TruthBook Religious News Blog

Travel offers prime time for lessons about God

Modern parents impart spiritual values from the driver's seat of the minivan, as they transport youngsters to school, sports and other activities.

"That's my quality time with my kids," said Cindy Hammons, a mother of three in Tioga, Texas, about 50 miles north of Dallas.

At home, laundry, cooking and other chores beckon. But in the car, "you have the time to give them that conversation. You know you have a set amount of time to talk with them."

The Rev. Jill Jackson-Sears, pastor of Inglewood United Methodist Church in Grand Prairie, Texas, said she and her two young children like to sing hymns together in the car - a tradition her toddler initiated.

"We probably wouldn't do it any other place," she said.

Jackson-Sears spends two to three hours a day in the car, shuttling between home, child care and her office.

A lot of car time

According to a 2003 study by the U.S. Department of Transportation, children 5 and younger spent an average of 65 minutes a day in the car. (Until that survey, the department kept no such statistics for youngsters. That changed when experts began to suspect that parents transporting kids were contributing significantly to traffic congestion.)

And a University of Michigan study showed that while parents are spending slightly more time with their kids than 20 years ago, much of that additional time is in the car.

So, some parents devise creative strategies for turning car time into devotional time.

Melissa Rembecki, a member of St. Andrew's Christian Church in Carrollton, Texas, uses sights and sounds on the road as starting points for spiritual lessons with her five children, ages 4 to 11.

If an ambulance passes by, for example, she'll invite the kids to pray for the injured or ill person. If they drive past someone in a wheelchair, she'll ask, "How do you suppose people treat that person?"

Seeing homeless people along the road, she and her children decided to make up "Special Sacks" containing snacks, grooming items and Bible verses. They keep a stash in the trunk.

"We talked about how homeless people are part of God's family," she said. "We talked about what might be helpful for a homeless person and what we could do."

The Rev. Marsha Engle Middleton, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Mesquite, Texas, sings songs with her two toddlers while shuttling them between home, day care and the office. The tunes are a starting point for discussions.

"If we're singing 'Jesus Loves Me,' then I'll ask, 'Who's Jesus? Where is Jesus now? Does Jesus love you?'" she said.

Middleton finds that the car is a good place to connect with older children, too.

When she worked a youth minister, she said, "if I wanted to talk about spiritual topics, often I could accomplish more in the vehicle on the way to a camping trip or a mission trip than at the destination. You have a captive audience, the kids don't have to look at you eye-to-eye, and they're more relaxed." Teens would open up about things that bothered them ("I'm mad at God because my grandpa died") and were willing to discuss topics such as a news item or song on the radio.

Audio books

Hammons recently listened to an audio version of "The Chronicles of Narnia" with her three children, who are 9, 8 and 4. Out of the car, she said, audio books might not engage the kids' attention, "but they'll listen in the car, especially if Mom gets into it with them."

But Mimi Doe, an author and founder of the Web site SpiritualParenting.com, said parents needn't feel they must fill every moment of commuting time with spiritual curricula. She urged parents to use car time to downshift from the hectic pace of the day. Turn off the cellphone and radio, and enjoy the silence.

"Don't make this another thing to add to your to-do list," she said. "Turn the car into an oasis, a serenity tank on wheels. Think of it as a moveable platform for connectivity with your kids."

Susan Garrett, co-author of "Making Time for God: Daily Devotions for Children and Families to Share," said parent-chauffeurs should keep in mind the most powerful teaching tool: example. An outburst of road rage teaches many lessons, but not the ones parents want.

"We are always imparting spiritual values, whether conscious of it or not," said Garrett, a New Testament professor at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

"Children are absorbing all kinds of information about how we respond to situations, the way we deal with people, how we respond to stress."

Doe recommended that parents invoke a universal spiritual practice in the car: being present in the moment. Instead of getting caught up in the rush or bemoaning an onerous driving schedule, she said, use driving duty to consciously appreciate time with children.

Because, believe it or not, carpool won't last forever.

"Once your children are driving themselves," she said, "you will deeply miss your time in the car with them."

By Mary Jacobs
The Dallas Morning News

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Scientists who believe in God are speaking out

Today, scientists who embrace religion are beginning to speak out about their faith.

