Posted on 07/11/2014 12:27:35 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The downsides of using poll data to understand the arc of history
In one of the most ambiguous poll questions ever, Gallup has asked Americans to once again act as a tenuous bellwether for the impending death of religion. In a May survey, more than 1,000 people were asked to pick between two vague sense impressions of faith: "Do you believe that religion can answer all of today's problems, or that religion is largely old fashioned and out of date?"
Shockingly, only 13 percent of people took the out of answering "no opinion" or "other," which is one way of saying "I will not fall for the misleading set-up of your question, pollster man." This year, 57 percent of respondents said religion is the answer for basically everything, and 30 percent said it's "old-fashioned."
As far as false choices go, this one is pretty extreme. First and foremost, most of the respondents probably would have answered "some of both," had that been possible. Being anachronistic and being useful aren't mutually exclusive concepts; different parts of different faiths could arguably qualify as either, both, or neither.
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Intelligent Design: Slowly Going Out of Style? But more importantly, these options are conceptually meaningless. When the poll says "all of today's problems," is it referring to political gridlock? America's inefficient healthcare system? "Mo' money"? The concept of "out-of-date" or "old-fashioned" is even more troubling: It's built on a very particular idea of history, which is that human civilization has been progressing linearly toward a modern age.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
The first reaction should be to reject the idea that beliefs can be lumped together and called “religion”, as if there was any equivalency in there at all.
For example, large parts of Christianity are based on a thousand years of intellectualism and cultural and spiritual advance. Can it in any way be compared to say, Islam, that intellectually halted in the 12th Century; or any hundreds of pagan “religions” that have come and gone leaving no trace other than a few artifacts?
Such quantification is like lumping modern “science” with astrology, alchemy, fortune telling, phrenology, witchcraft and homeopathy.
Do you think that “science” (all of the above) are “Old Fashioned” and “Out of Date?” You see the problem?
I think both are one and the same essentially.
Studying the Bible gave me vastly more insight into human nature and motives than any schooling I ever had. The Bible and Christianity absolutely are NOT out dated, even if you do not believe the spiritual side of it, which I do.
> Studying the Bible gave me vastly more insight into human nature and motives than any schooling I ever had. The Bible and Christianity absolutely are NOT out dated, even if you do not believe the spiritual side of it, which I do.
What all these great intellectual progressive brains fail to understand is that nothing is new under the sun (except technology) and that Man’s nature will always stay the same. To think otherwise after spending decades on this planet and watching men repeat the same patterns over and over again like a rat in a maze is pure idiocy.
> A religion based upon historic truth can never lose significance.
BAM that was a tasty morsel...: )
Same here. In fact I consider that observation more proof of the existence of God. The Bible is His Word, and noboby knows us better than He does. Why not; He made us.
There is a vast difference between denominational religion and faith in Christ. The veil has been torn. We may boldly approach the throne of Grace.
Liberalism is a religion, and we don’t even have separation of church and state with it.
Times may change, but people never do.
Think about the most horrible things humans do on a daily basis that the modern press writes about.
People did the same things thousands of years ago.
Think a 2014 San Francisco Pride Parade is bad?
Hells Bells, the Romans and Greeks considered it a sign of "status" to have a young boy as a lover.
We're not THAT far down the sewer, yet, but rest assured it WILL happen.
There really is nothing "new" under the sun.
The Old and New Testaments were very clear about why we shouldn't go down such pathways.
They weren't being religious "meanies".
Or judgemental kooks.
They just showed us it leads to Death.
Spiritual Death which is worse than physical death.
bump
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