February 28, 2013

Fox News Employs An Atheist

John Stossel may state he is agnostic, but he is as atheist as they come. It is surprising to me that Fox News would allow someone with a rational overall point of view to have pretty good air time:


Since the Pope and the Catholic church are back in the news, it is a good time to revisit the classic Louis CK exposure mockumentary about the Vatican:

February 4, 2013

41% of US Democrats Are Young Earth Creationists

I read an article by Michael Shermer, The Liberal's War On Science. I'm not going critique the article, just the title.

The paragraph that got my eye was this:

A 2012 Gallup poll found that “58 percent of Republicans believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years,” compared with 41 percent of Democrats. A 2011 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 81 percent of Democrats but only 49 percent of Republicans believe that Earth is getting warmer.

I'm going to assume that this poll includes the old age creationists as well, because it is my understanding that most of them accept dinosaurs were here first, but do not accept evolution because they too believe God created man less than 10,000 years ago.

Because of its anti-science platform, the GOP attracts Creationists, those against gay marriage, and those who want prayer in school. Since around 48% of Americans don't accept evolution, it is not shocking that 58% of Republicans are willfully ignorant YECs. Based on the US anti-evolution numbers, it isn't a shock that 41% of Democrats are YECs as well.

The biggest problem I have is that lets not confuse all Democrats with pro science liberals. Sure, most pro science liberals vote Democrat, but there are a lot of reasons to be Democrat, especially if you are poor and struggling. And yes, there is a correlation with being poor and being poorly educated.

How many welfare moms are going to vote Republican? Not many. Yet my guess is that many are churchgoing and/or collectively are not as well educated on average.

There are others who vote Democrat. Union members generally stay away from the GOP. And then you have government workers. It is natural to protect your livelihood and/or your personal needs ahead of your religious and worldview beliefs in many cases, especially if you lean towards the idea that government and religion should be separated.

There are gay Republicans, but not very many. But being born gay doesn't mean you automatically except evolution over the fairy tale ideas that God poofed Adam and Eve on this planet.

The main thing is that the Democrat platform and its leaders stand for separation of church and state light years more than the Republicans do. But not all Democrats are Progessives, or Liberals or whatever other name the marginalized Right wants to attach to someone who accepts reality versus those who don't.

What I find encouraging is that 42% of Republicans are not knuckledraggers when it comes to evolution.