From this morning’s New York Post:
More than one-third of Americans believe that UFOs are real, and many think that witches, ghosts and angels are among us, according to a Harris poll released yesterday.
The survey also found that belief in God is overwhelming. Eighty percent of people polled think He exists, and 73 percent believe in heaven, while 59 percent think the devil is real.
According to the survey, only 47 percent of Americans believe in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. That’s far fewer than the 61 percent of people who believe in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.
Nothing very surprising there. It’s interesting to note one’s own reactions on reading a news item like that. The reaction must, I suppose, be personality-dependendent. It will fall somewhere in a range from: “I am surrounded by idiots!” to: “What an oddball freak I must be!” (I find myself closer to the latter end of that spectrum.)
News items like this also raise the cog-sci questions that our Mr. Hume is good at: What do people actually mean by any of this? Do they actually conduct their lives on the working assumption that the next stranger they meet may be an angel, a ghost, Satan, or a UFO crewman? (Ans: Obviously not.) How many could give a coherent account of the theory they reject? (Ans: Vanishingly few.) What does “believe” actually mean in this context? (Ans: Nothing very functional.)
Leaving aside the other items, I actually spent my childhood among people who believed in ghosts. They talked about them a lot. For some reason, mid-20th-century English people all had an I-swear-it’s-true ghost story they wanted to tell you, and ghost stories and ghost movies — here’s one of the best — were a staple of English pop culture in the 1940s and 1950s. The Monkey’s Paw was one of the first stories I ever knew (from hearing it on the radio circa 1950). I hardly ever hear present-day Americans talk like that, so I wonder how much substance there is to these beliefs.
I think by “believe” they mean “a preference for its truth.” They have no real, concrete reason to figure it more likely than not that the UFOs exist or that heaven is a real place, they just have a strong preference for it to be true, either because it is pleasant to ponder (such as eternal life in a paradise) or the alternative is unpleasant to ponder (such as the void of non-existence or the fact that they cannot rely on other people’s accounts of strange and/or occult occurrances.)
Some of these terms are a bit vague.
Do I believe in Unidentified Flying Objects? Sure, I have no problem accepting that people have seen things in the sky that aren’t readily identifiable as known natural phenomenon or man-made objects. Do I think they’re aliens from another planet? Of course not. The most likely answer is that they’re experimental military aircraft.
Do I believe in witches? If you mean the Hermione Granger type, absolutely not. But neo-pagans who claim their rituals come down to them from an ancient goddess worshiping cult — there’s no belief required; I’ve met them.
HORATIO
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
HAMLET
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Incidentally, a similar poll taken in the UK recently (some caution advised – there are no details of the methodology used, but the result seem vaguely realistic) “found that 58 percent believe in the supernatural, including paranormal encounters, while 54 percent believe God exists. Women were more likely than men to believe in the supernatural and were also more likely to visit a medium.”
What Sean O’Hara said. In fact, I once responded to a survey being run by a high-school or college student that asked whether I believed in UFOs with much the same terminology. (I also complained at length about a variety of other poorly written questions.) I understand that the student pulled and rewrote the poll, though for some reason I wasn’t asked to respond the second time. 😎
The 7% who believe in God but not heaven is interesting. That seems to say there are a substantial number of deists around.
” Women were more likely than men to believe in the supernatural and were also more likely to visit a medium.”
This line makes me think of Ambrose Bierce, “CLAIRVOYANT, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron, namely, that he is a blockhead.”
I’m listening to Erik Larson’s Thunderstruck this week; he’s reminded me about all the scientists who were involved in the Society for Psychical Research at the turn of 20th Century, like Oliver Lodge. How early did that sort of thing die down, I wonder?
Actually there are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in *anyone’s* philosophy; that, if I understand it, is the essence of the Mysterian position.
I find it odd that 80% believe in an Almighty, but only 59% believe in Satan. If the universe has shown us anything it is that Newton’s third law applies to almost everything. Everything has an opposite. If you believe in pure, unadulterated good as embodied in G-D, then there must be pure, unadulterated evil somewhere.
I attach a very high Bullshit Quotient to all data depending on expressed opinion. There are far too many reasons, both substantial and trivial, for people to misrepresent what they actually think or believe.
From what I have been able to observe of peoples’ actual behavior, I’d put the number of people who truly believe far lower—less than half—of those claiming such belief. These include many harboring various fears of those who actually believe, ranging from economic (commercial and employment-related) through social (alienation, peer-regard, etc.).
