In a story that discusses the astrological signs of Obama’s cabinet picks (humorously, don’t worry), there is a poll: Are you a believer in astrology? It’s going in a sensible direction, let’s just tip it further.

Yes…absolutely!
5%
Only when my horoscope comes true
12%
Eh…kinda sorta
14%
No!
67% 1
Not sure/No opinion
2%

George Docherty, a pastor who claimed to have been responsible for convincing congress to stick “under god” into the pledge of allegiance, has died. In his honor, and a fitting honor it is, AOL is putting up a stupid poll: Should the phrase ‘under God’ be in the Pledge of Allegiance? Right now, the voting is 89% yes, 11% no. How about jazzing up his memorial with a rebuke?

The Christian Coalition of America has created something called the 2008 American Values Survey. It is why we crash polls.

This particular poll is supposed to produce results that the Christian Coalition will present to congress as if it is a serious and representative sample of “American values” … which must be why they toss it out onto the web on a conservative website. This is not how you do a legitimate poll. This is how you bias your results.

So let’s all show them that American values include atheists and agnostics and humanists. More importantly, churn this badly designed poll so that either the results are far more ambiguous than they hope, or they have to start throwing out answers they don’t like selectively, further demonstrating the invalid nature of this method.

There is this strange site that has collected testimonials for the existence of god. If I were a believer, I’d be embarrassed at the painful lack of logic in these rationalizations. To the question “I believe in god because…”, answers are non sequiturs like “because he is the creator” or “because god is real” or “because I don’t do bad things”.

There is also, of course, a poll, because nothing says shallow like adding a pointless poll to a web page. The question is “ Does God exist?. The answers so far suggest that some doubters have already started pharyngulating it.

No! 51.6%

Yes 47.5%
Not Sure 0.9%

Another possibility is that random readers who stumble across the site read a few of the testimonials and are so appalled at their inanity that they immediately lose their faith in a sudden fit of enlightenment. Go ahead and read a few. They will simultaneously confirm your disbelief and disappoint you with the inadequacy of the average human mind.

They really had to twist the language to come up with this question: Do you think the majority of Americans are okay with this sort of ‘change’ — an expansion of special protections for federal employees based on their sexual behavior? I think what they really mean is, “Do most Americans think it is okay to treat people equally, and that they should disregard their private sexual preferences?”

Sadly, only 4.38% agree, and 93.69% think discrimination is hunky-dory.

How can I resist when they name it THE GOD POLL? There are several questions there: Does god exist (currently tied between yes and no)? Is there life after death (roughly tied, with yes in a slight lead)? Do humans have souls (yes is leading, 50%:34%)? Can an atheist be ethical (Yes is way ahead, fortunately)? Is evolution accurate (yes is at 64%, not bad)?

Vote on ’em all!

I think we have discovered the most pathetic online poll ever. The creator is jacking around the numbers now to whatever he feels like; he has left a comment here to complain; he’s playing a little game of sockpuppetry (“Dorfus” and “tgp” are the same person); and he just sent me email saying, “I’ve asked seed to remove your blog. I hope they do.” Whatta maroon.

I don’t know that I should be encouraging the troop at Dr. Joan Bushwell’s Chimpanzee Refuge to compete with me, but OK, it’s a poll, anyone can join in. This one asks, Do you agree with the gay marriage bans?. It does have an interesting twist, in that the poll also displays the states of respondents, so you can see where Redneckistan is. Or another way to look at it is that you can vote to defend the honor of your state.

I don’t know what it does with you non-Americans. Those bits of geography don’t seem to exist on this map.

The New Humanist Bad Faith Award poll is now open for voting. I nominated Sarah Palin, but I think she’s well on her way to negligible irrelevancy now, so you might as well pick one of the others.

Once you’ve voted in the poll that matters, you can go play on this Online Presidential Poll. I’m pretty sure the results won’t be binding, so you can vote for me or Immanuel Kant (wait, what? He left off Nietzsche?)

I am troubled that I am being trounced by a moose, but at least I’m beating Palin.