COMMENTS
Have something to say? Email your comment to The God Poll and quite possibly it will be posted here.
On August 19 2008, rskuhlmann2 says:
Yes God made everything and is everywhere, how can anyone doubt that.He deserves all of us to praise him for all that he does. Right now I think he should be upset with us as many people refuse to listen to him and do everything they want. I try to be the best I can, but when I am not I know he forgives me.He is so good.The devil is really trying hard to win people and I am afraid to many live the way of the devil.To know God is also to fear him and trust him. Praise God.
On August 16 2008, James says:
I find the results for the afterlife and the soul question to be paradoxical. From the data it would seem that while more people think humans do have souls, not everyone also believes that there exists a life after this departure from this one. What exactly would be the purpose and nature of a soul if it did not persist through death? Could it be that some people would never want to come to terms with the possibility of a soulless existence? But are willing to accept that this life is it for us? Quite interesting results from my perspective.
TGP responds:
Quite paradoxical, indeed.
Steven says:
What kind of ridiculous question is "Can an atheist be ethical?"
I'm pretty sure that everyone who's taken that poll has in fact met an atheist--whether they knew it or not--whom they would say is ethical.
Why not, "Can a Buddhist be ethical?" or "Can a theist be ethical?"
TGP responds:
It may be a ridiculous question to you. Yet, we were curious to see if there was a correlation between a belief in God and a feeling that atheists could not have ethics. (In fact, many on the religious right will tell you an atheist is, by definition, unethical.)
However, one of the striking results so far is this: many people believe in God, but at the same time believe atheists can be, and probably are, ethical. This is probably a more interesting finding than asking people who believe they are ethical whether they believe they are ethical.
John Thomas says:
You need to post a clear, detailed and unambiguous definition of the term "God." I had to vote "Maybe" because your Question #1 is meaningless as it stands. I don't believe in any of the numerous gods invented by humans including the Biblical one, but that doesn't mean there may not be some teleological force at work in the universe. It's just that science hasn't found any need to suppose one so far to answer its questions so there's no need at this point to assume that there's any evidence for one. I wonder why you even started this poll when there have been so many others, most if them as poorly thought out as yours and which demonstrate nothing.
TGP responds:
You didn't have to vote. If you found the poll ambiguous and poorly thought out, as you put it, one wonders why you would waste any time here. However, it appears you found something interesting in it, or at least provocative enough to cast a vote (even a maybe counts) and send a comment. Perhaps the fact that you even thought about the topic for a moment made the click worthwhile. If not, then all we can do is apologize for wasting your time. No harm no foul, as they say.
Have a wonderful day!
John says:
(1) Why are you polling us? Sure, it's interesting... but why? Why pay to advertise it; why respond to comments... you know. (I'm guessing that the Obama campaign is behind this. OK; it's more inductive reasoning than a guess, but the principle is the same.)
(2) "Is evolution accurate?" is a good question. Most professors specializing in the field of evolutionary biology would say "No." At least, they would if grant money were at stake. After all, if we know all we need to, then why research anything?
(3) Have you considered running multiple parallel polls, 'randomized' based on a statistical analysis of IP addresses? That way, you could acheive a nice variety of results from which you might conclude certain things about the respondents - create a baseline to establish a de-skewing factor, in essence.
Best of luck, no matter who you are. It's a question that needs to be asked from time to time, even when the answers are all "Maybe".
-John
TGP responds:
This poll is simply an experiment to see what people think. We can assure you, there is no connection to the Obama campaign.
We don't like paying for advertising, so we try to promote the poll in as many organic ways as natural. Nonetheless, without paid advertising, the site would have very little traffic. Hopefully, it will "catch" and we can stop advertising (feel free to share the site with others!).
The evolution question has caused quite a bit of controversy. Some have indicated that the question is ludicrous, that of course evolution is accurate. Others, such as yourself, have pointed out the inherent ambiguity in the question. Since this is not a scientific poll, the discussion about the question's ambiguity is as intriguing as the responses themselves.
To your last question we decided against doing a statistical analysis of IP addresses, because we value people's privacy and feel that sort of analysis would be invasive. Nonetheless, our review of Google Analytics let's us see where, geographically, traffic is coming from. Hopefully at some point in the near future we will be able to reveal that data.
Karen says:
I took the poll but the only results I could see were the ones about the
question of believing in evolution. I feel gypped! What happened?
Nice response to that guy who said that Stephen Hawking disproved
both of Einstein and Newton's theories. I was hoping someone would
set him straight.
By the way, I don't know who you are but you do have a sort of omnipotent
thing going on...
TGP responds:
Thank you for the kind words of support. Not sure why you are not seeing the other poll results, but I suspect it may have something to do with the fact that the poll, unfortunately, requires you to vote on each question, not once for the entire page.
As far as being omnipotent, we kind of figured you'd say that...oh, wait, that's omniscient. Never mind...
Rob says:
I find it interesting that more people believe in a soul than do life after death. If there is no life after death, then what is he point of a soul? Just sounds like ordinary consciousness to me.