"It should not be a taboo subject, but frankly it often is in scientific circles," said Francis S. Collins, who directs the National Human Genome Research Institute. He speaks freely about his Christian faith.

Although they embrace religious faith, these scientists also embrace science as it has been defined for centuries. That is, they look to the natural world for explanations of what happens in the natural world. And they recognize that scientific ideas must be provisional -- capable of being overturned by evidence from experimentation and observation.

This belief in science sets them apart from those who endorse creationism or its doctrinal cousin, intelligent design, both of which depend on the existence of a supernatural force.

Their belief in God challenges colleagues who regard religious belief as little more than magical thinking, as some do. Their faith also challenges believers who denounce science as a godless enterprise and scientists as secular elitists contemptuous of God-fearing people.

Some scientists say simply that science and religion are two separate realms -- "non-overlapping magisteria," as the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould put it in his book Rocks of Ages (Ballantine, 1999).

Collins, who is working on a book about his religious faith, thinks that people should not have to keep religious beliefs and scientific theories strictly separate. "I don't find it very satisfactory, and I don't find it very necessary," he said in an interview.

He noted that until relatively recently, most scientists were believers. "Isaac Newton wrote a lot more about the Bible than the laws of nature," he said.

According to a much-discussed survey reported in the journal Nature in 1997, 40 percent of biologists, physicists and mathematicians said they believed in God -- and not just a non-specific transcendental presence but, as the survey put it, a God to whom one may pray "in expectation of receiving an answer."

The survey, by Edward J. Larson of the University of Georgia, was intended to replicate one conducted in 1914, and the results were virtually unchanged. In both cases, participants were drawn from a directory of American scientists.

By Cornelia Dean
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

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Sundays no longer day of rest for many

It's a change emblematic of a societal shift, where the day traditionally known for rest, reflection and togetherness is now filled with work, chores and errands.

The day has become an extension of Saturday, another day needed for errands, soccer practice or shopping.

The observance of Sunday has disappeared, said Alexis McCrossen, a history professor at Southern Methodist University. McCrossen, 38, wrote Holy Day, Holiday, The American Sunday, a book about the history that shaped Sundays because of her own confusion about the disappearance of the day of rest that she enjoyed as a child with her family.

It's not news to IHOP waitress Natasha Lopez, 22. "It's gone. There's no longer a Sunday. It shouldn't even be on a calendar," she said. "When I was little we didn't even watch TV on Sunday, now it's work, work, work."

On an average weekend or holiday, 33 percent of full-time workers are on the job, according to a 2003 survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The same survey found that full-time workers spent about eight hours working on an average weekday compared with about six hours working on an average weekend.

Even those who do go to church, also mow their lawns or run errands on Sunday.

Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, said he believes Sunday mornings still have a slightly Norman Rockwell feel to them.

"It's almost as though, Sunday morning still has a little bit of a sacred air to it: you hear church bells, you get to sleep in."

But that all comes to a screeching halt by midafternoon, he said, when malls open and sports games begin.

"The big change is that you do have a lot of people where Sunday isn't organized around church and the family dinner," Thompson said.

According to the North American Religion Atlas, Arizona is among the least churched states in the nation, with 59 percent of its population unaffiliated or uncounted by any religious body.

So that image of honoring Sundays as the Lord's day doesn't resonate as it once did.

So what happened?

Historically, laws helped make Americans rest. Blue laws restricted alcohol sales. During the 19th century, gardening, bicycling and sports were also banned on Sundays.

By the turn of the 20th century, there was a shift in what rest meant, recreation was embraced.

By the 1960s and 1970s, legal mandates regulating Sundays were fading away, and then came the Internet paving the way for 24-hour commerce. "Today you can do practically anything you want at any time of day, without boundaries or limits."

"There's no rhythm anymore to our common life, you can schedule things at any time," McCrossen said.

"Nobody relaxes on Sunday anymore."

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Friday, August 26, 2005

In Search of the Spiritual

In sepulchral black and red, the cover of Time magazine dated April 8, 1966 - Good Friday - introduced millions of readers to existential anguish with the question Is God Dead? If he was, the likely culprit was science, whose triumph was deemed so complete that "what cannot be known [by scientific methods] seems uninteresting, unreal."

