Quickies
Skepchick Quickies, 4.19
- Homeopathy and the structure of memory. (From Sarah.)
- Do university rules discriminate against student faith groups? (From Ooxman.)
- Roughly a quarter of all Millennials (26%) are unaffiliated with any particular religion. (From Paul.)
- Unicorn meat – an alternative source of protein and magic. (From junco.)
The Christian Union at my University (Edinburgh) tried to do the same thing. It’s incredible that they think they can use the right to freedom of assembly to restrict other people’s right to freedom of assembly, and that by being asked to follow the same rules as everyone else, they’re being discriminated against.
I wanted to be excited about the Pew Research study on faith, etc but I held out until reading the whole story. Unfortunately, I’m not only let down, but also a bit repulsed.
– 43% of Millenials believe that same sex relationships are ALWAYS wrong
– Apparently, they’re more live and let live, though because 63% believe that homosexuality should be accepted by society
– 74% believe in life after death
– 79% believe in miracles (I’m assuming magnets factor into the 5% discrepancy between afterlife and miracles)
– 28% believe their holy book is the LITERAL word of god (interestingly, they’re more likely to believe that than mainline protestants or catholics are)
– 64% are “absolutely certain” god/universal spirit exists
– 52% believe abortion should be legal in all/most cases (compared to 44% for illegal in all/most)
– 55% (WTF?!) are aware that evolution is the best explanation of human life. I find this atrocious!
Interesting side note: 48% of the 65+ crowd believes that Hollywood threatens their values. I mostly find it humorous that 48% of that group has paused to consider Hollywood’s threat on American life. It never crosses my mind.
I’ve been looking through the Hastings student organizations list. Of the ones that have their bylaws online, I have yet to find one that has an exclusionary membership requirement. For example, the Hastings Jewish Law Students Association bylaws don’t require members to be Jewish.
I don’t quite understand why these students think that non-discrimination policies shouldn’t apply to them just because the core tenets of their faith are discriminatory. If they want to have a club that discriminates against certain groups of people, fine, but there’s no reason to expect that it be recognized by the university.
@Displaced Northerner:
Unfortunately I think not only this poll but the other ones that show Non-belief rising is not due to people actually being more reasonable, but due to the grown of certain evangelical fundamentalist christian movements that insist they don’t have a church. They have a “personal relationship”. My critique on these studies is that those morons who love religion while insisting they’re transreligious are skewing the results.
There’s also the possibility of new age types that are “spiritual, not religious”. While I firmly believe that rationalism implies atheism, it would be foolish to suggest that atheism implies rationalism.
Sheesh, I always love the faulty contagious magic aspect of homeopathy.
I wonder – if I take a tiny bit of every page of the OED, slip them into a glass of water, run the water through a filter to take out all the wood pulp, and drink it, will I be able to win any spelling bee? Or complete every crossword in record time? [Well, likely not, as they keep having all those pesky sports questions. Is there a reason that I should care that Elmer Valo was the only major league baseball player to have been born in RybnÃk, Czechoslovakia? Outside of the occasional trivia game at a local bar, there is not. So I tend to relegate sports knowledge to the part of my brain that is only activated by excess amounts of alcohol.]
No self-respecting witch would give any credence to homeopathy. Hah!
@Ing213: I think Pew generally does a really good job of asking non-leading questions and being thorough with their question lines. The problem is that media outlets cherry pick the statistics that make a group look “unique”. In this case it was the religion question- but a deeper look shows that even though there isn’t a religious affiliation, there are just as many (roughly) millenials who are sure of the existence of god as there are older adults.
Interesting. This is the first time I have ever seen the term millennial used to describe my age-group. Is that new?
Hi – thanks for linking to my blog post on homeopathy – much appreciated!