I agree. (Still havn’t seen a cite!)
I was suggesting that the inference he was making based on that fact was pompous. Not the fact itself.
Upon further review :smack: I have seen a cite… My bad!
And I don’t see any “inference” from Rug Burn. All I see is the word “interesting.” It would seem that you’re the one drawing inferences.
Well, if Rug burn was trying to make some other inference with the word “Interesting” I’d like to hear it…
I believe the word you’re looking for is implication.
The speaker/writer implies. The reader/listener infers.
Agreed.
Rug Burn? Just what were you implying?
(You’ll note I already asked what he implied, then when I asked again, I used the word infer, I suppose if you had read the whole thread…
you may have noticed it was but a small oversight on my part. I hope my inability to exude perfection hasn’t weakend my status as a human being, perhaps I shouldn’t post on a board where perfection is met with every post by every poster! :rolleyes: )
Okay, here is a site with data which includes the OP poll. Plus a a page from the same with data comparing the USA with other nominally-Christian countries.
(The same site has in another page a Gallup Poll which suggests that as of 1999 the American Public would vote for a gay presidential candidate before they would an atheist one.)
This SDMB thread analyses how much of the population is atheist or just nonreligious (about 14% combined), with links to numerous sites referring to the level of belief/unbelief in the USA, in between various arguments over the semantics of what “atheist” means.
(And even the “nonreligious” may fervently believe their life is influenced by UFOs, Nostradamus, or conspiracy theories.)
Interestingly, in between all those polls and tables, I saw one (which somehow I can’t backtrack to find) where even though Americans are so prone to “believe” (in whatever), their average rate of active attendance at church/temple is quite middling. So basically we do have a population that “wants to believe”, though not necessarily do anything about it.
Great links, JR. What surprised me is that for the Netherlands, the percentage of people believing in evolution is 58%. That is not only low compared to other European countries, but it also seems very odd when compared to the percentages for the religious values, which are among the lowest in the world.
And then there is this Gallup survey in 60 countries in selected world regions. Though it does not break down to USA (using only “North America”), the biggest weight in the NA numbers would have to be the USA. AND since they have a “LATIN America” rather than South America category, it would put Mexico there and leave NA as only US+Canada, where USA is 90%+ of the population. (IF NA is Mex+US+Can, then US is 69% of the population)
High belief in a “personal” God (as opposed to a life-force or indifferent creator), lowest rate of absolute “ain’t no god” atheism – but mediocre attendance and lowest rate of belief in “there’s only one true religion”.
I dunno, Coldie… also specially in view of the historic role of the Netherlands as a place welcoming to scientific ideas. I’d be concerned, though, at how prevalent is the mere 60-65% rate of acceptance of evolution. Biology teachers wanted, worldwide!
Notice by contrast how the more-religious-than-US Phillippines have almost twice the belief in evolution that the USA.
Hmmm…
I’m pulling this one out of my you-know-what, but: how prevalent/widespread is not-conventionally-religious mystical/pseudoscientific/NewAge thought in the Netherlands?
I can just see some people not following conventionally religious doctrine yet disagreeing with the idea that humans evolved from the “lower” animals – maybe because to them we really were seeded by primordial Beings Of Light who travelled to Earth to join her; OR, perhaps, because they feel that “Western” science is a patriarchal construct that has led to atom bombs and toxic pollutants for bourgeois profit ( :rolleyes: ) and thus its conclusions are not to be trusted.
I have seen the future, and Nehemiah Scudder is en route.
<shudder>