What the bleeping BLEEP?

[beandelphiki]

Ganked from my friendslist:

Religious Americans: My faith isn't the only way
Survey shows growing religious tolerance when it comes to different faiths

Generally a thought-provoking article, but for one truly headdesk-worthy line:

Another finding almost defies explanation: 21 percent of self-identified atheists said they believe in God or a universal spirit, with 8 percent "absolutely certain" of it.

THIS JUST IN: 29 percent of Americans har, make that 21 percent of American atheists and ignore my math stupid (thanks cacahuate) ARE TOO STUPID TO LIVE.

What part of "atheist" do these folk not understand?!

The prefix "a-" means "NOT" OR "WITHOUT," people!

IT MEANS U CANNOT HAS.

*HEADDESK*

Comments

[cacahuate.livejournal.com]

Technically I think they meant the 8 percent who are certain to be a subset of the 21 percent, which is in turn only 21 percent of the atheists (whose percentage of the total American population isn't given). So it's probably only like 2 percent of American who are too stupid to live in that particular way.

[beandelphiki.livejournal.com]

HA, thank you, I fail terribly at math. This actually being around 2% of the population (since atheists only make up 10 percent or so) is quite obvious; I'm not sure where my brain went this afternoon.

But the idea that 21 percent of atheists are not actually atheists at all just kills me. How on earth can someone who identifies as an atheist say they believe in a god? It makes absolutely no fucking sense.

[cacahuate.livejournal.com]

Yeah... Personally, I'm hoping most of them just believe in a "universal power" in some wishy-washy way that doesn't equal a god. Maybe they mean science, even? /wishful thinking

[beandelphiki.livejournal.com]

I could...kind of get behind that, if you consider "universal power" to mean the whole of natural laws or something like that.

Wishy-washy indeed, though.