38% of Americans believe tsunami was sent by God

Tefal said:
yes extrapolating the answers of 1000 people and applying that to over 300 million.

yeah that's going to be reliable.
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Actually, you can do that. A great deal of statistics deals with such things, where you know nothing and you want to know how many samples (ie people to ask) to take in order to have X % confidence your results are within Y% of the true value.

1000 people gets you something like 90% confidence you're within about 4% of the true values.

However, and this is what sticks a fork in so many surveys, the sample must be random. As pointed out, 1000 p[eople from the Bible Belt isn't a random sampling of the population as a whole. What the survey tells you is that ~1/3 of people in that area think that.

1/3 is a high number but a higher fraction don't even accept evolution. I watch The Atheist Experience on Youtube a lot and it has helped restore some of my hope for the US. I very much recommend it to anyone wanting to see the standard religious nonsense be slapped down with intelligence, reason and occasionally "What is wrong with you?!". Its a shame they are an island of sanity in a sea of ignorance.
 
chaosdestro0 said:
ZoVRL.jpg

Meh
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Fair enough, the above is only a joke, but I find it amusing how athiests with their superior understanding of science and logic, show none of it when it comes to the subject of God.

Knowing the future and having free will are not mutually exclusive to God. God almost certainly will not perceive time in a linear fashion like we do as he will be able to observe all of the uninverse, all of time and every possible permutation of it, i.e. all possible timelines.

Free will is simply an infinite set of decisions that we make which determines which time line we will follow. God can therefore test us fairly even though he knows what we will do, simply because for him the there is no time delay. :p
 
simulatorman said:
I'm sure that made all the difference.
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The PRRI/RNS Religion News Poll was based on telephone interviews of 1,008 U.S. adults between March 17 and 20. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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Worst statistician ever?

I just don't understand how religious people can be so.. Backwards thinking..

It's outright ignorant of overwhelming evidence produced by modern day science.
 
titaniumx3 said:
Fair enough, the above is only a joke, but I find it amusing how athiests with their superior understanding of science and logic, show none of it when it comes to the subject of God.

Knowing the future and having free will are not mutually exclusive to God. God almost certainly will not perceive time in a linear fashion like we do as he will be able to observe all of the uninverse, all of time and every possible permutation of it, i.e. all possible timelines.

Free will is simply an infinite set of decisions that we make which determines which time line we will follow. God can therefore test us fairly even though he knows what we will do, simply because for him the there is no time delay. :p
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It does tie into the omniscience paradox though, I would love to see if you can solve it :).

Wikipedia
 
titaniumx3 said:
Again, same flawed thinking, assuming that God is bound by the same laws of logic as we are.
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surely the flawed logic is believing a god tests you at all or adheres to the same arbitrary standards of good and evil and more importantly assuming it is on the side of good.
 
Tefal said:
surely the flawed logic is believing a god tests you at all or adheres to the same arbitrary standards of good and evil and more importantly assuming it is on the side of good.
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I can count quite a few cases of theists using that argument. I know saying that God tests is flawed right down to the bone, but it was meant to be in a jokingly manner and was meant to be directed at those who use "God tests us".
 
titaniumx3 said:
Again, same flawed thinking, assuming that God is bound by the same laws of logic as we are.
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Can god make A not A then?

Arguments about logical structure, its limits and how such things as concepts relate to minds come up in the 'Calam Cosmological Argument'. It's quite flawed (as is any attempt at proving god by logic). To further advertise the US show I previously mentioned I'd recommend the 5 part discussion on it here.

There's common apologetics for this issue. For instance, omniscience is logically impossible, ie can god make a rock so large he cannot lift it? The apologetic response is that god is capable of all things not logically contradictory. Many apologetics make the same response in regards to omniscience, that god knows all which doesn't lead to a contradiction with his other powers.

Then you get into the issue of precisely what you believe. If you are a member of one of the 3 main monotheistic religions and you believe your holy books (torah/bible/qu'ran) literally then god should know everything, past, present and future and he knows what is in your heart. Restricting the considerations to Christianity, so at to include the New Testament and Revelations, god clearly have access to knowledge of the future because it was passed onto humans and written into Revelations. If that is truly what is going to come to pass then god knows it and the issue of free will becomes stickier. He knows the actions which lead up to the events in Revelations, he knows who does what, so its valid to ask the question of whether or not we're just puppets and he's pulling the strings or whether we're able to make decisions for ourselves but he knows what we'll choose to do.

/edit

And to further plug that atheist group they have a Wiki which is aimed at explaining the flaws in common apologetic responses to issues people have with Christianity. It's Iron Chariots.
 
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FoxEye said:
To quote Batman "I don't have to kill you, but I don't have to save you either."

What if God just watches? What if he doesn't send the tsunami, but doesn't save you from it either? If at this time he's being totally hands-off?
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Then there's no point in religion as he's only watching and your actions will have no effect on the outcome :p
 
G-MAN2004 said:
Why do people post the results of a survey with a ridiculously small sample size? Pointless survey is pointless.
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Why, and I mean this without being too harsh (tone of voice doesn't exist online), do people make comments about statistics without looking any up. Next time you see an election poll have a look at the small print, it'll almost always say about 1000 people were asked.

What the survey's problem is is not that it asked too few people but that it doesn't ask a random sample.
 
titaniumx3 said:
Fair enough, the above is only a joke, but I find it amusing how athiests with their superior understanding of science and logic, show none of it when it comes to the subject of God.

Knowing the future and having free will are not mutually exclusive to God. God almost certainly will not perceive time in a linear fashion like we do as he will be able to observe all of the uninverse, all of time and every possible permutation of it, i.e. all possible timelines.

Free will is simply an infinite set of decisions that we make which determines which time line we will follow. God can therefore test us fairly even though he knows what we will do, simply because for him the there is no time delay. :p
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You are assuming that the universe is not deterministic though.
 
If anyone REALLY believes that 38% of the entire population of the US believed that god sent it, maybe they are not the stupid ones......
 
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