Am I math challenged or something?

[gollygee]

Maybe I'm misreading this. How is the math in the last two paragraphs I've copied here working? I'd think that the Christians surveyed probably include the Born-Again Christians? If 24 percent of the people they surveyed are agnostic/athiest, then only 76 percent have "high degrees of religious activity and doctrinal beliefs", right?

http://www.christianpost.com/article/ministries/1133/section/barna.finds.one-third.of.americans.are.unchurched/1.htm


The Barna Research Group, which analyzes trends in the U.S. Christian community, recently found that one-third of Americans remain “unchurched” despite national efforts to increase attendance.

It notes that this proportion "has changed little" during the past five years. In addition, the number of unchurched adults continues to grow by nearly a million people annually due to the nation’s population growth.

The study group is made up of 56 percent who consider themselves Christians, 15 percent who are born again Christians, 20 percent who profess a non-Christian faith, and 24 percent who are atheists and agnostics.

Therefore, those with high degrees of religious activity and doctrinal beliefs accounted for 91 percent of those surveyed.

[onager]

1. Overlap? I dunno. But Barna...

...is one polling outfit that consistently tells the truth, and it drives the Fundies nuts. The company owner, George Barna, is a Fundamentalist himself, which makes it even worse. Heh! I'm a true die-hard atheist and I usually trust Barna's polling. I haven't been there in a while, though.

This may be a matter of interpretation by the Xian Post or whoever they are. Barna always publishes their polling methodology right on the same page as the poll results.

If you go to the Barna site (http://www.barna.org) and poke around, you'll find some eye-opening poll results.

A couple that I remember, though I may have some of the numbers off:

--Even at the height of "Monicagate," people self-identified as Evangelicals/Fundamentalists continued to support Bill Clinton in roughly the same numbers as the general population. (By about 66%, IIRC.)

--The idea of a "religious resurgence" after 9/11 only existed in the media. And among the religious profiteers like Pat Robertson, of course.

Church attendance went up for 2 or 3 weeks afterward, then dropped back to the same or lower levels as before 9/11.

--Atheists and agnostics are LESS likely than Fundamentalist Xians to get divorced, despite all their blather about "family values." Just imagine how the Fundies felt about THAT one!

[fshrink]

2. god's percentages work in mysterious ways my friend...

Since 1 = 3, 100 = 115. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

[AZCat]

3. The born agains are probably a subset of the Christian group

If you consider the born again group (15 %) part of the Christian group, then the math works:
56+20+24=100

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Exactly. It's the Christian Post that is mathematically inept

They have taken the "15% are born again Christians" and added that to 56% Christians and 20% other faiths, and come up with the incorrect figure 91%. It should read "76% of the 'unchurched' are believers".

Just as well we don't put these people in charge of something important, like Social Security. Oh damn ...

[gollygee]

5. Thanks folks - that's what I thought was going on

a bit of fuzzy math.

[fshrink]

6. Funny how errors tend to point in the same direction. eom

[pauliedangerously]

7. WELL YA KNOW, the DEVIL'S IN THE DETAILS nt

[Jamastiene]

8. It's biblical math

Clearly not the same math mere humans would use. :shrugs: I have no other explanation. It does not compute. I know one thing. I will not burn my processor up trying to make my computer learn 1+1=3. Maybe it's a typo.