1. Comment #64819 by MartinSGill on August 22, 2007 at 1:36 am

Given that this is now the third atheist site that I've seen reporting this poll, I'm not surprised.

Let's hope it stirs some debate, although there's not much hope. The site quite correctly points out that "this is not a scientific poll".

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2. Comment #64820 by Robert Maynard on August 22, 2007 at 1:40 am

Wow - it's almost as though it's explicitly a non-scientific poll, with a sample population of "Americans who are encouraged to flood a poll which doesn't adjust for the demographics of computer literate people who watch CNN and are involved in online communities, of which most are likely jaded secular liberals". Maybe Al Jazeera and Fox can do similar polls, and we'll make them duke it out in a pitfight.

Jon Stewart: ..That's news, baby!(?)

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3. Comment #64823 by amesolaire on August 22, 2007 at 1:53 am

I wouldn't read too much into it. Of course, I'd love to see the breakdown by responder's location, since Larry King Live runs on CNN International too. However, christians are so weakly represented, and hindus and muslims have almost no participation that I'd assume this result is much more an indication of audience bias than the global exodus from religion we're hoping for.

If we count agnostics, the percentage of non-religious people at this moment is even higher - 74%.

And yes, I find it terribly frustrating to see yet again atheism counted as a religion! Religion atheism is not. They could have certainly phrased the question more accurately.

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4. Comment #64824 by BAEOZ on August 22, 2007 at 1:55 am

Saw this poll on Pharyngula, now known as the site of the future matyr PZ Myers (Praise be upon him), and skipped over to Larry, everybody talks to me, King's site. And voted. Atheists kicking butt scientology style*.
Just waiting for Henri Bergson to appear and tell us we're sheep, following the flock, who live a slave mentality. He's probably right too. After all humans and sheep are social animals, then again so are dogs, maybe we're all wolfs, or even a herd of cats.....

*An online poll in an Australian paper about scientology was quite negative, then over night, thousands of positive votes came in from overseas due to an email or three from Aussie scientologists. Vaguely similar to this poll being posted on many atheist sites....tenuous?

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5. Comment #64825 by Ole on August 22, 2007 at 1:58 am

Right now:

Atheism 71% 12788

.. not bad.. ;-)
You guys not from US can also vote (I just did)!

Ole

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6. Comment #64828 by Robert Maynard on August 22, 2007 at 2:15 am

Religion atheism is not.

Then again, if 12000 atheists were willing to acknowledge and accept the phrasing of the question in order to "win" a silly poll, perhaps it's not such a big deal? :P
I didn't vote, but the inclusion of atheism as a religion is understandable, even in more serious polling. If you're interested in the rise of the atheist demographic, it mightn't help your data to ask a question about religious association, and include "I am neither spiritual nor religious" as an option rather than atheism, because it could be argued you're muddying the waters with agnostics (a demographic which is then split apart between non-religious people who are spiritual and those who aren't), those who are entirely indifferent to these matters, but who don't want to identify themselves as atheists.
You couldn't have, at the end of every religious poll, something like this:

- I am non-religious (but spiritual)
- I am non-religious (atheist)
- I am non-religious (I seriously don't care)

It would be cluttered and silly.
There's no good reason for pollers to go out of their way to accommodate for atheism being a non-religion, when they're interested in religious demographics; we are an unmistakable minority. Pollers shouldn't have to take all atheists aside and brief them beforehand: "Look, we know you're not an actual religion, but we're interested in religious demographics, and most people are religious and approach belief in terms of religions, so please just play along."

We should be able to see this for ourselves and get over it, because this kind of nuance in beliefs will force the nature of the conversation to change over time, until the doctrinal nature of "religions" becomes so smeared and nominal and varied that it doesn't mean anything particularly different from "philosophy".

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7. Comment #64832 by amesolaire on August 22, 2007 at 2:44 am

Pollers shouldn't have to take all atheists aside and brief them beforehand

Simply rephrasing the question as "What is your religious association?" instead of the current "Which religion do you associate with?" is not so much to ask for.

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8. Comment #64839 by tieInterceptor on August 22, 2007 at 3:35 am

I voted,

"every little helps"
..... 'Tesco' 2007

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9. Comment #64843 by MihaiC on August 22, 2007 at 3:49 am

What, no Pastafarianism, Invisible Pink Unicornism or Discordianism option?!

