More Americans believe God Impregnated a Virgin than in Evolution of Humankind
Posted by NT Wrong on December 14, 2008
The Harris Interactive Poll measures various religious beliefs, and belief in evolution. These are the percentage of Americans who believe in…
|
Believe In
|
Don’t Believe In
|
Not Sure
|
|
|
% |
% |
% |
|
| God |
80 |
10 |
9 |
| Miracles |
75 |
14 |
12 |
| Heaven |
73 |
14 |
13 |
| Jesus is God or the Son of God |
71 |
17 |
12 |
| Angels |
71 |
17 |
12 |
| The resurrection of Jesus Christ |
70 |
18 |
13 |
| Survival of the soul after death |
68 |
15 |
17 |
| Hell |
62 |
24 |
13 |
| The Virgin birth |
61 |
24 |
15 |
| The devil |
59 |
27 |
14 |
| Darwin’s theory of evolution |
47 |
32 |
22 |
| Ghosts |
44 |
39 |
17 |
| Creationism |
40 |
31 |
29 |
| UFOs |
36 |
39 |
25 |
| Witches |
31 |
29 |
14 |
| Astrology |
31 |
51 |
18 |
| Reincarnation – that you were once another person |
24 |
53 |
23 |
This Harris Poll® was conducted online within the United States between November 10 and 17, 2008 among 2,126 adults (aged 18 and over).
13 Responses to “More Americans believe God Impregnated a Virgin than in Evolution of Humankind”
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N.T.WRONG 
steph said
Jeepers.
Fascinating article: 55% believe the OT is the word of God but only 26% believe the Torah is the word of God. Who are we dealing with here?!
Danny said
The Torah sounds too Jewish.
tim f said
People who don’t know what the Torah is?
What interested me most was the number of people who self-identified as Christian (and as Catholic or Protestant) that also believed in astrology. Even accounting for the proportion of people who self-identified as Catholic/Protestant but who said they didn’t believe in God, it’s considerable.
danielandtonya said
More evidence for why most churches in the West suck. You’d think that if parents took their child to Sunday School (as many do this morning around Texas), and the kid stayed in Sunday School from 1st grade to 12th grade, somewhere in there, the kid ought to hear something about ‘Torah’ and its relationship to the ‘Old Testament’. But I guess those adults who teach the class would have to know it for them to teach it.
Josh McManaway said
I wonder – and this is probably way out in left field – if “Darwin’s” theory of evolution is what threw people. I doubt people are this scientifically savvy on the whole, but I know that because so many advancements have been made in Evolutionary/Developmental biology (cf. the work of Sean Carroll, Neil Schubin, etc) that “Darwinian” evolution is a bit of a misnomer.
Antonio Jerez said
I suppose this poll shows again with all clarity that many people can and do hold a lot incompatible beliefs at the same time. Like being a Christian darwinist who believes in heaven and reincarnation 🙂
tim f said
Darwin was a Christian Darwinist. That bit’s not necessarily a contradiction.
Josh Mann said
I suppose this reveals that most people do not come to hold certain beliefs because of a logical syllogism or observations of ‘facts’. I think beliefs are to some extent volitional. Also, it always seems that people are surprised at the popularity of belief in God (etc.) and the unpopularity of belief in evolution.
Could it be that we’re fed a lie by the self-proclaimed ‘intelligent’ among us that evolution is obvious and belief in God (and especially true piety w. respect to Christ) is absurd?
steph said
The theory of evolution is twice as popular in the rest of the western world, Josh. Yes, we’re very intelligent. 🙂
Antonio Jerez said
Tim,
don´t think so. If I am not mistaken Darwin himself followed the logical conclusion of his theory and died as an atheist or agnostic. The popular myth among christian fundamentalists that Darwin recanted at his deathbed is just nonsense.
Josh McManaway said
Antonio:
How exactly is the logical conclusion of “organisms change” equal to “God doesn’t exist”? I’m unsure how measuring the change in allele frequencies somehow cancels out the belief in any deity.
Antonio Jerez said
Josh,
I knew this was coming. Yes, darwinism doesn´t automatically rule out belief in ANY deity. But darwinism does seem to rule out belief in a biblical kind of god. Darwin saw this with all clarity which is why he lost his faith. Yes, and I know that people like Ken Miller try to reconcile Darwinism with Christianity. It smacks of desperation. I´ve read his book and as soon as he leaves the chapters where he debunks creationism he gets almost as pathetic as the creationists himself.
I also happened to see the last episode of Richard Dawkin´s TV series on Darwin and Darwinism tonight. The scene where the archbishop of Canterbury makes a fool of himself in front of Dawkins is fun to say the least.
Flávio Souza said
40% believes in creationism!!!
Oh my God!!!!
😦