[rawrnerozero]

And assuming people are idiots just because they're religious makes you just as bad as them.

Not when simple statistics prove you're probably right in assuming (in the US at least). As I said earlier, nearly 80% of Americans don't even accept Evolution as a solid scientific theory. 40% are so far gone they can't even fathom the concept itself.
If 40% are completely inept at thinking critically and nearly 80% as a whole can't accept logical, empirical, reasoning then automatically assuming religious people are stupid is a fair assumption. Sure, you'll be wrong some of the time, but consider those instances a chance to be pleasantly surprised.

Lol Americans... Trust me 50% of them don't even know other countries other than theirs...

[OmegaZero_Alpha]

Lol Americans... Trust me 50% of them don't even know other countries other than theirs...

...and 80% of internet forum users don't know the invalidity of sweeping generalizations.

[TheDopp]

qs I said earlier, nearly 80% of Americans don't even accept Evolution as a solid scientific theory

[citation needed]

Oh wait, here's a citation that proves that your statistics are crap.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...29204.html

While your chart is nice, it's from 2006. And while the sample size from the Gallup poll is small, they replicated the survey methods year-on-year, so the data is valid.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/evoluti...esign.aspx

I didn't claim I represented logic, was the VP of PR of Logic Inc., nor was here to sell logic for low low prices. You can claim spotlight all you want but this isn't 'I saw some people from Religious Group A on the news blow up stuff. Why are all people from Religious Group A mad bombers?'. This is a defined percentage of the US population refusing to use their brains, think about cold hard facts and move on past what some ancient holy book says. The numbers coupled with the inability (or willful disregard) of those people to critically think infers stupidity (by their own choice or not).

Even making the assumption that all the people surveyed in the Gallup poll were Christian (which is ~75% of the US population according to a 2011 Census statistical summary of 2008 data), it follows then that 80% of Christians in the US are are without critical thinking skills and believe in religion over scientific theory.

[glouch]

I didn't read this whole thread, but the OP should read Christopher Hitchens (or watch some youtube videos) if he wants a good reason for being antitheist. Hitchens is a bit of an arrogant asshole, but I agree with him 100% on religion.

[DataStorm]

I didn't read this whole thread, but the OP should read Christopher Hitchens (or watch some youtube videos) if he wants a good reason for being antitheist. Hitchens is a bit of an arrogant asshole, but I agree with him 100% on religion.

I'd agree on that, for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG5lczmV44Y

[Rostov]

Even making the assumption that all the people surveyed in the Gallup poll were Christian (which is ~75% of the US population according to a 2011 Census statistical summary of 2008 data), it follows then that 80% of Christians in the US are are without critical thinking skills and believe in religion over scientific theory.

Wait, religious people can't follow scientific theory? You mean like(among others) Albert Einstein??(Jewish) Wow, who would have thought religion and science were mutually exclusive. C'mon, dig a little deeper.

[OmegaZero_Alpha]

Didn't you know? Einstein was simply doing random shit he found in the bible and accidentally Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

[glouch]

What annoys me is all the hoops that some religious people jump through in order to reconcile science and religion. You can't just toss around words like omnipotent and omniscient and hope to have it all make sense. Eventually it falls apart.

It's especially despicable to oppose teaching science like evolution. If there were a god, wouldn't it want you to study and learn about all this awesome shit it created?

[Adder]

Didn't you know? Einstein was simply doing random shit he found in the bible and accidentally Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

The whole thing?

[TheDopp]

Wait, religious people can't follow scientific theory? You mean like(among others) Albert Einstein??(Jewish) Wow, who would have thought religion and science were mutually exclusive. C'mon, dig a little deeper.

I'm certainly glad I said 100% of religious people throughout time were stupid. Except I didn't.

Nowhere did I say there weren't smart, open minded or free-thinking religious folks. Nor did I say Agnostics (or other non-denominational religious folks,) which Einstein most properly falls into, were incapable of being smart. Nor did I say Germans born in the 1800's that were born Jewish, learned Catholicism in puberty and later in life practiced neither but still believed in something were incapable of being intelligent (Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology is an amazing read btw). I spoke specifically of modern-day Americans, who are, in the majority, Christian.

Breaking down the numbers into that 40%/38% mix, those that don't believe evolution are possible cannot accept scientific theory, yes. That 38% can accept it, but have to attribute religion in some way to it (e.g. God guides evolution).

As I said earlier, you can be pleasantly surprised when your assumption is wrong. 20% is a non-trivial amount of the population of the US, and/or of it's Christian people. I chose to be pleasantly surprised by that population; you may chose to hope they are the majority and get disappointed when things like this happen: http://ncse.com/news/2011/02/antievoluti...ico-006469

And to go back to my original point about major religion needing to evolve, a quote from a non-American, non-Christian, born some 132 years ago, who was religious in an Agnostic sense, and who was a very smart man:
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."