cwd

thats what 32% of Americans believe according to results of two new surveys on religion in America. Some other highlights...

"82 percent of participants reported that they depend on God for help and guidance in making decisions.
71 percent said they believe that when good or bad things happen, these occurrences are simply part of God's plan for them.
61 percent indicated they believe God has determined the direction and course of their lives.
32 percent agreed with the statement: "There is no sense in planning a lot because ultimately my fate is in God's hands.""

Of coarse,
"Overall, participants with more education and higher income were less likely to report beliefs in divine intervention."
...damn crazy poor people...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/...stamericanssay

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Cyndalie

I think it's funny how when good things happen, it's because the person worked hard and earned it or they otherwise 'deserve' it. When bad things happen, like a miscarriage for example, suddenly it's part of God's plan and how "God never gives you more than you can handle".

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Hit Man

I think this is more of a stupidity issue rather than a religious one...

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Phoenix

i agree stupidity and relligion go hand and hand

id say probably 80% of highly religious people i have ever met, have been dumb as fuck, i mean they can fake it and go through life so no one would know.....but if you engage them in a conversation....it is quickly evident, they are at risk of swallowing their own tongue

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Platinum Bryan

LMFAO!!!

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bm bradley

possibly however g_d and religion don't really have much to do with each other.. apples and oranges $.02

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12clicks

Odd then, how often Einstein invoked God when discussing his scientific theories

Daze

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. -- Albert Einstein

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Pornwolf

I love how people of faith adhere to these simple life truisms. Of course you never get more than you can handle... because you haven't done what's necessary to handle it.

It's like having an excuse that doesn't directly blame yourself when you are always the one to blame.

Isn't that right Donny.

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voa

I never understand those people why they have just a one option in their life`s waiting everything from the god is little bit stupid.

Phoenix

yeah when i was getting my B.Sc. Mathematics...some of my professors were highly religious as well.

notice i said about 80%

that leaves 20%...which we can all agree Einsten would have fallen into

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12clicks

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."

"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."

"At any rate, I am convinced that He [God] does not play dice"

“What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world”

"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind."

"God is subtle but he is not malicious."

"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."

"I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."

"When I am judging a theory, I ask myself, whether if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way,"

"It is just God's way of letting us know we are not alone."

"It is just God's way of sending help, while remaining anonymous."

"This is so simple, God could not have passed it up."

"The Creator allows me to sometimes read His mind."

-- Albert Einstein

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12clicks

mathematics professors?

so you ADMIT its the top 20% who are religious!

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Relentless

Religion and God have nothing to do with each other.

Believing in an entity greater than humanity is not the same as believing any book or any man or any organization has a better understanding of that entity than you do based on 'faith.'

Einstein believed in God as did Newton and many others. The problem is that while God must have believed in Gravity the church did not. God isn't a problem, thinking a man in a silly hat speaks for God is a huge problem.

Wig

I don't think Newton and Einstein had anywhere near the same concept of God.

Newton was a very religious man and spent a great deal of time trying to decipher the Book of Daniel. He was a theist. He believed in a personal God.

Einstein believed more in the god of Spinoza... God was a metaphor for the unknown as well as the harmony and order he perceived as being part of the fabric of the universe. Definitely not a theist. He did not believe in a personal god.

Either way, arguments from authority are a mistake.

Wig

The second quote sounds rather pantheist, no?

I always found Einstein came across more in line with this quote. Maybe Deist with a flare for pantheistic rhetoric.

cwd

I am less concerned with those that believe in a god than those with those that believe their god has planned their life for them and they therefor need not worry what they do.

It was gods plan that I killed that doctor...
It was gods plan that the earthquake in Haiti killed all those people....

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Wig

+1

and while we are on quotes...

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do (say) evil things, that takes religion."

Steven Weinberg

Wig

And for my last drive by post... here are some stats I got from a quick search on atheism / theism amongst leading scientists.

http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki...ong_scientists

12clicks

don't get sucked in by poorly worded surveys.
This is just another anti-religion, anti-God article.
"There is no sense in planning a lot because ultimately my fate is in God's hands." might have been chosen by 32% of the respondents because there was no other statement that included "my fate is in god's hands"
I know many many many people who feel their fate is in God's hands who still plan every day.

Also, wealthy people tend to be smarter. Wealthy people tend to have an easier life. Religion is mostly leaned upon during time of stress or despair. less educated people have more stress and despair. You also have some very intelligent people look around them, see their own success and understand that they're no different than the guy who is unsuccessful and leads a hard, ugly life. He is thankful and chooses to believe in a higher power than blaming it all on simple luck.


I've always found the smallest minds are the ones who attack another's beliefs.

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12clicks

I've also found that people who disparage religion and lump them all together were never able to shake the fact that the enjoyed their "alter boy" experience and lash out at all people of faith.
its an uneducated point of view but hey, they know everything!

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Kenny B!

Religion is like sex, if it's forced on you as a child you won't enjoy it as an adult!

:-)

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12clicks

Haha, golden!

Relentless

Putting that in my sig

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Doctor Dre

For once I agree with 12clicks.

Wig

I agree. It is often when a person is at the bottom of the barrel that they turn to and find consolation and hope in religion (or whatever word you want to substitute).

If the the intelligent guy shares the same attributes with the unsuccessful guy, it would speak to either being in the right place at the right time (simple luck or whatnot) or a higher power that is capricious and arbitrary.

