1.8% says No to God?
All too often, something catches on that doesn’t seem to make any sense. You begin to wonder, how did this get started? After awhile, it gets legs, gains momentum and then develops a circus life of it’s own.
That how I see this sociological fear and concern which permeates society, around the subject of even mentioning a Divine Creator publicly. Too many of us have been conditioned against even mentioning a Creator, out of some unfounded fear that we’ll offend someone. Our government is terrified about recognizing an omnipotent being, despite the fact that this republic is a nation born under God, a short 234 years ago. The constitutional separation of church and state simply guarantees the freedom of choices, very specific to religious choices but also including the right to free speech and opinions on almost any subject. I recently read a published census that illustrated the numbers of people around the world who, in following their own religious beliefs, admit to believing in a Divine power. When I added up the numbers of “believers” on the pie chart, there were almost 6 billion people who subscribed to believing in a supernatural deity. Now the last global census shown for the world’s population (in 2009) illustrated 6.8 billion people in the world. Given the average life expectancy, at any given time some 20-25% of the earth’s population have yet to reach the age of 18 (minors). Using the more conservative (20%) number, that suggests that there are about 1.36 billion minors included in those numbers, leaving about 5.44 billion adults. Now many (maybe half) of those minors have already developed their own faith position, so that leaves the number of atheists and/or agnostics who do not believe in an omnipotent power at approximately 1.8% of the worlds population! Tiny number isn’t it?
The math is simple, 6.8 minus 6.0 =.8 or 800 million possible non spiritual believers, less the estimated 680 million children who have yet to make a decision on the subject, leaving approximately 120 million non-believers out of 6.8 billion people. What kind of world is it where 98.2% of the global population can be so easily intimidated and silenced by the 1.8% vocal minority? Or maybe this is just an American fear. Anyway, I can’t think of any other single societal subject where this could happen. Who can respect the court of any land (or dictatorial mandate) which effectively, even if unintentionally, gags and silences 98.2% of the people? Speak your mind and your heart and don’t be bullied by a faceless/faithless minority, many of whom will likely change their beliefs as they near the end of their earthly days. Ask yourself (and those around you), how can we possibly offend others by mentioning a subject that they don’t even believe in? Ridiculous. We can all start changing the world today, simply by not being intimidated. Would you visit a restaurant, or see a movie, play, or even a region of the world recommended by 98.6% of those familiar with it? You should, there is probably something worthwhile there.
J.C. Calkins with Common Sense 4 Uncommon People
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