TruthBook Religious News Blog

A Christian Science perspective on daily life.
from the February 26, 2008 edition

The United States has yet to achieve "liberty and justice for all" – the concluding words of its Pledge of Allegiance – but few would deny that the nation has made great strides in that direction. In part, Black History Month celebrates that progress toward freedom.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus recognized people's need for freedom – regardless of race – and he explained how to get it. He said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). If to "know the truth" means to know God, divine Truth, Jesus' promise can be paraphrased this way: "Ye shall know divine Truth, and divine Truth shall make you free."

Knowing God as divine Truth includes understanding and believing what's divinely true about ourselves and others – that God created us in His image (see Gen. 1:27). Viewing others from that perspective makes hatred hard to justify.

Perhaps that's the reason love, like truth, figures so prominently in Jesus' teachings. In his Sermon on the Mount, he said, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies ..." (Matt. 5:43, 44).

The Monitor's founder, Mary Baker Eddy, emphasized the power of divine Love as well. In her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she identified Love as a synonym for God (see p. 587) and explained, "... Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity" (p. 517).

Importing that "clearest idea of Deity" into Jesus' statement sheds new light on freedom with this paraphrase: "Ye shall know divine Love, and divine Love shall make you free." Free of hatred, envy, strife, even of physical and mental illnesses. But also free to see the reality of each individual's spiritual nature as the son and daughter of an all-loving God.

The Negro spiritual that Dr. Martin Luther King quoted at the end of his "I have a dream" speech makes a specific connection between love and freedom as well. The speech concludes, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" The Negro spiritual ends, "For I never felt such a love before,/ Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."

That love "never felt ... before" is God's liberating love, the driving force behind Dr. King's fight for civil rights. In a sermon titled "Loving your enemies," King described a few strategic reasons for loving those who hate you. Then he noted, "An even more basic reason why we are commanded to love is expressed explicitly in Jesus' words, 'Love your enemies ... that ye may be children of your Father which is in heaven.' " And a few lines later he added, "We must love our enemies, because only by loving them can we know God and experience the beauty of his holiness" ("Strength to Love," p. 55).

Hating our enemies blinds us to God's love for us – and for them. God is Love and God is All, so He can't know anything unlike Love. And as God's ideas, or reflection, we can't know anything unlike Love either. That doesn't appear to be the case from our limited, mortal perspective, but as we replace our material view of things with the divine reality, whatever basis for hatred we thought existed disappears.

That change – or spiritualization – of thought and action is the only way to keep our end of the bargain. Both Jesus and King urge us to know God, divine Love, by living love. And if we do our part, God will certainly do His: Divine Love will make us free. And not only will those who love their enemies be freed, but the enemies themselves will be released from hatred's grasp. That's the way divine Love operates – impartially, universally, unconditionally, irresistibly.

Mrs. Eddy wrote, "Love is the liberator" (Science and Health, p. 225.) King and his followers proved that fact in their day, and we can continue to prove it in ours.

Labels: freedom, God, Jesus, love, Martin Luther King Jr., Mary Baker Eddy

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Think organic, then take a big holistic leap to biodynamics

Some very good winemakers have embraced a practice that adds a spiritual level to the vineyard

Page 1 of 4 - Please click on external source for complete article

BILL ZACHARKIW, The Gazette

Published: Saturday, February 23

"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion...It should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, and a meaningful unity between the two." - A smart guy who lived a while back

It is difficult to speak of biodynamics without waxing philosophic. Little known to most people, the biodynamic approach to grape growing has become one of the more controversial issues within the wine industry. What began in the early 1990s has developed into a movement whose practitioners include some of the world's best winemakers, and some of the world's most unique wines. The skeptics, who are many, see it as an incredible waste of time and money. For some, it is an affront to science and modern thinking.

So what exactly is biodynamics?

The spiritual father of the biodynamic movement is an early 20th-century Austrian philosopher, Rudolf Steiner. He didn't know anything about wine, but his teachings gave birth to anthroposophy, a spiritual philosophy or, some say, spiritual science that attempts to bridge the gap between science, art and religion.

I am far from an expert in anthroposophy, and it made my head hurt trying to figure out what it's all about. But a couple of the principles it espouses include a "human respect" for the community at large and the belief that every individual has a unique destiny. Aside from biodynamics, the Waldorf school network, which includes close to 2,500 schools worldwide, uses a holistic approach to teaching that is based on these principles.

But what does this have to do with wine?

