Skepticism? Fighting ignorance? Analytical thinking? :eek: Hell, I thought everybody else here was like me, just lookin’ for a little fun!
Ah, but that’s not necessarily a valid sample, as dopers are obviously more internet-active than the typical American, and many dopers aren’t American at all. survey.net , which just samples internet users, has as an answer to “Do you believe in a supreme being” as only 65% “yes”, and only 41% considered thenselves “Christian”.
And BTW, other polling data (from gallup and princeton and the gang) available on http://www.pollingreport.com/religion.htm seems to suggest that, depending on the questions you ask, the percentage of “religious” people in America does seem to be around that 65% number, nowhere close to the 86% number.
So it seems that Dopers are a fairly representitive group when it comes to their religious beliefs within the community of internet users. And I just realized that this isn’t the pit, so I can’t use the closing sentence that I was leading up to.
Ah well.
-lv
FTR, skepticism caused me to investigate the evidence, and to conclude that God does exist. Further investigation, over the course of about three years, led me to accept the claims of conservative evangelical Christianity
What evidence?
(You don’t have to answer on this thread, but it seemed an appropriate thing to say!)
I’m not sure I believe cosmetics is relevant.
A man who had studied much in the schools of wisdom finally died in the fullness of time and found himself at the Gates of Eternity.
An angel of light approached him and said, “Go no further, O mortal, until you have proven to me your worthiness to enter into Paradise!”
But the man answered, “Just a minute, now. First of all, can you prove to me this is a real Heaven and not just the wishful fantasy of my disordered mind undergoing death?”
Before the angel could reply, a voice from inside the gates shouted:
“Let him in — he’s one of us!”
You think there is something wrong with that?
The way someone speaks on this board may betray their real beliefs. Do you assume religious people aren’t smart?
Like I said before
Why am I a skeptic?
I’m from NY.
What Max Torque said.
You actually believe that?
Every time I hear stats like this, I have the feeling that atheists are going undercover.
What I’d ask (if I was a survey taker) is what religion people identify themselves as, then ask what tenets they actually practice.
I think that a message board devoted to eradicating ignorance would tend to attract a more skeptical slice of society. People who take their religion on blind faith are probably not likely to question other things, either.
This is also a more comfortable place to discuss such skepticism. It’s tough for many people to discuss skepticism about religion in the “real world” without being harassed (or at least fearing possible harassment.) Here, skepticism can be discussed without most people taking it as either an affront to their own faith or a challenge to convert. People who’ve been quiet about their religious skepticism might speak out about it here in this more anonymous and accepting forum.
So, while I believe that the SDMB does self-select for skeptics to a certain degree, I also think that there are many “hidden” skeptics in American society who might use the internet to “come out” a bit.
Ok we’ve gone over how the number of ‘believers’ but how do qulaify your statement that these believers have ‘good deal of faith’?
I mean every christian chruch I know of has attendence spikes at Christmas and Easter. Which to me means that a good deal of them stay home on all the other Sundays. I don’t think you have any way to judge the quality faith people in general have.
If a pollster asked me I might answere that I am a Catholic. After all I was raised as one, went to Catholic schools and was even married in a Catholic church. But really I only go when Mrs. Z and I are at her folks house and we go with them. I think a great number of ‘believers’ are like this.
Oh and I fogot that on the front page Cecil recently answered two different questions about Jesus. He did not even hint that there might not be a Jesus in either answere.
I know this was intended to be funny, but it’s also representative of a common theme.
There’s a prevalent thinking in America that “Fundementalists” are dumb, unthinking, people. I’ve also met the opposite, that there are Christian believers that think that any skepticism about faithful precepts is against God.
Fiction frequently represents Christians, especially the evangelical sects, as dumb, frequently southern, backwoods, uneducated, etc.
Therefore - to address the original OP, I think many Dopers are agnostic, athiest, etc. because some Christians think that skepticism, analysis, and even simple science is un-Christian and therefore stay away. Conversely, Intellectuals don’t investigate faith as truth on the fear that they’ll be thought dumb and gullible.
But that slice isn’t necessarily Athiest or Agnostic, just intelligent.
There are plenty of atheists, agnostics, and skeptics who accept that Jesus may very well have existed.
Why are we all skeptics, agnostics and atheists?
Well, I’m sitting on the fence for this one until someone gives me some incontrovertible proof that your claim is true.
But on the other hand…