Just remember, for the most part, they can’t tell each other apart, either. Every living person is the best liar of who he (or she) is aware.
I’ve previously expressed the view (over at Gene Expression and, perhaps, other places) that most of the secular/believer controversy is deliberately (and as frequently as possible) agitated by those for whom the controversy itself is what commerce calls a “profit center.” To many of these, it is their very raison d’etre.
I’ve likened it in the past to the carnival “geek show,” in which the religious champions (whether “of the cloth” or in the form of certain “reason-based” pseudo-scientific arguers) are, in fact, the “carney” con-men hustling the “marks” (actual believers). The part of the geeks (subhuman spectacles of drinkenness or retardation) is played by genuine, honest secularists unaware of the game or the trap and unable to quit smacking the “tar-baby” after it’s caught them.
That said, it is still my opinion that religion and some belief in the supernatural (afterlife, for example) is essentially a tool of moral authority (tending to be “smart”) for the social management of the less-smart and the occasionally recalcitrant. It cannot be proven that society of a different sort (lacking such supernatural legitimation for moral authority) has ever been (or is or ever will be) viable. Secularists waste their energy to no good purpose in fighting religious belief directly. Most of what secularists (as a group) are after is served satisfactorily in forwarding toleration, almost as though they were merely another type of believing group. In that wise, they may make common cause (with other groups) against the intrusions of specific religions in public life.
“…only 47 percent of Americans believe in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution” (New York Post)
Bradlaugh asks: “How many could give a coherent account of the theory they reject? (Ans: Vanishingly few.)”
How many of evolution’s amateur supporters could give a coherent account of the theory they accept? How many understand the conflict between individual and group selection? How many could explain how Hamilton resolved the issue of the evolution of altruism? How many understand how Fisher improved upon Mendel?
“And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
The problem with religious philosophy is that it is nowhere near strange enough to explain the observable universe itself, not to mention what might lie beyond it. Religious mythology simplifies, and by doing so ignores reams of experiential evidence that cannot fit within the simplification.
That is why the problem of evil will never be satisfactorily answered by any religious apologetic. An omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent supreme being is a reassuringly simple explanation for the world, but has the aggravating property that it just doesn’t explain the facts as they are.
For “witches”, I give you Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama. For “ghosts” I give you Franklin Roosevelt and Karl Marx. And for “angels” I give you Mother Theresa. They’re there if you let yourself see them. Metanoeite.
That doesn’t, of course, mean that you aren’t surrounded by idiots….
Let’s not forget to distinguish between what people believe, and what they believe they believe.
Plenty of people do not believe in a deity, who sincerely believe that they do.
One way to distinguish between them: it is commonly recognized at this point that people who know they are being observed by others behave differently than when they think they’re alone. People who believe they believe in deities who are supposedly persons usually act according to that pattern. If they genuinely believed, they would never think they were alone and wouldn’t follow the pattern.
I believe in things even odder than ghosts, like general relativity and quantum mechanics. I’ve even gone to the effort of studying the mathematics underlying them. However, since vanishingly little of my life is spent at velocities approaching lightspeed or at the subatomic level, they have effectively no practical impact on my life.
However, since vanishingly little of my life is spent at velocities approaching lightspeed or at the subatomic level, they have effectively no practical impact on my life.
Quantum effects were relevant for semiconductors, right? The fact that *you* don’t spend your life at a quantum scale level is irrelevant if the technology you use is underpinned by quantum presuppositions.
Relativity is necessary to make GPS work. Quantum mechanics is needed to explain why the reflections on a CD don’t obey classical optics laws. And so forth.
Physics is subtle, but omnipresent – both in the obvious sense, and in that the modern world would not be possible without modern physics.
I’ve seen ghosts, when people I’ve been close to died. I’ve even seen ghosts when my dog died. I just never thought they were supernatural events.
It was always apparent to me they were a kind of cognitive anomoly. “A trick of the mind”. Like a visual illusion.
Scientific American agrees
There you go, again, Dan—refusing to believe the evidence when it’s right in front of you. Your dog would be disappointed.
Mike: However, since vanishingly little of my life is spent at velocities approaching lightspeed …
You’ve spent your entire life moving that fast relative to other parts of the universe.
gene,
I think of it as a variant of the waterfall illusion. You know, when you gaze at a waterfall for a long time and then you look away and your visual field still seems to flow downwards for a while.
