Scientology Has A Net Positive Rating of -45 In Gallup Poll On Religions In America
In a Gallup Poll ranking American's views on the mainstream religions, the statistics were surprising in some ways, and revealing in others.
Aligned with a visit from Pope Benedict XVI, the poll highlights a net-positive rating for Catholics, which surely is up from past years when the Catholic Church was leveled with unprecedented negative press for its handling of the sex abuse scandal. Like any decent and benevolent spiritual guidance and belief system, the Catholic Church has taken its negative image to heart and made great strides to correct its past abuse and reach out to its followers with tangible efforts to right its wrong.
Sadly the same cannot be said for the most disliked "religion" on the list, Scientology. Here are the results, I'd post the chart, but wordpress sucks wangs:
Catholics are one of four U.S. religious groups tested in the survey with strongly positive ratings, along with Jews (+42) and two Protestant denominations, Methodists (+45) and Baptists (+35). The broader groups of "evangelical Christians" and "fundamentalist Christians" do not fare quite as well, but are still on balance rated more positively than negatively.Americans are essentially split in their opinions of Latter-Day Saints or Mormons, with 24% viewing them positively and 26% negatively, for a net score of -2.
Three of the religious groups included in the survey are mostly viewed negatively, including Scientologists, atheists, and Muslims, with Scientologists having the lowest overall rating.
Wow, I mean if you think about it, the Church of Scientology's having a REALLY bad week. It can't be good to be ranked lower than Muslims and Atheists. No offense against Muslims, and only slightly no offense against Atheists, it's just that as far as public perception goes, Scientology is seen as lower than an ideology which spawned the worse terrorist attack on American soil and God-less heathens.
I wish I could say I feel bad for them, but I don't. Scientologists individually, yes. I have tremendous compassion for them, because I have made friends with some amazingly intelligent, interesting and uncommonly kind people who were once Scientologists. This makes me feel a sense of "care" for them. But the Church, well not so much.
Enjoy the schadenfreude!
(from Enturbulation.org)
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