Washington remains one of our country's least-religious states, according to updated results from an annual Gallup survey.
Just 31 percent of Washingtonians identified as "very religious" in 2012, putting Washington in a five-way tie for eighth least-religious state in the union. As in previous years, Mississippi topped the rankings for "most religious" and Vermont remained the most unchurched state.
Overall, 40 percent of Americans identified as very religious and 31 percent said they were nonreligious; the remaining 29 percent identified as moderately religious. Totals for all three categories were within one percentage point of results from the previous year.
In 2011, 30 percent of Washingtonians said they were very relgious.
For complete results and survey methods, visit the Gallup website.
Are you suprised by Washington's ranking? Tell us in the comments section.
Nicholas Copernicus, Sir Francis Bacon, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Rene Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Michael Faraday, Gregor Mendel, William Thomson, Kelvin Max Planck, Albert Einstein.
I think the reason is that modern science was just forming then, and God was necessary to explain many phenomena. This is much less true today, now that we have evolution, atomic theory, modern geology, etc. Interestingly, the two scientists on your list who died most recently, Planck and Einstein, should not be on your list. Planck was likely a deist, and definitely didn't believe in the Christian God, and Einstein expressly denied belief in the personal God described in the Abrahamic religions. Among eminent scientists today, unbelief is far more common than belief. If you look at the elite of the NAS, only 7% believe in God. More than 70% are outright atheists, which is almost the opposite of the general population. Source (there are many others): http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html Finally, this is an argument from authority, and thus not very convincing. But it is even less convincing that it sounds like something someone else compiled, and, indeed, it is identical to this list: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/sciencefaith.html
For example, are you aware that the idea of the Rapture, so commonly accepted in today's protestant churches, wasn't even "invented" until the 19th century (around 1830)? The Bible is only easy to understand if you accept it on face value (which almost nobody does) or attach your own beliefs to it and ignore other interpretations. As George Bernard Shaw said, "No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means."
I wonder why you dismiss my list of scientists, each of whom made truly great contributions, not just run-of-the-mill scientists, based on time and history. Are today's scientists any better as disproving the existence of God than the hacks of the past? Francis Sellers Collins. There's a modern one.
Francis Collins is a rare exception among eminent scientists today, and even he acknowledges there is an uncomfortable relationship between science and religion when he says: "The evidence supporting the idea that all living things are descended from a common ancestor is truly overwhelming. I would not necessarily wish that to be so, as a Bible-believing Christian. But it is so. It does not serve faith well to try to deny that." Basically, his religion had to give up ground to science, because his religion says something that is incompatible with science. That is what has been happening for the last several hundred years -- science has been encroaching on the domain of religion, and religion has been retreating. In every single case where there have been competing scientific and religious explanations for some phenomenon, the scientific explanation has eventually prevailed, leaving less and less for religion to explain. This is the problem creationists and other fundamentalists see that other religious people don't -- they realize it is only a matter of time before religion simply doesn't matter, and they are fighting to keep the forces of naturalism at bay.
First, you should refer to this interesting case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District Then, for a humorous look at what their "science" is, take a look here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/12/21/she-must-be-a-scientist-she-works-in-front-of-a-green-screen/
I don't care about your arguments...Even if it your version of "blob of flesh" had a 1% chance of being an alive human being, wouldn't that be enough to preserve it? I don't care about rape or anything, if you want to kill children, there's a special place next to Ted Bundy somewhere really hot waiting for you.
I have lived my whole life being offended by Christians around me...and as I look back at my life I can't imagine how I have ever managed to stay a Christian. But God has been good to me in the sense that I have never looked at other Christians as the example of what God is. To me the Bible is the most beautiful book in the world. So hypothetically what if the Bible isn't true? I spent my life thinking about others above myself, loving, being kind, smiling more, praying, serving, sacrificing, trusting...and so much more.. So if the Bible isn't true as you claim, at least I spent my life well-worthy of the calling of man. For the record, I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is real and the Bible is truth.
The First Amendment protects us both, so preach away. As to your comment that you "don't care about rape", I'll leave that discussion for another time.
From my perspective, it is undeniable that the Bible is full of behavior that we would find revolting today -- hardly a model for moral and ethical living. And this is not just limited to the Old Testament, where I could go on for days listing atrocities. For example, Jesus' condoning of slavery, which was used to justify hundreds of years of misery, represents behavior that almost all of us would find reprehensible today. You've expressed the famous "Pascal's Wager." I prefer to live my life based on what I know to be true, not what I hope or wish to be true. The main problem with this is that, even if I did prefer to believe there was a God, why would I choose your interpretation? Even if I were to limit myself to Christianity (why?), there are so many incompatible sects -- how would I pick one? They all claim to be true, and they all have same amount of evidence to back them up. Despite the fact that most claim to have adopted their religion after long study and thoughtful meditation, it isn't a coincidence that, by far, the best predictor of what religion a person will follow is what religion their parents followed.
Cold, heat, wind and gravity can be measured. Their effects are all visible. Two people experiencing them experience the same exact phenomena. For example: we are all stuck to the planet, we all come back down to earth after we jump, we all get frostbite in extremely cold weather, we can all fly kites in the wind, and we can all watch water boil, etc. You started off great, saying that all religions can't be right, but then you proceeded to insist, with no evidence (save an empty tomb -- which hardly qualifies as evidence, because we don't have reliable testimony), that your religion is right. It amazes me that this passes for a sensible argument for the existence of God. I suspect I disagree with Edwin. I respect peoples' right to believe what they want to believe, but I don't respect their beliefs. If someone's beliefs are irrational, it doesn't matter to me whether they are religiously inspired.
Do you hate Zeus? When it comes to Zeus, you probably feel about the same as I do: There is no evidence for Zeus' existence, and it is rightly regarded as a myth. I can't speak for everyone else on this thread, but I feel exactly that way about the Christian God.