Another Prediction for 2007
Looks like I missed one, though this one isn’t by Radley Balko. This one is one-out-of-four people you’re likely to meet at random making the prediction — though I’d imagine it shakes out something like 2 of 4 in the South and 1 of 4 in the North, or something generally along those lines.
Given that a bit over half of all Americans believe Jesus is Coming Again, sometime, then it’s about half that who believe he’s coming this year, in 2007! That shakes out to somewhere around 75 million Americans. Now, we’re talking about a telephone survey of 1,000 people, which means that 250 people said "Jesus is coming again in 2007." The statistical margin of error is 3%, but hell, even if it was a 30% margin of error and went this way instead of that, that still leaves 170 people out of a thousand — or 51 million Americans — who think he’s coming back: as flesh & bone, in the sky, to dramatically conduct a rapturous "spiriting" away of the redeemed — within the next 360 days. It could happen at any time. Maybe tomorrow. Better get ready.
Astounding. But I guess it serves no good purpose to go on and on about it. The fact kind of speaks for itself.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT AND HOW IT WORKS
Free The Animal is an eclectic writing project about everything since November 2003. 23 years, 5,500 posts, 5 million words.
It's a paid membership blog. Most posts are free and public, but only paid members can comment. What determines whether it's free or paid is when I publish. Monday through Friday, free and public. Saturday and Sunday, for paid members. That's it. Membership info here.
Doug:
Yea, I hear you. I did have my tongue slightly in cheek when I wrote it, and that's primarily why I increased that margin of error by 10 times.
On the other hand, can you tell me what the essential difference is between someone who believes that Jesus is coming again in a rapture of believers into the sky sometime, and someone who believes it'll be within the next year?
Rich,
This is just because the mis-use (and outright making up) of statistics bugs me:
That "1 in 4" number for folks who expect to see the return of Christ this year is absolutely poppycock. It defies both common sense and common experience.
Despite the press they get, most of America is *not* of the hard-core born-again whack-job persuasion. Do a quick poll of your friends and co-workers, especially if they're scattered across the country. Depending on how you phrase the question, you may indeed find 50 percent that believe in the eventual return of Christ… but even among the hard-core born-again crowd, I think you'll be hard pressed to find 25% who believe he's coming *this year*. If you asked "do you believe it's possible Christ could return in 2007?", you might get a high rate of affirmatives, but that's a different question than "do you believe Christ will return in 2007".
I'm not saying there aren't plenty of misguided folks who have abandoned reason, but when I see numbers like the ones quoted in that poll, I am strongly reminded of the misuse (and outright fabrication) of statistics used by gun-control nuts.
— DW
can you tell me what the essential difference is between someone who believes that Jesus is coming again in a rapture of believers into the sky sometime, and someone who believes it'll be within the next year?
The former's belief is an out of context floating abstraction (in terms of it's connection to his life), the latter's belief is concrete and it probably guides his day to day choices and behavior.
In other words, the former expresses a belief because he gets some value from expressing it. He may or may not actually believe it in any sense that matters, but he finds some social, political, or psychological benefit from the trappings and rituals of the belief.
The latter believes it because he thinks it is really true, and his decisions are formed from an expectation of outcomes determined by that truth.
It's not particularly astounding because these are costless beliefs. Contrary to Kyle, there is no way that these 50+ million Americans are really making their decisions based on the expectation that the world will end this year. Are they cashing out their retirement savings? Not many I think.
20% of Americans Iraq for 9/11. 30% are still looking for those "weapons of mass destruction".
Hell, most libertarians believe that rational evangelism will bring them more freedom. How's that for dumb?
JTK,
First, we don't know enough about the poll specifics to know how true the 25%, and thus Rich's 50 million inference really is.
Second, given that there is some number that believe it, I don't even want to start trying to predict what a "rational" decision based on such an irrational belief might be. Future planning based on an assumption of there not being any actual future to plan for is not going to reveal any meaningful data.
Finally, the belief that Jesus and the rapture are coming *sometime* is costless, which goes to my point earlier; the belief that he is coming *this year*, not so much.