RE: Pew Research
April 30, 2018 at 2:50 pm
(This post was last modified: April 30, 2018 at 2:52 pm by Whateverist.)
(April 30, 2018 at 10:40 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Just thought to share fairly recent Pew Research on religious belief in the United States: HERE
What are your take aways?
What interests me, is the 9% who do NOT believe in God but still DO believe in some kind of higher spiritual force. Not sure what to make of that whether it includes deists, Wicca, or Platonists. This quote seems not to illuminate that statistic much:
Quote:...it is clear from questions elsewhere in the survey that Americans who say they believe in God “as described in the Bible” generally envision an all-powerful, all-knowing, loving deity who determines most or all of what happens in their lives. By contrast, people who say they believe in a “higher power or spiritual force” – but not in God as described in the Bible – are much less likely to believe in a deity who is omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent and active in human affairs.
So those who do not believe in god could potentially fall into multiple categories depending on if they accept 1 or 2 out of 3 of the all-powerful, all-knowing, and good God. That's a lot of options (I'll let others do the math).
Heck, that might even include me. I don't believe in any higher power that is an entity in itself or transpersonal, but I do think there are layers of the psyche one should venerate. I don't think there is anything to which one should abandon oneself. There is never a good reason to abdicate to anything or anyone, whether out there or in here. But some respect and humility toward the mystery is appropriate. Even if we are very confident and happy with ourselves, we do better to reflect longer and assert less readily.
(April 30, 2018 at 2:41 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:(April 30, 2018 at 1:20 pm)Aegon Wrote: The anecdote to shame is humility, and there's nothing less humble about believing that this great universe, that has a diameter of 91 billion light-years and has existed for almost 14 billion years, was created explicitly for us.
I feel there is no doubt life in other planets as well.
Well sure, on other planets. But what about Texas? Any indications yet of intelligent life there?[/pulling your leg]
