New surveys confirm growing skepticism in the scientific community over religious claims. A U.S. Congressman takes the floor of the House, and takes aim at honest intellectual opinions held by a respected segment of American society.
Web Posted: August 5, 1998
ongressman James Traficant (D-Ohio), an outspoken supporter of the
Religious Freedom Amendment, has gone a step further in enunciating his
beliefs about faith -- and insulted Atheists in the process. On Monday,
Traficant read a statement for entry into the Congressional Record which
denounced recent studies measuring rates of belief in god among members of the
scientific community. As reported in the record for the House, Page H6885:
MR. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, a new report says only 7 percent of scientists
believe in God. That is right. And the reason they gave was that the
scientists are "super smart." Unbelievable. Most of these absent-minded
professors cannot find the toilet.
Mr. Speaker, I have one question for these wise guys to constipate over:
How can some thing (sic) come from no thing (sic)?
And while they digest that, Mr. Speaker, let me tell it like it is. Put
these super-cerebral master debaters in some foxholes with bombs bursting all
around them, and I guarantee they will not be praying to Frankenstein.
Beam me up here. My colleagues, all the education in the world is
worthless without God and a little bit of common sense. And I yield back
whatever we have left.
(end of remarks by Mr. Traficant.)
Alas, readers should know that Mr. Traficant is a member of the House
Science Committee and the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics.
Traficant was responding to reports of a new study in the prestigious journal Science which announced that members of the scientific community were "more likely than ever to reject God and immortality." 
Those findings confirm similar results found over eighty years ago in research by Dr. James Leuba. Then, only about 40% of scientists surveyed expressed belief in a supreme deity of any kind. The new results reported in Science were based on a survey of 517 members of the National Academy of Sciences. When queried about belief in a "personal god," only 7% responded in the affirmative.
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