Which God Do You Believe In?

Baylor recently released results to their American Piety In The 21st Century survey.

Some interesting things points from the survey are that those who attended college are slightly more apt to believe in the paranormal and that more women than men believe in haunted houses. But more important results were revealed.

Over 1700 Americans were asked a series of questions and the biggest revelation to come out of this was the fact that Americans for the most part agree there is a God (91.8%) but can't agree on what kind of dude God is.

It seems that Americans believe in one of four conceptions of God:

'A is the Authoritarian God, worshiped by 31.4% of respondents. This deity is highly involved, responsible for Earthly events such as tsunamis or economic upturns and "capable of meting out punishment to those who are unfaithful or ungodly."

B is the Benevolent God, the choice of 23% of respondents. He also is involved in human affairs but isn't in the smiting business. This God is "mainly a force of positive influence in the world and is less willing to condemn or punish individuals."

C is the Critical God, who "really does not interact with the world." But believers in this God — 16% of the sample — still watch their Ps and Qs because God C "views the current state of the world unfavorably" and will punish evildoers "in another life."

D, the Distant God. Twenty-four percent of respondents endorsed — "embraced" is probably too strong a word — this version of the deity, "a cosmic force which set the laws of nature in motion" but has no interest in human activities.'

Just over 5% of those surveyed identified themselves as Atheists.

The study is further broken down by region. It would only make sense that those in the South and the Midwest are more likely to believe in the Authoritative God for example.

Now my thoughts:

What about the 5th type of God? You know, THE TRICKSTER GOD. This is the God I would most likely to believe in. He is the one who put absolutely no evidence on this planet that he exists, in fact he purposely put all kinds of evidence on this planet and in the universe to contradict the Bible (His Word). He has made it appear to every reputable scientist that evolution is fact, that the earth is ancient, that the Great Flood never happened, that the Exodus never happened, and that Jesus wasn't even a historical figure.

I have to ask those who believe in a distant God.......Why? Is it so you think you have a shot at an afterlife? What evidence are you basing your belief on? At least the first three God's are at least somewhat based on interpretations of a Holy book or two.

Also, for you believers. If God exists, don't you think he would have made it crystal clear as to what type of God he is? Why is his word interpretated in countless ways? Shouldn't his word be black and white? Does man made ring a bell?

Here is a breakdown of God conceptions and specific religions:

Author. Benevol.Critical Distant
Catholic 22.6% 28.2% 18.6% 29.2%
Black
Protestant 68.0 12.0 20.0 0
Evangelical
Protestant 52.3 23.6 12.8 10.8
Mainline
Protestant 23.7 26.6 19.7 29.3
Jewish 19.4 13.9 16.7 41.7
Unaffiliated 2.9 5.0 15.7 35.7

Jews can't even agree on what kind of dude God is. Note: according to my calculations only 43 Jews were surveyed and 4 of them said Jesus is the son of God, so the Jewish numbers probably have a high margin of error attached to them. Jews were also most likely to not be sure if God existed of all those surveyed.

Distant God? C'mon, you people are really Agnostics. Get over it.

For more on this topic check out The Jewish Atheist, Stardust Musings, and God Is For Suckers (which is Stardust's post, but the comments are worth looking at).

The Movie "Obsession" Is Up Again On Google

This is a powerful documentary on radical Islam's Culture of Death.
If you haven't watched it yet, now is your chance. It is pretty much a guarantee that Google will take it down again very shortly......So watch it now.


About the Pope's recent comments. Are Muslims embarrassed by the reaction going on right now? "The Pope better apologize, or else"

As for the Pope's apology today; he didn't say the words in the quoted text were wrong, only that the text was quoted. Every preacher at church could say the same thing when they read from the bible. That is what religious dudes do, they quote old books to express their own feelings or to explain the world. Why quote a 14th Century text if he didn't believe it was true? And if he didn't believe it, he would have said "here is some nonsense from the 14th Century" before he quoted it.

The Pope said he is deeply sorry for the reaction. Humanity is sorry for the reaction, not just the Pope. But the Muslims reaction was completely predictable. Did it surprise anyone? They did have a choice. The Imams could have started a campaign to counter the quoted words instead of declare a Jihad against those words and the Catholics. The Palestinians of course, just look for reasons to destroy. 5 churches were attacked, and a 170 year old non Catholic church was completely destroyed:
'In the West Bank town of Tulkarm, a stone church built 170 years ago was torched before dawn and its entire inside was destroyed, local Christian officials said. In the village of Tubas, a small church was attacked with firebombs and partially burned, Christians said. Neither church is Catholic, the officials said.'

On a lighter side, on the Yahoo message boards I have seen a few posts stating that Jews paid the Pope to defame Islam. And on a satire site there was a heading that stated that dyslexic Muslims were mixing up the Pope story with the story of the tainted spinach and were now burning effigies of Popeye the Sailor Man.

Finally A Show Where The Main Character Is Godless

I really enjoy the new sitcom Lucky Louie, available on HBO. Sure, it is a tad crude....OK, it is very crude, but man is crude(by man, I mean woman too), and this show doesn't sugarcoat it. I can really relate to this guy, but I also can relate to Tony Soprano.
Here are a couple of my favorite scenes. Language/content warning:



The next one is only over a minute, and you can't really make out what stops Louie from thinking about death near the end of it. Lets just say his wife was very handy in temporarily stopping Louie's futile and existential thinking.



There was no question what his wife was doing, by the way, when I viewed them much clearer TV version.

I Just Love Valid Analogies

When I see a new analogy, one I've never thought of before, I get stimulated. It is actually a bit of a rush. I found a few recently while making my daily rounds through the blogosphere.

