Atheists More Irrational than Religious in U.S.A.

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I believe I already showed you two surveys, one from Eurobarometer and the other from World Values Survey (I’ll find them for you again if I must) which you discounted because of the huge discrepancy between Zuckerman’s percentages and those they cited, however, I found this on atheism.about.com/library/irf/irf03/blirf_sweden.htm

“The country has a total area of 173,732 square miles, and its population is an estimated 8.9 million. Approximately 81 percent of the population belong to the Church of Sweden. It is possible to leave the Church of Sweden, and an increasing number of persons do. In 1999 when the Church and the State separated, 33,299 persons left the Church of Sweden, more than twice as many as in the previous years. The number decreased somewhat in 2000, and increased to a record high 53,702 in 2001. In 2002 44,760 persons left the Church of Sweden.”

There are approximately 150,000 Roman Catholics. The Orthodox Church has approximately 100,000 members, and the main national Orthodox churches are Greek, Serbian, Syrian, Romanian, and Macedonian. There also is a large Finnish-speaking Lutheran denomination. While weekly services in Christian houses of worship generally are poorly attended, a large number of persons observe major festivals of the ecclesiastical year and prefer a religious ceremony to mark the turning points of life.

**Approximately 70 percent of children are baptized, 40 percent of all those eligible are confirmed, and 90 percent of funeral services are performed under the auspices of the Church of Sweden. Approximately 60 percent of couples marrying choose a Church of Sweden ceremony. **

. . . . Although no reliable statistics are available, it is estimated that 15 to 20 percent of the adult population are atheist.
I see … the problem is in Sweden Lutheranism is the state religion, so virtually everyone is baptized (and an official member of the church). Zuckerman points this out.

However, in the Eurobaramoter poll, only 23% of Swedes say they believe in god. Yeah, another 53% (back in 2005) said they believed in a life force or spirit … but they also said they didn’t believe in god.

According to Merriam Webster atheism = a: disbelief in the existence of deity b: the doctrine that there is no deity.

Under that definition, the vast majority of Europe (forget about just Sweden) are atheists, and 76% of Swedes are atheists. Although the perception of atheists is nonspiritual, it’s not at all true (unfortunately). There’s a wide range of divergence within atheism, and not all are pure materialists like myself (in fact we’re the intelligent minority, even within our own species :D).

Oh btw, when you say 52% of Europe believe in god, it depends on how you classify Europe. If you toss Turkey in the mix, sure (even though they’re Islamic – and 95% of Turks say they believe in god, because it’s probably not a great idea to express yourself as an atheist in an Islamic country :eek:).

The worse thing is Josie I suspect you’re smart enough to have realized all this – yet you still tried to feed me this intellectually dishonest argument. I just can’t stand pundits.
 
I find it as impossible to believe that thousands of folks are lying and making things up and engaged in a massive conspiracy to make the spiritual realm real
I too find that impossible to believe. Luckily, no one is suggesting such a thing.

The human mind is very easy to fool, and it’s remarkably easy to fool oneself. Witness, for example, members of every religion (Hindus, Buddhists, Jainists, Christians, Muslims, Zoroastrians, the priests of ancient pagan religions, modern day pagans, etc.) claim to have had “personal experience” of different gods. Are all of these people lying? Are they in on a “conspiracy”? No, of course not. They’re misleading themselves.

Certainly, only one of those religions can be right, if any. That means that everyone else is fooling themselves. If most of them are fooling themselves, is it at least possible that all of them are?

To be clear, I’m proposing that “religious” experiences are not lies or conspiracies, but simple human error.
 
I would be inclined to say you could be right that folks could be deluding themselves. BUT from my own experiences and experiences of close friends of mine who I trust to be truthful, I believe that Christian and Catholics in particular have it right,

Let me relate one such experience. I was Grand Knight of my councilf from 1999 to 2000. During my year, I presided over the funeral of a very dear friend. another past grand knight, Don M. The day before Don pased away, he was visited in the hospital by Joe F. Don told Joe, " I talked to Dale, this morning." Joe replied, “you know Dale passed away last year”. Don calmly replied “yes, I do. And Dale says everything is as we think it is”.

All of these folks were past grand knights of my council and telling tall tales is just not in their nature. Someone who is on their death bed in not about to start making up stories to impress their friends.

