<p><em>pat</em></p>
<p>awb-
I'm starting to feel like I'm talking to a wall. Perhaps I am just not articulating my opinion clearly enough. I was referring to "religion" as an umbrella term, not an American thing. And how can you judge the entire country's religiousity like that? THAT'S absurd! And where'd you get those statistics?</p>
<p>"And what you're suggesting about Dawkins is ridiculous... it's clear he has no religiosity, and that he isn't superstitious in the least"
-Really? Have you asked him? Hmph!</p>
<p>"It's absurd even to assert the possibility unless you have some sort of documentation or quote to back it up."
-Huh! YOU should be talking! If I had a nickel for every "statistic" of yours I'd have a private jet on 24 hr stand by.</p>
<p>If I didn't make it clear, I never said I had statistics. I made it clear that what I was saying was SUBJECTIVE and a hypothesis. </p>
<p>I'll try to explain the study to you. It's not scientific but is interesting nonetheless to people with an interest in religion. It was in the feature story of the NYT Magazine from two weekends ago. A prof. at NYU shows his students a box. He says it's an African relic and anything that goes in it vanishes. Some of his students claim to be atheists. Anyway, a few offer to put their pencils in the box. But once the prof asks them to put their cell phones in, they hesitate. When he asks them to put their hands in, some refuse. It was actually just a wooden box, but it's funny none of the students suspected that. I know this sounds silly, but interesting to think about. There was another study involving children age 3-6. A scientist shows the kids an animal cracker box with animal crackers in it. However, there were actually cheerios in the box. When questioned what was in the box, the children guessed animal crackers. After being shown that there were actually cheerios in the box, the children were asked what God would think was in the box, and the children answered Animal Crackers. What does this say? It may sound silly, but most children believe God is absolute and infallible. Anyway, just interesting stuff...</p>
<p>And no, I have no "documentation" or "quotes" to back it up. Do you? :)</p>