The point is that you and your ilk are a small minority in this country and your claim that people who believe in God are "stupid" or have a mental illness is just plain silly. The U.S. has the greatest number of religious groups than any other country in the world. You are out of step with mainstream America:
"Most Americans adhere to Christianity. According to the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey (discussed below), 80% of the U.S. is Christian and 15% do not adhere to a religion. Other religions comprise 5% of the U.S. population. According to the CIA World Factbook, the U.S. is 78% Christian and 10% no religion, while other religions comprise 12% of the U.S. population."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States
That said, we have a big tent in this country and you every right to believe in nothing. It's one of the things that makes our country so great.
vexations of a frustrated Jesus Freak.
Who's my ilk? People with an education? People who haven't had their capacity for critical thought blinded by religious dogma? That's fine with me and I couldn't give a rat's ass if that's out of line with mainstream America (so you say - I have my doubts). It does however put me in the same catetgory as ~ 95% of the scientific community. (
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm)
BTW Bum - don't put words in my mouth. To the best of my recollection I've never written that people who simply believe in God are stupid. I do think that some of the beliefs of fundamentlist extremes (Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and others) are akin to mental illness but I do'nt believe I have ever said this about a general belief in God. For example, I do think that Christians who believe that the earth is 10,000 years old and/or man appeared in his present form on earth about 6,0000 years are stupid (or keeping themselves intentionally ignorant)
Bum, here's a link to the poll on Gallup's site:
http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=27847I'm not going to post the entire thing but here are some of the salient points:
It might seem contradictory to believe that humans were created in their present form at one time within the past 10,000 years and at the same time believe that humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. But, based on an analysis of the two side-by-side questions asked this month about evolution and creationism, it appears that a substantial number of Americans hold these conflicting views.
The majority of these responses are clearly religious in nature.
It is fascinating to note that some Americans simply justified their objection to evolution by statements of general faith and belief. Although the New Testament does not include many explicit references to the origin of humans in the words of Jesus, 19% of Americans state that they do not believe in evolution because they believe in Jesus Christ. Other religious justifications focus on statements of belief in God, general faith concerns, references to the Bible, and the statement that "I'm a Christian."
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Personally, I couldn't care less if someone wants to believe in God or believe that they were created by their God. This is quite common in ALL religions. The only problem I have is when they start making absurd claims such as the earth in only 10,000 years old or homosapien appeared on the planet in it's present form about 6000 years ago.
These claims are ludicrous and can easily be proven false. Even more hilarious, when asked how these figures we determined we given an explanation such as the following:The following timeline by Theodore Pederson appeared in The Christian News, March 26, 2001, page 18.How old is the earth?
If we go back 500 years, we come to the time of Martin Luther (born in 1483), and Columbus, who “sailed the ocean blue in 1492.”
If we go back 1000 years, we come to the time of Leif Ericson, Christian explorer, who preached Christ to pagans. (World Book, 1983, vol.6, page 270.)
If we go back 2000 years, we come to the birth of Jesus Christ. Our calendar is dated from His birth.
If we go back 3000 years, we come to the time of David and Solomon; they ruled Israel about 1000 BC.
If we go back 4000 years, we come to the time of Abraham (2000 BC), ancestor of Arabs and Jews.
If we go back 5000 years, we come to the time of Enoch, who “walked with God 300 years … and God took him [into Heaven].”
If we go back 6000 years, we come to the time of Creation, and Adam and Eve (4004 BC). Luke, evangelist and historian, records Adam as the first man (Luke 3:38).
The earth is about 6000 years old. Let God's people rejoice in Him who made them! (Psalm 149:2)
We would add that although many people don't accept this timeline of history, they have difficulty deciding exactly when they would start to disagree with it.
Was Jesus Christ real? The Bible says he was, and no serious historian doubts it.
Was King David real? The Bible says he was. Again, there is no reason to doubt it.
Was Abraham real? The Bible says he was. There seems no reason to doubt this either.
Was Enoch real? The Bible says he was. There is no reason to think the Bible has suddenly lapsed into fiction when the other people were genuine historical figures.
Was Adam real? Well, Enoch was a son of Cain, who was a son of Adam. So if Enoch was real there is no reason to think that his father Cain wasn't, or that his grandfather Adam wasn't. They were only two generations away.
And Adam was the first man, created in the first week of the earth's existence.
He lived about 6000 years ago.------------------------------------------------------
Gee how scientific And these are the same genius's who don't believe in carbon dating. If Christians really want to "prove" their belief regarding the age of earth or man (especially to non-Christians) they're going to have to do a lot better than that.
Then again, belief in Creationism is negatively correlated with education (i.e the less education you have the more likely you are to believe in Creationism) so I guess it shouldn't be any suprise.
Frankly, I'm not even sure you understand the theory of evolution when you make comments like this:
No. A bird evolving into another species of bird still leaves you with a bird. A bird evolving into a dog is another story.
You're either being intentionally disingenous (I know how you hate that) or unintentionally stupid.
As I've pointed out previously, a poll conducted last year concluded that amost half of the respondents (all presumably adults with normal brain function) believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attacks on 9-11.
In spite of their belief they are 100% wrong and given the fact that this is common knowledge they are also 100% stupid.
Just because a poll shows that people believe something doesn't lend one ounce of proof or credibility to that which they claim to believe. 
