Polls

Yorkshire

I really like my new blog template. As with thekingpin68 blog, the design is standard, but I create my own original colour schemes with HTML code. As one can reason, I like white and dark colours. The previous blog design was good, but I did not like the wideness of the text and preferred the narrow look of thekingpin68. Over time, I have looked at some other colours with thekingpin68 template for satire and theology, but nothing looked that good in my opinion, and so I eventually went with the present template.

The following is a bit silly, but what the heck this is a satire blog. This blog has reached an 'incredible' milestone. Since this blog started in September 2006, a Google search of "Satire and Theology" would always leave this blog behind, usually well behind, information on the book The Devil and Doctor Dwight: Satire and Theology in the Early American Republic. Well today on Google, I am finally the first website on the list after a search, I am presently 1 and 2. Do not worry, I know I am a blog small fry!;)

http://www.misterpoll.com/

The website above offers some interesting polls and I will examine three of these. I voted and shall add commentary. These polls are somewhat like my PhD questionnaire work, although my surveys are more complex. I corrected spelling errors that I found with these polls, and there were quite a few.

Faith and Religion

Results

What is your faith or religion?

Christian (Protestant) (25%)

Atheist (20%)

Catholic (16%)

Other (16%)

Eastern Orthodox (3%)

Islam (3%)

Judaism (3%)

Hindu (3%)

Buddhist (3%)

Jehovah's Witness (1%)

Satanist (1%)

Mormon (0%)

59 total votes

Protestant Christian leads the list, but my sceptical side wonders how many of these persons are primarily cultural as opposed to Biblical Christians.

What do you believe about the Holy Bible?

It is God's Word and has no error (50%)

It is a collection of mythical stories (38%)

It is good, but is not divine (10%)

57 total votes

I accept that the original inspired autographs were without theological error, but copying mistakes have been made. There is also the issue of textual addition and subtraction. These problems do not alter key Biblical doctrines, somewhat due to the large amount of copies from different geographical areas. In the archives, I wrote an article called New Testament Manuscripts which discusses my philosophy on this topic. I do not claim to be a linguist or manuscript expert.

Do you believe in the Big Bang?

Yes, but if it is true, God made it happen (33%)

I'm not sure what I believe (24%)

No, it is a dumb idea (22%)

Yes, it just happened out of nowhere (21%)

54 total votes

I am not a scientist, but I am open-minded concerning the Big Bang theory. This is a NASA article I used with The First Cause argument on thekingpin68 blog.

The Question
(Submitted November 08, 1997)

What is the big bang theory? What do you believe?

The Answer

The big bang theory is the theory that the universe started from a single point, and has been expanding ever since.

This has been well-established by observations, such as the apparent movement of galaxies away from us, and the cosmic microwave background radiation believed to be the leftover light from the big bang.

The evidence for a big bang having taken place about 15 to 20 billion years ago is overwhelming, so I naturally believe that it is the case.

However, if your real question is "why did the big bang happen in the first place?" then that ceases to be an astronomical question, but a religious one.

Some astronomers, who are religious, argue that the big bang theory confirms the existence of God and the basic elements of the creation story as told in the Bible. First came light, then the heavens, then the Earth ...

However, many other scientists do not. Scientists, like people in most any profession, have a vast diversity of religious beliefs. Some of us attend houses of worship, others do not. Some of us consider ourselves very religious, others consider ourselves staunch atheists. Just because we study astronomy does not mean we have any more agreement as to the “why'' questions than anyone else.

On the other hand, it is safe to say that as scientists we can agree on an approach to learning about nature and the universe. This approach is one of using observations to test theories. And when a theory has been tested as much as the big bang theory, with each test reconfirming its validity, then we believe that it likely true -- at least more true than those theories which have failed the observational tests.

Good luck on your quest for the truth.

Jonathan Keohane for Ask an Astrophysicist

How do you believe the world will end?

God will do it however he has planned (56%)

The sun will explode (33%)

The universe will shrink up into nothing (5%)

The world will never end, we will evolve forever (6%)

57 total votes

I reason based on the Book of Revelation (Chapters 21-22) that God will establish a new heaven and new earth. I hope to learn more on this book over the next several years, and it should be stated that the book of Revelation needs to be interpreted with varying degrees of literalness. Mounce (1990: 369). The book uses figurative language in many places, but there shall be a new order of things with the earth and creation. Mounce (1990: 369).

How do you get to heaven and don't be damned to hell forever?

through faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior (41%)

there is no heaven or hell (34%)

you just do good things and hope you get there (17%)

you fly planes into buildings and kill people (6%)

you sacrifice animals so God will say OK (0%)

58 total votes

I chose the first option and reason that a person that is regenerated by the creator to believe and trust in Jesus Christ and God from the Bible is saved. The grammar with this question is poor, of course.

Dating Non-Christians

Is it acceptable for a professed Christian to date a professed non Christian?

Results

Is it acceptable for someone who desires to live their lives in pursuit of Christ to enter into a dating relationship with someone who does not profess a belief in God?

Yes it is acceptable but only if the other is open minded and they discuss mutual respect and work out problems early (32%)

No, it is not acceptable because it will weaken your faith rather than strengthen it because partners should be equally yoked. (24%)

No, it is not acceptable because it is impossible to truly love outside of Christ (11%)

No, it is not acceptable because it will only cause problems later (Children, chastity, marriage) (11%)

Yes, it is desirable to bring others to Christ (9%)

No opinion (6%)

Yes, it is acceptable if they are personally strong in their faith (3%)

277 total votes

These results do not surprise me. Please see my three part, A philosophy of singleness series on thekingpin68 blog. It seems difficult for the Church to influence many Christians in today's Western society to think primarily Christian, and not mainly secular in regard to dating and romantic relationships.

For fun:

Results

Which sport is the better one?

soccer (31%)

football (27%)

baseball (20%)

other (13%)

hockey (6%)

basketball (0%)

29 total votes

There is no such thing as a best sport! But I would vote for soccer as my favourite sport to watch, European professional soccer anyway.

MOUNCE, ROBERT H. (1990) The Book of Revelation, Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.