“What Americans Really Believe,” a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.I don't suppose they are going to call Baylor University and the Gallop Organization bozos. But I don't want to prejudge.The Gallup Organization, under contract to Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion, asked American adults a series of questions to gauge credulity. Do dreams foretell the future? Did ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis exist? Can places be haunted? Is it possible to communicate with the dead? Will creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster someday be discovered by science?
The answers were added up to create an index of belief in occult and the paranormal. While 31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in these things, only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once a week did.
Logically, this should have made sense even to athiests. People don't believe in Religion simply because they are brainwashed, it seems to be a natural inclination to look for greater purpose and meaning in life, and absent a religious meaning people will look for meaning elsewhere.
In fact, you can see that in the way the evolutionists here defend evolution -- it's not just a dispassionate discussion of facts, it's a jihad borne of emotional outbursts, such as calling people bozos and liars and ridiculing the messengers. It's exactly what we see when people who have personal beliefs feel they are being attacked.
GGG’s comment nowhere near represents the findings of this survey. All religion is superstition, by definition, meaning a belief in the supernatural. Atheism, by definition, eschews belief in the supernatural. But only an atheist can grasp that.