Harris Poll #119 was published on Thursday to gauge “the religious and other beliefs of Americans”, and the news, of course, is not good. In fact, I suspect that polling results like this elicit giggles if not outright laughter from the rest of the developed world. You can view the full results of the poll here. A quick summary follows:
• 82 percent of adult Americans believe in God – unchanged since the question was last asked in 2005
• Large majorities of the public believe in miracles (79%), heaven (75%), angels (74%), that Jesus is God or the son of God (72%), the resurrection of Jesus (70%), the survival of the soul after death (69%), hell (62%), the devil (62%), and the virgin birth (Jesus born of Mary) (60%)
• Roughly equal numbers – both minorities - believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution (42%) and creationism (39%)
• Sizeable minorities believe in ghosts (41%), UFOs (35%), witches (31%), astrology (29%) and reincarnation (21%)
• While many of these numbers for people who hold these beliefs are the same or little changed from 2005, the overall trend is upwards with slightly more people believing in miracles, angels and witches than did so two years ago.
Ghosts, UFOs and witches? WTF?! This from citizens of the most powerful nation on earth? But, what is perhaps more worrisome is the finding that overall, more people believe in the Devil, Hell and angels than believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution. This has touched a particularly sensitive nerve in me perhaps because I am in the midst of reading Charles Darwin’s four great books including On The Origin Of Species (See WHAT I’VE BEEN READING in left sidebar). Edward O. Wilson, one of America’s greatest living thinkers and editor of this volume states that many scholars regard On The Origin Of Species as the greatest scientific book of all time. 
What a sad state of affairs it is that in this, the 21st Century, large numbers of warm and well fed men and women with easy access to vast stores of accumulated knowledge in libraries and on the Internet still believe in Bronze Age myths and fairy tales. And, to sink me even deeper into despair for the human race, this from the Associated Press today: “Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Muhammad.”
Ignorance is surely not simply bliss; it is assuredly the greatest danger civilization faces today. Sorry Mr. Darwin.
Joseph Froncioni
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