Yes folks may be delusional or may think they see or hear things. But I think folks can also tell when this is the case. I really believe there have been many saints who have experienced legitimate apparitions and not one of them have said that some other religion or some other faith or God is the one true God.

Various saints have been seen to levitate while praying. One such saint was seen levitaing on 70 different occasions, sometimes by hundreds of people. Sure it can be easlily copied now a days with tricks and wires, but would a person of high moral standards even consider such a farce. I wouldn’t think so. It would be as absurd as you or I considering murder or stealing from a child. It would be totally out of character (I’m assuming that you are neither a murderer or a thief).

The likelihood of every saint, conspiring to defraud the public is infitessimally small. The character of such folks is unsually extremely high, and to do such a thing would totally not be in line with how they led their lives.

The number of charlatans these days would make anyone skeptical of miracle workers, but I have no doubt that many of the saints were true miracle workers and their power came from God as they claimed it did. And IF they had visions or heard voices from of the Almighty, I am much more inclined to believe them as they say it happened than some skeptic or some malcontent trying to discredit them.
 
I agree that all of those other religions were fooling themselves. Because they didn’t know any better and had no real experience about what God was really all about or who He is.

They acted on whatever assumptions were handed down to them, or they made up something to fill the void.

The big difference I see, is that Christ gave us the Truth and nothing throughout the centuries has happened to discount that. But the hundreds of saints and miracle workers have only confirmed what we already know as true.

IF some of these saints or miracle workers had said, no Jesus is not God, He is merely a prophet as the Muslims claim then maybe you would have some grounds for contradiction. But the fact is, each and every saint has confirmed what has already been taught.

IF a few of these folks had said, no the Mayans had it right or the hindus have it right, maybe you would have cause to say Christainity is just as wrong as all the others. But they have all been consistent in proclaiming the truth of the Church, The Catholic Church, not Mormons or Protestants or whatever.
 
I would be inclined to say you could be right that folks could be deluding themselves. BUT from my own experiences and experiences of close friends of mine who I trust to be truthful, I believe that Christian and Catholics in particular have it right,

Let me relate one such experience. I was Grand Knight of my councilf from 1999 to 2000. During my year, I presided over the funeral of a very dear friend. another past grand knight, Don M. The day before Don pased away, he was visited in the hospital by Joe F. Don told Joe, " I talked to Dale, this morning." Joe replied, “you know Dale passed away last year”. Don calmly replied “yes, I do. And Dale says everything is as we think it is”.

All of these folks were past grand knights of my council and telling tall tales is just not in their nature. Someone who is on their death bed in not about to start making up stories to impress their friends.

Yes folks may be delusional or may think they see or hear things. But I think folks can also tell when this is the case. I really believe there have been many saints who have experienced legitimate apparitions and not one of them have said that some other religion or some other faith or God is the one true God.

Various saints have been seen to levitate while praying. One such saint was seen levitaing on 70 different occasions, sometimes by hundreds of people. Sure it can be easlily copied now a days with tricks and wires, but would a person of high moral standards even consider such a farce. I wouldn’t think so. It would be as absurd as you or I considering murder or stealing from a child. It would be totally out of character (I’m assuming that you are neither a murderer or a thief).

The likelihood of every saint, conspiring to defraud the public is infitessimally small. The character of such folks is unsually extremely high, and to do such a thing would totally not be in line with how they led their lives.

The number of charlatans these days would make anyone skeptical of miracle workers, but I have no doubt that many of the saints were true miracle workers and their power came from God as they claimed it did. And IF they had visions or heard voices from of the Almighty, I am much more inclined to believe them as they say it happened than some skeptic or some malcontent trying to discredit them.
Adherents to every religious faith claim personal experiences with god (Christianity is far from unique in this regard).
 
