In response to St. oops, Sir Peter, who refers to people who believe in God as "weak minded." This coming from a man who pays hookers for sex and offers to answer the questions of "peasants."
No thank you Pete, I'll pass on your advice. GCJ

That will teach me to start a discussion and leave for a day...

Good discussion - what I thought was interesting (and maybe I should have actually added text) was in essence what the FIRST poster said.

I can accept that 90% of the population believes in God and Heaven. Nine in ten (roughly). Belief in religion is passed on from parents to children, it is accepted as "normal" to have faith in God, there are institutions to support belief (churches), and there is a great deal of human benefit that comes from it (purpose and meaning, support, hope, community).

What suprises me is that ONE THIRD of the population believes in Ghosts and UFOs! These beliefs are not supported by "mainstream" institutions, nor are they taught to children (hopefully).

What this leads me to believe is that roughly 1/3 of the population is... to put it bluntly...

D E L U S I O N A L

Bringing it full circle back to the chart on the left, assuming 1/3 of the population is mad (I will concede that it is maybe 1/4th) - what does this say about the population's literal belief in the Bible Stories? I wonder, what the crossover is between UFO belief and belief that the world was created in six days? Heheh.

And further, what does this say about our population as a whole? or humanity as a whole? I suppose it goes back to the old adage - people see what they want to see.

Postscript.

What is it something like 50% of the American population believes we ALREADY found WMDs in Iraq ?

Not suprising is it ??

...altogether it sounds like the evolution of tthe yellow press has started way earlier
than i thought.

"Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got somethin to say, but nothing comes out.
when they move their lips just a bunch of gibberish" Eminem.

and i think hes damn right. Majority of people sits on the couch and eiter joins an opinion group presented to him,
or constructs his own opinion from the gathered half-info. Then the person produces himself by sharing or voicing this opinion. But all that takes place on the couch, since no one is willing to stand up for their opinion anymore.
Cause deep inside themselves they realize that they cannot trust their own opinion, at all.

BAM!

I'm quite insane, but only a little by standards set forth by the mental institute of Anartica.

I believe in a higher power that exists. If you want to call it God, feel free. If you want to call it science, hey, more power to you.

But since when is it wrong or right to believe/disbelieve?

If you're an atheist, you haven't the faith.. So who died and made you god about what I should think and feel?

If you Are a believer, what business is it of your's if someone else doesn't? Sure, it's nice to "enlighten" people..but come on, all you do is offend and scare of the non-believers. It's the Hatfields vs McCoys..and neither side is going to win.

You can't prove or disprove that there is a God. By that exact definition all you have is an opinion. And if opinions were what we used to measure Intelligence, then I AM YOUR GOD. (Blasphemy? No.. I got a license to ill) Mwahaha

For laughing/crying outloud: Get a grip on reality. You people are trying to prove that blue is a better color than green just because you said so.


Poet, what I find interesting is the fact someone could believe in a God, a Heaven, Miracles, Angels, yada yada..and not believe in Ghosts? What are ghosts but spirits/souls? Didn't God give us one of those? (If you believe)
How can anyone admit to one thing and deny another when they can't prove it either way? Lmao

Rab - The question was; what is the history of the world "atheists", not the dictionory's definition. Anyone could get a definition from a dictionary. The idea is to research the word to find what its true meaning is, and what the context of the word was when first used. Hint. . .It came about during Roman rule. Stop thinking in the terms of the now, and get into the past.

Pam

LM - RE: God/ghosts - Yah I wasn't going to point that out... more strange is that 75% of people don't believe in witches, when there are people that claim to be witches.

I don't have details of the exact survey question, but I suppose one could assume a more simple description of the term "Ghost" and "Witch" - let's say a more fairy tail description. Dunno ?

pam - seems pretty clear to me - A + Theist. A + Moral. You're becoming A + poplectic. Cut to the chase and enlighten us.

Age of respondents? Okay, as some who have read my blog know I work in an elementary school and I could find this chart totally believable if it were done in a grade school or junior high. But otherwise as an anal sociologist I have a million questions about this survey. Number of people polled, age range, time span, actual questions posed, etc. Cause as poetphilosopher pointed out, I guess I do believe in witches in the context that there are people who practice wicca or witchcraft...but do I believe there are a bunch of old green faced wart covered hags flying around on broomsticks terrorizing little kids...well, no.

Personal beliefs asside, I do find it possible that a large percentage of the population has been completely misled on certain things or else has not been presented with reliable sources of information. I recall in high school when a friend of mine went around with a notebook asking people who bombed pearl harbor and though about half of the people got it right, a disturbing amount responded "we did."

Hey, it just goes to show that people are complete idiots as a species. Individually speaking, there are bright spots..as a whole? Mooorons.
Not that I'm pointing any fingers right at this moment to any of you..just generalizing.

Common sense is an uncommon trait.

Vive le Lunaticus!

Most people I know are foolish in one area or another.

What I find distressing, however, is how people will blast religious people as being ignorant or stupid or whatever. I see a lot of foolish things written by people who are proudly atheist. Being religious does not imply idiocy or ignorance. Similarly, being left-wing doesn't mean you're stupid or ignorant either.

Nor does being an atheist mean someone is an idiot. However running around in a t-shirt that says "God doesn't exist" and chanting "death to the believers" will put you into the category of completely inane..and potentially insane. I see atheism as till a minority belief in most aspects, YET here again is it a minority group dictating to the majority. In who's world does that make sense? Not mine!

Vive Le..Vive Le..VIIVVEE LE LUNATICUS.

I wish I could admend my own comments to correct my spelling mistakes. Heh

Wots admend mean ?

Everyone knows one can spend a lifetime raping, murdering, and pillaging and then lay on the death bed and say. "Oh, precious baby Jesus save me" and go to heaven. What idiot doesn't know that? I can't wait to meet Hitler in heaven, and Custer, another good Christian follower.

It reminds me of the line from the 'Blues Brothers' "What kind of music do y'all like? Oh, we like both types, Country AND Western." (I know I paraphrased Brad&Co., so please don't call for cites or statistical proof). Guess I better change my beliefs to those Fox/CNN (or whatever nonsense media poll source) tells me are the most popular to believe these days. Okay now, the witch I live with does not exist, but some guy who was center for the 76'ers basketball team parted a Sea (sure it wasn't 'C' but got mis-translated?). What the heck, I'm just glad I'm not a typical Fox viewer.

Someone pass the plate quick before they leave.
Believe me, if Jesus comes back, he'll look like John Travolta and call himself, 'Swordfish'. And Bush better run and hide with the Pope.

Are you mentally stable cuz that post was (whoosh) over my head.