TruthBook Religious News Blog

In its June 9-11 survey, 72 percent of those polled told Gallup and USA Today interviewers that they had always had the same religious preference.

Another 15 percent said they had switched from one religion to another, while 10 percent said they had moved away from religion.

When those who had switched were asked why they had done so, the top two reasons were disagreement with the teachings of their original religion (40 percent) and finding a new religion that was more fulfilling (38 percent).

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Sunday, June 11, 2006

Man who cracked the genome now says he believes in God

THE scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to publish a book explaining why he now believes in the existence of God and is convinced that miracles are real.

Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man “closer to God”.

His book, The Language of God, to be published in September, will reopen the age-old debate about the relationship between science and faith. “One of the great tragedies of our time is this impression that has been created that science and religion have to be at war,” said Collins, 56.

“I don’t see that as necessary at all and I think it is deeply disappointing that the shrill voices that occupy the extremes of this spectrum have dominated the stage for the past 20 years.”

For Collins, unravelling the human genome did not create a conflict in his mind. Instead, it allowed him to “glimpse at the workings of God”.

“When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found it,” he said. “But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no human knew before but God knew all along.

“When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going through page after page without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.”

Collins joins a line of scientists whose research deepened their belief in God. Isaac Newton, whose discovery of the laws of gravity reshaped our understanding of the universe, said: “This most beautiful system could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.”

Although Einstein revolutionised our thinking about time, gravity and the conversion of matter to energy, he believed the universe had a creator. “I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details,” he said. However Galileo was famously questioned by the inquisition and put on trial in 1633 for the “heresy” of claiming that the earth moved around the sun.

Among Collins’s most controversial beliefs is that of “theistic evolution”, which claims natural selection is the tool that God chose to create man. In his version of the theory, he argues that man will not evolve further.

“I see God’s hand at work through the mechanism of evolution. If God chose to create human beings in his image and decided that the mechanism of evolution was an elegant way to accomplish that goal, who are we to say that is not the way,” he says.

“Scientifically, the forces of evolution by natural selection have been profoundly affected for humankind by the changes in culture and environment and the expansion of the human species to 6 billion members. So what you see is pretty much what you get.”

Collins was an atheist until the age of 27, when as a young doctor he was impressed by the strength that faith gave to some of his most critical patients.

“They had terrible diseases from which they were probably not going to escape, and yet instead of railing at God they seemed to lean on their faith as a source of great comfort and reassurance,” he said. “That was interesting, puzzling and unsettling.”

He decided to visit a Methodist minister and was given a copy of C S Lewis’s Mere Christianity, which argues that God is a rational possibility. The book transformed his life. “It was an argument I was not prepared to hear,” he said. “I was very happy with the idea that God didn’t exist, and had no interest in me. And yet at the same time, I could not turn away.”

His epiphany came when he went hiking through the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. He said: “It was a beautiful afternoon and suddenly the remarkable beauty of creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, ‘I cannot resist this another moment’.”

Collins believes that science cannot be used to refute the existence of God because it is confined to the “natural” world. In this light he believes miracles are a real possibility. “If one is willing to accept the existence of God or some supernatural force outside nature then it is not a logical problem to admit that, occasionally, a supernatural force might stage an invasion,” he says.

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Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Poll: Canadians prefer private spirituality

Canadians shun houses of worship and formal religious exercise in favor of private spiritual practice such as prayer, meditation or reading religious books, a new federal study suggests.

The Statistics Canada survey, based on data collected in 2002 and 2004, shows that while only one-third of adult Canadians attend religious services at least monthly, more than half engage in religious activities of their own at least once a month.

The study—titled "Who's Religious?"—seems to confirm what many observers have noted for years: most Canadians prefer private spirituality to formal religious expression.

The report found that the percentage of Canadians who have not attended religious services in the past year rose to 25 percent in 2004, up from 21 percent in 2000. Canadians aged 15 and older were surveyed.

"Most striking," the report notes, "was the proportion of Canadians who infrequently or never attend services, yet regularly engage in personal religious practices.

"Of those who infrequently attended religious services over the year prior to the survey, 37 percent said they engaged in religious practices on their own on a weekly basis. And of those who had not attended any religious services over the previous year, 27 percent said they engaged in weekly religious practices on their own."

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early Half of Americans Believe in Creationism

Almost half of Americans believe that human beings did not evolve, but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years or so, results from a new Gallup Poll revealed.

In a May 8-11 survey of American beliefs on evolution, 46 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.

In comparison, only 13 percent chose the answer: “Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.”

According to the poll results, which were released Monday, the biggest factor in determining the answer was religion. Almost two-thirds of Americans who attend church at least once a week believe that humans were created in their present form, compared to 29 percent of those who say they never attend church.

Analysts also found a strong correlation between the level of education and the response. About three-quarters of those with a post-graduate degree said humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, compared to just 22 percent choosing the “created in present form” option.

According to Gallup, the poll shows that Americans’ view on the origin of life has remained constant for decades. Since 1982, when the poll first began, between 44 and 47 percent of Americans have consistently agreed with the option that God created humans in their present form, and between 9 and 13 percent believed man evolved without guidance from God. This was the seventh time the poll was conducted.

Meanwhile, 36 percent of Americans agreed with a third option, that man evolved with the guidance of God through millions of years.