It's implausible that any atheists or agnostics would think that any book is the Word of God, but some do. According to a 2007 Harris poll, 5% of atheists and agnostics think the Old Testament is the Word of God and 6% think the New Testament is the Word of God. There's even 3% of atheists and agnostics who think the Book of Mormon is the Word of God. What gives?
As part of a larger poll on religious belief, Harris Interactive asked people the following question: "To what extent do you believe the following represents the word of God?" These are the percentages of atheists and agnostics who agreed that the following religious texts really did represent the actual Word of God:
- The Old Testament (texts used in the Christian religion): 5%
- The New Testament (texts used in the Christian religion): 6%
- The Torah (the texts used in the Jewish religion): 5%
- The Koran (texts used by Muslims): 4%
- The Book of Mormon (texts used by Mormons): 3%
These numbers come from a poll of 2,455 U.S. adults conducted online by Harris Interactive between November 7 and 13, 2007.
Atheists and the Word of God
It's bizarre that any atheists could possibly accept any of the above answers as correct. By definition, atheists don't believe in any gods, so they can't believe that any book is the "word" of any gods. Nothing can be the Word of God if no gods exist.
Agnostics and the Word of God
Even agnostics shouldn't be able to accept any of the above answers. Granted, agnostics can also be theists and thus can believe in gods, but at a bare minimum agnostics don't claim to know for sure if any gods exists and thus what exactly a god might be like.
This pretty much excludes thinking that any of the above books is the "Word of God". In order to believe that something is the Word of God, you have to believe that some god definitely exists and has very particular characteristics as express by that Word. This is incompatible with agnosticism.
Confused Atheists & Agnostics
You'd thus have to be very confused to be an atheist or agnostic who answered any of the above. You'd either be confused about what being an atheist or agnostic means or confused about what those books must say. Or perhaps confused about all of it together.
Just because a position is confused and contradictory, though, doesn't mean that people can't or won't hold it. According to this survey, there is definitely a small subset of the atheist and agnostic population in America which has me concerned that they are way too confused to be answering any polls that come along.
Atheism, Agnosticism, and the Word of God
Or do you disagree? Is there some way for a person to be an atheist or an agnostic and still believe that the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Torah, the Koran, or the Book of Mormon really is the "Word of God"? Can atheism or agnosticism be reconciled with believing that any book is the word of any gods?
No comments:
Post a Comment