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Belief in God, miracles & heaven declines as Darwin's theory of evolution rises

coredeac said:
Then, just go all in. Why do you need to sort this out on a message board? Reject God and go all in. It's pretty simple.
We all know how we were created through Darwin and our purpose on this earth from his teachings. Go for it. Don't need to convince us!

Hey, and do let me know your future battle cry in ER. I'll go with "shit, shit, shit" since God apparently doesn't exist. And, "shit, shit, shit" always commands immediate respect.
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What a callous, glib post this is.
 
DeaconCav06 said:
God and evolution aren't mutually exclusive.
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Completely agree. That is why these stats are frightening. People seem to think that they are. I know that is how I was brought up. If you are a Christian, you simply can't believe in evolution.
 
TWDeac said:
Completely agree. That is why these stats are frightening. People seem to think that they are. I know that is how I was brought up. If you are a Christian, you simply can't believe in evolution.
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Can the inverse not also be problematic (if you are a scientist, you simply cannot believe in deities.)?
 
MACdeac said:
Not anti-gay and see absolutely no reason why trying to shatter people's belief in religion has any net positive measurable benefit to the atheist community. The good done by churches in the US, in communities, charity, etc is underestimated by atheists and the crusade against creationists based on claims of far reaching racism, bigotry, etc are very overblown in my opinion. Go ahead and crush people's hope and faith.. don't see much positive coming from it for our country, or any others, and I doubt atheists see more positives (true benefit) disproving God other than the pleasure from seeing people suffer, get upset, and argue. Go ahead and pull the news articles of radical creationists doing bad things.. It won't change the truth.
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Gay marriage is illegal in many states because of those who believe the bible is the word of God. Not being able to formally commit yourself to a loved one is the true definition of suffering, and a real reason to get upset and argue for a basic right that should be universally given to all people. You don't need to be a radical creationist to negatively impact the lives of millions of people. You just have to take a 2000 year old book as gospel.
 
How the fuck do we not have one atheist congressman or congresswoman?
 
TownieDeac said:
The survey also finds that 26% believe in witches
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LizLemonWhattheWhat.gif


This was just sort of slipped in there all casually. Are you fucking kidding me? Like fucking MOVIE witches with brooms and cauldrons and shit? Please at least tell me they're talking about the ChicDeac nature witches who have magicsex, and not the Wicked Witch of the West.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
Can the inverse not also be problematic (if you are a scientist, you simply cannot believe in deities.)?
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I think most scientists would believe if given irrefutable evidence that a higher power exists. Obviously, that is something we have not encountered, so who knows how it would actually work.
 
Got a busy day ahead, can't really jump in on this thread, but just wanted to put in a plug for the Episcopal Church. Not that we're perfect or have all the answers, but we're (mostly) not a bunch of crazies, we take faith seriously, as well as science and reason.
the_episcopal_church_welcomes_you.jpg
 
Say Hey Deac said:
LizLemonWhattheWhat.gif


This was just sort of slipped in there all casually. Are you fucking kidding me? Like fucking MOVIE witches with brooms and cauldrons and shit? Please at least tell me they're talking about the ChicDeac nature witches who have magicsex, and not the Wicked Witch of the West.
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Yeah this and the ghost shit is the thing that stands out the most to me. It is interesting that you can be convinced of ghosts, but not evolution.
 
Say Hey Deac said:
LizLemonWhattheWhat.gif


This was just sort of slipped in there all casually. Are you fucking kidding me? Like fucking MOVIE witches with brooms and cauldrons and shit? Please at least tell me they're talking about the ChicDeac nature witches who have magicsex, and not the Wicked Witch of the West.
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Maybe they're talking about witches of black magic?
 
DeaconCav06 said:
God and evolution aren't mutually exclusive.
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That's what I always thought and is why this thread is confusing me. It seemed like the beginning comments were mostly about not believing in evolution but posts challenging those were mostly about not believing in God. Sure, it's very dismissive to have a litmus test of just 2 questions that categorizes all people, but neither of numbers questions was "Does the person believe in God".
 
i was raised Southern Baptist and completely dropped out of organized religion because I could not reconcile what I had been taught in science class with what I heard from the pulpit. Lucky for me, my wife introduced me to the Episcopal Church, where you don't have to believe that Jesus rode dinosaurs to go to heaven. That church filled the "God-sized hole" in my life while also allowing me to function as an intelligent adult in the 21st century without experiencing constant cognitive dissonance.
 
I love the scene in Rudy where he is talking to the priest and the priest says something like, "In all these years as a priest I'm convinced of two things. There is a God. And I'm not Him."

At this point in my life I'm not sure on my thoughts about God, but I do believe in evolution and even with that belief it all had to start somewhere. What was the beginning? Who is the Unmoved Mover?
 
As stated earlier, evolution is a scientific theory like gravity or light. I know of no reasonable scientific argument against it.

If you read and trust the book of Genesis as a historical account of absolute facts with regard to the earth's creation, then I suppose you might not agree with evolution. Otherwise, I don't see the conflict. With two different creation stories likely written by different authors, I don't see a reason to assume it is fact. One can certainly take those writings seriously without believing they are factual.
 
awakeandready said:
That's what I always thought and is why this thread is confusing me. It seemed like the beginning comments were mostly about not believing in evolution but posts challenging those were mostly about not believing in God. Sure, it's very dismissive to have a litmus test of just 2 questions that categorizes all people, but neither of numbers questions was "Does the person believe in God".
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Yeah I'm not against religion and agree that it has served a multitude of purposes in the course of human and social evolution. It's a valuable tool and crutch to reach people, particularly as OGB pointed out those people who may be less fortunate than others for any number of reasons.

My concern is as Townie pointed; the shockingly low number of people who believe in evolution. I realize that belief in God and the bible is not entirely mutually exclusive with believing in the theory of evolution, but the reason the number is so low is the relationship evolution has with the Christian religion. If there were no religion, evolution would likely be an afterthought that we all learned in third grade. There would be limited concern over the usage of stem cell research, there would be markedly decreased outrage over same sex rights and a number of other socially beneficial products which a Judeo-Christian society has some moral issue with.

Religion has been a valuable tool in the past and for some it continues to be. If that's the case that is perfectly fine. Who am I to tell people what they should believe? At the same time it is my own personal belief that religion as a societal construct in it's current form in 2013 has massively deleterious effects on both the public policy of our nation as well as America at large in the 21st century.
 
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