Religious belief among scientists stable for eighty years

I keep hearing from atheists on ATS that science has made belief in God a primitive past time for the ignorant. Well looking to the actual evidence this is discovered to be just another religious fantasy of atheism. Another conspiracy to hide the truth and sweep the evidence under the rug to favor atheism.

A 1996 survey published in Nature magazine reveals that belief in God has not changed much among practicing scientists. The survey was a repeat of one done in 1916 by Professor Leuba in which 1,000 scientists chosen randomly form the 1910 edition of American men of Science. Were asked if they believed in God and immortality.

in 1916 response rate was 70%
believed in God----41.8%
Atheist-----------41.5%
Agnostic----------16.7

In 1996 the response rate was 60%
believed in God----39.6%
Atheist-----------45.5%
Agnostic----------14.9%

Hardly what the ATS Atheist evangelists would have us believe - That science and empirical evidence has somehow trivialized belief in God. Among REAL scientists even all the advances for the last 80 years haven't changed the numbers.

Religious belief among scientists stable for eighty years -

survey on US scientists' belief in God


According to a recent survey, 40 percent of U.S. scientists say they believe in God. The results, detailed in the April 3, 1997, edition of the journal Nature, surprisingly parallel the findings of a similar survey conducted over eighty years ago.

In 1916, researcher James Leuba polled one thousand biologists, mathematicians, astronomers, and physicists about their religious beliefs. Much to the astonishment of his contemporaries, Leuba found that 60 percent of scientists did not believe in God, and he predicted that with the spread of education, religion would increasingly be rejected.

skeptical enquirer
note to get 60% unbelievers the article added atheists and agnostics together

But he was wrong and the number of believers has held steady.



[edit on 6/8/2008 by Bigwhammy]

Well Whammy, you are still yet to prove to me that God exists. I have both challenged you and asked you cavortly on many mutual occasions, you have failed everytime and always seem to resort to name calling, mocking, and sarcastic jaundiced satire.

When I proposed to you that I'd believe in God if you agreed that God was energy, and that energy is everything, thus making God omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, etc. and that we are one with this God and this God is one with this, you then proceeded, along with Conspiriology to heckle me relentlessly and mock me about that as well.

When Jesus said, to paraphrase... "when you turn over a log, there is God." What exactly do you think he meant by that? Sounds like energy to me. Sounds like the eternal universe. Sounds like the one eternal mind that we all share in this illusion of individuality that we so desperately cling to that only causes division and imbalance.

You do realize that energy is everything, right?

Do you realize that people's idea of God is different? Because of what religion's have done to this God over the years, some such as myself would rather be called Athiest, although we have our own idea of God.

You could call me a pantheist, but I don't believe in a "higher power". You can however, refer to me as a scientific pantheist.

[edit on 9-6-2008 by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal]

reply to post by Bigwhammy


last 80 years?

it's the year 2008, your data is 12 years outdated...
which is kind of a big deal

another thing: so?

science has never claimed to make the belief in god unnecessary, only the belief in certain sorts of god...like the nature aspect gods of yore for example

first cause god doesn't necessarily die out in the process, personal god doesn't either, universal spirit god also doesn't bite the bullet thanks to science.

whambam, stop beating the strawmen to death.

reply to post by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal

Well Whammy, you are still yet to prove to me that God exists. I have both challenged you and asked you cavortly on many mutual occasions, you have failed everytime and always seem to resort to name calling, mocking, and sarcastic jaundiced satire.

Satire was all that was left... you ruined you credibility as someone reasonable to have a discussion with when you claimed you "were the universe" and you could "create an animal". I just do not take you seriously enough to waste my time anymore.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul

ast 80 years?

it's the year 2008, your data is 12 years outdated...
which is kind of a big deal

Well its the only such study i could find. 12 years ago seems like yesterday to me but a lot more changed over that 80 years than the last 12. I think the impactions of the trend still hold.

science has never claimed to make the belief in god unnecessary,

*cough*

But atheists claim it all the time with science as their rationale.

whambam, stop beating the strawmen to death.

I reported on a factual study I thought you were a champion of reason and evidence? You don't seem to like evidence so much when its against your pet causes...

reply to post by Bigwhammy


well, looks like you're not interested in talking, as you're only addressing half of what i wrote

even half of sentences

some atheists see science as explaining enough of the universe for us to not see the necessity of a god, and, due to lack of evidence for a deity, they do not believe in it.

