Survey Results: Praying about Which Religion is True

[_Abaddon]

In a small way, the results make me sad.

and not because i expected them to be any different.

[_mackay11]

If you look at the link, you will see that the majority of people (22) said that Mormonism was the true church. The rest did not pray enough. They are probably masterbaters

At the risk of being a research nerd (it's my day-job) 22 out 114 is not "the majority."

Instead it simply means that in an online intercept sampling approach there was a higher response rate among Mormons as a single sub-group of the sample.

The results are open source so I'm going to have a play with them. He probably needs to treat each sub-group as a separate sample and then weight them.

Unfortunately the methodology used is a little naïve so it's a bit limited in what can be done with it. We don't know, for example, what % of Catholics believe that God could answer the prayers, only the views of those who do.

[_mackay11]

OK, so I reworked that survey. Here are the results that matter. I've had to group all of the "non-Christian" answers into one as a base size below n20 isn't really credible. Even n20 is a stretch but still at least comparable to the other groups.



I've filtered down to the 83 people who actually got an answer.

The problem with this survey is that it has been written quite amateurishly. The survey doesn't give a measure of the number of religious people who believe that prayers can be answered, only the answers of those who can. Also (as he acknowledges) there's no measurement of "confirmation bias" in this. We don't know the religion of people before they prayed or the context of that prayer.

Anyway... what it does establish is people can pray about multiple religions and can get an answer that makes them "very certain" that the one they prayed about is the right one.

[_huckelberry]

At the risk of being a research nerd (it's my day-job) 22 out 114 is not "the majority."

Instead it simply means that in an online intercept sampling approach there was a higher response rate among Mormons as a single sub-group of the sample.

The results are open source so I'm going to have a play with them. He probably needs to treat each sub-group as a separate sample and then weight them.

Unfortunately the methodology used is a little naïve so it's a bit limited in what can be done with it. We don't know, for example, what % of Catholics believe that God could answer the prayers, only the views of those who do.

Mackay, I agree however from a non technical point of view. I believe God answers some prayers but I do not believe God is telling everybody which is the correct religious organization. I suspect he is considerably less interested in that question than other things. Perhaps because of my beliefs when I started the survey I was turned off and decided not to go ahead with it. I suspect the people completing the survey not only believe God answers prayers but believe that God strongly prefers their own religious organization.

[_CurrentlyAlive]

I'd also guess that there is some serious selection bias going on. How did he/she select participants? Where did they come from?

[_mackay11]

Mackay, I agree however from a non technical point of view. I believe God answers some prayers but I do not believe God is telling everybody which is the correct religious organization. I suspect he is considerably less interested in that question than other things. Perhaps because of my beliefs when I started the survey I was turned off and decided not to go ahead with it. I suspect the people completing the survey not only believe God answers prayers but believe that God strongly prefers their own religious organization.

I agree that the people completing the survey are self-selecting and probably skewed towards a certain view point in the first place.

Unfortunately the weak questionnaire design and loaded introduction means we can draw far fewer conclusions from the research than I have seen being done by some people (the writer and by commentators on this/other forums).

It's a shame as it would have been a really interesting study to do properly.

Having had a look through the data I think the only thing it really tells us is:

- People of different Christian and non-Christian denominations can get a similar, but contradictory, answer to the question of which is the correct/most correct church.
- Around 70% of people are very sure. Mormons are no more certain of the truth of their religion than any other.

There's not really much more in it.

[_mackay11]

I'd also guess that there is some serious selection bias going on. How did he/she select participants? Where did they come from?

Just posted links to his survey on forums. Yes, huge bias.

[_KevinSim]

If you look at the link, you will see that the majority of people (22) said that Mormonism was the true church. The rest did not pray enough. They are probably masterbaters

I concur, unless the non Mormons had read the Book of Mormon in advance of this survey and subsequent praying, then whatever answer they received (providing the answer was not an affirmation of Mormonism) was wrong and from Satan. They need to keep praying until they get the correct response.

*I am REALLY looking forward to KevinSims' contribution to this thread....although I predict it will be alarmingly close to what I just wrote.

Bazooka, I have never said anything to indicate I thought people who ask God a question and announce that God told them something other than Mormonism is true, got the wrong answer, got an answer from Satan, or "need to keep praying until they get the correct response." I simply don't know whether those people actually successfully communicated with God or not; that is absolutely between each of them individually and God. I disagree with LookingLooking that her/his survey proves that one can't count on God answering one's question; in order to prove that we would have to have some way of knowing that each person who took the survey really was prepared to base the whole rest of her/his life on whatever answer God provided, and we certainly don't know that. Furthermore, is it impossible that God might want one person (like me) to be in the LDS Church, but that God might want someone else to be a Seventh Day Adventist? I don't think so. That's kind of an uncomfortable possibility to consider; I would certainly like it better if God told everyone who asked Her/Him that God wanted those people in the same organization, but I'm certainly not going to tell God how S/He needs to answer questions people ask Her/Him.

[_KevinSim]

At the risk of being a research nerd (it's my day-job) 22 out 114 is not "the majority."

Instead it simply means that in an online intercept sampling approach there was a higher response rate among Mormons as a single sub-group of the sample.

The results are open source so I'm going to have a play with them. He probably needs to treat each sub-group as a separate sample and then weight them.

Unfortunately the methodology used is a little naïve so it's a bit limited in what can be done with it. We don't know, for example, what % of Catholics believe that God could answer the prayers, only the views of those who do.

Mackay, I agree however from a non technical point of view. I believe God answers some prayers but I do not believe God is telling everybody which is the correct religious organization. I suspect he is considerably less interested in that question than other things. Perhaps because of my beliefs when I started the survey I was turned off and decided not to go ahead with it. I suspect the people completing the survey not only believe God answers prayers but believe that God strongly prefers their own religious organization.

I'm curious how many of the people who took the survey think that the only way to know if God approves of an organization is to ask God if S/He does. Or were they just asking God if God approved of the different organizations because the surveyor asked them to?

[_Polygamy-Porter]

Let me answer with the pat reply from the online sales force of LDS Inc(a.k.a. missionaries):

Have you read the Book of Mormon?

If you have, have you prayed about it and got a confirmation that it is TRUE?

Wha?? wait, I did not hear what you said, because it was incorrect.

Well, I HAVE READ the Book of Mormon! And I prayed to God asking if it was TRUE and he told me it was true!

I'm sorry did you say something? Sorry, I am not hearing what I want you to say..

I KNOW that Joseph Smith WAS a prophet of GOD!

And, wait what?? You asked a question but it was not the right one...

I KNOW that Thommy S. Moonson is a TRUE prophet of the TRUE church on this TRUE planet of the TRUE Heavenly Fodder!

Oh? You prayed and God said WHAT??? *shock/horror/disbelief*

Well you must have not prayed EARNESTLY to KNOW the TRUTH, otherwise you would be like ME!

*all future correspondence will be ignored from you*

Bye, have terribly nice day.