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This is why most polls are so utterly, inescapably useless.

I suppose it's possible that 21% of American atheists can't read well enough to understand the question.

The only atheists who believe in god are the ones who don't believe in the dictionary.

PTL- If comments like that make you feel superior, knock yourself out.

PTL, it is perhaps more likely that these are theists who can't read.

Actually, if you look at the figures, it's only 15% who are >="fairly certain". They have included the 6% who say they are "not certain", which to me seems a bit potentially confusing (even though it's bracketed under "Yes, believe in god or a universal spirit").

Then there's the issue of what people mean by a "universal spirit" - does this include a Spinozan/Einsteinian "god", which is essentially just a personification/anthropomorphicisation of the laws of physics etc?

Will, you said "Meet the atheists..." - can you locate any of these folks so that we can cross-examine them? ;-)

Well, the strange thing is in Norn Iron you actually have Protestant Atheists and Catholic Atheists. I'm serious. I have a friend who regards himself as a Humanist. But he still thinks of himself as being a "Prod".

Hi Peter, It's odd - because this has been a phenomenon in Judaism for a long time - Jewish Atheists. It seems to boil down to a cultural thing.

Me, I have no problem in describing myself as a Christian Atheist. But I so totally do not believe that Jesus was a "Christ" or the Son of God, or that there even is a God etc etc. But we all come from where we come from; I don't see a need to be ashamed about that.

I think the Jewish and NI Catholic/Protestant Atheists are explained by the use of religious labels in both instances to define either racial or tribal identity. I found it most interesting that six per cent of Atheists believed in a personal God - it reminded me of a talk I once heard by Brendan Kennelly in which he said that his attitude to God was rather like the Connaught farmer's attitude to the fairies - he didn't believe in them but he wouldn't like one of them to hear him saying it.