WTF is wrong with you people?

"A belief in God and an identification with an organized religion are widespread throughout the country, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll . . . "

I saw this article last night. Made me cry.

That percentage is pretty stable in poll after poll. Yes, people in urban areas tend to be more secular, but it's pretty much forty-odd percent (or, to the great shame of our educational system, even more) of the American population across the board.

Best headline ever, by the way.

seriously. WTF ?

I read this first in the liberal group, and what was most remarkable to me was th 34% of college graduates accept the biblical account of creation as fact.

Funny thing is that every one of these folks would probably read Gilgamesh and recognize it as mythology, but they can't see that Hebrew mythology is also mythology.

The really sad thing is that mythology serves an important purpose as mythology. Once you starting trying to convert it to fact it becomes just another ideology, with nothing better to teach anyone than any other ideology.

Me!

don't give her any information.....
she's part of the Borg.

Just so. The ironic thing about about fundamentalism is that imposes a philosophically materialistic interpretation on spiritual texts.

Can we please, please not get into another long protracted discussion based on people's lack of understanding of statistical polling methodologies.

I just had no idea that 41% of Catholics were fundamentalist. I mean, I knew they were pretty hard core. What, with that funny little dude and the silly hat but reeeally.

I...just don't understand it. I mean, a belief in a supreme being is one thing, I get that. But half of all people polled saying they reject the theory of evolution? A third of college graduates believing in Creationism as fact?

And what also confuses me, why do Evangelical Christians have such a strict adherence to only some parts of the Old Testament? They're all about Genesis and selective passages of Leviticus, but choose to ignore the rest.

Ah, Leviticus. Blueprint for Utopia.

What is interesting is that he Catholic church pretty much disavows creationism, equating it with paganism.

What is fun is to see what the wingnuts make of that.

Fixed.

I don't even understand the belief in an omnipotent supreme being.

"WTF is wrong with you people?"

When you find out, let me know.

I am constantly astonished at the gullibility of large proportions of the population. Really, it puts the whole 2000 and 2004 election cycle into focus: if 48% actually believe in Creationism, it doesn't put a Bush victory out of reckoning.

Aaaauuuggghh!!! It's secular humanism!!!! Get it off! Get it OFFFFF!!!!!!!

Tommy Lee Jone said it best in Men in Black, thought I don't quite remember the line. A single person can be rational and smart, and can think things through, but people, on the other hand, are scared dumb animals who just wanna be safe and secure.

Individual mentality is often of higher intelligence than Group mentality. Must be why Evangelists preach to people en masse

makes perfect sense, really.

Oh come on. If your understanding of religious philosophy and mythology is so basic that you think every word of it is supposed to be true, then you have the mentality of a five year old.
The learned men of the church, who's business is studying theology (I'm talking here about actual theologians, not evangelical douchebags) do not believe that the bible is a literal historical document, and yet the uneducated masses do and their doomsaying lay preachers do.
Once again the gulf between serious spirituality and laymans religion is painfully obvious. Sad

Word.

It doesn't specify who is being polled in detail:

But one assumes that it reasonably covers various subsamples of the population (rural/urban, Dem/Repub and so on).

Well at least the number of people who think that you can't be moral and athiest is down. That's something at least.

And people wonder why the U.S. is the number one target of Internet/bank scams by Nigeria.

Well, we know the world is only 5,000 yrs old, so Creationism HAS to be true!