wbpesch@ihuxp.UUCP (Walt Pesch) (11/15/83)
First, I think that what is being said here by both sides is not
statistically correct, for everyone is talking about the circle of
friends that they can speak of by experiance. Simply, people of a
religous nature will have interactions through Church-centered
activities, while non-religous (here used as athiests and agnostics
and believers in God but not in his beaurocracy on Earth) do not have
this same circle of friends. Therefor we get the valid statements of
the born-again PhD person who says "all my friends are believers...
what are you talking about." And we have the converse of the people
who say the inverse of what the religous say. This is not a
statistically valid survey.
Therefor, lets atleast settle this as to the net: Send me answers via
mail to the simple questions. However, please make it simple
YES/NO/UNSURE as your answers, I am going to read and laugh at the
flames I am sure to get from the above paragraph from both sides of
this issue, and then I will delete.
Assumption: everyone that reads this net will fall into the
general category of well-educated. (Please no flames that Computer
Literacy does not mean well-educated.) And then we can decide through
the science of statistics whether Religion is the Opiate of the Net
Consumer.
1. Were you raised in a religous background? (YES/NO/UNSURE for
all questions.)
2. Do YOU believe in the existance of GOD (taken to mean one or more
supernatural beings of supreme power)?
Answer the following only if question number 2 was answered "YES" or
"UNSURE". Otherwise, you're done.
3. Are you currently a regular worshipper at an organized service at
a place of worship (i.e. church, synagogue, mosque, etc.)?
4. Do you believe that GOD has a day-to-day meddling or DIRECT influence
upon the EARTH?
5. Do you place a meaning of your life on a day-to-day basis on the
faith that you have in your God(s)?
Mail Address: ihnp4!ihuxp!wbpesch
I ask that everyone that reads this sends the reply (it will only take
a minute.) This will ensure both a large sample and a random sample
of the population of the net, for this is a general newsgroup that
mostly everyone reads that is of a non-specific nature.
Once again, that address was: ihnp4!ihuxp!wbpesch
Results will be posted when I calculate them.
--
Walt Pesch
AT&T Western Electriczben@umcp-cs.UUCP (11/16/83)
[From the virtual flamethrower of ZBEN]
1. Were you raised in a religous background?
UNSURE
2. Do YOU believe in the existance of GOD (taken to mean one or more
supernatural beings of supreme power)?
YES
3. Are you currently a regular worshipper at an organized service at
a place of worship (i.e. church, synagogue, mosque, etc.)?
NO
4. Do you believe that GOD has a day-to-day meddling or DIRECT influence
upon the EARTH?
NO
5. Do you place a meaning of your life on a day-to-day basis on the
faith that you have in your God(s)?
NO
Now, consider the possibility that what was actually being said was that
*unintelligent* people might by-and-large be *more* religious, because
it is something they can believe in and trust (if not understand). A
similar argument can be made that *unintelligent* people might by-and-large
be more politically conservative. This is not to insult the intelligent
religious people or the intelligent political conservatives, its just to
point out the fallacy involved in these sorts of statistics...
Ben Cranston ...seismo!umcp-cs!zben zben@umd2.ARPA
p.s. I think opium is the religion of the masses...