I doubt many intelligent people come to the conclusion of a higher power based on contemplation of their lot in life.

I agree. There is genuine intellectual discourse and there are attacks. Religion, like politics, economics, etc. should be open to the former.

12clicks

as usual, you've mistaken "belief" for "knowledge"

however, I do laugh at what you BELIEVE to be KNOWLEDGE.

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Daze

Einstein's "God" is just the universe itself, nothing like any religious notion of God. You know God through science, not through books written by primitive desert people thousands of years ago or through some personal connection to a supernatural presence. Einstein was just being polite or PC to use the term "God" at all.

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Relentless

Actually it is Religion that mistakes belief for knowledge.
That is the inherent flaw of organized religion and it is precisely that which makes Religion ungodly in most instances.

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12clicks

as usual, you know it all

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12clicks

seeing life thru the eyes of a 20something always amuses.

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Hit Man

Wealth and intelligence have nothing to do with each other. Fools come in all forms and stupidity does not discriminate...

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Relentless

That post is not an original thought of mine Ronald. Scholars have been saying it in one form or another for centuries. When Religion becomes something about 'knowledge' of pomp and doctrine rather than belief about God and morality it becomes ungodly and hypocritical.

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12clicks

considering most religion is not, you and the mythical scholars who back you are wrong again.

if you only had a shred of self awareness you'd be embarrassed by the silly way you jump into every thread with your idiot "look at me, I really am smart" nonsense.

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Relentless

Most Religion is not?
By most do you mean 'those other than Christianity, Judaism and Islam' ?

Those three have an awful lot of dogmatic teachings based on a 'knowledge' of holy scripture. The Christians even go so far as to proclaim the Pope to be an infallible voice of God. Muslims believe the Koran is a literal word-for-word message from God....

They are all heavily doctrinal and teach a 'knowledge' of God from Day 1 to disciples. Often even after it has been proven by Science to be factually wrong. Ask Ptolemy, Galileo, Salman Rushdie, everyone persecuted during the Inquisition... and millions of other people throughout history how 'belief and morality based' organized religions have been.

You 'teach' religion because it is something falsely trained as knowledge.

Spirituality is a process of life experience, self-awareness, communal lessons of morality and self-discovery. It is not taught... because it is a belief that can be challenged, changed and evolved. Unlike Religions... many of which still don't even believe in the concept of evolution let alone the impact it has on their own ways of thinking.

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12clicks

you're "knowledge" about christians and the pope makes baby jesus wish you had self awareness and just a little intelligence.

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Relentless

Papal Infallibility
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm

Baby Jesus might be a lot more upset by the fact that people think the Church is infallible than he would be by anything I have said. It's tough to claim it's a belief when you also claim your beliefs are infallible

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12clicks

swing and another miss.

if only you had a friend to whisper in your ear

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Relentless

If I was willing to claim an imaginary friend whispering in my ear also created the universe a few thousand years ago I'd be on par with many religions.

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Wig

Not quite. Catholics believe the Pope is infallible only in his interpretation of scripture.

12clicks

Catholics, Christians, who cares? He's on a roll.

Wig

...and out of control.

quiet

fear and trembling for the win...

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Wig

not by my count...

Relentless

Infallible. Think about that for a moment.


Absolutely, completely and unquestionably correct. Decisions that not only are above debate... they are above the possibility of being only mostly correct.

If it wasn't so dangerous it would be funny.

Wig

Relentless, you clearly don't understand what it means in the catholic context.

you are applying a broad use of the word when it is not used that way in the case in point.

go read Vatican II.

and to be clear, i'm no apologist.

12clicks

Your lack of intelligence is on display by your simple thoughts of the pope's relationship to Christians.
You're being laughed at privately.

Relentless

My understanding of the belief, is that the Church itself is 'infallible' objectively in all ways as it is the embodiment of God's will. The Pope is the singular voice of the Catholic Church and is believed to be infallible in his interpretations of scripture and Church dogma. Scripture is looked to and applied in pretty much any set of facts from contraception to stem cells to gay marriage to the alignment of objects in our solar system.

When the Pope says people should not use contraception because it is a sin regardless of an ongoing HIV epidemic in some countries, he isn't giving his opinion... he is speaking in the infallible voice of God by interpreting scripture for the masses. When a Muslim cleric uses the literal text of the Koran to defend acts that kill people in the name of God he isn't telling Islamic 'true believers' what he thinks... he is reminding them of the literal word of God as transcribed in a book that is centuries old.

Any time anyone thinks someone has a direct connection to God's will... humanity is in serious danger. Belief in God, morality and spirituality have a definite place in society and can do a lot of good. However, a belief you or someone specific knows God, hears God's voice, has a book written by God, or understands the true will of God is patently dangerous.

... and Ronald... the voices in your head are not real. So if you hear them laughing, at least remind yourself that they too are not God.

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jay23

When I get old I want to become a Swami , I already have my work cut out for me since I am Indian and know some Sanskrit.

Ever seen this many white chicks with an Indian guy... see http://www.oshorajneesh.net/school.htm ?

12clicks

its amazing how the truly ignorant are able to prattle on with no self awareness.

I guess thats what you do when you're unaccomplished. you trade the world stage where you have to DO for the chatboard stage where you merely have to TYPE

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