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
I reported on a factual study I thought you were a champion of reason and evidence? You don't seem to like evidence so much when its against your pet causes...

*cough*

But atheists claim it all the time with science as their rationale.

this is why i'm saying you're using a strawman.
atheists have never said that there aren't theistic scientists

also, the evidence is actually in favor of atheists...60% of scientists are atheists...that's a MASSIVE percentage, especially when you consider that atheists are, at most, 15% of the population.

hell, the higher up you get in science, the more distinguished and more published you go, the higher the percentage is.
atheists make up at least 80% of the royal academy in england and 90% of the national academy of sciences...

so your argument is basically both flawed and attacking a strawman.


edit to add one more thing:
the vast majority (well over 90%) of religious scientists also believe in all of that "evolution" stuff...
just wanted to point that out

[edit on 6/15/08 by madnessinmysoul]

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
Satire was all that was left...

No, it wasn't. The satire you imposed was your lackuster attempt at avoiding the crumbling logic of your invisible God, which was not at all satire, but rather hurling instigating comments coupled with absolutely erroneous accusations at me because of your frustration that I was right and you are wrong.

you ruined you credibility as someone reasonable to have a discussion with when you claimed you "were the universe" and you could "create an animal". I just do not take you seriously enough to waste my time anymore.

Yes. I AM the universe. I am a part of the universe and interconnected I am the eternity of the universe. It's up to you to now prove that I am not the universe. You can choose to either prove that I am not a part of the universe, or that I am not the universe at all. this should be hilarious.

In response to your false accusations I obliterated your entire premise on the same accusations you are making here, in this thread : Little Whammy, Big Recoil

My response to you can be found about halfway down the page when you accused me of being able to create a dog after merely telling you that I could teach my dog how to behave

Also here: Synthetic DNA on the brink of creating new life forms I showed you to a link where synthetic DNA is in fact creating completely new strands of DNA.

It has been 50 years since scientists first created DNA in a test tube, stitching ordinary chemical ingredients together to make life's most extraordinary molecule. Until recently, however, even the most sophisticated laboratories could make only small snippets of DNA -- an extra gene or two to be inserted into corn plants, for example, to help the plants ward off insects or tolerate drought.

Now researchers are poised to cross a dramatic barrier: the creation of life forms driven by completely artificial DNA.

Scientists in Maryland have already built the world's first entirely handcrafted chromosome -- a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce.

In the coming year, they hope to transplant it into a cell, where it is expected to "boot itself up," like software downloaded from the Internet, and cajole the waiting cell to do its bidding. And while the first synthetic chromosome is a plagiarized version of a natural one, others that code for life forms that have never existed before are already under construction.

I then revealed to you my original quote in response to you in the thread titled Why are Athiests...Athiest?. Starting on page 11 anyone who wants to read it can read the entire conversation between us and your lack of ability to understand the most miniscule sense of logic that I was unwrapping for you.

Which followed as

Originally posted by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal
Sure, I could create an animal. It's scientifically feasible. Catch up man, it's the 21st century. The evolution of the planet Earth and the species of dog along with other un-named and currently unknown events caused my dog to be the way that it is.

Where in the italicized quote I admittedly stated that I could not create a dog, which was your accusation based on your own delusion, because no where before that had I ever stated that I could create a dog either!

Whereas creating an animal is scientifically feasible and quickly approaching! That would make me, and anyone who wished to, have the ability to create an animal following the guidelines of the science to do so.

Face it man, it's a losing battle for you. Put the shovel down and get out of the hole. You have no credibility whatsoever. The least you are good at is misquoting people and running away with your tail between your legs screaming satirical insults.

reply to post by Bigwhammy

You know, Bigwhammy, it could be quite a spectacular own goal you've scored here.

Look:

According to the premises that intelligent design freely allows, speciation isn't very hard to explain. If natural selection can produce variations without miraculous help, there is every reason to suppose that it can yield more fundamental types as well. Indeed, Darwin believed, and many contemporary biologists agree, that the very distinction between variation and speciation is vacuous. One species can be distinguished from its closest kin only retrospectively, when it is found that the two can no longer interbreed. The cause of that splitting can be something as mundane as a geographical barrier erected between two groupings of the same population, whose reproductive systems or routines then develop slight but fateful differences. And if one of those sets then goes extinct without leaving traces that come to the notice of paleontologists, the surviving set may not be considered a new species after all, since no discontinuity in breeding will have come to light...

