Shame on you Australia. I thought we were better than this.
22Dec. 09
I was always under the impression that most Australians use rational thinking in at least most parts of their lives, barring religion, which is the very antithesis of rationalism. But this survey clearly proves me wrong. The results of a recent Nielson poll on supernatural beliefs have just been released and I was more than a little surprised. Of the 1000 people surveyed, 68% of people believed in god or a universal spirit. Not particularly surprising, but what is really worrying is the following list of ‘phenomena’ and the corresponding percentage who believe in it–
- Miracles: 63%
- Angels: 51%
- Psychic Powers: 49%
- UFOs: 34%, and last, but terrifyingly not least,
- Witches: 22%
Are they serious?! The miracles and angels figures I suppose we have to lump, based solely on the number of people who believe in god, but the last three are a little worrying. This same survey came up with a figure of atheists/agnostics at 24%. Only 2% more people are non-believers as those who think witches exist. I shudder for our population. Are Australians really that bad at using critical thinking as this survey suggests? I really hope not.
One possible confounder of this survey could be the credulity of the people involved. Those who can easily believe in one phenomenon without evidence, such as ESP, could be more likely to just accept other mysteries too. A classic example is when talking to a conspiracy theory nut. The conversation may start with your debunking the JFK conspiracy theory, but can quickly spiral downwards until they are telling you they believe in literally every possible load of crap imaginable, from the moon-landing to the despicable 9 – 11 ‘truthers’ (any group Charlie Sheen is a vocal spokesman of should really get an immediate, GIANT red flag) and everything in between. Those who lack the ability or desire to go into situations with some level of incredulity, are going to be persuaded without evidence and therefore believe anything they are told. I think perhaps this survey may have suffered somewhat from this problem. At least I friggin’ hope so.
December 22nd, 2009 at 11:34 am
Do you think they chose those 1000 people at random? Probably just surveyed a bunch of people on their way out of church last Sunday! I’d like to know who funded the study (strongly suspect it is a Christian lobby group of some kind). I liked the stat quoted by The Age — that 56% believe in heaven, but only 38% in hell; 68% believe in god, but only 37% in satan. Go figure eh!
December 22nd, 2009 at 12:26 pm
I looked at the article a few days ago and as usual I think part of the blame is that the questions seem to be terribly worded. For instance, for the miracles one I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some people meant the metaphorical miracle of a baby being born or something similar.
December 22nd, 2009 at 12:52 pm
What definition of witch did they use? The new age wiccan idea of a witch, or the more traditional ‘she turned me into a newt’ idea?
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Witches? I’d be inclined to answer “yes” myself since I know there are people who call themselves witches, and also I believe the Wiccan religion uses the term. I don’t believe they have magic powers, but there are people who call themselves that. I wonder how that question was phrased?
Compare this to the other survey in the Age the other day by the “Centre for Public Christianity”
http://www.theage.com.au/national/carols-in-church-out-for-christmas-20091216-kxi4.html
I like the “32 percent of non Christians thought Jesus was the son of God”.
Ummm .… hmm … weird …
And check out the “shrill scream” section — interesting point, does it really make Atheists upset if lots of people want to go to church? Not this atheist, but perhaps I’m too moderate?
December 22nd, 2009 at 2:48 pm
“, 68% of people believed in god or a universal spirit”
uh what are you complaining about. 32% of people dont believe in nonsense?!? thats very good and about 2x better than the US.
December 22nd, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Posted this over in the forum…one statistic that stuck out for me was that 53% believe in an afterlife but 56% believe in heaven. Meaning 3% believe heaven exists but is completely uninhabited.
That’s why I don’t put too much stock in these stats…I don’t think the majority of people put much thought into their answers the way us skeptics would. And as Michael said above, people could quite easily be interpreting words like ‘miracle’ in a very different way.
One thing that is disturbing though — the percentage of believers are much higher for women than men (for everything except UFOs). But again, it may just mean they like the colourful language more.
In short, I can’t really draw any conclusions about this.
December 22nd, 2009 at 6:10 pm
A belief in angels doesn’t mean they’re religious. Maybe, I mean. But not necessarily. There are plenty of books about guardian angels and shit like that, free from Biblical and Koranic woo.