I see … the problem is in Sweden Lutheranism is the state religion, so virtually everyone is baptized (and an official member of the church). Zuckerman points this out.
Baptism is not forced upon anyone, so how does that relate to the fact that 70% of children were baptized (as of the year 2003)?
However, in the Eurobaramoter poll, only 23% of Swedes say they believe in god. Yeah, another 53% (back in 2005) said they believed in a life force or spirit … but they also said they didn’t believe in god.
No, the percentage was 23% for those who did not believe in God.
According to Merriam Webster atheism = a: disbelief in the existence of deity b: the doctrine that there is no deity.
And?
Under that definition, the vast majority of Europe (forget about just Sweden) are atheists, and 76% of Swedes are atheists. Although the perception of atheists is nonspiritual, it’s not at all true (unfortunately). There’s a wide range of divergence within atheism, and not all are pure materialists like myself (in fact we’re the intelligent minority, even within our own species :D).
It stated that 52% of Europeans believed in God, how is it then that you state the vast majority of Europe is Atheistic? That is false.
Oh btw, when you say 52% of Europe believe in god, it depends on how you classify Europe. If you toss Turkey in the mix, sure (even though they’re Islamic – and 95% of Turks say they believe in god, because it’s probably not a great idea to express yourself as an atheist in an Islamic country :eek:).
No it doesn’t matter how Europe is classified, otherwise I would take exception to having Russia and other former communist countries involved in such a survey (because generations were forced into communism/atheism well into the 80’s).
The worse thing is Josie I suspect you’re smart enough to have realized all this – yet you still tried to feed me this intellectually dishonest argument. I just can’t stand pundits.
Yankee, I gave you an atheist website and another which entailed neutral sources like the CIA, the Eurobarometer . . . . so do not tell me I’m being intellectually dishonest, that marked honour should go to Zuckerman. He is the pundit not I.
 
Please name a few hindu saints or Mayan miracle workers or Shinto prophets…
that’s a whallop of a red herring. I said personal experiences with god is a common claim among adherents of all “theistic” religions (hence it’s certainly not unique to Christianity).

Nevertheless there are certainly other religions that have claimed to have had miracle workers (perhaps not the Mayan’s, but miracles are certainly not unique to Christianity). Furthermore, I’m not sure how you believe the past existence of saints helps you prove the veracity of Christian claims?

Martyrdom certainly isn’t unique to Christianty (or its saints), nor is altruism :confused:
 
Baptism is not forced upon anyone, so how does that relate to the fact that 70% of children were baptized (as of the year 2003)?
Yes it is … these people were bapsized as infants? Have you ever heard of an infant protesting his or her baptism?
No, the percentage was 23% for those who did not believe in God.
The poll makes three classifications (I quote verbatim):
  1. Belief in god
  2. Belief in a spirit or life force; or
  3. Belief in neither a spirit, god, or life force
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism
It stated that 52% of Europeans believed in God, how is it then that you state the vast majority of Europe is Atheistic? That is false.
It’s hard to tell. The poll itself included countries like Turkey, while in other instances the report refers to the European Union?
No it doesn’t matter how Europe is classified, otherwise I would take exception to having Russia and other former communist countries involved in such a survey (because generations were forced into communism/atheism).
while the report mentions Russia, the Eurobarometer poll itself didn’t include Russia.
Yankee, I gave you an atheist website and another which entailed neutral sources like the CIA, the Eurobarometer . . . . so do not tell me I’m being intellectually dishonest, that marked honour should go to Zuckerman. He is the pundit not I.
I disagree, and Zuckermans survey isn’t inconsistant with the Eurobarometer poll (or at least the polls are close enough to each other to fall within the margin of error).

It does, however, depend on how you classify atheist. Believing in a life force (or guiding spirit), while not believing in a god (or gods) is not theism (and according to the technical definition of the term, they are atheists).
 
The thing is there are many famous Catholic miracle workers, all who believe in God and believed their power came from God and performed these works in His name.

I will name just a few in case you’ve forgotten: St Anthony of Padua, St. Catherine of Sienna, St Catherine Labore, St. Francis of Assisi, St Rose of Lima, Blessed Martin De Porres, ST Padre Pio, St Alfonso Liquori, all of the twelve Apostles, St John Vianney, St John the Baptist, Jesus Himself and there are probably hundreds more who are known to have performed miracles, in some cases by the hundreds.

Plus many of these miracles happened in front of hundreds or thousands of other folks.

So please name one of any similar stature from one of these other religions who make simliar claims.

The fact is there are hundreds in the Catholic Church and ALL claim the same truth about the same God, shows that God exists and He exists as the Church teaches He does and not as some other faith. Not even one claims that there is some other God. So IF there are these types of miracle workers or saints in other religions you can surely name one or two.
 