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10. Comment #64844 by atheistperspective on August 22, 2007 at 4:09 am

I don't like the question, I understand why they have phrased it as they have but I don't like it. It reinforces the idea that atheism is a religion. It's this kind of subtle language that we should be wary of.

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11. Comment #64850 by pewkatchoo on August 22, 2007 at 4:46 am

amesolaire

Simply rephrasing the question as "What is your religious association?" instead of the current "Which religion do you associate with?" is not so much to ask for.

Don't see the difference to be honest.

Other Comments by pewkatchoo

12. Comment #64852 by Deoradh on August 22, 2007 at 4:53 am

Good example of a Meme at work. I got the link of the forum. Can't remember who posted it, but thanks anyway, you know who are

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13. Comment #64854 by Johnny O on August 22, 2007 at 4:56 am

Atheism 72% 13262

and counting...

I was hoping to register as a Jedi, but wotchagonnado??

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14. Comment #64878 by sidfaiwu on August 22, 2007 at 7:15 am

How much do you want to bet that someone on Fox News will pick this up and say "See! CNN caters to the Godless!"

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15. Comment #64895 by seqenenre on August 22, 2007 at 8:22 am

just added another one

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16. Comment #64899 by konquererz on August 22, 2007 at 8:40 am

Despite the fact that atheism isn't a religion, I went ahead and cast my vote. Don't care what fox "fair and balanced my ass" news says about it.

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17. Comment #64902 by Johnny O on August 22, 2007 at 9:10 am

As long as it makes it onto the news and becomes a talking point for a few day that will be good.

No such thing as bad publicity...

Other Comments by Johnny O

18. Comment #64905 by ChrisMcL on August 22, 2007 at 9:18 am

As others have repeated, the poll is unscientific. But it is a joy to see such results as are shown from the poll. It makes me fondly daydream about a time when scientific worldwide polls show the same kind results in support of atheism.

"Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace "
-J. Lennon

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19. Comment #64910 by automath on August 22, 2007 at 10:08 am

Hardly any of the religions I've been associated with over the year are listed, there's no Spiritualism, Mysticism, Satanism or Jedism.

It also a fair point that the question is badly worded as neither atheism nor it's sub-category agnosticism are religions. They could have more easily had none as an option. I'm sure someone will make some point out of that at a later date.

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20. Comment #64912 by God of Eng's World on August 22, 2007 at 10:25 am

Fake results are fake. This is the work of anonymous I believe.

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21. Comment #64913 by sane1 on August 22, 2007 at 10:30 am

Vote and quit whining.

....holding at 72%

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22. Comment #64915 by Arcturus on August 22, 2007 at 11:03 am

72% ... 15133

Now Larry King should fashion his show for an atheist audience. Get at it, old man!

Doesn't mean much, maybe just that the latest atheist awareness rising has managed to form a well connected online community where news travel at the speed of light.

I just remembered from last year that there is this israeli software http://giyus.org/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaphone_desktop_tool that alerts you and guides you to vote online in polls related to their issues. After you see this, you'll never trust an online poll again.

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23. Comment #64916 by bluebird on August 22, 2007 at 11:06 am

The "mine's not listed" category sparks L'imagination creatrice.

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24. Comment #64917 by captain underpants on August 22, 2007 at 11:21 am

I just voted, and I'm not even a Murcan. If seeing such a statistic encourages a couple of atheists to "come out", why not?

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25. Comment #64919 by bertie wooster on August 22, 2007 at 11:32 am

It's up to 72% when I voted.

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26. Comment #64922 by RickM on August 22, 2007 at 11:38 am

For those that don't know, CNN is running a series called "God's Warriors"; three two hour programs. The first was "God's Jewish Warriors" and ran last night. The second, "God's Muslim Warriors" will run tonight (Weds., Aug. 22nd, 9PM Eastern) and the third, "God's Christian Warriors" will run Thursday.

"Larry King Live" will return on Friday and review the series. I imagine the poll is for that Friday program. However (LOL), I suspect if the poll continues at 72% Atheist, he will completely ignore it. I'm not a fan of King, but I will watch the Friday program. Wonder who he will interview as a rep for the infidels? Hitchens, perhaps?

And yes, I voted. Even tho they don't have my religion - flying aerobatics while eating chocolate.

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27. Comment #64999 by sane1 on August 22, 2007 at 3:24 pm

get the vote out...dropping to 71%

RickM: I bet they mention the poll, especially if atheism is unexpectedly high - this would be "news" to these people. They'll ignore the fact that it is scientifically meaningless, and make a story out of it.

