Post #3
The famous saying of Nietzche. He was referring to the actual being, mostly, believing that humans had actually killed god.
while i dont believe god ever existed, it seems Friedrich was at least partially right. God is, seemingly, dying. Or at least going the way of Zeus, Odin, Epona, Aeron and Quetzecotl.
i was surfing around the internet last night, and came across a website, www.yesnogod.com. this lead me to http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=359 through a bit of google looking. for those of you too lazy to look (if anyone actually still reads this besides my professor), the percentages are out of whack. that is easily explainable, but ill get to that. the latter statistics from harris poll shows that ~90% of people believe in god (or A god, it does not specify. i think it is A god, not a monotheistic god), which seems to be fairly true. in the US i think it is likely closer to 80%, and some places as low as perhaps 50%. Wherever, however, it is likely i am in the minority, but strangely that doesnt seem the case around me.
nearly all of my friends are athiests or agnostics. of all my aquantances, i would say only 25% or so believe in god. why? partially because i cannot stand preachy “jesus freaks”, sure. but i also think it is a generational thing. which ties in with the above. europe, north america and oceania in the above list “no” is winning. i think this can be explained by a few factors. 1. most people who come across that site are linked online by a friend or someplace they frequent. online. 2. they use stumbelupon. online. 3. they do research into religious belief and fine it. online. 4. they happen upon it by incredible chance, considering how massive the internet is. online again.
notice i point out online. this is for 2 reasons. 1. people who go online are generally better educated than the human average. not a whole lot of kenyans or venuzualans go online, nor do many of them have even highschool degrees to the equivalent we have here. 2. the average person on the internet is also YOUNGER than the average human. now, most people 60 and over go on the internet for email or stocks and such in the more technologically advanced countries. but far far fewer “surf” the web than the young people. i would say the average internet surfer is between 15 and 40. not many 10 year olds or 70 year old are going to come across yesnogod.com.
these 4 things show that, if the overall population of the internet is even CLOSE to what those polled feel, the younger generation is far less theistic. looking at the statistics on the harris charts, that seems to be true as well. the younger you are, the less chance of theism (aside from a jump in the 18-24, which is still lower than all but the category directly after it. i feel this is due to the fact that less 18-24 year olds have been through as much education and life experience as the 25-29 year olds. this survey is from 2003, and i think it is likely the numbers for those who are NOW 25-29 are about equal to this poll).
from 95% to 82% is only a 13% difference, but 13% of the world population, if this is true, is still around 800 million people. that is more than twice the entire population of the united states. let us say that this trend keeps up, and the next generation, those who were born below the polling age (such as myself) is at 79%. perhaps the generation after us will be 75%. that is a massive amount of difference in the belief in god.
atheists and agnostics have been the minority for much longer than any nation currently on earth, save perhaps iceland (they have the worlds longest democracy). not by name, i mean, but the dynasty/political system. perhaps science is finally turning that tide.