Yes it is … these people were bapsized as infants? Have you ever heard of an infant protesting his or her baptism?
So 85% of Swedes are atheists and yet 70% of the children in Sweden were baptized as of 2003? Are you suggesting atheists were/are baptizing their children, wow, that would be great?
The poll makes three classifications (I quote verbatim):
  1. Belief in god
  2. Belief in a spirit or life force; or
  3. Belief in neither a spirit, god, or life force
Belief in a spirit or life force is not atheism, but some sort of eastern, buddhist type of belief, anyways it could still mean God (as God is spirit) just not the God of Christianity, Judaism, and/or Islam, as that God is too rigid for such spiritualists.
It’s hard to tell. The poll itself included countries like Turkey, while in other instances the report refers to the European Union?
Where did you see this (not in the information I provided)?
while the report mentions Russia, the Eurobarometer poll itself didn’t include Russia
.
Even if it didn’t include Russia, it did include other former communist and/or Russian satelites.
I disagree, and Zuckermans survey isn’t inconsistant with the Eurobarometer poll (or at least the polls are close enough to each other to fall within the margin of error).
It does, however, depend on how you classify atheist. Believing in a life force (or guiding spirit), while not believing in a god (or gods) is not theism (and according to the technical definition of the term, they are atheists).
Atheism should mean exactly what it has always meant, a belief in no God up to and including no life force and spirit. Moreover I do not view Zuckerman’s survey as valid especially in light of the fact that the 85% cited is not a fact (between 46% and 85% of atheist/agnostics is a huge gap). It is also in discrepancy with all the other mentionable sources I quoted.

p.s. Why are you debating this? The numbers are off, plain and simple.
 
So 85% of Swedes are atheists and yet 70% of the children in Sweden were baptized as of 2003? Are you suggesting atheists were/are baptizing their children, wow, that would be great?
I don’t know – but apparently so, since less than 30% of Swedes reported a belief in god.
Belief in a spirit or life force is not atheism, but some sort of eastern, buddhist type of belief, anyways it could still mean God (as God is spirit) just not the God of Christianity, Judaism, and/or Islam, as that God is too rigid for such spiritualists.
So I now have to argue against things as subjectively defined by you (when I’ve provided the Merriam Websters definition of the word)?
Where did you see this (not in the information I provided)?
I followed the link from the Wiki article to the Eurobaramoter report (it’s an over 300 page report). I skimmed the relevant portions (it’s not all about theism).
Even if it didn’t include Russia, it did include other former communist and/or Russian satelites.
Yeah so … little backwater countries like Romania.
Atheism should mean exactly what it has always meant, a belief in no God up to and including no life force and spirit. Moreover I do not view Zuckerman’s survey as valid especially in light of the fact that the 85% cited is not a fact (between 43% and 85% of atheist/agnostics is a huge gap). It is also in discrepancy with all the other mentionable sources I quoted.
p.s. Why are you debating this? The numbers are off, plain and simple.
you mean what it’s always meant to you :confused:
 
I agree that all of those other religions were fooling themselves.
Well, there you go. Followers of other religions might say the same thing about the followers of the religion you practice.

And if you’re actually fooling yourself, there’d be no way to tell. Followers of other religions can’t tell that they’re fooling themselves, right?
Someone who is on their death bed in not about to start making up stories to impress their friends.
With all due respect, I don’t consider the subjective experiences of a dying person to be a source of reliable information about the world.

You don’t think people have convincing hallucinations when their brains are functioning in weird ways?

What do you think happens to people in India when they are near death? There are Hindu near death accounts where people say they almost died and saw Lord Krishna or Shiva or whatever.

They’re not “making up stories” – they’ve had a hallucination because their brains are behaving in weird ways as they’re shutting down.
Various saints have been seen to levitate while praying.
There are similar claims in other religions, most notably Hinduism. One Hindu guru, Subbayah Pullavar, was seen levitating in front of a crowd of 150 people (there are pictures if you google image search). There’s also Shirdi Sai Baba and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The Buddha supposedly levitated (walked on water, in fact). There’s a contemporary guru named Amma who claims to heal the sick and to have transmuted water into milk in front of a crowd of thousands in India. Another living guru, Sathya Sai Baba, has supposedly performed quite a number of miracles in front of observers.

I could go on and on. All kinds of religions have claimed all kinds of miracles. It proves nothing.
 
