Richard Dawkins on Stock Day

MacBookPro said:

I've have always said, and always will, that all organized religions' continuity/survival depends solely on the brainwashing of young minds - those who will carry the torch of ignorance and fear and, in turn, pass this on to their children, and so on.

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Do any of you actually attend church services to find out who is going and why?

Go to a mainline denomination and you will see that most people attending are over 55...their children don't go and studies show most of those children are non-practicing. Statscan shows these denominations have been losing members since the 1960's, and Reginald Bibby's studies show they aren't going to other churches.

Go to an evangelical denomination and you will see that most people are in their mid-thirties and weren't raised in religious homes. Many of these people started attending when they were adults, many during or after university, not when they were children. Statscan shows that these denominations only started experiencing rapid growth between 1991 and 2001.

The real reason why churches fail or succeed depends entirely on the value that people get from attending and people don't give a church long to make a difference in their lives before they move on. Evangelicals churches have proven to be relevant and mainline ones have failed to be...you can tell that just by walking in the door.

With respect to the creationism issue, approximately 8 - 10% of Canadians hold evangelical beliefs and not all evangelicals are creationists. The mainline denominations and Roman Catholic Church don't have an issue with evolution and generally reject creationism. If 42% of Canadians don't accept evolution, you have a bigger problem on your hands than religion.

I see the same old comments in this thread that I see posted in other forums around the net questioning the intelligence of people who reject evolution. It was interesting back when many of my friends were attending university, how many came to me after going through the introduction to evolution segment and telling me how ridiculous it was.

These people weren't stupid and weren't religious, instead, the evolution segment of their science class just couldn't get by the critical thinking skills they were learning in philosophy class.

Maybe, instead of calling people who disagree with you "stupid and uneducated" it is time to take a long look in the mirror and try to figure out why you are failing so badly at communicating and teaching people about a basic staple of science. Good grief, they have 12 years + post secondary of uncontested school time to get this through to people and they are still failing with 42% of people. The vast majority of these kids have absolutely no religious upbringing that you think is interfering with this process.

The scientists, science teachers and science professors in this country have failed, unless you call 42% believing in creationism a success. You can think about it rationally and note that in a country where less than 20% of people go to church on a regular basis and, most who do, still attend mainline denominations and the RCC where creationism is not taught and often mocked, and begin to realize that this isn't where the problem is, but most seem interested in name calling instead.

Some interesting comments zoz. Good to see you back.

First, the 42% seems very high so I checked the Angus site and found this:
http://www.angusreidstrategies.com/uploads/pages/pdfs/2007.06.19 Globe and Mail.pdf


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Over all, 59 per cent of Canadians said they believe in evolution, according to the Angus Reid poll of 1,088 adults conducted June 12-13. Twenty-two per cent agreed that "God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years," and 19 per cent told pollsters they weren't sure.

Even those who say they believe in evolution may be confused about what that means exactly. The poll found 42 per cent of Canadians agree that dinosaurs and humans coexisted on earth - but evolutionary theory says non-avian dinosaurs died out about 60 million years before humans evolved in their current form.
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According to the Angus Reid poll, Canadians who are younger than 34, have an income of more than $50,000 a year or are university-educated are significantly more likely to believe in evolution.
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It seems that evolution and uncertainty are the dominant beliefs, but that a lot of people don't understand an important piece of the archaelogical evidence. The poll results make a little more sense now.

You can be taught the idea of evolution, which is interesting with neat implications, but to remember what existed when? The Flintstones are more interesting.

Age and edumacation are important factors. Not surprising.