When someone has been a presense in your social space, even after they are gone, your brain is primed to go on perceiving them.
It’s just flashbacks really, perhaps a very mild/benign form of post-traumatic stress syndrome.
They’re called liberal Christians. There are many liberal denominations and churches that don’t believe in evil. They are not sola Scriptura, needless to say.
I though the belief that there was a principal of evil that is equal and symmetric to God was the rankest form of heresy to Christians. Are you sure you know your own religion?
BTW, I rather doubt that liberal Christians “don’t believe in evil”, although they probably obsess about it less. In the course of trying to find out, I found this page which is not directly related but might be of interest to this audience.
I wasn’t making a positive statement about orthodox Christianity, I was pointing out the explanation for the poll numbers in that particular case. When a Christian says evil exists it is not a statement equal to saying Christianity is Manicheanism. Would you like to discuss apostolic biblical doctrine?
>BTW, I rather doubt that liberal Christians “don’t believe in evil”, although they probably obsess about it less. In the course of trying to find out, I found this page which is not directly related but might be of interest to this audience.
The UCC is as ignorant of history as it is ignorant of biblical doctrine. It is like the flagship of liberal Christianity on the Protestant side.
No, I don’t care to discuss biblical doctrine. I’m not any sort of a Christian, and not an expert, and it seems off-topic for this forum.
The UCC page, on the other hand, is interesting because it indicates that there are versions of religion that do not conflict with science and reason. Of course if those are “liberal” they might have other problems for the self declared secular right. Here’s another example., also see here.
>is interesting because it indicates that there are versions of religion that do not conflict with science and reason.
Welcome to the outside of your bubble.
Several threads have been spiraling into mutual why-are-you-so-awful ad hominems, and I have moderated off a bunch of comments on both “sides” that perpetuated this or seemed to invite the opponent to perpetuate it. If you think your point was important, hold it and try again in a few days.
Comments on-topic to original posts, of course, remain in order without any such cooling-off period.
Dead of Night (not quite a ghost movie) was mentioned by Fred Hoyle as one of the inspirations for his steady-state cosmology. But I didn’t know before that H.G.Wells was one of the scriptwriters.
I don’t know why you think orthodox Christian theology considers it likely that an angel or a devil is likely to be “the next stranger you meet.” On the contrary, their appearances are usually rare and often accompanied by obvious signs and portents (although there is the famous line of St. Paul about “entertaining angels unawares”). And in defense of ghost or UFO believers, I don’t think they would consider such quotidian encounters to be likely either. They believe in haunted houses or alien abductions, not ghosts and extraterrestials on every street corner.
I don’t know why you think orthodox Christian theology considers it likely that an angel or a devil is likely to be “the next stranger you meet.” On the contrary, their appearances are usually rare and often accompanied by obvious signs and portents (although there is the famous line of St. Paul about “entertaining angels unawares”).
For what its worth (and yes, I know the plural of anecdote isn’t data), I grew up in a very fundamentalist household (Baptist) and there was an atmosphere cultivated of Satan and his minions being around every corner. I don’t recall any mention of angels of any type though – it was a very negative religious atmosphere where angels were seen as almost Catholic.
Which is kinda funny, because I distinctly recall on more than one occasion my father recalling that he had thought he heard a banshee, and as far I remember he never linked this to Satan.
Dave: Maybe I wasn’t clear enough; I agree that many people think Satan is around the corner, but not many think that the man next to them is likely to actually be Satan in disguise, not would orthodox Christianity expect him to be.
Sorry: “nor would.”
Let me clarify: of course QM is important to me, as it stops the electrons in my body’s atoms from falling into their respective nuclei (as they must under the naive Bohr model of the atom). My point is that this works whether or not I believe in it.
It occurs to me that speed-of-light is important in determining the maximum length of Ethernet segments (collision detection depends on the signal traversing the entire segment in a specified length of time), so I have used at least SR in real life.
I’m not a Christian, and so this is a real question, not snark: What do Christians (particularly Biblical literalists) think of the book of Job? It’s quite clear that Satan therein isn’t The Adversary; he has a particularity dirty job, but he’s working for God, not opposing him. (As my old rabbi used to joke, “He’s still got his union card”.) How does this square with Lucifer having been cast out of heaven at the beginning of time?