Survey finds 37% of people base their belief system on aliens and ghosts: So, why is that less rational than base it on the Bible, the Koran or the brothers Grimm?
Hurrah…! Another bit of dubious research finds proof that people are idiots:
Believers in UFOs, aliens and ghosts outnumber those who follow mainstream religions, a survey has found. While 54 per cent of people believe in God, 58 per cent believe in the supernatural. Nearly a quarter of the 3,000 questioned by researchers claimed they had an encounter with the paranormal. Some 37 per cent said aliens and ghosts were the basis of their belief system.
Now, I’m an agnostic, so I’m no terribly impressed by statistics that show that an X number of people prefer one type of nonsense over the other.
Is it really any more ridiculous to base your belief system on aliens and ghosts than on a God Who created the world in six days and then waited some 4000 years before sending down His only Son (by way of a ghost and a virgin) to sort out the mess?
Is it weirder to believe in things that go bump in the night - or do some alien fly by in the night - than to accept that a divinely inspired travel guide parted the sea, or that God sent two bears to eat a rather large handful of children who had dared to laugh at one of His prophets?
As the Good Book says:
[23] And [Elisha] went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
[24] And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.
Anyway, as I started saying, people are idiots and perfectly willing to believe at least ten impossible things before breakfast. So, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t choose UFOs over Jehovah, or prefer poltergeists to the Holy Ghost.
(’God is love’ and all of that…)
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