P. Makropoulos says:
Lady's and Gentlemen,
The question of the poll it self is wrong,therefore... given the nature of the question... your discussions ...and that is my personal opinion...fails it self to correctly address the target answer of the poll,which as a question is definitely inaccurate,not to say it is an insult to my intelligence.
I believe once we are engage in theoretical conversation's for matters that we humans have adopted as system's of living,... religion,politics,economics's,education,and naturally all other adaptations... in order to complement our group living society's...we must have no need to prove other ways...unless we as humans are ready for a new [adoptable evolution].
With the out most respect
Emre says:
remove those who never needed to question if a god really exists by adding the question "have you ever had doubts about gods existence" or something similar. and dont count these peoples votes. because they never think a god may not exist. but every single atheist like me figures out at an answer. be it "god exists" or not.
TGP responds:
Thanks for the idea, and the feedback on the design...most appreciated. Perhaps for the next version this type of question will find its way into The God Poll.
Cameron asks:
Since most believe that an atheist can be ethical, I wonder if this majority would vote for an atheistic prez?
TGP responds:
A 2006 Gallup poll suggests that an atheist would face a difficult battle in a bid for the presidency. According to the poll, below "...are the percentages of people saying they would refuse to vote for 'a generally well-qualified person for president' on the basis of some characteristic:"
Catholic: 4%
Black: 5%
Jewish: 6%
Baptist: 6%
Woman: 8%
Mormon: 17%
Muslim: 38%
Gay: 37%
Atheist: 48%
However, the percentage of people who said they would not vote for an atheist is in decline, as evidenced by the percentages below by year:
February 1999: 48%
August 1987: 48%
April 1983: 51%
July 1978: 53%
December 1959: 74%
September 1958: 77%
August 1958: 75%
Ezri says:
Not all of us are monothiests you know - it'd be nice to have more than just "Is there God". I had to mark maybe, even though I'm a very religious person, because the capital "g" indicates the single, Abrahamic deity - and since I really don't believe in THAT god, I didn't feel comfrotable marking 'yes', but since I believe in the gods, I couldn't mark 'no' either.?
TGP responds:
That is an excellent point. Perhaps future versions of The God Poll will accomodate this!
Scott P says:
"Can atheists be ethical?" (forgive me if I don't recall the question exactly). I got a better question for you: Are Catholic priests capable of not raping innocent little boys? Or better yet, do all Jews have big noses and horde their money? Or even better, is it true that all terrorists are also Muslims?
Stop perpetuating baseless stereotypes. Remove "Can atheists be ethical?" from your application. You're only going to reinforce the notion that atheists (including me and my friends) are incapable of moral and ethical decisions. But if you do leave it up, at least have the question "Are all Christians close-minded idiots?" At least that would balance out the bad karma you're tossing around.
TGP responds:
We disagree that the question perpetuates baseless stereotypes about atheists. If anything, The God Poll is proving that many people who believe in God do not believe atheists are unethical. (This should come as welcome news, since it contradicts the common wisdom that religious people believe atheists are unethical.)
You further claim the poll will reinforce "...the notion that atheists...are incapable of moral and ethical decisions." And yet, the results of the poll (so far) stand in stark contrast to your claim.
You have suggested that the poll ask bigoted and inflammatory questions to somehow equal things out. We're unsure how that would help things, but we certainly don't believe our question is in any way equivalent to the questions you've suggested, either in tone or in their ability to gather useful information. (Had we asked, "Are atheists destroying the very moral fabric of society with their evil, nihilistic ways?" we could see your point. But our question was designed to gather people's opinions about the connection between ethics and faith, and to see whether that correlated in any way to a belief in God.)
Nonetheless, our intention was never to offend anyone, and we apologize if it has.
jaonE says:
I wholly believe in God as creator - I cannot accept that everything works together on this planet so cyclically, and so conjunctively in nature that there is no intelligence behind it. In fact, more like SUPER intelligence. I cannot accept that this happened by accident. I think it's possible that some science (ie: Big Bang Theory) and creationism go hand in hand. On the other hand, not so evolution. On the contrary, there are species dying out every day, and new species being discovered every day. I believe that is God actively at work. The majority of problems on this planet can be attributed to the free will of man, the stubborn refusal of man to learn from past mistakes individually and collectively throughout history, and the unwillingness to admit that there is a higher power to whom we should be subject. Totally my own opinion, of course. A gift is a thing freely given. Whether someone refuses to accept that gift is a matter of free will......
tacit says:
I am a believer in thought (consciousness) as the fundamental form of "energy" in the universe. If you can bring yourself to believe that, it makes a lot of other beliefs make sense, and it lets you reconcile a lot of paradoxes and conflicting beliefs with each other. For example, I have no problem believing in the existence of God now - but of course, you can define "God" in many different ways. I define "God" as the sum of all awarenesses in this universe - which has several implications: 1) every person has a link to every other person; 2) this reaffirms the idea of consciousness as the fundamental form of energy: every atom has a slight amount of awareness unto itself.
