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Originally Posted by darlets
This is an interesting read.
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I've read "The God Delusion" and watch a couple of presentation by Sam Harris and they both seem to be really out of touch with what a typical person on the street believes about religion. Some of these stats seem to back this up
"Ironically, however, both atheists and committed Christians share one unusual area of common ground: concern about superficial, inert forms of Christianity in America. There are nearly 130 million American adults who describe themselves as Christians, but who are Christian in name only; their behavior includes little related to experiencing and expressing their alleged faith in Christ." |
What the typical person on the street believes is very heavily influenced by where that street happens to be. I could not find a link to the survey questions themselves, so I would find it difficult to reach any conclusion as to what the article would use to classify someone as "Christian in name only." However, the site does seem published by a conservative Christian group with the stated purpose:
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to partner with Christian ministries and individuals to be a catalyst in moral and spiritual transformation in the United States.
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Their number for the people they wish to classify as Christian (58 million) strikes me as low, because several recent polls have concluded that approximately 48% of the American population believes that God created man and all the animals in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. Another 40% believe in a theistic initiation and guidance, but over the course of millions of years. The number they gave struck me as pretty much identical to the number of Protestant worshipers who attend weekly service - it does not include Catholics (69 million) or Orthodox (over a million, I believe), nor does it include Protestants who didn't make the weekly service survey. Gallup estimates that there are 118 million Americans attending weekly service.
I am quite confused by their statement that American infidels* are concerned about moderate Christians. I'm far less concerned about moderate Christians than I am about the ones trying to get Creationism into public school curricula, for example. I don't know any other atheists, agnostics, free thinkers, humanists, et cetera, who are more concerned about Cafeteria Christians than they are about Evangelicals.
*It's OK. I'm taking it back for us so that it can be a symbol of pride. I just have to make sure it stays politically incorrect for anyone else to use it.