What was dying in 1966 was a well-meaning but arid theology born of rationalism: a wavering trumpet call for ethical behavior, a search for meaning in a letter to the editor in favor of civil rights. What would be born in its stead, in a cycle of renewal that has played itself out many times since the Temple of Solomon, was a passion for an immediate, transcendent experience of God. And a uniquely American acceptance of the amazingly diverse paths people have taken to find it.

Of 1,004 respondents to the NEWSWEEK/Beliefnet Poll, 45 percent said they attend worship services weekly, virtually identical to the figure (44 percent) in a Gallup poll cited by Time in 1966. Then as now, however, there is probably a fair amount of wishful thinking in those figures; researchers who have done actual head counts in churches think the figure is probably more like 20 percent.

The fastest-growing category on surveys that ask people to give their religious affiliation, says Patricia O'Connell Killen of Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., is "none." But "spirituality," the impulse to seek communion with the Divine, is thriving. The Poll found that more Americans, especially those younger than 60, described themselves as "spiritual" (79 percent) than "religious" (64 percent). Almost two thirds of Americans say they pray every day, and nearly a third meditate.

Along with diversity has come a degree of inclusiveness that would have scandalized an earlier generation. Eight in 10 Americans - including 68 percent of evangelicals - believe that more than one faith can be a path to salvation, which is most likely not what they were taught in Sunday school. One out of five respondents said he had switched religions as an adult.

This is not surprising in the United States, which for much of its history was a spiritual hothouse in which Methodism, Mormonism, Adventism, Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses and the Nation of Islam all took root and flourished. In America even atheists are spiritualists, searching for meaning in parapsychology and near-death experiences. There is a streak in the United States of relying on what Pacific Lutheran's Killen calls "individual visceral experience" to validate religious ideas. American faiths have long been characterized by creativity and individualism. "That's their secret to success," says Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. "Rather than being about a god who commands you, it's about finding a religion that empowers you."

Empowerment requires intensity of effort; Americans like the idea of taking responsibility for their own souls. This may be why Buddhism - a religion without a personal god and only a few broad ethical precepts - has made such inroads in the American imagination. "People are looking for transformative experience, not just a new creed or dogma," says Surya Das, a U.S.-born Tibetan lama whose spiritual journey began in 1970, when he was a student from New York's Long Island named Jeffrey Miller. "The Ten Commandments and Sermon on the Mount are already there." In most Buddhist countries, and among immigrants in America, the role of the layperson is to support the monks in their lives of contemplation. But American converts want to do their own contemplating. Stephen Cope, who attended Episcopal divinity school but later trained as a psychotherapist, dropped into a meditation center in Cambridge, Mass., one day and soon found himself spending six hours every Sunday sitting and walking in silent contemplation. Then he added yoga to his routine, which he happily describes as "like gasoline on fire" when it comes to igniting a meditative state. And the great thing is, he still attends his Episcopal church—a perfect example of the new American spirituality, with a thirst for transcendence too powerful to be met by just one religion.

People like that could become panentheists, too - a new term for people who believe in the divinity of the natural universe (like the better-known Pantheists), but also postulate an intelligent being or force behind it. To Bridgette O'Brien, a 32-year-old student in the recently created Ph.D. program in Religion and Nature at the University of Florida, "the divine is something significant in terms of the energy that pervades the natural world at large." Her worship consists of composting, recycling and daily five-mile runs; she describes herself as "the person that picks the earthworms off the sidewalk after the rain to make sure they don't get stepped on." Those seeking a more structured nature-based religion have many choices, including several branches of Druidism. "I talk to my ancestors, the spirits of nature and other deities on a regular basis," says Isaac Bonewits, a 55-year-old New Yorker who founded one of the best-known Druid orders. Wicca, the largest Pagan sect, with an elaborate calendar of seasonal holidays and rituals, is popular enough to demand its own military chaplains. Un-fortunately from the political standpoint, Wiccans refer to themselves as "witches," although they do not, in fact, worship Satan. This confusion led President Bush, when he was Texas governor, to urge the Army to reconsider allowing Wiccan rites at a military base, with the comment "I don't think witchcraft is a religion."

