48% of Americans Reject Evolution - It explains a lot.

...and a world leader rejects it all too. I think the fighting against this "religious war" (jihad) is just as bad when looking at it from the other direction. With George Bush believing in the creation story, it only makes it a blatantly "Christian vs Muslim" war. I believe if he is too believe such things as this, along with 48% of Americans, its is naive to fight the war; and very contradictory.

MSNBC has up an article discussing the results of a Newsweek poll on faith and religion among members of the US populace. Given the straightforward question, 'Is evolution well-supported by evidence and widely accepted within the scientific community?', some 48% of Americans said 'No'. Furthermore, 34% of college graduates said they accept the Biblical story of creation as fact. An alarmingly high number of individuals responded that they believe the earth is only 10,000 years old, and that a deity created our species in its present form at the start of that period.

Well, your post makes it sound like you are surprised by those findings? Unfortunately religion has made the world spin around since the dark ages and beyond. It's been the basis of the majority of strife for countless and varying reasons, and has been everything from an excuse for mass murder to becoming the underpinning for major facets of today's society.

Thankfully those kind of views are on the decline, it won't be to much longer before religious convictions cease to provide a winning party block to political candidates seeking office here. Even so, I still say some of those percentages were from biased samples...

I think trying to play the religious card to explain the war is to completely dismiss the actual reasons for why it was started, and is a borderline naive oversimplification. Christians and Muslims have plenty of bad history going back somewhere around a thousand years, but that's not any excuse for the current blind indoctrination of violence in today's Muslim society to combat anyone that does not bow to Allah.

i think as soon as anyone enters are sees America they should see a giant sign that says Gorge W. Bush< We are not all dumb ,blame the hicks

I have a short sentance that will sum this up for us all:

This country [America] was based upon Christianity.

Have any of you people seen the documentary Jesus Camp?

Here's a Wikipedia article on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Camp

It really puts religious persuasion into perspective. For many young Americans, this sort of thing can be very influential.

What I find most disturbing about the Camp is not that they are preaching a religion - it is that the element of independent thought is lost. I go to an Anglican school and many of my friends are Christian (about half are Catholic). They are not Christian, however, through being brainwashed or forced - our school balances the learning and allows all its students to make up their own minds about God and the Bible. The Christians in my school are the ones that have decided, through their own individual interpretation of the Bible, that they have faith.

Evolution is taught in my school in its entirety.

48% are also apes, just look at George Bush!

What i think as a man is:
Just spoiling money after destroying mankind.
either bush or the jihad.
there is nothing like this jihad was told in islam.
the islam told to make jihad(war) with ur own mind that makes us crazy, spoiler, devil or satan.
this is clear that we r just some players in this world making us like toys.
and some crazy damn ****** like bush or laden r trying to control these toys.
we dont need any war. or any jihad.

I agree - that ties in with the Religion the root of all evil debate - a long standing topic here at iVirtua.

We came to the conclusion after a debate in that thread that these leaders (Bin Laden, etc) use religion as a method to control people. Just like you say - "this is clear that we are just some players in this world making us like toys." - which is very true.

But what do you consider religion? Some ( a lot ) of Christians don't consider Christianity a religion. Just a relationship with Jesus Christ in their hearts. Religion to me is a bad thing. It causes much problems and stress. I'm a Christian and I don't consider what I believe a religion.

Religion is any belief in a God(s) or "higher power", particularly in relation to creation and morality etc.

By the above definition, "Jedi" would be a valid religion.

To a certain extent, many "non-religious" people are, therefore, technically religious - they might not follow a traditional, practised "religion" (e.g. Islam, Buddhism, Christianity), but may have a belief in a "higher power".

Many people might say: "I dont believe in any one "God", but I do belief that there is 'something there'". That would still, to a certain extent, be a religious belief, as it implies faith.

So, in that sense, Religion is an immensely broad topic - it doesnt just mean the different religious denominations (Christian, Judaism, Islam etc), but any such belief.

To Knockout:

If you believe in a "higher power", then you are still religious, even if you don't practise religion in the same way. It is only the belief that makes a "religion", not how the religion is practised.

Evolution from species to species to me is just as much of a religion as any other. People who claim themselves to be scientists don't even follow the scientific method of observation and claim that everything evolved from bacteria. Yet they have found literally no evidence of something evolving into another species. Evolution within species is a fact, but evolution from a species to another species is nothing but a theory and to this day reamins false and un-proven.

  Yet there is evidence to the contrary, following the laws of evolution it is impossible for a escherichia coli to have evolved from another type of bacterial cell.

  What came first DNA or the cell? What came first, the chicken or the egg.

  Also about the world being created in seven days and being ten thousand years old according to the bible is a mis-translation. In the hebrew text each "day" of the seven days that the world was created in, in hebrew it is the word "yom" when properly translated just means time. It is an undefined amount of time.

This is ridiculous.

I'm an Atheist myself, but you're taking two existential arguments and claiming one to be right and the others to be backward and primitive. Earth to dumbass: You can't call a large portion of American's primitive and small-minded because they believe in Christianity. It's a tremendously influential religion that, contrary to popular Atheist belief, needs to be respected because it cannot be debunked. You can't disprove what you can't prove -- and that's the argument that religion as a whole rests upon. Do you seriously believe that theories like the Big Bang and Evolution can disprove the existence of a God? You're nuts. The Judeo-Christian God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. How are you going to say that this omnipotent (there is nothing this God cannot do) and omniscient (there is nothing this God does not know) God didn't simply use the knowledge and ability that he possessed to create the Universe, using a Big Bang-like explosion as a tool, and Evolution as another?

Science can't defeat Christianity. Likewise, Christianity cannot overcome Atheism founded on science. But to call Christians ignorant based on loose scientific theories is just ignorant. Yeah, 48% are believers -- calling them sheep and "explaining a lot" about Americans is about as bullshit-filled as it gets. Don't stoop to that level.

As for the war, you're completely missing the point. It isn't Christian vs. Muslim, though many prominent Christian institutions view it as such -- it's a genuine war on unbridled terrorism that has gone too far. Are we the bad guys? Christ no. People blame the United States for everything because it's easy -- clearly we bungle when terrorists blow themselves up in crowded marketplaces to kill two Marines. It's our fault that 50,000 civilians are dead in Iraq, despite our keen interest in avoiding civilian casualties. This can be seen in footage from aircraft bombing videos, or in our extensive training in terms of Laws of Armed Conflict...

Most people don't even know. It's just easy to criticize America. Which is fine, I'll keep on serving the USAF despite that somewhat annoying fact. However, calling 48% of Americans ignorant due to their beliefs in Christianity and basing this statement on scientific claims really shows the true hypocrit, and the true ignorance, in this thread.