but catholics do really believe the communion is literally the blood of christ, they were not wrong to answer that way. thee is no right or wrong answer on that one.
So, I presume you want to also eliminate atheists and agnostics that do not "practice" agnosticism since they attend no temples of atheism and study no doctrine of agnosticism? :huh: You are splitting hairs trying to deny certain religious people (who believe and pray) because they are not as "worthy" as others. The poll was very simple. People could identify themselves as religious or not religious. And the results are not surprising to me at all. The atheists and agnostics know more about religion than most religious people do. Faith is often blind. Loss of faith is usually well-thought out.
I feel that the fact that Black Protestants and Hispanic Catholics answered the least correct makes this survey raciest on its face and should be discredited because of it.
See Appendix B on the link you just posted. A large percentage of the Christians in the Survey never attend service or attend only once a year. A large percentage say religion has no impact on their life. These are the folks who claim religion. It seems to me there is a flaw in the methodology if you don't control for people who identify with a particular faith for heritage or familial reasons, but do not practice the faith. The executive summary also says that on average religious folks who attend services perform 2 questions better than the rest. Where was this in the media reports? I just find the reporting on the survey very misleading.
supafan makes a decent point, and so does red. there are lots of people that kinda lazily say they are whatever religion, because they dont care much and they never think about it. they are not really very religious they are just non-thinkers, so they just claim to be what everyone else is and forget it. and like red says, the atheist is someone that actually thought about it enough to take an uncommon position that opposes the status quo. people rarely just decide to be atheist to go with the flow, because the flow goes the other direction.
Do you think this is still true? It certainly seems to be pretty hep to be an atheist these days. I think atheism is far more aligned to our cultural values than any religion I know of.
This is also true...My head hurts...too much thinking today. Quick someone post a picture of an attractive woman with cleavage or a cute kitten doing something silly before my head blows up.
well, the highest ranking openly atheist politician in america is like some crappy city councilman, and surveys always indicate that folks would rather vote for a muslim or gay than an atheist. my friends are mostly atheist, but i am a sophisticated big-city intellectual.
Yet they describe themselves as religious, meaning they believe in God and likely pray. I think this is the point. Not all religious people understand why they are religious, they are just being dogmatic. It is flawed to try to say that only the most exalted religious people should be counted. In fact you would have the less worthy religious people lumped with atheists and agnostics as "non-religious".