So, a generation after the question was posed, we can certainly answer that God seems very much alive in the hearts of those who seek him. We have come a long way, it would appear, from that dark year when the young Catholic philosopher Michael Novak was quoted in Time, saying, "If, occasionally, I raise my heart in prayer, it is to no God I can see, or hear, or feel." To make the point, we gave Novak, who is now 72 and among the most distinguished theologians in America, the chance to correct the record on his youthful despair. And he replied that God is as far away as he's ever been. Religious revivals are always exuberant and filled with spirit, he says, but the true measure of faith is in adversity and despair, when God doesn't show up in every blade of grass or storefront church. "That's when the true nature of belief comes out," he says. "Joy is appropriate to the beginnings of your faith. But sooner or later somebody will get cancer, or your best friends will betray you. That's when you will be tested."

By Jerry Adler
Newsweek
Aug. 29 - Sept. 5, 2005 issue
With Anne Underwood, Ben Whitford, Juliet Chung, Vanessa Juarez, Dan Berrett and Lorraine Ali
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

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Monday, August 22, 2005

Newsweek Poll Finds Majority of Americans Consider Spirituality 'Very Important' in Their Daily Lives

Fifty-seven percent of Americans consider spirituality a very important part of their daily lives, according to a Newsweek/Beliefnet poll, conducted August 2-4, 2005.

But not all of those polled define spirituality in terms of a traditional religion. While the majority (55%) report that they are religious and spiritual, a significant number (24%) consider themselves spiritual, but not religious.

Of those who say they follow a religion (64%), 19 percent say that they are not traditional in how they practice it. That number jumps to 29 percent of those in the 18-39-age bracket, according to the poll, which is part of the August 29-September 5 issue (on newsstands Monday, August 22). In this double issue, Newsweek examines the rise of spirituality in America and looks at why many Americans are choosing to seek spiritual experiences outside the framework of traditional religions.

Experts say that American religions have always been characterized by creativity and individualism. "That's their secret to success," says Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. "Rather than being about a god who commands you, it's about finding a religion that empowers you."

According to the Poll, non-Christians are most likely to explore ideas or practices of faiths outside their own. Forty-eight percent of non-Christians said they often or sometimes take part in an activity associated with another religion, whereas 68 percent of evangelical Protestants say they hardly ever or never do. Sixty-eight percent of non-evangelical Protestants and 64 percent of Catholics hardly ever or never participate in outside practices.

The Poll also points to a wide variation in how Americans incorporate their spirituality into their daily lives. Sixty-four percent say that they pray every single day, while 21 percent participate in a spiritual activity not connected with a traditional church or house of worship. Only two percent attend church or worship services on a daily basis.

Despite the growth of non-traditional religions, most Americans consider themselves Christian. Eighty-five percent of those polled are Christian, compared to five percent who say they are non-Christian and six percent who say they are agnostic or have no religion. Thirty-three percent of Americans classify themselves as evangelical Protestants, while 25 percent say they are non-evangelical Protestants, and 22 percent are Roman Catholic. Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism each account for one percent of religious Americans.

Of those with a religion, Catholics -- at 91 percent-are the most likely to believe that a good person from a different faith could achieve salvation, the poll found. Evangelical Protestants were the least likely to believe this, with 68 percent agreeing that someone outside their religion could go to heaven, while 83 percent of non-evangelical Christians and 73 percent of non-Christians agreed.

Beliefs about the origins of the universe and life after death remain fairly consistent across different religious practices. Ninety-two percent of Americans with a traditional religion believe that God created the Universe compared to 74 percent of those with a non-traditional religion. Seventy-nine percent of those with a traditional religion believe that the soul goes to heaven or hell after death versus 59 percent of those in a non-traditional religious practice.

The Poll also found that most Americans continue practicing the religion in which they were raised. Sixty-eight percent say their religion is the same or mostly the same as their religion as a child, versus 20 percent who say their religion is different or mostly different. Of those who changed religions, the number of Americans that now classify themselves as evangelical Christians represents about a ten-percent increase over the number who say they were raised as non-evangelicals.

To interview Society Editor Lisa Miller on the poll, please call Andrea Faville at 212-445-4859.

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Monday, August 15, 2005

Scientists' spirituality surprises

America's scientists are a surprisingly spiritual group, according to a survey in which almost 70 percent agreed "there are basic truths" in religion, and 68 percent classified themselves as a "spiritual person."

Overall, about a third said "I do not believe in God" in the analysis, which polled 1,646 scientists at 21 research universities across the nation.