This is an interesting watch. A program called God On The Brain.
It explores research of the possibility that religious belief, prophecy, sense of presence, and so on are products of the temporal lobe.

megavideo.com/?v=BP0IXVVQ
 
This is an interesting watch. A program called God On The Brain.
It explores research of the possibility that religious belief, prophecy, sense of presence, and so on are products of the temporal lobe.

megavideo.com/?v=BP0IXVVQ
Even if that’s true it doesn’t imply anything specific. Perhaps religiosity is a function of the temporal lobe, but that could be because of how we evolved, or more simply a subconscious predisposition (or a whole host of other factors).
 
Even if that’s true it doesn’t imply anything specific. Perhaps religiosity is a function of the temporal lobe, but that could be because of how we evolved, or more simply a subconscious predisposition (or a whole host of other factors).
The except that possibility too. It doesnt try to disprove the truth of any religion. It just shows that our brain is created in a way to experience religion beliefs, but they dont claim to know why.
 
Well, there you go. Followers of other religions might say the same thing about the followers of the religion you practice.

And if you’re actually fooling yourself, there’d be no way to tell. Followers of other religions can’t tell that they’re fooling themselves, right?

With all due respect, I don’t consider the subjective experiences of a dying person to be a source of reliable information about the world.

You don’t think people have convincing hallucinations when their brains are functioning in weird ways?

What do you think happens to people in India when they are near death? There are Hindu near death accounts where people say they almost died and saw Lord Krishna or Shiva or whatever.

They’re not “making up stories” – they’ve had a hallucination because their brains are behaving in weird ways as they’re shutting down.

There are similar claims in other religions, most notably Hinduism. One Hindu guru, Subbayah Pullavar, was seen levitating in front of a crowd of 150 people (there are pictures if you google image search). There’s also Shirdi Sai Baba and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The Buddha supposedly levitated (walked on water, in fact). There’s a contemporary guru named Amma who claims to heal the sick and to have transmuted water into milk in front of a crowd of thousands in India. Another living guru, Sathya Sai Baba, has supposedly performed quite a number of miracles in front of observers.

I could go on and on. All kinds of religions have claimed all kinds of miracles. It proves nothing.
It proves nothing to you because you don’t believe anything or anyone.

People can tell if others are lucid even when some are at the point of death. So dying does not necessarily discounts a person testimony, The person I mentioned was perfectly lucid according to the friend who was visiting him. So the fact that he died the day after does not discount whether what he head or saw actually happened. Just because you don’t believe it, does not mean it did not happen.

You choose not to believe evidence on your own arbitrary criteria. And there are folks who are purposely deceiving others. We know various magicians can trick the public, so you need to look into the character and background of the folks doing such things. We also know that demonic activity can account for paranormal events so that adds another element of deception to it.

I don’t know these folks or what their motives were for the activities, maybe they are for real or maybe they are there deceiving folks to gain followers and make a buck.

I just happen to believe in the character and sincerity of Church saints, and I believe in the character and sincerity of my fellow past grand knights. My belief hinges on personal experience with folks I know. I can’t judge these others folks who I never heard of.
 
I can’t judge these others folks who I never heard of.
You specifically asked for saints and miracle workers of other religions – presumably because you think there aren’t any and that that somehow suggests that Catholicism is true.

So I supply a partial list, and that changes nothing. You “can’t judge these other folks.” Okay.

But let’s go back to your original post:
Are the thousands of eyewitnesses to miracles all involved in a massive conspiracy or all duped into believing hoaxes perpetrated by seemingly holy and upright folks ? Consider, is a peron who is normally thought of as holy and upright even capable or likely to try to deceive others with fake miracles ??
Well, doesn’t this apply equally to the eyewitnesses of Hindu miracles? To eyewitnesses of miracles of other religions? What about Hindu near-death experiences where people claim to have seen Lord Krishna or whatnot? Heck, how about the hundreds (thousands?) of people who claim to have seen UFOs?

I’m not trying to be mean here, but you claim that I “choose not to believe evidence on [my] own arbitrary criteria.”

Yet, look what you’ve done. You believe the so-called “evidence” for Catholicism because it supports what you want to be true. If you were born in India and were a Hindu, you’d be citing Hindu miracles, Hindu holy-men “could a man as good as Gandhi really have been wrong?”], and Hindu near-death experiences “he says he saw Lord Krishna…and he was so lucid. You can’t discount it because he was dying. He wouldn’t make it up!”].