I know too situations are never even close to being the same, but many situations today are others that have happened or are happening still. Many attempt to make analogies, but they base it on just one or two dubious points, like comparing Israelis/Jews to Nazis (the term "zionazi," for example) or comparing evolutionists to Hitler. In order for an analogy to be valid and have legs, the situation of both subjects being compared must be more similar than dissimilar.

The Palestinians are not similar to the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust. At no time were the Jews of Europe a physical threat to the Aryans. The Jews had the land they owned and their businesses taken from them because they were born Jews. They were gathered up and mostly murdered because they were born Jews. They were not given an option to peacefully within their own sovereign countries. They weren't even given the option of living in a land next to the sovereign countries who picked them out because they were born Jews. They didn't declare war against the Nazis. They didn't live for the destruction of Germany. Jews were punished for being Jews. In the West Bank, Arabs are being punished for trying to push Israel into the sea. They are being punished for their own bad choices.

My recent post on the analogy of evolutionists and Hitler.

Now back to the new analogies I discovered.

In the comments in one of Steve's terrorist apologizing blog Digitally Deranged, Mad Zionist came up with a good one regarding radical Islam and those who state that the West creates more enemies by going after terrorists, an argument that I find all over the Lefty Moonbat blogsites. MZ said that when the Allies took out Japan and Germany (who were out for world dominance like Islam today) during World War 2, the objective was to elimate the enemy, at least elimate the enemies ideology. Well, even though many innocents were killed (especially in Japan), the strategy worked. The war ended. But because the Allies were dealing with fundamentally normal rational human beings, resentment by the Germans and Japanese, didn't result in any further actions against the Allies: In other words, no Nazis or terrorists were created. Why does the Moonbat left buy the Muslim excuse? Why do the Moonbats find the Muslim excuse, that eliminating the enemy that Radical Islam is, to be an acceptable one? Are the Moonbats in fact accepting that Muslims are neither rational or normal? Maybe the Lefties should take an introspective look at what you are saying.

Another great analogy was done by Elder of Ziyon, who made a fantastic point that radical Islamists and their supporters don't think like democratic West thinks. To sum up his article, he states that terrorists and their supporters have a zero sum game mentality. They only get happy when Israel is sad for example. They get sad by the same amount that Israel gets happy. In other words, they don't think that Israel and the Palestinians can both get happier. Happiness in the region is a fixed amount. Read the post, I can tell that if I keep explaining this I am going to blurt out stuff about Arab assmonkeys again.

Roya, in the comment section of her Atheist Girl blog, gives great reasons why the Palestinian terrorists are not like the IRA:

...there is a difference between Islamo-facist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, and groups like IRA and PKK.

The former two,
1. do not recognise the right of existance of their adversories
2. Their aim is simply to destroy their adverseries rather than to help their own people.

The later two,
1. accept the right of their adversories for existance
2. and are not driven by the aim of destroying their adversaries but to do what is best for their own people.


She also compares the Kurds today of the Jews prior to the formation of Israel by quoting a Kurdish journalist:

"The Kurds of today are the Jews of decades and centuries ago. They are divided by different foreign oppressors. Some of them are forgetting their own language. Many of them are in exile. The Kurds, like the Jews, strive to live in peace with their neighbors and establish a democratic nation-state of their own. The Kurds, like the Jews, are also surrounded by “neighbors” who may hate each other but can call agree on one thing –a common cause in opposing any and all aspirations of the Jewish and Kurdish nations. "

Atlas Shrugs recently posted a speech by Netanyahu where he rips the BBC a new one, when he fairly compares the recent Lebanon war to the actions Britain took against Nazi Germany. Watch, enjoy. It is full of great analogies:

I Watched Lots of NFL This Week: Some Observations

The refs have new uniforms. The refs were horrible last year. I'm thinking the NFL changed the uniforms instead of firing the old refs and hiring new refs. When you change the package people think it might be new and improved, it works with things like laundry soaps, so why not give it a try with the refs.

Lots of new coaches. Lots of boring safe calls by them too.

I'm wondering if the team that gets the highest Jewish lobby support this year is going to be Arizona over the Giants or Miami. No, Rex Grossman of the Bears isn't a Jew.

If the Giants offense played a two minute drill all game, they would be unstoppable, but they still only use the 2 minute drill in the last minute of the game.

"Born again Christian" Kurt Warner may have made a second deal with the devil this year. Maybe he sold his wife's soul this time. Watch out for Arizona.

Can you name two players on the San Francisco 49ers?

Why did Favre come back? Why? Why?

I don't know what it is but I just don't like Drew Bledsoe's face.

Does Minny's Brad Johnson think he is living in the 50's. Check out his hair.

32 NFL teams and not one starting white running back. I can't believe this type of racism still goes on. It is 2006, for cripes sake. Surely there are white guys being overlooked for the job. Blacks make up only 10% of the American population, but they make up 100% of the starters at the running back position. We are all created equal. Aint we?

I'm starting to think that the only reason so many white guys play quarterback is possibly keep the odd KKK guy watching. It is some sort of conspiracy. That is why only one black QB has ever one the Super Bowl.

And what's up with the fact that no black coach has made it to the Super Bowl, let alone win one. This is another way that the NFL ensures high Super Bowl ratings. Racist America may not watch it if one or more black coaches were involved. And think of the all the cursing bad calls in bars, if the call in question was made by a black coach.

It is a fact that 45% of Americans believe in Young Earth Creation, but when broken down: 65% of high school dropouts in America believes in YEC, while only 25% of college grads believe in YEC. I'm pretty sure most of the players in the NFL fall into the last category. Yeah, like most of them REALLY graduated college alright...wink wink.

Go Arizona.