The findings mirror a similar study of physicians released by the University of Chicago last month, which revealed 76 percent of the 2,000 doctors surveyed said they believed in God.

"Science is often perceived as incompatible with religion and spirituality, but few have asked how scientists themselves think about religion," said study director Elaine Howard Ecklund, a sociologist at Rice University in Houston.

Previous studies have indicated that as few as 7 percent of the nation's top scientists said they believed in God. However, change may be afoot.

"In general, those in the academy may not be as irreligious as some academic and popular commentators would like to think," Mrs. Ecklund writes in her study, "Religion Among Academic Scientists."

Physicists and biologists were the least spiritual -- 41 percent in both groups said they did not believe in God. Among political scientists, the number was 27 percent -- the lowest in the bunch.

The social scientists were more devout: 30 percent said they prayed, compared with 22 percent of the natural scientists. Another 28 percent of the social scientists regularly read a "sacred text," compared with 20 percent of the natural scientists.

"Based on previous research, we thought that social scientists would be less likely to practice religion than natural scientists are, but our data showed just the opposite," Mrs. Ecklund said.

She presented her findings yesterday before the Association for the Sociology of Religion in Philadelphia and plans to expand on the research.

University of Chicago researchers were equally enthusiastic about their survey. They found that 59 percent believed in an afterlife, 90 percent attended religious services, and 55 percent said their religious beliefs influenced how they practiced medicine.

"We did not think physicians were nearly this religious," said study author Dr. Farr Curlin.

By Jennifer Harper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

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Friday, August 12, 2005

Creationism rift opens within The Vatican

A deep rift has opened within the Catholic church over the theory of evolution and its compatibility with the Christian faith.

The Vatican’s chief astronomer, George Coyne, has rebuffed controversial comments made by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn in The New York Times on 7 July that evolution is incompatible with a belief in God.

“The waters have again been darkened” writes Coyne in the latest issue of the UK Catholic weekly, The Tablet. His article follows another flare-up in the debate, when US president George W Bush commented on Monday that schools should teach children about “intelligent design”. Proponents of this idea believe that science can be used to find evidence of a creator’s design in nature.

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush said. "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

In his article, Schönborn dismissed as “rather vague and unimportant” a statement made by Pope John Paul II in 1996 which seemed to indicate the church’s acceptance of evolution. “Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science,” Schönborn wrote.

But Coyne, a Jesuit priest from the US, slammed these comments. He writes that the “nagging fear” that a universe explained by scientific concepts “escapes God’s dominion” is “groundless”.

He calls for an extensive dialogue. “But we should not close off the dialogue and darken the already murky waters by fearing that God will be abandoned if we embrace the best of modern science,” he urges.

NewScientist.com news service

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Is prayer effective as a painkiller?

Americans have found a no-cost painkiller they say is as effective as prescription drugs: prayer.

More than half of those who responded to a USA TODAY/ABC News/Stanford University Medical Center poll released Monday say they use prayer to control pain. Of those,
- 90% say it worked well, and
- 51% say "very well."

Among a dozen therapies, including bed rest, massage and herbal remedies, only prescription drugs were as successful as prayer in easing pain:
- 89% report that such drugs work well and
- 51% say "very well."

This comes as no surprise to preachers and doctors who say they have seen the way personal faith can influence a patient's reaction to all kinds of pain, psychological or physical.

Columbia University psychologist Richard Sloan says it has more to do with the power of distraction than the power of prayer.

"If you try to distract yourself by focusing on something else -- prayer or something else -- I do think it works," he says. "I don't think it's anything special about prayer. It's any kind of mental activity that serves to distract you from the pain-producing circumstances."

Hundreds of papers have been published on the possible link between faith and health, but scientifically, "it's very hard to measure," says John Tarpley, professor of surgery at Vanderbilt University.

Pain, in particular, is subjective and can be influenced by a variety of factors that are difficult to assess by scientific standards.

"What we have to worry about is the difference between showing association and causation," says Tarpley, who teaches a class on spirituality and medicine at Vanderbilt.

For some deeply religious people, pain can be redemptive, but faith also can carry an extra burden.

"In African-American belief, (often) pain is part of what we are expected to endure," says Glenda Hodges, director of a course in spirituality and medicine at Howard University's College of Medicine.