In effect, then, the intelligent design team has handed argumentative victory to its opponents before the debate has even begun. As the movement's acknowledged leader, the emeritus UC-Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson, concedes in his latest book, The Wedge of Truth, "If nature is all there is, and matter had to do its own creating, then there is every reason to believe that the Darwinian model is the best model we will ever have of how the job might have been done." Such a weak hand prompts Johnson and others to retreat to the Bible for "proof" that nature is subordinate to God. If scientists can't perceive this all-important truth, it's because their "methodological naturalism" partakes of a more sweeping "metaphysical naturalism"—that is, a built-in atheism. Once this blindness to spiritual factors becomes generally recognized, the persuasiveness of Darwinism will supposedly vanish.

- Frederick C. Crews, Saving Us from Darwin

Now you're telling us about all these scientists who aren't atheists. Beware, beware! It's only a short step thence to conceding that science isn't intrinsicaly atheistic at all. And if you were to take that step, people might think you were fighting a straw man - a form of exercise that tends to make the taker look awfully foolish.

[edit on 15-6-2008 by Astyanax]

I see the Atheist Tag Team is out in force :shk:

ATT

None of that off topic drivel changes the simple fact that 40% of scientists still believe in God not one iota. The Atheist Tag Team just put up a wall of nonsense about createing synthetic animals and other off topic nonsense. Thanks for playing... tag mel next!

[edit on 6/15/2008 by Bigwhammy]

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
... tag mel next!

You called? I think you tagged me?

I don't really see what you are so excited about with this topic. I've been telling you this sort of stuff for ages. There are many good scientists who are theists, some are self-defining darwinists as well.

If I can find it, data for each individual subject is quite interesting. Not sure it's worth the effort though. Not like we could have a reasonable discussion about it.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul

this is why i'm saying you're using a strawman.
atheists have never said that there aren't theistic scientists

I never said they did. What I said you are about to demnstrate...

also, the evidence is actually in favor of atheists...60% of scientists are atheists...that's a MASSIVE percentage, especially when you consider that atheists are, at most, 15% of the population.

here's what I actually said...

originally posted by Bigwhammy
n 1916 response rate was 70%
believed in God----41.8%
Atheist-----------41.5%
Agnostic----------16.7

In 1996 the response rate was 60%
believed in God----39.6%
Atheist-----------45.5%
Agnostic----------14.9%

Hardly what the ATS Atheist evangelists would have us believe - That science and empirical evidence has somehow trivialized belief in God. Among REAL scientists even all the advances for the last 80 years haven't changed the numbers.

So your MASSIVE 60% is a fallacy. You added in the 15% agnostics who are not Atheists. Nice try... :shk:

hell, the higher up you get in science, the more distinguished and more published you go, the higher the percentage is.
atheists make up at least 80% of the royal academy in england and 90% of the national academy of sciences...

Another Strawman.

And the higher you go up in salary the more likely you are to be an atheist. Larsen found the numbers of believers drop off sharply above $150,000 a year. It has little to do with science. It's an age old story... "It's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."—Matthew 19:24

so your argument is basically both flawed and attacking a strawman.

All of you ATT guys have poor reading comprehension because you missed the actual argument and each proceeded with your strawman of choice.

The point was...

all the advances for the last 80 years haven't changed the numbers.

Which wooooooshed over the entire Atheist Tag Teams heads.

reply to post by melatonin


You are tagged by your team members :

1. Maddness begins the ATT round robin

TAG

2. LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal lobs a loser at 12:08

just 6 minutes later TAG

3. Astyanax throws a brick like clockwork at 02:14 PM

TAGS off to

4. melatonin who still misses the point in favor of ad hominem attacks

Yes and you all entirely missed the point. :bnghd:

I apologize that I am unable to dumb it down enough for you. I thought the huge headline

religious belief among scientists stable for eighty years -

would clue you in. :shk: alas what can I do... The point was : all the advances over 80 years haven't changed the number of scientists who believe in God. I hear you guys claim to be atheists due to evidence.

Which raises a very valid question: Perhaps scientific evidence has very little to do with Atheism...






