so.

Best post so far. I respect people's beliefs in whatever floats their boat but those trying to say their belief in evolution is any more valid than others belief in a God-created mankind are being dishonest with themselves.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
85,586
50,771
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Best post so far. I respect people's beliefs in whatever floats their boat but those trying to say their belief in evolution is any more valid than others belief in a God-created mankind are being dishonest with themselves.

Ahhh the good 'old retreat to false equivalence.
 

CanOWorms

Lifer
Jul 3, 2001
12,404
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Every other English-speaking country has outgrown this medieval crap but for some reason we're still there, trucking along, believing in a Sky Wizard. :rolleyes:

I know from experience from my time in Australia and NZ that probably only 16% even believed in a god.

Why are we so different?

They believe in the Queen, who is the route to God as she is from a bloodline blessed by the Creator.
 

kylebisme

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2000
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Ah, my bad, I misread Elfear's post and didn't realize he is in denial of the abundance of evidence which confirms evolution.
 

shira

Diamond Member
Jan 12, 2005
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Best post so far. I respect people's beliefs in whatever floats their boat but those trying to say their belief in evolution is any more valid than others belief in a God-created mankind are being dishonest with themselves.

There's plenty of empirical evidence supporting the big bang, the origins of life on earth, and evolution by natural selection. There's not a shred of empirical evidence supporting the existence of God. Those claiming that a belief in empirically supported theories is somehow NOT more valid than a belief in baseless dogmas are being dishonest with themselves.
 
Jun 26, 2007
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What is the reality? There is no absolute known proven reality for this subject. Just theories.

I'm fairly certain that you are dishonest here, you've had this debate many times before and several people have explained to you how evolution is an established fact which is explained by the scientific theory of evolution?

That evolution happens has been observed in real time by many thousands of people.
 

classy

Lifer
Oct 12, 1999
15,219
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Honestly this such a dumb discussion. Who cares? Does it really matter if a person believes in God or evolution. Neither can be fully proven or disproven. Both are theories for the most part. If a person lives right and treats people right, in the end that is truly what matters. No matter what side you fall on, either belief will have some strong blind faith tied to it. That is the reality......................
 

kylebisme

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2000
9,396
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There's plenty of empirical evidence supporting the big bang, the origins of life on earth, and evolution by natural selection.
That list is rather misleading, as the first two rely on a lot of conjecture, leaving them not nearly as well substantiated as the third.
 
Jun 26, 2007
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Honestly this such a dumb discussion. Who cares? Does it really matter if a person believes in God or evolution. Neither can be fully proven or disproven. Both are theories for the most part. If a person lives right and treats people right, in the end that is truly what matters. No matter what side you fall on, either belief will have some strong blind faith tied to it. That is the reality......................

Evolution has been observed in real time, yes that includes "macro evolution".

If there are scientists that have observed it, the results being reproducable and observably by anyone with enough knowledge on the subject then it isn't subjective anymore, it's objective reality and it requires NO faith what so ever.

Misinformation and general ignorance should be fought no matter what, that's the only way for a society to progress.
 
Jun 26, 2007
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That list is rather misleading, as the first two rely on a lot of conjecture, leaving them not nearly as well substantiated as the third.

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that the evidence isn't there, it most certainly is.

Perhaps the tinfoil has rotted your brain?
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
85,586
50,771
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Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean that the evidence isn't there, it most certainly is.

Perhaps the tinfoil has rotted your brain?

I hate to say it, but he's actually right, at least in relation to the origin of life on earth. We have a good guess on the origins of life on earth, but we're not sure. Evolution, at least in a broad sense, is nailed down fact.
 
Dec 26, 2007
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Honestly this such a dumb discussion. Who cares? Does it really matter if a person believes in God or evolution. Neither can be fully proven or disproven. Both are theories for the most part. If a person lives right and treats people right, in the end that is truly what matters. No matter what side you fall on, either belief will have some strong blind faith tied to it. That is the reality......................

Every intelligent person should care.

Evolution has been proven to the same degree as gravity, yet gravity isn't doubted/questioned. You should go read up on what a scientific theory really is because you don't appear to have a grasp on what it really is.

In your "everybody treat one another right" world, wouldn't you also prefer people to advance society as a whole?
 

ConstipatedVigilante

Diamond Member
Feb 22, 2006
7,670
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In statistics, a normal distribution is the standard bell shaped curve you see here:
statpb.gif


Due to the central limit theorem (primarily) populations that are large enough (and 300 million people is WAY larger than you need) will, for any random variable eventually smooth out into such a clustering around the mean.

Surveys are absolutely subject to question bias and other such biases. If you can identify errors in the questions in this survey and how they would lead to a manifestly biased result, I'm very open to that sort of attack on it. To say that 1,000 people is not a large enough sample though is factually wrong, provable by math.

1,000 people is a large sample, but there are a bunch of things that they didn't say. Ie,

Did they survey people in different parts of the country?
Did they only survey people with phones?
Did they have a person or machine ask the question (yes, this matters!)?
Did they ask the question the same way EVERY time?
Where did they obtain this list of people to survey?
What is the age group/ethnicity/gender of the people they surveyed?
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
85,586
50,771
136
1,000 people is a large sample, but there are a bunch of things that they didn't say. Ie,

Did they survey people in different parts of the country?
Did they only survey people with phones?
Did they have a person or machine ask the question (yes, this matters!)?
Did they ask the question the same way EVERY time?
Where did they obtain this list of people to survey?
What is the age group/ethnicity/gender of the people they surveyed?

Almost every single one of those questions is answered in their methodology statement.

They surveyed through random digit dialing, the same way everyone surveys for polls like these. That covers the entire country.

They use human pollsters because they need to be certain they are speaking to adults, since it's a survey of adults. If you think a machine would have altered the poll results, explain how and why, and back it up.

Yes, they only surveyed people with phones. The percentage of Americans that has a telephone in their household is so overwhelming that it might as well be 100%.

Yes they asked the question the same way every time, that's the whole point.

They obtained the list through random digit dialing, as mentioned before.

There is no specific age group/ethnicity/gender of the people surveyed, that's the entire point of a random sample.

I get the feeling on here that people have literally no idea how public opinion polling is conducted.
 

techs

Lifer
Sep 26, 2000
28,559
4
0
40 percent of Americans thought Saddam was involved in the 9-11 attacks at the time of the second Bush election.

Coincidence?