"Do you believe in God" Poll

Not sure if any of you have been following PZ Myers poll crashing attempts? Found this one on his blog today.

Hi there,

Sure I believe in God… It’s his people I have a problem with!

Scooby Doo

It would be interesting to find out more about how this poll was conducted. The results suggest that, worldwide, atheists marginally outnumber believers, which I find incredible. Granted, the majority of votes were recorded in Europe, which has become increasingly secular in the last 50 years or so, but I can’t help suspecting that, despite their encouraging nature, some considerable selection bias inheres in the results. If indeed the poll was initiated by PZ Myers and conducted on the Internet, then it seems clear that a preponderance of intellectuals and educated people would have responded, and the ranks of the intellectuals and educated count among themselves a disproportionate number of atheists and agnostics as compared to the population at large.

Oh, and it’s deeply funny that the Vatican City vote is split 50/50. Dissention in the ranks, perhaps?

'Luthon64

Sooooooo……

I have found that when it comes to other groups such as atheists, Muslims, etc, they have one thing in common. They are not confused. They do not divert from their beliefs. You do not find Baptist muslims, Methodist muslims or even catholic Muslims sprouting up.

I am laying a sanctioned bureaucratic claim that Christians are the most confused people in the world.
Due to my very brazen attitude toward these people who abuse their positions in the church, as well as my lack of appreciation for church politics, I am sure that every so-called believer in God would confuse the polls, as many religions refer to their superior entity as God.
My apprehension and horror as the theological sceptic that I am would find it hard to believe that there could ever be a true poll in this very debatable category.
We all have unique, idiosyncratic dispositions that regularly make us react in our own distinctive way in any given situation. These are not always consistent from one situation to another. And with the interpretation of God I feel that the confusion regarding this subject can only be initiated by the Theologians. I feel that our processing of situations is to some extent ‘Theory-Driven’ rather than ‘Data-Driven’. In my profession I have been taught that there is one factor that stands out- that is ‘Impression management’. Everybody needs to believe in something….

Scooby Doo ???

Okay, I’ll bite – let’s examine the above a bit more closely. I have heard the claim that “we all need to believe in something” issue usually – and I’m not at all suggesting that it is so in this particular case – as a placatory affirmation made by believers whose position has suddenly become less secure. It is a statement that is often meant to smooth over any disagreements by blurring the edges between belief and disbelief.

First, it is not a falsifiable claim because even the most casehardened nihilist can be said to “need to believe in something,” even if that “something” is the belief that there is nothing one can or should really believe in. One can always construe anyone’s position as emanating from some belief or other, and in that sense the assertion is basically hollow, if not entirely meaningless, and it doesn’t therefore tell us anything useful.

Second, it could be argued that the word “need” is misapplied in this context. We do not “need” a belief structure in the same way that we need more basic necessities like food and shelter. Our beliefs are largely shaped by our surroundings and we “need” them only insofar as they ensure that, on the whole, we are reasonably successful when interacting in or with those surroundings, which include other people. Thus, our beliefs are “needed” in a weaker sense than some more basic essentials. By way of analogy, one could conceivably figure out that new TV’s remote control by a trial-and-error process without an instruction manual but such a manual makes the task considerably easier and so can be said to be “needed”.

Finally, it should be clear that with this utterance a card trick has been played, namely the one that seeks to place all belief on the same utilitarian footing. In other words, it surreptitiously attempts to aver that it doesn’t much matter what one believes as long as one believes something because, after all, we need to believe something. But there are beliefs that are quite obviously useless, dangerous and/or harmful. History is replete with such examples, and so a supposed universal “need to believe in something” is not an adequate defence for any specific belief. The merits (or otherwise) of the belief, as well as its concordance (or not) with reality, will decide that.

'Luthon64

Luthon,
you are correct about the biases, and I am not sure how this poll was conducted. It was not conducted by PZ. In fact, I believe when he mentioned it, he made a comment on how meaningless internet polls were. I’ll find the link to his original post.

PZs original post here: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/a_weird_poll_to_crash.php

And I didn’t mean that I didn’t know how it is conducted. It is conducted by people coming to the site and voting yes or no on whether they believe, but how traffic is attracted to the site can greatly skew the results. I believe the US had a 15 or so point swing after PZ posted.

Okay, thanks scienceteacherinexile for clearing that up. On reflection, I see that somehow I managed to get the wrong end of the opening post’s stick.

'Luthon64

Sorry guys, I was short of time at the time so made it brief. :-[

No problem :wink:
Thanks for pointing us to the poll. I find these polls interesting - even if it is not proof of much. And that is the point PZ and his poll crashing is making, that they are ultimately just indicating the votes from whoever happened to stumble on the link. Not to mention in this case that the countries are probably detected from the IP address, which is rather unreliable and easy to cheat. As someone mentioned in the blog comments - some votes can be from people on vacation in another country or simply just be using a proxy that reports a different country than the one they are actually in. I suspect the site is at least trying to keep people from the same IP to vote twice - which will mean that many people who share the same ISP will not even get to vote. If the poll stays up for a long time it will probably get more accurate, but there is no way of ever knowing…

There are many offshoots of cristianity, but they are all still essentially christian, and to jump from one christian religion to the other is common. They still believe in the christian god based on the christian bible though and the differences are minor. Although I’m no expert on the muslim faith, I would suspect that there are also different groups within the muslim faith that have slightly different beliefs. Similarly though, they will also still believe in the same god based on the Qur’an.

Atheists also have different beliefs and you can subdivide into many groups. Mostly those beliefs will have some base in fact and evidence though - not faith or some ancient book.

I agree. Belief is part of being human. It is comforting to know the truth. Whether you arrive at that truth through faith or fact. And in some sense you do need it - it provides stability and a framework for everyday life. And it is for that reason, I prefer to be as certain as possible of my beliefs. And that is why I choose fact over faith when evaluating beliefs to make my own.