CNN homepage says Amanpour will be on Larry tonight...

Other Comments by sane1

28. Comment #65013 by whoopscareless on August 22, 2007 at 4:13 pm

~Mine's not listed, no. 287.

The day I put a label on myself is the day you can dissect me. :)

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29. Comment #65071 by monkey2 on August 22, 2007 at 8:23 pm

Automath says

They could have more easily had none as an option.

I too would have liked to see 'None' as an option. The Uk Census in 2011 will, most likely, require us to be None's. A nothing description that helped to create 390,000 Jedi Knights in England and Wales in 2001.

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30. Comment #65081 by PeterK on August 22, 2007 at 9:09 pm

down to a mere 70% now...

Other Comments by PeterK

31. Comment #65162 by Frying Pantheist on August 23, 2007 at 4:29 am

automath:

Hardly any of the religions I've been associated with over the year are listed, there's no Spiritualism

There's a "spiritual but not religious" option.

Back up to 71% - take that 0% of Hindus!

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32. Comment #65178 by neumann on August 23, 2007 at 5:10 am

God of Eng's World said:
Fake results are fake. This is the work of anonymous I believe.

Anonymous is truly a legion, but the % dropped back to 70 (17282 votes).

Other Comments by neumann

33. Comment #65180 by coolwainy on August 23, 2007 at 5:13 am

Yes but this is a poll of people who watch the Larry King Show and is not in any way representative of the population so it has no meaning whatsoever. I'm not sure why this news item is even on here as it doesn't prove anything.

Other Comments by coolwainy

34. Comment #65190 by pewkatchoo on August 23, 2007 at 5:53 am

With which religion do you associate? Surely!

So ungrammatical.

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35. Comment #65236 by Bremas on August 23, 2007 at 9:31 am

70%
Bloody agnostics could push another 3% if they'd just get off the fence. :)

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36. Comment #65334 by roach on August 23, 2007 at 4:51 pm

Christiane Amanpour was on Larry King discussing God's Warriors with a panel of four men. They consisted of a Jew, a Muslim, and two Christians. It would have been great if they showed this poll. They all would have crapped themselves.

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37. Comment #65336 by thirdchimpanzee on August 23, 2007 at 5:06 pm

I just voted. Atheists are down to 69%, but you have to laugh are the arrogance of the ordering - they were expecting Christians to walk away the the lion's share of the vote.

Of course, if they had simply gone with alphabetic ordering - the results would look better (except for those agnostics).

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38. Comment #65348 by HappyPrimate on August 23, 2007 at 6:00 pm

I just voted also. Everyone on this website needs to vote. Atheists are making a really good showing! Main stream media needs to see we exist in numbers!

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39. Comment #65349 by HappyPrimate on August 23, 2007 at 6:04 pm

I also sent Larry an email asking for an interview with Christopher Hitchens.

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40. Comment #65362 by will young on August 23, 2007 at 10:07 pm

Do you drive to work or take your lunch?

(I can't answer that either!)

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41. Comment #65371 by logical on August 24, 2007 at 12:01 am

Atheism 69% 18626

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42. Comment #65522 by skyhook87 on August 24, 2007 at 2:54 pm

Looks as if the poll has been removed and replaced with a poll about celebrities. I wonder if not getting the results they were hoping for lead to the removal... Unscientific poll indeed.

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43. Comment #65527 by roach on August 24, 2007 at 3:24 pm

Maybe they'll show the results on tonight's show. Here's hoping.

Other Comments by roach

44. Comment #65537 by MAS2007 on August 24, 2007 at 4:29 pm

Did search for poll no useable results. Anyone able to find it?

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45. Comment #65543 by oarwhat on August 24, 2007 at 4:58 pm

Well, it looks loke the poll is over with, and the last I looked, atheist were at 69%, agnostic at 4%. It will be interesting to see if Larry actualy uses the poll or if he will bury it.

Other Comments by oarwhat

46. Comment #65553 by phasmagigas on August 24, 2007 at 7:13 pm

lets assume that the poll shows atheists at 69%.
what might some christians (yes, christians) say? something like:

'as its not scientific it doesnt mean anything'.

if the christian vote had hit 69% they might have said something like:

'we dont need science anyway we have faith so this 69% is pretty good!!'

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