According to the latest Harris Poll only 31% of Americans believe in astrology and only 24% believe that they were once another person.
Other interesting facts are that a substantial majority of Americans believe in multiple supernatural beings (polytheism). Besides the regular God, they believe in angels and the devil.
| Believe In | Don't Believe In | Not Sure | |
| % | % | % | |
| God | 80 | 10 | 9 |
| Miracles | 75 | 14 | 12 |
| Heaven | 73 | 14 | 13 |
| Jesus is God or the Son of God | 71 | 17 | 12 |
| Angels | 71 | 17 | 12 |
| The resurrection of Jesus Christ | 70 | 18 | 13 |
| Survival of the soul after death | 68 | 15 | 17 |
| Hell | 62 | 24 | 13 |
| The Virgin birth | 61 | 24 | 15 |
| The devil | 59 | 27 | 14 |
| Darwin’s theory of evolution | 47 | 32 | 22 |
| Ghosts | 44 | 39 | 17 |
| Creationism | 40 | 31 | 29 |
| UFOs | 36 | 39 | 25 |
| Witches | 31 | 54 | 14 |
| Astrology | 31 | 51 | 18 |
| Reincarnation–that you were once another person | 24 | 53 | 23 |
In other news, 37% believe that the Old Testament is the word of God but only 14% believe The Torah is the word of God.
15% say they are not at all religious and 10% don't beleive in God.
At least reason is ahead of belief in ghosts. That's good, right?
ReplyDeleteScary...
Astrology may not really be that bad off due to the high undecideds.
ReplyDeletePretty much what I would expect, but what's most interesting to me in these numbers are the high undecideds, which apart from Evolution/creation are UFO's and Reincarnation - significantly higher than the undecideds for other beliefs.
How can more people believe in heaven than the soul surviving death? You need the soul to survive death for heaven...
ReplyDeleteAlso, polytheism is the believe in multiple gods, not multiple supernatural beings. Angels and the devil are not deities, so it doesn't make Christians polytheistic. The holy trinity comes closest to that, and that is a primarily Catholic thing.
What's "Darwin's theory of evolution" doing among ghosts, witches and devils? And if they mention Darwin's theory, why not Lamarck's?
ReplyDeleteesaul17 says,
ReplyDeleteAlso, polytheism is the believe in multiple gods, not multiple supernatural beings. Angels and the devil are not deities, so it doesn't make Christians polytheistic.
There are all kinds of gods ranging from very powerful ones (King of Gods) to lesser ones such as angels. Then there's the evil god called Satan.
It's a bit silly to say that powerful supernatural beings that can perform miracles and are worshiped (i.e. angels) are not gods.
Similarly, it's silly to say that Satan is the big guy's rival—and a serious one at that—but he (Satan) isn't a god.
The holy trinity comes closest to that, and that is a primarily Catholic thing.
Really? Protestants don't believe that Jesus is a God and they don't believe in the Holey Spirit?
So of the 73 percent who believe in Heaven, 3 percent believe that Jesus wasn't good enough to get in?
ReplyDeleteLarry, Satan is not God's rival. God has complete power over him. God created Satan and when he rebelled he cast him down to Hell. Satan is the product of the consequences of allowing Free Will, and is the source of evil and temptation. God could stop this, but does not, because he does not want to circumvent Free Will.
ReplyDeleteI agree this is a stupid story, and the Free Will excuse to avoid The Problem of Evil is an invalid one. But that is still the general Christian understanding.
When you ask a Christian to define God, they usually will mention the properties like:
1) Omnipotent
2) Omniscient
3) Omnibenevolant
4) Creator of all
Angels and Gods do not begin to match this. Just because you are supernatural doesn't mean you are deity.
I mean to say "Angels and Demons", not "Angels and Gods".
ReplyDeleteAnd let me apologize, Protestants do believe in the Trinity. For some reason I took my ex gf's word that only Catholics do, despite her being wrong about 90% of what she said about her religion.
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, negligence on my part there, I must apologize.
Satan is not God's rival. God has complete power over him.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's according to "God" anyway. Also according to God, a substantial host of heaven sided with Lucifer, the most powerful of angels.
If angels are the next notch up after man in the chain of being, and they operate in a "transcendent" realm (perhaps the implicate order as QM physicist Boehm would have put it), then they must also be Gods IMO. Possibly the same for demons.
Yes, 1/3 of the angels rebelled and were cast down. But the point is they all LOST. Satan may be God's rival for "followers" or "support"...but he surely isn't in power, as God is all powerful and Satan can do nothing to harm him (only hurt his feelings when we tempts humans to sin).
ReplyDeleteIf you want to define God as some supernatural being with some level of power, then sure, but that is not what God is defined as in a Christian sense so it is just a bad case of equivocation to act like Christianity is polytheistic because you redefined God to include angels and Satan.