According to a 2001 Gallup poll, about 45% of Americans believe that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so." Another 37% believe that "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process", and 14% believe that "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process". How is it that we are the strongest nation in the the world and yet this still happen????????
because people want to believe there's more to life than our known existence. that, and america in particular is just very, very religious. i think if science was better taught, people would know and appreciate natural selection and the observable world more and there wouldn't be such a need for the supernatural. i wish i had read sagan many years ago. cosmos is absolutely blowing my mind.
What's wrong with religion? It doesn't matter what people believe in this case, because it won't effect them later on anyway.
LMAO. do you have the slightest of ideas what "polling" is? I heard HCC offers intro to statistics courses, you should look into that.
There's "two Americas" but rather than blaming a region, states can be a mishmash "Red" and "Blue" territories. Not to say that political affiliation strongly correlates with this, but it's easier for the sake of discussion to use the example.
-No link -“10,000 years or so.” I believe that young earth creationists believe that the earth is between 6,000 and 10,000 years old. -What does the US being the strongest nation in the world have to do with this?
Maybe a cleverly disguised Fundamentalists are idiots thread. No, but geology, fossil evidence, and gene sequencing can explain how life and the earth was beyond 10,000 years ago.
I probably won't let a doctor with such belief work on me. Other than that, I don't see how this belief would affect one's daily life or the strength of this nation. If you are pointing out that this is an example of education failure, I think there are other more serious problems that make this one almost insignificant.
Sure, but there would still be a 'need for the supernatural'. That has nothing to do with religion necessarily but more about how you get something from nothing. I guess that doesn't really address the poll though, which is 9 years old if it even exists, and for which 55 percent of the responses are completely reasonable.
My profession lies in Science and even then, I am not shocked by these poll findings, even if it's from a small pool. Science does not explain everything. Religion does not explain everything. Thus, the common concensus these days is 50/50 down the line. That both God and science have played a role in us being the human beings we are today. As a scientist, I also believe in God. There is nothing wrong with believing in something that gives value to your existence. At this point, we do not have merely enough scientific data to conclude that God doesn't exist or explain the beginnings of this universe. Until we do, people will always look towards religion as a possible answer. From a purely scientific point of view...the universe is endless. But I find it hard to believe that it is...our world consists of boundaries. There is nothing on this planet without boundaries. So are we truly to believe that the universe simply goes on and on forever, and never ends? I am very skeptical of that. And that is where religion begins...what is beyond this realm that we dwell in?
I wonder what the distribution is today? It seems as time progresses, people believe less and less in creationism and overall religion. If you were an atheist 200 years ago, you'd probably be a total outcast. Now it's a mostly accepted position.
That's as absurd as saying that Christianity, or Islam, or Judaism is "mostly accepted." You have no way to prove that opinion, and neither would any of those "camps."
I think you took "accepted" the wrong way. I didn't mean that everyone agrees with it, I mean that people tolerate it. It's not a "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE YOU ATHEIST" sort of thing any more. They accept that that is someone's position, and generally don't attack them for it. There are folks, of course, who refuse to accept such things and do viciously go after people with opposing beliefs, but I don't think that's commonplace any more. And I am speaking mostly of the modern world. There are, of course, places in the world where such understanding does not exist. I guess my argument is that the number of those places is dwindling.
