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Religion & Law

: Thoughts in a Haystack

Poll Cats

By John Pieret

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The Harris Poll released a new nationwide survey of 2,126 U.S. adults surveyed online between November 10 and 17, 2008. Some of the results:

-- 80% of adult Americans believe in God - unchanged since the last time we asked the question in 2005. Large majorities of the public believe in miracles (75%), heaven (73%), angels (71%), that Jesus is God or the Son of God (71%), the resurrection of Jesus (70%), the survival of the soul after death (68%), hell (62%), the Virgin birth (Jesus born of Mary) (61%) and the devil (59%).
-- Slightly more people - but both are minorities - believe in Darwin's theory of evolution (47%) than in creationism (40%).
-- Sizeable minorities believe in ghosts (44%), UFOs (36%), witches (31%), astrology (31%), and reincarnation (24%).
-- Catholics are more likely than Protestants to believe in Darwin's theory of evolution (by 52% to 32%), ghosts (by 57% to 41%), UFOs (by 43% to 31%), and astrology (by 40% to 28%). Protestants are slightly more likely than Catholics to believe in creationism (by 54% to 46%).

Okay, if this poll can be believed, it?s good that more American believe in evolution (even if needlessly labeled ?Darwin?s?) than in creationism but that may be more than overcome by the depressingly large numbers that believe in ghosts, UFOs, witches and astrology. I?m more sanguine about the religious beliefs because there are social factors preventing critical examination of those beliefs by the believers. But those factors should be missing in the ?secular? subjects, like UFOs, etc.

But maybe this is the most telling result of the poll:

-- only 26% of all adults believe that the Torah is the word of God, even though it is the same as the first five books of the Old Testament. Presumably many people do not know this.

Maybe the most significant finding about Americans is their ignorance.
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Full post as published by Thoughts in a Haystack on December 10, 2008 (boomark / email).