Thank you for this poll. Complaints aside, any poll design will "bias" the answers you receive, no matter how hard you try to be neutral. An ideal of simplicity is more practical, and you have done a good job of reaching that.
TGP responds:
Thank you for your words of support.
Laramie R says:
Asking if there is a God or not does not disclose anything in any way.
It is not like a majority rule wins for who is right. Does God exist?
Of course. I have heard many of my Athiest friends tell me that believing
in God is a huge leap of faith. And to that i simply reply; it takes
much more faith to say that the chair you are sitting in happened by
chance than to say someone made it. Is there life after death? Yes. But
again, what kind of a question is this? And why is there a maybe option
for all of these? How can someone "maybe" believe in God. How
can someone "maybe" believe in life after death. etc. Do humans
have souls? Again; of course we do. Can an atheist be ethical? Seriously?
You need to add this into a poll? Of course an atheist can be ethical.
Its not like athiests dont have a soul... Is evolution accurate? Untill
these "scientists" find inbetween stage fossils for every animal
that is supossedly "evolved", then no. I think you may to revise,
or make a new poll. Maybe put in some text boxes.
TGP responds:
We'll respond to a couple of your
points. The "maybe" option is apparently important to many people. To
rule it out because you think it's useless would be to deny those on
the fence an opportunity to find an answer that suits them. It sounds
as though you would force them into an answer they don't agree with.
We included the "maybe" response specifically because, in these polarized
times, we were curious how many people chose not to be on one side
or the other. This in and of itself is an interesting result.
As to revising the poll, thanks, but it's doing just fine. It sounds as though you are not happy with the format. That's acceptable. You can easily make a poll that fits your desired format (i.e., no "maybe" option), or that offers text boxes (but that's really a discussion forum, not a poll). For us, the poll is revealing some very interesting things. Even your comments are helpful, so we thank you for them.
Jonathan H says:
I like this! (& the site design is cool!)
It's interesting that the overwhelming majority of respondents agree that an atheist can be ethical. So in practice, few people care what you believe about abstract, unverifiable propositions concerning "god", "life after death" or "souls"; what evidently matters is how you live your life.
Matt H says:
Hey, I feel like your question of the accuracy of evolution has a self
response bias because many of the people who answer mean 'I am an evolutionist,
not a creationist' because they are thinking religiously because of the
previous questions. I support what Ryan M says about an ID creation question
because other people answer your question who think, 'I am not a creationist,
but the current theory of evolution is not trustworthy.' For my part,
I answered 'Maybe' because I am pretty hesitant to trust science. I mean,
it was 'science' that once said the world was flat and the moon made
women pregnant. We used to be really impressed with Newton and Einstein,
but now Stephen Hawking has proven both of their theories wrong. I'm
sure our science has a lot of truth in it's various fields of study.
I am also sure that we are woefully wrong about some things. Evolution
could be one of them. Who can be sure?
TGP responds:
There is no bias in the question. It merely asks whether or not the respondent
believes evolution is accurate or not. Your response, however, belies
your bias, which is fine. That is the point of an opinion poll.
To correct something you wrote, however, people who believed the earth was flat or that the moon made women pregnant were not scientists, because they did not use the scientific principle. To your other point, a scientist would argue that Hawking did not prove Einstein or Newton wrong (most of their thinking is still used in science today); however, additional application of the scientific method has built upon their previous work.
But TGP digresses. One need not be a creationist to believe evolution is inaccurate. There are whole schools of alternative theories, many of which do not ascribe to a Judeo-Christian rationale for why things are the way they are. Were we to introduce Intelligent Design into the question, we would be neglecting all other theories. So, we picked the one theory based on the scientific principle, and asked if people believe it is accurate or not.
Ryan M. says:
Hi,
Nice app...
How about a question about the accuracy of intelligent design?
Anybody who is honest has to consider both theories.
Thanks!
TGP responds:
Excellent point, Ryan (though it's probably not honesty that's required
to consider intelligent design, but open-mindedness). In the meantime,
inverting the answers for the accuracy of evolution might give us an
indication of the number who favor the notion that God or another supernatural
being is behind the formation and progress of life on Earth. Or, perhaps
there are alternate, non-theological theories we should be aware of.
Wolfgang says:
nothing comes from nothing. there must be almighty power ,no time limit,.
no limit of space. unlimited amounts in every aspect. but every creation
is one of a kind. nobody can . be humble !!!!!!
TGP responds:
Er, yeah...
Tim says:
And lo, it did come to pass that the people beseached TGP to add
comments so that they might praise It. And TGP went forth and did add comments,
and it was good and the people rejoiced. But yea and verily I say unto
you, the people then did not praise TGP for they were contrary and base,
and instead they did gnash their teeth and bitched.
Thus sayeth the word of the Lord.
Tim says:
It would be great if you had a section where people could write comments.
TGP responds:
You're right! Thanks!