Majority of Americans believe they have been aided by guardian angels

[Guynemer]

More than half of all Americans believe they have been helped by a guardian angel in the course of their lives, according to a new poll by the Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion. In a poll of 1700 respondents, 55% answered affirmatively to the statement, "I was protected from harm by a guardian angel."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1842179,00.html?cnn=yes

[TheStinger]

bless em

[Riesstiu IV]

I read a 2001 article that showed 45% of Americans believe in creationism and discounted evolution entirely. That surprised me. The article went on to say Poland and several balkan nations had similar percentiles.

Another article from 2005 showed that the number of Americans who outright rejected evolution had declined to 39%.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

perhaps that explains why they believe in God, and not the other way around

[snoopy369]

Ummm, perhaps people consider 'guardian angel' to mean 'guy on the street who beat the **** out of the guy who tried to mug me'? That is the common usage of the term after all...

[BeBMan]

http://www.apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=5410752#post5410752

[OneFootInTheGrave]

well you never know how was the survey presented, but assuming it's what we assume it is, that is a good reason for a large % of believers, as it is a personal event, and not an "organization" thing....

[Jon Miller]

"Majority of people say they are Christians who believe in God."

I really don't see what the issue is here. I would be surprised if it wasn't the case.

JM

[Winston]

I remember a recent study that said 40% of Danes believe in angels, and 70% believe in ghosts.

[Impaler[WrG]]

The findings seem consistent with religious belief levels in the US. Danes believing in ghosts (particular the ghost of their poisoned fathers) is a bit surprising, but believing in a ghost presents a lot less moral/political pit-falls then god or angels, ghosts after all don't claim to perform miracles or demands you worship them.

One of the classic pitfalls is "Why is their Evil if god is good and omnipotent", Guardian Angels seem to suffer from the same problem, if a person has a GA why are only some of the bad events that could happen to them prevented, is the GA asleep at the switch some times? not sufficiently powerful? secretly a sadist toying with your pathetic existence like some kind of elaborate versions of the Sims? If god is omnipotent then creating a bunch of subordinates to carry out the day to day work of keeping people from getting hit by buses dose not absolve god of the sticky moral issue.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
"Why is their Evil if god is good and omnipotent"

Evil exists because of you're contempt for grammar and capitalization rules.

[Hercules]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
"Majority of people say they are Christians who believe in God."

I really don't see what the issue is here. I would be surprised if it wasn't the case.

JM

QFT.

[Lancer]

I know for a fact that I've been helped by God.

[SlowwHand]

How would one know good if there was no basis for comparison, Impaler?

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Elok


Evil exists because of you're contempt for grammar and capitalization rules.

Ah Elok, resident grammar nazi