Religious Survey

Daniel Y. · May 21, 2008

In writing a paper for my English class, I'd like to include a survey of the three main stances on religious beliefs. Religious (belief in a deity or deities), Agnostic (does not believe in the existence of or absence of a deity or deities), and Atheistic (does not believe in a deity or deities).

Please do not debate the religious types or opinions of others. This is purely for collection of data for my paper, and is not intended to be a contestation of any sort. Thanks.

sysreset · May 21, 2008

The agnostic category is challenging to define succinctly. It means different things to different people. For some it is the belief that it is impossible to resolve conclusively whether there is a diety or not. For others it is skepticism about a deity, colored by various degrees of wishing for belief to be possible or irrefutable. Still for others it is a belief in a nebulous spirituality that is not quite in the mold of a deity but in another mold. I don't want to make your endeavor more difficult but there are a lot of nuances there to deal with.

Daniel Y. · May 21, 2008

sysreset said: ↑

The agnostic category is challenging to define succinctly. It means different things to different people. For some it is the belief that it is impossible to resolve conclusively whether there is a diety or not. For others it is skepticism about a deity, colored by various degrees of wishing for belief to be possible or irrefutable. Still for others it is a belief in a nebulous spirituality that is not quite in the mold of a deity but in another mold. I don't want to make your endeavor more difficult but there are a lot of nuances there to deal with.

I appreciate the feed back. While the definitions of the Agnostic category may differ from individual to individual, I tried paint in broad strokes the three possible choices. I meant for Agnostic to be taken as 'undecided', or more elucidated by Webster to be "a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god", which is the typical taken meaning of Agnostic.

Evo · May 21, 2008

I'd say that if you feel you can't pick, don't vote. Otherwise go with the predefined definitions the OP stated.

DaveC426913 · May 21, 2008

You do realize you have a very poor cross-section here on PF? Your data is going to be highly skewed.

Daniel Y. · May 21, 2008

DaveC426913 said: ↑

You do realize you have a very poor cross-section here on PF? Your data is going to be highly skewed.

And purposely so. I created the poll here because it's a professional and scientific community - which was the ideal targeted sample for a point in my paper regarding this type of community. In my paper I've included other samples such as a general chat forum survey, artist forum survey, paranormal forum survey, and a few others. I don't intend for this survey to be representative of the general population.

lisab · May 21, 2008

Daniel Y. said: ↑

And purposely so. I created the poll here because it's a professional and scientific community - which was the ideal targeted sample for a point in my paper regarding this type of community. In my paper I've included other samples such as a general chat forum survey, artist forum survey, paranormal forum survey, and a few others. I don't intend for this survey to be representative of the general population.

So, I'm curious...how do those other communities compare to PFers?

~christina~ · May 21, 2008

Oh wow..many are ...atheists.

Is this what happens, when you're into science?
(I guess I'm the exception then, since I love chemistry and yet I still believe in some higher power )

mcknia07 · May 21, 2008

I think this is a very good idea to include data from this aspect.

Evo · May 21, 2008

~christina~ said: ↑

Oh wow..many are ...atheists.

You will find more atheists among academics and scientists.

~christina~ · May 21, 2008

Evo said: ↑

You will find more atheists among academics and scientists.

But I want to be a scientist but I still believe in "god" :rofl:

mcknia07 · May 21, 2008

Evo said: ↑

You will find more atheists among academics and scientists.

I serously would have never guessed that to be the case at all. I was suprised when I saw the vote count at the top too, I was like, WOW, I never thought that would be the case. Can I ask why do you think this is the way?

Evo · May 21, 2008

mcknia07 said: ↑

I serously would have never guessed that to be the case at all. I was suprised when I saw the vote count at the top too, I was like, WOW, I never thought that would be the case. Can I ask why do you think this is the way?

Both from knowing a lot of scientists and academics that are atheist, ok, I do not personally know any that are not atheist and there have been many surveys that also substantiate this.

Daniel Y. · May 21, 2008

Evo said: ↑

You will find more atheists among academics and scientists.

This is the correlation I intend to show in my paper; in fact, the general idea of providing samples of specialized forums (Scientific vs. Paranormal for example), as you might have guessed, is to show the general consensus among the individuals in the sample. I would venture to say the paranormal forum would contain an abundance of religious persons, but one might be surprised by the results.

Daniel Y. · May 21, 2008

lisab said: ↑

So, I'm curious...how do those other communities compare to PFers?

In general, the results of other surveys tend to have 20-30% Atheistic (but as low as around 5%), 60% theistic (very roughly speaking), and about 10-20% Agnostic. I ran a survey in my high school - but it turned out rather unusable, considering many participants didn't even know what Agnostic meant (a good lesson which taught me to define my terms).

Evo · May 21, 2008

Daniel Y. said: ↑

I would venture to say the paranormal forum would contain an abundance of religious persons, but one might be surprised by the results.

That would probably depend on if they understand "religious" to include "Wicca, Druidism, worship of Hern (one of my personal favorites), etc...

Please do let us know the outcome.

Cyrus · May 21, 2008

Where is scientology? I want that option please. (You can list it under cult)

Ivan Seeking · May 21, 2008

...They concluded that academics in the natural and social sciences at elite research universities are significantly less religious than the general population. Almost 52 percent of scientists surveyed identified themselves as having no current religious affiliation compared with only 14 percent of the general population. [continued]

http://www.physorg.com/news102700045.html

The wording in the report makes it a bit vague. While I do not really consider myself to be religious in the sense of having religious affiliations, I do have what many would call "spiritual beliefs". For the sake of your poll the word "religious" is defined, but the survey specifically asked about affiliations, so this may not be inclusive. In either case it seems that about half of academic elites have religious beliefs. This would seem to be in line with the physics department at my alma mater.

waht · May 21, 2008

I would guess that a strict discipline in critical thinking skills, and pattern finding is going to sway people into atheism, more than the no proof of god argument.

rootX · May 21, 2008

I think most Engineering or Science Majors (at my university) do not have a religion ... (or they have created their own lol), and I always wondered why

I change my religion every month; from Buddhism -- > Zen -- > Engineering -- > ...

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Religious Survey

Which religious category would you fall under?

Religious

Agnostic

Atheistic

Daniel Y.

sysreset

Daniel Y.

Evo

Staff: Mentor

DaveC426913

Daniel Y.

lisab

~christina~

mcknia07

Evo

Staff: Mentor

~christina~

mcknia07

Evo

Staff: Mentor

Daniel Y.

Daniel Y.

Evo

Staff: Mentor

Cyrus

Ivan Seeking

waht

rootX