Biodynamics is often lumped together with organic farming. However, it goes much further. While both rely on organic materials for enriching the soil and shun the use of pesticides, fertilizers and herbicides, biodynamics embraces a much more holistic vision. What I mean by this is that unlike both chemical and organic agriculture, biodynamics is not just concerned with the nutrients a plant needs to grow.

Those winemakers who practice biodynamics view the health of the vine in a more unified ecological vision. They are not only concerned with the plant, they believe the health of the vine and the ultimate quality of the resulting wine is dependent upon the health of a number of life forces - the soil, the people who work in the vineyard, and all the other plants and animals that are a part of the eco-system. Biodynamics is concerned with the subtle manipulation of these life forces, or energies, and aims to work in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

Hmmm.

Now before a bunch of you stop reading and move on to the wine reviews, just open up the left side of your brain and take a leap of faith with me. One, two, three ... okay, jump!

Biodynamics shares much with Chinese medicine, both homeopathy and acupuncture, whose basis is the manipulation of these subtle energies (chi), which they believe are within each of us.

On a practical level, this means biodynamic farmers uses homeopathic doses when treating their plants and the soil. One of the more debatable and oft-lampooned "interventions" are compost energizers that are made from plants fermented in animal bladders and bones, and ground-up rocks. Leaf sprays, used for treating and re-enforcing the vines, are made from the juice of ground-up flowers and other natural sources.

Labels: anthroposophy, BillZacharkiw, biodynamics, holistic, organic, religion, Rudolf Steiner, wine

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Science meets belief as couple put evolution in a sacred context

Science meets belief as couple put evolution in a sacred context

By Sandi Dolbee
UNION-TRIBUNE RELIGION & ETHICS EDITOR

February 23, 2008

Michael Dowd preaches an evolutionary theology.

Some say you can tell a lot about people from the cars they drive. The Rev. Michael Dowd drives a camper van with drawings of two fish, one labeled “Jesus” and the other “Darwin,” who are kissing each other with red hearts above them.

For nearly six years, Dowd, a former United Church of Christ minister, and his wife, science writer Connie Barlow, have traveled the country preaching the gospel of evolution with evangelistic zeal.

It's time to declare an end to the war between science and faith, he argues. He says the facts are indisputable: Earth and its inhabitants evolved over billions of years. But that's OK, he adds, because God, or whatever name you want to give to a higher power, was and is still involved.

“Imagine a realm of nothingness,” says Dowd, invoking an image of the beginning of time. “God is the essence of that everything. Everything that emerges is not emerging outside of God, but within God.”

In the beginning

Biblical creationism: God created the earth and everything in it over six days, as told in Genesis, the opening book of the Bible, going back roughly 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. There are varying interpretations over whether the time frame was six literal days or six long periods.

Biological evolution: Earth and its life forms developed over a gradual process, beginning with the most primitive organisms billions of years ago. According to the National Academy of Sciences, evolution “has been confirmed repeatedly through observation and experiment in a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines.”

Theistic evolution: Sometimes referred to as evolutionary creationism, it embraces both God and evolution. God created the universe through an evolutionary process, therefore Genesis and science complement each other.

Keith Mesecher, a longtime member of First Unitarian Universalist Church, says he's “totally turned on” by Dowd's message that humans contain billions of years of evolution inside of them. “We have the wisdom of the universe in us,” says Mesecher, who led the music at last Friday night's revival.

As for Dowd, 49, he credits his wife with pushing him to follow his dream of becoming an itinerant preacher for this cause. Barlow, a 55-year-old author of several science books, joins him in his presentations, coaxing audiences to regard the evolution of the world as an evolving narrative. “Michael and I view this as the story of the changing story,” she says.

The New York couple shed their belongings (they don't even have a storage bin) and took to the road in April 2002.

They live out of a white Dodge Sprinter, staying in people's homes during their speaking gigs and supporting themselves with donations and proceeds from the sales of books and tapes. They also have two Web sites: thegreatstory.org and thankgodforevolution.com.

He admits that most of their audiences are liberal congregations who are not wedded to biblical literalism and are already sympathetic to evolutionary teachings. But he says he admires creationists for their fervor and admonishes atheists for “having no respect for religious language.”

Dowd's not alone in this campaign to mend fences between science and religion. Earlier this month, more than 800 U.S. congregations participated in the third annual Evolution Weekend, when sermons and seminars are geared to what supporters regard as the compatibility of evolutionary science and spiritual beliefs.

Still, however, opinion polls show that Dowd remains in the minority.

Americans have repeatedly embraced creationism over evolution. As recently as 2006, a poll conducted for CBS News found that 55 percent of Americans surveyed said they believe God created humans in their present form, compared with 13 percent who said they believed in evolution. The remainder favored theistic evolution, a belief that humans evolved but God guided the process.

