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Did You Know Notepad Could Do This?

upside_down_church

A friend of mine (CarlM) and I have a long-running debate regarding how logical or illogical the
average religious person is in the United States.

I believe that the level of religious belief held by most Americans
is harmful to human civilization–even in the so-called “moderate” form
practiced in the United States. I believe that once a society as a whole
rejects logic and evidence and embraces a certain level of fantasy, that
breakdown in reason inevitably becomes part of public policy, which leads to
superstition, hatred, and even a desire to harm those who don’t share those
beliefs.

His position seems to be that I’m injecting far too much hyperbole into the
discussion, and that it’s not nearly as bad as I make it out to be. He seems
to believe that what I describe is in fact bad, but that very few people
have these extreme views, and that most religious people are quite logical.
I’ll let him add to this opener as he sees fit.

So what I’d like to do, using actual data, is to try and illustrate that my
“hyperbole” is, unfortunately, closer to the truth than his. I’ll be using
poll data from
Pew
and
Gallup. The format will simply be a list of findings with some commentary
afterwards:

  • The Majority of Republicans Doubt the Theory of Evolution |
    Gallup, 2007

  • 40%-50% of the public accepts a biblical creationist account of the
    origins of life |
    Pew, 2005

  • Only 26% of Americans believe in Natural Selection |
    Pew, 2005

  • In the year 2009, 200 years after Darwin’s birth, only 39% believe in
    the theory of evolution, and 36% have no opinion either way |
    Gallup, 2009

  • 79% of those with a high school education or less either don’t believe
    in evolution or have no opinion either way |
    Gallup, 2009

  • 27% of those with postgraduate degrees in the United States
    either don’t believe in evolution or don’t have an opinion either way |
    Gallup, 2009

  • Among those who seldom or never go to church, 45% either don’t believe
    in evolution or have no opinion either way |
    Gallup, 2009

  • Of those who go nearly weekly or monthly, 70% either don’t believe in
    evolution or have no opinion either way |
    Gallup, 2009

  • And finally, in the year 2009, in the United States of America,
    only 39% believe in evolution |
    Gallup, 2009

Here’s Gallup’s implications summary:

So, Carl, I ask you to reconsider your belief that religion in the United
States is harmless. It is not. Beliefs lead to action, and the action in
this case is going to be the removal of logical discourse on a wide range of
topics due to religious influence, e.g. teaching creationism alongside
evolution.

Few things are more dangerous than preventing logical discourse, and
handguns aren’t one of them. ::

May 23, 2025

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