{"id":41805,"date":"2014-11-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/americans-display-extreme-over-confidence\/"},"modified":"2014-11-03T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T00:00:00","slug":"americans-display-extreme-over-confidence","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/americans-display-extreme-over-confidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans Display Extreme Over-confidence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[Americans] have tremendous faith in themselves. In 1950, the Gallup organization asked high school seniors, &quot;Are you a very important person?&quot; And at that point 12 percent said yes. They asked the same question in 2005 and 80 percent said, &quot;Yes, I am a very important person.&quot; <em class=\"citation\">Time<\/em> magazine asked Americans, &quot;Are you in the top one percent of earners?&quot; Nineteen percent of Americans are in the top 1 percent of earners. Americans score 25th in the world in math, but if you ask Americans, &quot;Are you really good in math?&quot; [they often say yes].<\/p>\n\n<p>We are number-one in the world at thinking we are really good at math.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[406,409],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3436,3508,3665,3726,3848,3849,4191,4208,4330,4704,4805,4917,4919],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-41805","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-arrogance","tax_ctp_tags-boasting","tax_ctp_tags-confidence","tax_ctp_tags-culture","tax_ctp_tags-ego","tax_ctp_tags-egotism","tax_ctp_tags-humiliation","tax_ctp_tags-ignorance","tax_ctp_tags-knowledge","tax_ctp_tags-pride","tax_ctp_tags-repentance","tax_ctp_tags-self-esteem","tax_ctp_tags-self-examination"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Americans Display Extreme Over-confidence - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/americans-display-extreme-over-confidence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Americans Display Extreme Over-confidence - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[Americans] have tremendous faith in themselves. In 1950, the Gallup organization asked high school seniors, &quot;Are you a very important person?&quot; And at that point 12 percent said yes. 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