[edit on 6/15/2008 by Bigwhammy]

reply to post by Bigwhammy


I don't know who you are in reference to when you say "you guys", maybe you mean athiests, maybe you mean the three of us in this thread which you coin "the tag team"? First off I don't talk to these guys outside of ATS, not even outside of the threads. We don't u2u or anything. Second off I find a lot of what they have to say often is flawed and I wouldn't tag team with people of that like anyway. I'd prefer less mistakes amongst my tag team partners.

I've never stated that I am a pure Athiest. I have stated that I call myself athiest to disassociate myself from the religious God diety. However if you read my psots closely and carefully you can see that I do in fact know and worship my own idea of God, which I like to call nature, the universe, energy, existence.

quote]all the advances for the last 80 years haven't changed the numbers.

Which wooooooshed over the entire Atheist Tag Teams heads.

This didn't woosh over my head. In fact I had nothing to say about it. My only argument was what is the meaning and idea of God to these scientists?

Just because a scientist has a God doesn't mean it's the idea of God presented by any religious institution on this planet.

[edit on 15-6-2008 by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal]

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
The Atheist Tag Team just put up a wall of nonsense about createing synthetic animals and other off topic nonsense. Thanks for playing... tag mel next!

Also, it wasn't meaningless drivel nor was it off topic non-sense. You told me that my credibility was incredulous because I said that creating an animal was scientifically feasible. In response to that comment, I showed you that is a goal that is quickly approaching and already under way. The blue prints are drawn out, all that is left to do is create.

You said that I am not the universe: You still have not replied as to why. Whenever you're ready. Like I said, you keep digging holes and then I put my hand down to pull you out and you stubbornly pick up your shovel and start scooping again. I'll be waiting as long as our paths cross.

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
TAG

just 6 minutes later TAG

TAGS off to

I saw this thread the other day, but couldn't be bothered posting. It's rather inane and, as noted, reasonable discussion is not really possible. I actually only posted because you mentioned me.

You asked for me. You got me. I guess you were missing me, must be my copious charm. It will be entirely unrequited though, whammy, I'm taken dear.

Glad to see you're keeping tabs on posting times. I guess you had now't better on.

Yes and you all entirely missed the point. :bnghd:

I apologize that I am unable to dumb it down enough for you.

...

all the advances over 80 years haven't changed the number of scientists who believe in God. I hear you guys claim to be atheists due to evidence.

Oh no, the OP was dumb enough.

Since when are all scientists american? What happened in the 80 years before that? And finally, who cares? Belief in god is apparently 70-80% in the wider US population, half that in a polled group of scientists.

I could quote the study showing that belief in god is at an all time low in the higher echelons of science (7% in the NAS), but still, does it matter? Just a poll. Never really been an issue that many scientists have a belief in god.

The IQ study is more interesting.

As for evidence, atheists due to evidence? Perhaps due to complete lack of evidence, along with much I've outlined elsewhere. Not as if the evidence for god has changed any in 80 years.

80 years ago there was none, and now there is still a bit fat zero.

Which raises a very valid question: Perhaps scientific evidence has very little to do with Atheism...

Apparently it could be related to IQ, IMO probably fostered by education. America sticks out like a sore thumb though, so probably 'dumb' to try to generalise any data outside the US.

Anyway, I set out an interesting possibility for discussion with the disciplinary differences, and you decided to respond with another inane post. Figures. And you call me stating the fact we can't have a reasonable discussion ad hom?

lolocopter

[edit on 15-6-2008 by melatonin]

reply to post by melatonin


whew... all that typing and still yet to address the actual topic. The number stayed steady over 80 years was the topic for the 4th time. Your very talented at tap dancing.

[edit on 6/15/2008 by Bigwhammy]

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
whew... all that typing and still yet to address the actual topic. The number stayed steady over 80 years was the topic for the 4th time. Your very talented at tap dancing.

I just said. Who cares?

Nothing has changed on the 'god' front for 80 years. It was a belief based on lack of evidence 80 years ago, it is a belief based on lack of evidence now.

Being a scientist doesn't preclude an individual from having faith-based beliefs. I would assume those who do are pretty good at compartmentalisation.

So, if you were unable to grasp my response for a second time.

Who cares? Why does it matter?

80 years ago when there was no evidence for for such things, ca. 40% of american scientists had supernatural belief in god (A). A few years back when there was no evidence for such things, another poll showed that ca. 40% of american scientists had a supernatural belief in god (B).

