More Britons believe in aliens than God

[nanite2000]

@popobawa4u

There are a few assumptions being made here. Where did you get “a single omnipotent being capable of making planets” from? This is just latching onto one possible meaning of deity. There are thousands of gods, and most of them are not attributed with cosmological creation. So this is picking only one possible definition of “god” among many. Another is existence versus belief. Does belief imply existence? If something exists, why would I need to believe in it? And as I had mentioned before, you are suggesting empirical methods for evaluating myths, which are metaphysical constructs. They are not supposed to be “real” in that sense.

Like I said, most people outside of BoingBoing probably didn’t think about it that hard.

[Medievalist]

@nanite2000

Shouldn’t we be celebrating the fact that people appear to be thinking more rationally these days (belief in ‘ghosts’ notwithstanding)?

People are just as irrational in their beliefs as ever, or perhaps more so. The fact that in some cases what’s believed actually may be the truth does not mean people came to their beliefs in any way rationally. (The big difference is that you and I share some of those beliefs, so they seem more reasonable to us.) All the average person has done is swapped a white lab coat for a black cassock, and nearly all people still just believe whatever their authorities tell them is The Truth, same as ever.

I don’t want to be a total downer, though. We are burning people at the stake significantly less these days! I think we can celebrate that, eh?

[crenquis]

Need to see a plot of angels+ aliens over the ages… Is the sum a constant?