"A new Harris Poll finds that a strong majority (74 percent) of U.S. adults say they believe in God, but that's down from the 82 percent who expressed such a belief in earlier years."
"-- Absolute certainty that there is a God is down vs. 10 years ago (54 percent vs. 66 percent in 2003)."
"The Harris Poll was conducted online within the United States between Nov. 13-18, 2013 among 2,250 adults, ages 18 and older."
CNSNEWS
25 comments:
Got no time for non-believers, they got no time for me.
Why?
There's nothing there.
They disappear in front of my eyes ))) poof (((
And when they fail to disappear there is still little point in standing there with a flower discussing why there is no such thing as floral abundance.
And that whole time God was with me as I dyed tan pants to orange. Don't let these photos proving orange pants fool you, there is a yellow incandescent light shining directly on them. They are so orange it seems you can eat them.
Red contrasted to show, but it doesn't show the difference due to yellow light on both. Too bad.
Anyway, God is right there, it happens in seconds and so easily missed when your head is in some Godless place. I cannot take fifteen steps, starting at the center, I will not make it to the end of the block without evidence of divinity through some kind of humanity, a hug from a stranger right there on the street.
It happens. It happened last night.
Right there outside the door, not five steps away, two people on the sidewalk bundled together, mumbling about abuse from a stranger. A dark person is walking away as I pass them,
"Was he rude to you?"
"Yes, he even took our little bottle of vodka. Hey, can you help us out?"
The dark man turns around and catches up to me.
"Were you rude to them?"
"I tried to help them out."
From behind, the sitting man yells,
"Found it!"
The dark man yells back,
"You found what you lost yourself!" And now to me quietly, "And I turned fifty-nine today. It's my birthday."
"Feliz cumpliaños."
Now at the corner we stop for the light. Dark man clamps my whole body and sinks his head into my chest. Right there on Broadway at 11th.
An emotional person, this dark man. He crosses the broad street unnecessarily and saw me into the corner grocery addressed me as new friend and departed.
The percentage of Americans who cite religion as "very important" to their lives has hovered a little under 60% for decades. It hasn't declined.
What is happening is that the other 40% is becoming less religious. Basically, our religious attitudes are polarizing.
The drop is entirely attributable to Dems realizing that Obama is not God. The percentage will go up again when they find their next Messiah.
Baabwa Wawa will let you know who that is when the time comes.
Atheism worked out well for the Soviets and Maoists.
Give or take 60-70 million eggs broken, it was a pretty good omelette.
NTTAWWT.
Faith is weak..
But the wind is strong.
God is still doing OK!
What was the skew, I wonder, and the MOE?
Gotta ask this stuff since Solly an' da boys paid Gallup a coupla visits.
Pogo said...
Atheism worked out well for the Soviets and Maoists.
Give or take 60-70 million eggs broken, it was a pretty good omelette
More like 100 - 110 mil, but, since they're not Nazis, who cares?
Wawa lost her messiah. But, not to worry oh ye of little faith, Hussein still has three years left to make all things right, she tells Piers Morgan. You can't really believe that liberals are as wed to madness as they are until you hear it out of their own mouths.
@ Icepick
lol
From a short story about a minister who one day hears a voice not his own say "Know that there is truth. Know this" and decides to tell his congregation about the experience, after which they determine to fire him, but relent and decide to keep him on if he gets mental help:
"I thought maybe a few people would be curious about what actually happened. Would want to hear more." He shakes his head. "They don't." It makes him mad to think about it. They've decided to put up with him--that's what they've made of all this. They're being broad-minded and tolerant, that's all.
Swain does hear the voice of God again. This time--last Tuesday morning--it is as a note of music, as he is just waking up. Julie lies beside him asleep. It is early, still twenty minutes before the alarm is set to go off. He knows before it happens that it's coming. He does not move. He waits, while the note emerges from a sound too deep to be heard. Then it is audible, filling the room, humming against his bare stomach, like the live warm touch of a hand. In the same moment, it begins to diminish, a dwindling vibration on piano strings.
Swain lies still. He does not cry this time, or soak the sheets with his sweat. He does not wake Julie, whose breath he can feel on the curve of his shoulder. He looks at the morning light on the far wall, shifting with the shadows of the tree branches. He watches the triangles and splinters of light forming and re-forming, and quietly feels the slow rise and fall of his own chest. Everything is quiet: the room, the yard beneath the window, the street out front. He can see it all in his mind now, one surface, connected, breathing with his same slow breath. What he feels then, flooding the whole space of his being, is joy, undeniably joy, though it has not come as he would have expected. It is not what he looked for at all."
God Stories: The Pure in Heart by C.M Curtis and P. Payne
Only 41% of Gods recently polled have faith in Man.
It's special here in California, and if I had to say the belief system that is most common among people I know, I'd say it's some kind of amorphous set of things that include various versions of karma, reincarnation, a helping of Christianity (without the judging of course), and the ubiquitous "everything happens for a reason". I don't accept any of that like they do, but neither do I need to hate it, even though it seems stupid to me.
This doesn't have a name, or fixed principles, but it does encourage people to mostly do the right thing. I don't think that this "morality" is actually based in a fear of karmic retribution, but rather a need for self-respect and peer respect. In situations where nobody would know if you acted right, this system still seems to help people act morally. Most people just don't want to be evil and need that self-respect, and also there is the nagging possibility that people might find out somehow.
I don't care how people get to the place where they act morally, and it seems to me there are many paths that work as well as can be expected. To my mind, it's a miracle and a blessing when any of them work, regardless of what they are called.
Atheism worked out well for the Soviets and Maoists
It takes an odd sort of mind to look at the USSR and Mao-era China and think: this would have turned out fine if only they'd been *Christian* communists.
It takes an odd sort of mind to look at the USSR and Mao-era China and think: this would have turned out fine if only they'd been *Christian* communists.
It take an even odder sort of mind to imagine that that was your correspondent's point.
I'm willing to bet most of the unbelievers worship something, just not "God." They probably don't know they're worshiping either.
It take an even odder sort of mind to imagine that that was your correspondent's point.
My correspondent's point is just the usual guilt-by-association fallacy. I poke fun at it. :)
I'm willing to bet most of the unbelievers worship something, just not "God."
In the sense that vegetarians eat something, just not "meat".
I'm willing to bet most of the unbelievers worship something, just not "God."
The psychological need for meaning, and for an explanation of what follows death, are among the most important drives we experience.
I think this is true for everybody.
If you were a strict Drawinian, you might think that the need is real and the satisfaction of that need serves a practical purpose in human life.
I'd suggest that the evolutionary advantage is that the intelligent ape performed poorly without hope or purpose. He probably never got laid, just flung poo and went extinct.
The psychological need for meaning, and for an explanation of what follows death, are among the most important drives we experience.
In the sense that the Libertarian Party is among the most important political parties in America. Which is to say, it gets talked about now and then, but has little practical impact on American life.
If you want to know what drives people consider important, look at what drives we spend all our time fulfilling: food, shelter, sex, children, sleep, and companionship. Books exploring the meaning of life are outnumbered by Harlequin romance novels alone. :)
Is rev a communist?
Como no creer in dios?
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