And? Not much has changed between A & B on the evidential front. Why are you so surprised?

[edit on 15-6-2008 by melatonin]

So I now have an inquisition, though you are yet to answer any of the questions I have posed nor have you explained why I am not the universe or why anything is not the universe.

What exactly would you like us to say to you? What would your ideal response to your O.P. be? Do you not want anyone to question its contents or bring into the discussion new information? That's quite megalomanically biased with a touch of autocratic didact.

Why create a thread if you're not going to have serious discussion with anyone that questions its contents? I mean it's not like we disregarded the facts you presented, we agree, or at the least... I do. The question I posed is: Do you think that all of those scientists have the same idea of God as the religious institutions present? We can never know this because the study done didn't state such. So those who readily subscribed to Athiesm may in fact only be doing so because like me they'd rather not be associated with the dogmatic, illogical religious ideal of God, when on the contraire they may actually have a God that they call the universe.

The point is: I see the data that you presented, I am not denying it. I am only asking questions and adding further insite and thought to the discussion, if you don't desire that from me, then what exactly are you looking for?

Do you want me to rub your back and say... awe yes? I mean aren't we all trying to educate each other here? What else are we coming here for?

Originally posted by melatonin

I just said. Who cares?

I do. Apparently plenty of others do as well.

It raises the issue for your faith that the scientific evidence garnered over the last 80 years has little to do with atheism.

Nothing has changed on the 'god' front for 80 years. It was a belief based on lack of evidence 80 years ago, it is a belief based on lack of evidence now.

:shk: Atheists held the contention an eternal universe --- oooops the evidence points a creation event. Atheists hold the belief that life arose by random chance. ooooops!!! The anthropic principle shows the fine tuning of the universe to be impossible to chance. Famous Atheist philosopher Antony Flew recants his atheist faith for theism due to evidence.

It takes too much blind faith to believe in atheism.

Being a scientist doesn't preclude an individual from having faith-based beliefs. I would assume they are pretty good at compartmentalisation.

So, if you were unable to grasp my response for a second time.

Who cares? Why does it matter?

It raises the issue for your faith that the scientific evidence garnered over the last 80 years has little to do with atheism. Not that atheism has ever had anything to do with evidence or reason. In fact the evidence has changed considerably toward theism over the last 80 years.

[edit on 6/15/2008 by Bigwhammy]

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
I do. Apparently plenty of others do as well.

It raises the issue for your faith that the scientific evidence garnered over the last 80 years has little to do with atheism.

I'm not sure there has been any real findings that would speak to the existence or not of god in that time.

Belief in god has nothing to do with evidence. Why would it matter? Atheism is based on a lack of evidence and the complete vacuity of religious belief, amongst other things.

When Francis Collins looked at a frozen waterfall and fell to his knees praying to jesus, I don't think he was influenced by the scientific evidence. Belief in god has nothing to do with scientific evidence.

But atheism can result from the fact science has shown supernatural claims to be all but bunkum. It's the complete vacuity of faith that is important for an atheist. You have nothing, we have the fact you have absolutely nothing but wishful thinking and fuzzy feelings.

That is sufficient for some to reject the god hypothesis.

:shk: Atheists held the contention an eternal universe --- oooops the evidence points a creation event. The anthropic principle shows the fine tuning of the universe to be impossible to chance. Famous Atheist philosopher Antony Flew recants his atheist faith for theism due to evidence.

Yeah, yeah, 'famous atheist blah blah'. You mean the old retired philosopher guy who suffers from poor memory, anomia, and might well be going senile?

Why am I surprised some theists like to parade a man with waning intellectual properties around? As if it even matters. Is this the argument from senility?

The anthropic principle shows nothing as far as supernatural god things. An interesting question that does not logically lead to an individual praying to an invisible magic-man.

It raises the issue for your faith that the scientific evidence garnered over the last 80 years has little to do with atheism. Not that atheism has ever had anything to do with evidence or reason. In fact the evidence has changed considerably toward theism over the last 80 years.

Yeah, that's why the proportion of atheist american scientists from 80 years ago has shown a minor increase through to a few years back.

Consistency: you haz none.

doesn't take long for you to fall back on your normal rubbish. See ya around.

[edit on 15-6-2008 by melatonin]