Or should I say, the soon-to-be Dr. Sam Harris. A few weeks ago I mentioned that I’d exchanged email with Sam; it seems that he finds it somewhat easier to find atheist volunteers for his projects than Christians, or, one can only presume, Nzambi Mpunguists. Naturally, I volunteered the services of the Dread Ilk as a group encompassing a reasonable number of the former, if sadly not so many of the latter. This series of four surveys is part of Sam’s study intended to investigate the nature of various beliefs held by various humans. Since I asserted in TIA that religion has nothing to fear from science and I’m interested to see what sort of results he gets, I encourage everyone here to help him out by taking the following four surveys:
Belief Survey C
Belief Survey D
Please note that each survey begins with the same basic data page; the different questions won’t appear until you reach the second page. There’s about a hundred questions on each, but they’re much easier than the Thucydides quiz, so no fear. I’m somewhat skeptical that this method will provide particularly meaningful results, let alone prove anything, but there’s only one way to find out. So, please take the quizzes and let’s see what this sociological “science” tells us about the nature of belief.