More Americans believe in Hell and the Devil than Evolution

Quote:

More Americans believe in a literal hell and the devil than Darwin's theory of evolution, according to a new Harris poll released on Thursday.

It is the latest survey to highlight America's deep level of religiosity, a cultural trait that sets it apart from much of the developed world.

It also helps explain many of its political battles which Europeans find bewildering, such as efforts to have "Intelligent Design" theory -- which holds life is too complex to have evolved by chance -- taught in schools alongside evolution.

What does AnAp think?

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I used to consider myself an atheist, but currently I'm not sure what I believe. But I know that I have to believe there is some kind of reckoning at the end of the road for the horrendous people who deserve it. My mind simply cannot tolerate thinking otherwise. That being said, evolution is undeniable. It happens, and people who don't believe in it are just ignorant, plain and simple.

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"Anyone existing in this planet eagers to do something distinction"
- a robot

BUT IT'S STILL JUST A THEORY LOL

I'm gonna have to side with PHB. Hell better damn well exist, or I'm gonna be seriously pissed.

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"The only good race pace is a suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die."

--Steve Prefontaine

Why is that depressing YT? Aren't people given the right to believe in Heaven or Hell in this country, just as much as they are given the right to believe in Evolution?

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Bleep boop

Heaven and Hell are things that can't be proven, because they are not observable. Evolution is.

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"Anyone existing in this planet eagers to do something distinction"
- a robot

	Sweet Garbonzo wrote:
	Why is that depressing YT? Aren't people given the right to believe in Heaven or Hell in this country, just as much as they are given the right to believe in Evolution?

I don't mind believing in heaven or hell, and I can understand if a few extremely dedicated to their religion can believe purely in creationalism.
But when it's more than half, I want to ask them if they think the devil planted dinosaur bones and that scientists are in a vast conspiracy. I suppose it really depends on what they specifically believe.

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I don't necessarily believe that the fact that the Christian Bible is...well, ridiculous doesn't neccessarily mean there's no God. That's the point of faith; you can't have faith in something that can be proven or disproven.

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"Anyone existing in this planet eagers to do something distinction"
- a robot

You don't have to throw the bible out the window to believe in evolution, you just have to be willing to believe some of it is meant to be interpreted literally "Treat thy neighbor as you would yourself" and some of it allegorical "Jonah and the Whale".

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I still don't understand why that would upset you. So over half of Americans believe in creationism? So what? Does that really affect you or your beliefs?

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You left off the option that I would have picked.

I refuse to believe that there is some "place" where my "soul" but not my body(the soul-body problem is something I can't take the normal stance on - I can't believe that my body is simply some sort of machine for my soul to control) goes and is somehow forced to suffer eternally. How can my soul be made to suffer (it isn't supposed to be not able to feel physical pain)? Also the typical theory of hell is coupled with the idea of an all powerful good god that somehow created evil and filled the universe with it (to the point where his #2 tried to throw a revolt to take over). And then this god is going to say "Oh my bad about all that evil that I created and didn't remove, but I'm still going to force you to spend eternity being tortured by my former subordinates that I can't control because you weren't able to live up to some arbitrary standard that I never explicitly told you about." I just can't see that as a logical or realistic interpretation of the universe.

On the other side, I can't completely believe evolution either. While I'll agree that it does provide a decent explanation it doesn't seem to be able to explain how everything (although some of this might be from my lack of knowledge or understanding). Can evolution explain: when an individual in a sexual species is mutated to have an extra chromosome it is able to pass on this trait without a partner, how a single cell organism becomes a functional (and superior) multi-cell organism, how a simple single or multi-cell organism is able to develop the various organs that are seen in any of the larger organisms, or why evolution (as seen in the fossil record) seems to happen in spurts? I don't think evolution can explain all of those questions (or some of the other issues I've read it has ) and until it can I won't think it is an accurate/complete theory. But honestly, I don't really care - I figure that eventually science will prevail and figure out exactly how these things happen and it really has absolutely no effect on my life if it happens this way or that, so whatever.

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"We are the challengers of the unknown."

Wyvern311 wrote:

Can evolution explain: when an individual in a sexual species is mutated to have an extra chromosome it is able to pass on this trait without a partner, how a single cell organism becomes a functional (and superior) multi-cell organism, how a simple single or multi-cell organism is able to develop the various organs that are seen in any of the larger organisms, or why evolution (as seen in the fossil record) seems to happen in spurts? I don't think evolution can explain all of those questions (or some of the other issues I've read it has ) and until it can I won't think it is an accurate/complete theory. But honestly, I don't really care - I figure that eventually science will prevail and figure out exactly how these things happen and it really has absolutely no effect on my life if it happens this way or that, so whatever.

I think all of these questions can already be explained...though I'm not sure what your first question is asking. A multi-cellular organism, such as us, is nothing more than a bunch of specialized cells coordinating their activities with each other in an organized, logical fashion. The advantage to this arrangement is it caters to a cell's most basic goals, which is survival, and, when the conditions are favorable, growth and proliferation. Because it is a better arrangement, those cells who were able to communicate with other cells for their own benefit survived--natural selection. The mechanism by which these cells acquired such an ability is DNA mutations and chance. Really, biology is nothing more than a game of dice played billions of times at any given nanosecond.

I learned last Spring a little bit about how cells in our body develop certain organs--but god is it complex. Lets just say protein is the great communicator, and our DNA genome can accommodate all the specific instructions needed to make us, us.

I don't know the answer to why evolution occurs in spurts but I'm sure you could find it.

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"The only good race pace is a suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die."

--Steve Prefontaine

	Sweet Garbonzo wrote:
	I still don't understand why that would upset you. So over half of Americans believe in creationism? So what? Does that really affect you or your beliefs?

Multicellularism may have begun as commensalism and then communalism. The whole reproductive process that led to discrete, multi-celled organisms is a bit murky, so that's the best we can do.

Evolution happens in spurts because the randomness of it usually fails. When it succeeds, it quickly results in the domination of the superior breed, and the marginalization of the inferior. This leads to some pretty sudden changes in the ecological landscape.

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I don't believe in a literal heaven and hell that exist right now. I suppose I sort of see heaven as a higher spacial dimension we aren't aware of where God exists along with our dimensions. If you read in Revelation it's actually pretty clear that hell is the state the world reaches at it's end, not a persistent place of torture. Anyway, etc.

As for evolution, I believe most all of it because it's pretty much fact. However, I also wouldn't be surprised if science one day were to prove that a large hunk of it was wrong as our understanding changes.

I guess I believe in what I've thought long and hard about. Everything else, I realize my own limitations in the matter and try to keep an open mind as to the various opinions and breakthroughs.

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Fil

Hell is other people.

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	Erunanton wrote:
	Hell is other robots.

Fixed.

Also, for the record, I hold firmly to a confidence that the Bible is the inspired, error-free word of God and should be interpreted literally unless the text itself indicates otherwise. From there, you can probably guess how I feel about creation and evolution.