Harold Koenig, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University says that faith and medicine "work beautifully together. Just praying alone doesn't work as well as if you're (also) taking your morphine."

Koenig and colleagues reported last month in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease that among sickle cell patients, those who go to church at least once a week had the lowest pain scores.

"People who are more involved with religious organizations seem to be able to cope with stress," Koenig says.

By Anita Manning
USA TODAY

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Thursday, August 11, 2005

Balance of power between doctors and patients has been shifting

Many US doctors believe that the religious convictions of their patients should outweigh their own professional advice when it comes to making certain medical decisions. When the patient is a child, however, a large majority of doctors say that they, and not the child's guardian, should have the final say, regardless of the guardian's religious beliefs.

These findings and others come from a survey of 794 physicians nationwide who answered various questions about religion and its effect on healthcare in the United States in an August poll.

Overall,
- 23 percent of physicians said that religion has a negative effect on healthcare in the United States,
- 30 percent said it has a negligible effect, and
- 47 percent said that religion has a positive effect on healthcare.

When asked how religion most affects healthcare, more than two-thirds of respondents said it's through patients' personal decisions, and a quarter of the group said it affects healthcare through political action. Only a few - seven percent -- said that religion most affected healthcare through its influence on physicians.

"Something's happening in the power relationship between physicians and patients," according to Dr. Arthur J. Kover, a management fellow at Yale University's School of Management and a consultant with HCD Research, the New Jersey-based market research company that conducted the poll.

"Until recently the power was in the hands of physicians... (but) the balance of power has been shifting," he told Reuters Health.

The reasons for this shift may be multifaceted but Kover, also a sociologist, said it is partly due to direct-to-consumer drug advertising and consumers' religious beliefs. He says both are helping to move some of the power away from doctors and into the hands of consumers.

- 57 percent of the physicians surveyed said that a patient's religious reason for a medical course of action should trump a doctor's treatment advice.
- 43 percent said it should not.

When it comes to making healthcare decisions for children, however, nearly 84 percent of doctors agreed that a physician's medical decision should not be overridden by the religious beliefs of a child's guardian.

The respondents were almost evenly divided about whether saving a person's life justifies violating their religious beliefs, with 51 percent saying that saving a person's life does not justify that religious violation.

Fifty-five percent of physicians surveyed said they were not concerned about the influence of religion on healthcare in this country, however. This may be explained by the finding that over two-thirds of doctors said a patient's religious beliefs "infrequently" or "rarely, perhaps never" interfered with his or her health, while 30 percent of doctors said that a patient's religious beliefs often or occasionally interfered.

In other findings, when asked which particular religion has the most beneficial or harmful effect on healthcare, more than 50 percent of physicians said that "no religion has a more beneficial effect than any other" and slightly more than 25 percent said "no religion has a more harmful effect than any other."

By Charnicia E. Huggins

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Monday, August 08, 2005

Object Bigger than Pluto Discovered, Called 10th Planet

Astronomers have discovered an object in our solar system that is larger than Pluto. They are calling it the 10th planet, but already that claim is contested.

The new world's size is not at issue. But the very definition of planethood is.

It is the first time an object so big has been found in our solar system since the discovery of Pluto 75 years ago.

The announcement, made today by Mike Brown of Caltech, came just hours after another newfound object, one slightly smaller than Pluto, was revealed in a very confusing day for astronomers and the media.

The new object, temporarily named 2003 UB313, is about three times as far from the Sun as is Pluto.

"It's definitely bigger than Pluto," said Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy. The object is round and could be up to twice as large as Pluto, Brown told reporters in a hastily called NASA-run teleconference Friday evening.

His best estimate is that it is 2,100 miles wide, about 1-1/2 times the diameter of Pluto.

One of many?

The object is inclined by a whopping 45 degrees to the main plane of the solar system, where most of the other planets orbit. That's why it eluded discovery: nobody was looking there until now, Brown said.

Some astronomers view it as a Kuiper Belt object and not a planet. The Kuiper Belt is a region of frozen objects beyond Neptune.

Pluto is called a Kuiper Belt object by many astronomers. Brown himself has argued in the past for Pluto's demotion from planet status, because of its diminutive size and eccentric and inclined orbit.

But today he struck a different note.

