 |
|
|
|
June 1st, 2012
03:46 PM ET
Survey: Nearly half of Americans subscribe to creationist view of human originsBy Dan Merica, CNN (CNN) - Forty-six percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form at one point within the past 10,000 years, according to a survey released by Gallup on Friday. That number has remained unchanged for the past 30 years, since 1982, when Gallup first asked the question on creationism versus evolution. Thirty years ago, 44% of the people who responded said they believed that God created humans as we know them today - only a 2-point difference from 2012. "Despite the many changes that have taken place in American society and culture over the past 30 years, including new discoveries in biological and social science, there has been virtually no sustained change in Americans' views of the origin of the human species since 1982," wrote Gallup's Frank Newport. "All in all, there is no evidence in this trend of a substantial movement toward a secular viewpoint on human origins." The second most common view is that humans evolved with God's guidance - a view held by 32% of respondents. The view that humans evolved with no guidance from God was held by 15% of respondents. Survey: U.S. Protestant pastors reject evolution, split on Earth's age Not surprisingly, more religious Americans are more likely to be creationists. Nearly 70% of respondents who attend church every week said that God created humans in their present form, compared with 25% of people who seldom or never attend church. Among the seldom church-goers, 38% believe that humans evolved with no guidance from God. The numbers also showed a tendency to follow party lines, with nearly 60% of Republicans identifying as creationists, while 41% of Democrats hold the same beliefs. Republicans also seem to be more black-and-white about their beliefs, with only 5% responding that humans evolved with some help from God. That number is much lower than the 19% of both independents and Democrats. According to Newport, a belief in creationism is bucking the majority opinion in the scientific community - that humans evolved over millions of years. "It would be hard to dispute that most scientists who study humans agree that the species evolved over millions of years, and that relatively few scientists believe that humans began in their current form only 10,000 years ago without the benefit of evolution," writes Newport. "Thus, almost half of Americans today hold a belief ... that is at odds with the preponderance of the scientific literature." The USA Today/Gallup telephone poll was conducted May 10-13 with a random sample of 1,012 American adults. The sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
|
|
|
Religion is for people who can't handle reality.
Really sad how this once great nation is becoming so dumbed down.
Ironic isn't it? At the time of our country's founding, the founders were much more inquisitive about the world around us, even if they believed in God and slavery. Now, all I see is that most Christians are just a bunch of sorry followers who have no desire to question how the world works.
I just hope that those idiots who believe in a magical sky daddy realize that he is a terrible designer. I had no use for my wisdom teeth yet they caused me great pain when they grew. I have no uses for my appendix, yet if it bursts I'm screwed. Apparently, God is a sick sadist.
Since God doesn't exist, nature is a terrible designer. And worse, you and I are the products of this terrible designer.
Fair enough. Evolution isn't really about perfection, but adaptation, and I'm fine with that. It blows my mind, though, how a "perfect" being couldn't make perfect creations. Kind of sad.
I do work that I'm committed to not divulge for security reasons.
I call B.S. on this poster.
46%? I didn't get asked.
Embarrassing.
I'm really not surprised viewpoints haven't changed much in 30 years. It took many many centuries for the belief that the world was flat to die out even after someone sailed around the world. In the case of God it will take longer because those that believe in him will always say you can never disprove his existence despite all of the evidence behind evolution. Note to parents ... please teach your kids to have an open mind. I'm part of the 15% but I teach my kids about all viewpoints and encourage them to make their own decision in due time. This is the way to create a better next generation rather than trying to clone yourself by imposing your beliefs on them. I still have to fight some of the bias I have in other subjects that my father drilled into my head as I was growing up.
I'm part of that 15% as well, and given that I have had life experiences which are neither explainable by science nor religion I feel strongly that we need to keep an open mind until such a day as the links between things are better understood. Even at the current rate of growth in knowledge I think it will be a VERY long time before even some of the simpler questions are truly answered.
This is a example of why religion and science do not work together. We neither have to destroy one or the other. and i am really hoping we destroy religion.
How can you destroy something that doesn't exist (ie god)?
Be careful about challenging the delusions of the true believers, that can be very dangerous. Just look at history.
“We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes” Gene Roddenberry
That's something that no Christian has ever adequately explained, but there is a field of theology devoted to the question: Theodicy
Theoassininities
Gene Roddenberry as the guy who create star teck, i am a big fan of him and think of him as the first people who challenge Religion, even if i know he was not the first.
qularknoo and friends....study physics. It will open new doors. I suppose you will say the same about the bible, but only one of these will prove that the world evolved in all it's splendor.
So they believe in science to hold up their bridges, their buildings, keep their cars running, manage their water, food supply and keep their planes in the air. But the scientific method suddenly falls apart and is 'like a religion' when it's used to describe the chemical, biological and anthropological foundations that we observe every day.
Religion and hypocrisy...certainly nothing new there.
Yes. Too bad there's no like link.
I agree. "Like"
So... polls over the last 30 years show that roughly 45% of Americans are idiots.
That's why God explained that those that refuse to learn wisdom (His truth) is called a fool.
So "wisdom" consists of ignoring facts?
You mean "That's why God explained that those that refuse to learn wisdom (His truth) are called fools." Get a proper education and maybe you'll learn (1) proper grammar and (2) that knowledge of proven facts is more valuable than this so called wisdom.
This would be laughable if these people couldn't vote. But since they can, it's actually terrifying.
Yes it is. Remember what happened the last time they got their way at the ballot box? "W"
I went to several different churches as a kid and practically got kicked out of all of them. Your simply not allowed to ask questions no one has an answer for. My question which I posed at age 6 was... so who created god? Its the most obvious question when told god created people. Guess what, 50 years later no one has given me a single answer that was even slightly sensible. What I find most facinating of all is that people consider god an answer to anything at all... its leaves an equal number of unanswered questions.
Yeah... that "not asking questions" thing is why it's so easy for them to tolerate Fox.
They will argue that the universe could not exist without a creator. but when you hit them with that question, they are dumn-founded
Out of the mouths of babes....The emperor has no clothes.
crunch the numbers and see what it looks like for graduates of non-sectarian universities...y'know , the ones that don't force you to pray in order to be admitted.
How sad- goes right with low IQ.
It would be nice if delusional people would move on to being "spiritual". Non denominational- so much nicer.
Faith is partly belief in the truth of a proposition, but mainly it's hope that the proposition is true. Why is evolution and God not compatible? It comes down to the proposition: the Bible is literally true. The stories are not allegories or instructive tales that teach and guide, but a history of facts.
the bible is history of facts?......lol
i wouldnt wan't to live in the place were the 1000 individuals live, because i live in vancouver island, canada, and.... evolution is common knowledge im gald there isn't so man religious fu-k heads were i live... weed and sceince class do mix!
weed dosent mix with English class though....
Weed and English class mix great, you've gotta try reading "The Wasteland" stoned!
""You'd think that a nation formed by people escaping religious persecution would have formed a little differently"
Don't forget that most of the Christians "escaping" religious persecution were "escaping" from OTHER Christians. Once they got here, they tended to persecute anyone who didn't agree with their religious views.
Exactly correct.
samsjmail, our forefathers came to this country to escape paying the outrageous taxes in England and getting nothing in return for their hard labor. Good try though.
Heaven sent. Taxes were why we declared independence from England. The first settlers came here for religious reasons about 300 years earlier.
These poor persecuted Christians eventually burned witches.
Apparently, creationists aren't real big on ANY book learnin of ANY kind.....like history.
Also the whole "taxes are too high" thing was just as silly during the revolution as it is now