On Saturday 09 June 2012 03:10 AM, John Sundman wrote:
On Jun 8, 2012, at 5:10 PM, Bharath Chari wrote:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx
PRINCETON, NJ -- Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view
that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last
10,000 years. The prevalence of this creationist view of the origin of humans
is essentially unchanged from 30 years ago, when Gallup first asked the
question. About a third of Americans believe that humans evolved, but with
God's guidance; 15% say humans evolved, but that God had no part in the process.
I live here and I had no idea it was so bad (even though my novel-in-progress is called
"Creation Science", and I've been studying up on this craziness).
Although 3/4 of the USA is retrograde nuts, there are still tens of millions of
sane American people. If you associate with them, mostly, you tend to lose
sight of what a small minority you are.
Overall, however, that's a very depressing article.
Let me depress you further:
http://www.michaelnugent.com/best/americas-top-two-elected-atheists/
Americans elect a lot of public officials – over half a million, from
the President down to school district level. If atheists and other
nonbelievers were represented fairly, you would expect about 50 in the
US Congress and another 50,000 at State and local level.
In 2007, the Secular Coalition for America tried to find them. They
found only five. Three were very local officials: a school board
president, a school committee member and a town meeting member. And the
two most senior were both in their seventies, much closer to the end
than the start of their political careers.