"Pluto has been a planet for so long that the world is comfortable with that," Brown said in the teleconference. "It seems to me a logical extension that anything bigger than Pluto and farther out is a planet."

Offering additional justification, Brown said 2003 UB313 appears to be surfaced with methane ice, as is Pluto. That's not the case with other large Kuiper Belt objects, however.

"This object is in a class very much like Pluto," he said.

NASA effectively endorsed the idea in an official statement that referred to 2003 UB313 as the 10th planet.

No definition for 'planet'

Brian Marsden, who runs the Minor Planet Center where data on objects like this are collected, says that if Pluto is a planet, then other round objects nearly as large as Pluto ought to be called planets. On that logic, 2003 UB313 would perhaps be a planet, but it would have to get in line behind a handful of others that were discovered previously.

"I would not call it the 10th planet," Marsden told SPACE.com.

Alan Boss, a planet-formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, called the discovery "a major step." But Boss would not call it a planet at all. Instead, he said Pluto and other small objects beyond Neptune should be called, at best, "Kuiper Belt planets."

By Robert Roy Britt

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Ingredients of Life 10 Billion Light-Years Away

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found the ingredients for life all the way back to a time when the universe was a mere youngster.

Using Spitzer, scientists have detected organic molecules in galaxies when our universe was one-fourth of its current age of about 14 billion years. These large molecules, known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, are comprised of carbon and hydrogen. The molecules are considered to be among the building blocks of life.

These complex molecules are very common on Earth. They form any time carbon-based materials are not burned completely. They can be found in sooty exhaust from cars and airplanes, and in charcoal broiled hamburgers and burnt toast.

The molecules, pervasive in galaxies like our own Milky Way, play a significant role in star and planet formation. Spitzer is the first telescope to see these molecules so far back in time.

"This is 10 billion years further back in time than we've seen them before," said Dr. Lin Yan of the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. Yan is lead author of a study to be published in the August 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal. Previous missions -- the Infrared Astronomical Satellite and the Infrared Space Observatory -- detected these types of galaxies and molecules much closer to our own Milky Way galaxy. Spitzer's sensitivity is 100 times greater than these previous infrared telescope missions, enabling direct detection of organics so far away.

Since Earth is approximately four-and-a-half billion years old, these organic materials existed in the universe well before our planet and solar system were formed and may have even been the seeds of our solar system.

"These complex compounds tell us that by the time we see these galaxies, several generations of stars have already been formed," said Dr. George Helou of the Spitzer Science Center, a co-author of the study. "Planets and life had very early opportunities to emerge in the universe."

For information on the Spitzer Space Telescope visit: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media .

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Friday, August 05, 2005

Environmental damage seen from space shuttle

Commander Eileen Collins said astronauts on shuttle Discovery had seen widespread environmental destruction on Earth and warned on Thursday that greater care was needed to protect natural resources.

Her comments came as NASA pondered whether to send astronauts out on an extra spacewalk to repair additional heat-protection damage on the first shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia disaster.

Discovery is linked with the International Space Station and orbiting 220 miles above the Earth.

"Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there is deforestation. It's very widespread in some parts of the world," Collins said in a conversation from space with Japanese officials in Tokyo, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

"We would like to see, from the astronauts' point of view, people take good care of the Earth and replace the resources that have been used," said Collins, who was standing with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi in front of a Japanese flag and holding a colorful fan.

Collins, flying her fourth shuttle mission, said the view from space made clear that Earth's atmosphere must be protected, too.

"The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it's so very thin," she said. "We know that we don't have much air, we need to protect what we have."

By Jeff Franks

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Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Survey Shows That Physicians Are More Religious Than Expected

The first study of physician religious beliefs has found that 76 percent of doctors believe in God and 59 percent believe in some sort of afterlife. The survey, performed by researchers at the University of Chicago and published (early online) in the July 2005 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that 90 percent of doctors in the United States attend religious services at least occasionally, compared to 81 percent of all adults. Fifty-five percent of doctors say their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine.

These results were not anticipated. Religious belief tends to decrease as education and income levels increase, yet doctors are highly educated and, on average, well compensated. The finding also differs radically from 90 years of studies showing that only a minority of scientists (excluding physicians) believes in God or an afterlife.