Which of us really accepts evidence on the basis of “arbitrary criteria”?
 
But let’s go back to your original post:Well, doesn’t this apply equally to the eyewitnesses of Hindu miracles? To eyewitnesses of miracles of other religions? What about Hindu near-death experiences where people claim to have seen Lord Krishna or whatnot? Heck, how about the hundreds (thousands?) of people who claim to have seen UFOs?
If someone is critically ill to the point of death, and suddenly but mysteriously is healed, would you not see this as a miracle (unexplained healings such as these cannot be scientifically explained), in fact, the International Medical Bureau at Lourdes (using extremely stringent criteria) has already catalogued 66 unexplained healings from deleterious diseases and/or handicaps for those who visited Lourdes. This Bureau is made up of doctors from around the world who are either religious and/or non-religious. You can check up the cases on google if you like. There’s also eucharistic miracles you can look up, the Lanciano miracle being the most famous of all; it has been tested innumerable times by the World Health Organization, here’s an article describing the authenticity of the phenomenon:

Physician Tells of Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano

ROME, MAY 5, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Dr. Edoardo Linoli says he held real cardiac tissue in his hands, when some years ago he analyzed the relics of the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano, Italy.

The phenomenon dates back to the eighth century. A Basilian monk, who had doubts about the real presence of Christ in the sacred species, was offering Mass, in a church dedicated to St. Legontian in the town of Lanciano.

When he pronounced the words of the consecration, the host was miraculously changed into physical flesh and the wine into physical blood.

Later the blood coagulated and the flesh remained the same. These relics were kept in the cathedral.

Linoli, a professor of anatomy and pathological histology, and of chemistry and clinical microscopy, and former head of the Laboratory of Pathological Anatomy at the Hospital of Arezzo, is the only doctor who has analyzed the relics of the miracle of Lanciano. His findings have stirred interest in the scientific world.

At the initiative of Archbishop Pacifico Perantoni of Lanciano, and of the provincial minister of the Franciscan Conventuals of Abruzzo, and with authorization from Rome, in November 1970 the Franciscans of Lanciano decided to have the relics examined scientifically.

Linoli was entrusted with the study. He was assisted by Dr. Ruggero Bertelli, retired professor of human anatomy at the University of Siena.

**Linoli extracted parts of the relics with great care and then analyzed the remains of “miraculous flesh and blood.” He presented his findings on March 4, 1971.

His study confirmed that the flesh and blood were of human origin. The flesh was unequivocally cardiac tissue, and the blood was of type AB.

Consulted by ZENIT, Linoli explained that “as regards the flesh, I had in my hand the endocardium. Therefore, there is no doubt at all that it is cardiac tissue.”**

**In regard to the blood, the scientist emphasized that “the blood group is the same as that of the man of the holy Shroud of Turin, and it is particular because it has the characteristics of a man who was born and lived in the Middle East regions.”

“The AB blood group of the inhabitants of the area in fact has a percentage that extends from 0.5% to 1%, while in Palestine and the regions of the Middle East it is 14-15%,” Linoli said.**

Linoli’s analysis revealed no traces of preservatives in the elements, meaning that the blood could not have been extracted from a corpse, because it would have been rapidly altered.

Linoli’s report was published in “Quaderni Sclavo di Diagnostica Clinica e di Laboratori” in 1971.

**In 1973, the Higher Council of the World Health Organization (WHO) appointed a scientific commission to verify the Italian doctor’s conclusions. The work was carried out over 15 months with a total of 500 examinations. The conclusions of all the researches confirmed what had been stated and published in Italy.

The extract of the scientific research of WHO’s medical commission was published in New York and Geneva in 1976, confirming science’s inability to explain the phenomenon.**

zenit.org/article-12933?l=english
 
I don’t know – but apparently so, since less than 30% of Swedes reported a belief in god.
I was being faceticious Yankee as I hardly think atheists and/or agnostics are interested in baptizing their children, makes no sense really since baptism entails receiving the Holy Spirit, removing original sin, and being adopted into God’s family (it’s a **Christian **sacrament). Anyways, Zuckerman’s statistics are way off, the number of atheists should be somewhere around 20 to 25%, as mentioned by the other sources I quoted.
 
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