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Comment by nixosbestos | Hacker News Reader

> Nearly half of Christians in America believe that Jesus will “definitely” or “probably” return by 2050.

lol, just lol.

From the linked article in footnote [2] where that question is asked, the question above says that 2% of Christians answered "I don't believe in Jesus". Makes me wonder what they think a Christian is!

But that specific question was restated wrongly. Again in footnote [2] and in the link itself, it says it was 14% of Christians who answered "definitely" or "probably" with another 37% saying "not sure".

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/12/08/about-fou...

That 2% figure is under the Lizardman Constant of 4%, the number of people who will say just-plain-stupid stuff to a pollster.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Lizardman%27s_Constant

There are ways to justify that answer. One can believe in the moral tenets of Christianity, while also believing that its supposed leader was a fiction, or a conflation of real people. You can see the story as a myth, which is not the same as fiction. I don't know any such people, but it is a realistic version of Christian theology.

But I suspect it's mostly just cranks lying to pollsters.

I would laugh if I didn’t interpret this as a disturbing dearth of evidence-based critical thinking. Homo Sapiens has immense power over the world and other species and very little rationality to temper and guide that power.

It's funny until you realize the degree to which Biblical literalism and belief in Christian apocalypse drives American political and military policy.

I was Christian in 2000 and we thought Jesus would come again definitely, probably then too. There have been soo many disappointed millenarians in the past 2000 years.

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