"We did not think physicians were nearly this religious," said study author Farr Curlin, MD, instructor in the department of medicine and a member of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago. "We suspect that people who combine an aptitude for science with an interest in religion and an affinity for public service are particularly attracted to medicine. The responsibility to care for those who are suffering, and the rewards of helping those in need, resonate throughout most religious traditions."

Although physicians are nearly as religious as the general population, their specific beliefs often differ from those of their patients. While more than 80 percent of patients describe themselves at Protestant or Catholic, only 60 percent of physicians come from either group.

Physicians are 26 times more likely to be Hindu than the overall U.S. population (5.3 percent of doctors vs. 0.2 percent of non-physicians). Doctors are seven times more likely to be Jewish (14.1 percent vs. 1.9 percent), six times more likely to be Buddhist (1.2 percent vs. 0.2 percent), and five times more likely to be Muslim (2.7 percent vs. 0.5 percent).

Although doctors are more likely than the general population to attend religious services, they are less willing to "apply their religious beliefs to other areas of life," the researchers found. Sixty-one percent of doctors say they "try to make sense" of a difficult situation and "decide what to do without relying on God," versus only 29 percent of the general population.

"We have paid a good deal of attention to the religious beliefs of patients and how their faith influences medical decisions," Curlin said, "but until now no one has looked in the same way at physicians, the other half of every doctor-patient relationship. These findings lead us to further wonder how doctors' faiths shape their clinical encounters."

Inquiries into the religious beliefs, or the lack of them, among U.S. scientists date back to a landmark 1916 survey by psychologist James Leuba that documented widespread disbelief. Leuba found that only 40 percent of scientists believed in a personal God, 15 percent were uncertain and 45 percent disbelieved.

Surveys published in Nature in 1997 and 1998, showed little change since 1916, with only 39 percent of all scientists declaring a personal belief in God. Belief among "leading" scientists, however--defined in this case as members of the National Academy of Sciences--was far lower: only seven percent in 1998. Curiously, among scientists, mathematicians were the most likely to believe in God and biologists the least likely.

Although physicians have extensive training in biology, the study by Curlin and colleagues paints a very different picture, showing high levels of belief.

The survey revealed considerable variation between different medical specialties. Doctors in family practice and pediatrics were far more likely to carry their religious belief into "all my other dealings" and to look to God for "support and guidance." Psychiatrists and radiologists were the least likely.

Christian, Mormon, and Buddhist doctors were the most likely to say “my religious beliefs influence my practice of medicine." Jewish and Hindu physicians were the least likely. Physicians from the South and Midwest were slightly more religious than those from the East and West.

The survey used a 12-page questionnaire mailed to a random sample of 2,000 U.S. practicing physicians; 63 percent responded to one of three mailings. The researchers did not find evidence that religious physicians were more likely to respond that those who are not religious. Results from this survey were compared with the 1998 General Social Survey, which examines demographic and opinion variables in a sampling of U.S. households.

The next step, said Curlin, who describes himself as an "orthodox Christian in the Protestant tradition," is to begin to look at how a doctors' religious (or secular) beliefs and values might influence the way they care for patients.

The Greenwall Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program funded the study. Additional authors include John Lantos, MD; Chad Roach; Sarah Sellergren; and Marshall Chin, MD--all from the University of Chicago.

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Monday, August 01, 2005

US 13-year-olds are fairly conservative: Time poll

It might surprise their parents, in the age of graphic lyrics and violent video games, American children entering their teens remain very cautious about sex and dating and still trust their parents and church, according to the newest edition of Time magazine.

In a story on the lives and thinking of American 13-year-olds, Time reports that
* 60% of the 500 surveyed by the magazine are against sex before marriage, and
* 63% believe they are too young to date at their age.

The 21-page cover feature characterizes kids at 13 as "backstage adults" in a particularly precarious formative period.

"It is the age of childhood leaning forward and adulthood holding back, when the world gets suddenly closer, the colors more vivid, the rules subject to never ending argument," writes Time editor Nancy Gibbs.

If anything is surprising in Time's feature, it is how normal and conservative-in a day of provocative music videos, widespread internet access, and lurid cable television shows- today's 13-year-olds are.

* 90% of those polled on line by the magazine said their relationship with their parents is good or excellent and
* only 7% said their parents were too strict. And
* 63% consider their religious faith at least somewhat important in their lives.