Gullibility and Religious Belief

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting editorial today. It basically claims that studies have confirmed G. K. Chesterton's statement, "When men stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything."

"What Americans Really Believe," a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.
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In fact, the more traditional and evangelical the respondent, the less likely he was to believe in, for instance, the possibility of communicating with people who are dead.

Remember this the next time an atheist accuses Christians of being gullible simpletons who traffic in pseudo-science.



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