Is Ted Turner right? Are most religious people losers in life?

Question

What is their education level? Is it because they are outcasts everywhere else and at church they feel a sense of community? Is that the reason they are so mean to others...because elsewhere they are picked on?

It seems that many like the idea of walking on streets of gold...and many like the idea of a vindictive God who will judge those who have been mean to them...

So, is it safe to assume that most Christians are not successful people?

Answer 1

I think that any statement containing "most" is going to amount to a generalization that should be supported by exactly what you seek, which is data. You'd have to really get into the statistics regarding education level, income, mental health, physical health, family history, and all that, it's a huge area and at best it would address only the question of experience, it wouldn't even go into genetics. I think that the question of what makes people religious is fascinating, but would caution that it is unwise to make assumptions.

Remember too, that an Internet forum is not the place to get an accurate representation of the population, since self-reports can be deceptive, and anyone who answers can at the very least afford Internet access and use a computer. To really research this, you'd have to find study results/statistics.

Answer 2

No!!! I have a masters degree, and working in my field until my first daughter was born. Now, I stay at home with my kids, but my education helps me everyday. I still do enough to keep my license up and I continue to learn new stuff that comes out all the time.

I try to be nice to others, so they are nice to me back. I think it's a two way street, although I am picked on a lot here for what I believe. I don't let it get to me most days, I just take it as people not really understanding what I believe.

I was very successful when I was working. I made more then my husband, I was good at my job, and I enjoyed what I was doing. I got good grades in school, and I worked my butt off to get where I was. Now, my idea of success has changed. Now, I think that taking care of my kids and my home are the most important things. Success doesn't have to mean money, or a good job. It can be something as simple as spending time with your family, or being there when someone needs something, or being able to pay your bills every month on your own. I think the answers you will get will vary because everyones idea of success is different.

Answer 3

Ted Turner is mostly right, even Scriptural. We are real loosers if the gospel isn't true. Not many Christians are successful by some definitions. If you read your Bible the successful, big shots, didn't accept it to begin with.

For myself I don't know a lot of religious people who do not have a college degree, a home, family and a good income. Others, who may not have a degree, are skilled tradesmen who will make more money than many college grads over a lifetime.

Let's look at it from Mr. Turner's street smarts. He just sees what St. Paul saw when he said (and I paraphrase). You know, if this gospel is not true; then we of all men are most miserable. If it isn't true we should be out making the big bucks, attending the big parties and concerts. Doing what we can to make our lives here as easy and fun as possible.

Christianity teaches that we should be content even if we only have enough to eat and necessary clothing.

As for the snide edge of his comment and yours. I have yet to meet a mean religious person outside of the fanatics which come in all brands. As for money, religious people match the stats for income by educational levels just like any other religious person. It all depends on how and who defines success.

In closing please note that stats giving 90 per cent edge to MENSA are great -- Just remember they only account for 2 per cent of the entire population.

Answer 4

Before you make that conclusion you should go back and read the bible again. Some of the most successful people who ever lived, served God like Solomon, David, Moses, and others. Even if today's world some of the wealthiest people in the world are Christians Jews. I could not name all of the successful Christians in the world, but I will just give you a few example. The founder of Domino's Pizza is a billionaire Christian. The owner of the New England Patriots is a Christian. The two football coaches who went to the super bowl this past year a Christians. There are a lot of football, basket ball, and baseball millionaires who are Christians. I know tons of church business who are successful and some are millionaires, lawyers, doctors, and on and on. Ted Turner is speaking out of ignorance. But I sense that he said that to cover up for his own failure in his marriage and some business ventures. It's covering up for the fact that you do not Christ, but not willing to admit it.

Answer 5

It would be interesting to see how many successful people are zealous Christians. I have the impression there are quite a lot. (on both the right and left of the political spectrum, you will find a lot of successful believers, as well as among financially prosperous people, even though most zealous believers probably don't put as much importance on financial prosperity as nonbelievers).
Most believers do not think much about streets of gold. Also, most believers are more concerned about your welfare than excited about seeing you get judged. When the contrary is the case, they really haven't understood what Christian faith is all about.
However, you sound rather bitter. Do you come from a Christian home where your parents were rather uneducated, not very well off, and seemed to you to be quite bigoted? So obviously most Christians must be like that?
EDIT:
I wonder what your level of education is, what your level of prosperity is, and what your definition of "successful" is.

Answer 6

I don't think you can really classify the success/education/or intelligence of an entire group of people based on what they believe. But since most people (in the US in general) are middle class working folks, and the bulk of them practice some Abrahamic religion, then of course you're going to get a conclusion that most religious people aren't successful. Most Americans aren't necessarily successful. The average median income of an American family is only 30K-63K per household depending on State or region.

Also - you probably ought to define successful. What is successful? Owning your own house? Making over $100K a year? What?

Answer 7

How would Ted Turner know anything? I hate to tell you but the Pope is the richest person in the world. The Pope is a religious person. Ted Turner has 3 failed marriages and he is a producer of falsehood.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I pity anyone who doesn't know the Lord.

Answer 8

Albert Einstein, physicist, scientific genius
Issac Newton, physicist, mathematican, one of the greatesr scientist of all time
Willian Herchel, atronomer
Galileo Galilei, astronomer
Louis Agassiz, naturalist, geologist
Geroge-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, naturalist
Nicholas Butler, educator
George Washington Carver, chemist
Alfred Whitney Griswood, educator, historian
Stephen Hawking, physicist
Maria Mitchell, astronomer
Johannes Kepler, astronomer
Loius Agassiz, geologist
Blaise Pascal, mathematician
Rene Descartes, mathematician, philosopher
Robert Boyle, chemist
Michael Faraday, father of electricity
Gregor Mendel, founder of genetics
William Thomson Kelvin, physicist
Max Planck, inventor of quantum mechanics
Charles Darwin, naturalist
Loius Pasteur, microboilogist
Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, chemist
Aristotle, philosophy
Euclid, mathematician
Nicolaus Copernicus, asrtonomy, catholic
priest
James Watt, steam engine inventor
James Clerk Maxwell, physicist, electromagnism
Wright brothers, aviation
James Dalton, chemist, physicist
Thomas Edison, inventor
Antony van Leeuwenhhoek, invented microscope
Plato, philosophy
Alexander Graham Bell, invented telephone
Jospeh Lister, used Bible to discover modern antiseptics
Edward Jenner, vaccination for samllpox
Wilhelm Roentgen, x-rays
Enrico Fermi, father of the atom bomb
Gregory Pinuc, endocrinologist, invent birth control pill
Henry Ford, inventor
Francis Bacon, philosopher, established modern scientific method
Robert Jastrow, founder of NASA

....all theist.

Kinda blows that theory out of the water.

Answer 9

LMAO

Where do you get such nonsense from?

I'm Christian. I hold 3 college degrees. I have a full time job. I have family and friends. I have an active social life. I'm not mean to others, but I am honest with them. I've never been picked on in my life. I have no desire to walk on streets of gold. My God is never vindictive.

Answer 10

I guess alot of it has to do with how you define "success". Perhaps the imminent Christian apologist (I assume you know what that word means in this context) of the last century was C.S. Lewis. Lewis was a professor at both Oxford and Cambridge, and author of numerous books and essays including "The Screwtape Letters". Read his work "Mere Christianity", and at least you'll have an answer to some of the questions you pose.

I doubt if there is anyone posting on this board who is comparable in intellect to him, and you won't find a better argument on behalf of Christ than what he makes in that work.