Dowd figures he'll be spreading this message on wheels for the rest of his life. So far, he has bookings into fall 2009. Tomorrow, he is due to be in Lancaster, followed by stops in Riverside, Ojai and Anaheim. Then, the white camper van with the kissing fish will push farther north, continuing to spread his gospel that Jesus loves Darwin.

Labels: Connie Barlow, evolution, evolutionary creationism, God, Michael Dowd, Sandi Dolbee, Theistic evolution, theology

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More folks eschew organized religion but not spirituality

Updated February 25. 2008
By Molly Rossiter

As chaplain at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, the Rev. Catherine Quehl-Engel lives in a veritable potpourri of faith.

She may find herself offering guidance to the college's Jewish student group one day, leading a Catholic discussion group the next and guiding Hindu students through their spiritual journeys the day after that.

Quehl-Engel, 40, an ordained Episcopal priest, also finds herself talking with students and community members about a self-proclaimed "spiritual but not religious" identity, a spirituality that does not include organized religion.

"For some people, organized religion just doesn't speak to them or work for them. They'd rather create their own thing," she said.

According to the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, 14 percent of Americans say they don't follow organized religion, and a 2002 Gallup Poll showed that 33 percent of American adults claimed to be "spiritual but not religious." As affiliation with organized religion drops — the ARIS study found only 8 percent of Americans reported no religious affiliation in 1990 — the number of those who claim a spirituality without ties to church doctrine and politics seems to be increasing.

"Part of me thinks that this has been around a lot longer than we think," Quehl-Engel said. "There are people in all traditions who value critical thinking, or they want to ask the big questions, but they don't know if they're allowed to."

Michelle Stafford grew up in a house where her father's family instructed her on the doctrines of Catholicism and her mother's family followed an American Indian spiritual path. Having experienced both sides of the spiritual spectrum, she said she felt free to follow her spiritual needs without an organized group.

"It was easy for me to live that spiritual life; it's much freer, much more loving," said Stafford, 34, of Hiawatha, who works as a spiritual director at Serenity, 5250 Park Pl. NE in Cedar Rapids. "I feel better going to a park and meditating and listening to God that way than sitting in a church, hearing that I'm a sinner and I have to confess my sins in order to go to heaven." Spirituality, she said, does not mean that a person does not believe in God. It's likely the opposite, she said.

"Someone who is spiritual probably does believe in God very much," Stafford said. "They don't need to feel confined by a building to worship God. Spirituality is all-encompassing because it can involve religion but is much broader and open." For some, the words "religion" and "spirituality" are interchangeable. For others, however, they are two different ideas.

For many people, the decision to follow a spiritual path rather than one entrenched in organized religion comes after years of belonging to a variety of religious groups or organizations. Sam Angell, 20, remembers being afraid to tell his mother, an Episcopal priest, that he no longer wanted to attend church youth group. The family had transferred to several churches for his mother's career, "and after three churches, I just didn't want to go to youth group anymore." "I was getting sick of having to re-meet a whole new group of people, find a community at a new church," said Angell, a sophomore religion and history student at Cornell College.

Angell describes himself as spiritual but not religious. He believes in "something greater than myself, something greater than mankind," and uses his studies and readings to get a better grasp on what that might be.

"I look around and I don't believe there's just a random chance of everything being there," he said. "I definitely believe there's something out there, even if I can't define it right now." He grew up in the Episcopalian church, attended Sunday school weekly and went to church camp in high school, but as he got older, his questions became bigger, he said. He was no longer sure he subscribed to everything the church was teaching.

As a college student studying various religions, he said he's had an opportunity to learn more about different faiths and what they believe.

Quehl-Engel said "spiritual but not religious" people prefer to examine faith and theology as a whole, looking at all the various components.

"The religions provide road maps and a language and a story. ... There's so many of them, a lot of us don't want to limit ourselves to just one story line," she said.

Labels: 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, 2002 Gallup Poll, Catherine Quehl-Engel, Molly Rossiter, organized religion, religiosity, spirituality

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Many Americans switch religious denominations, study finds

In a landmark survey, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life finds a new religious landscape in America.

By Jane Lampman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the February 26, 2008 edition

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Reporter Jane Lampman talks about the results of a new survey on religion in America.A panoramic snapshot of American religious life in 2008 reveals an extraordinary dynamism that is reshaping the country's major traditions in historic ways.

Almost half of Americans have moved to a different religious denomination from that in which they were raised, and 28 percent have switched to a different major tradition or to no religion (i.e., from Roman Catholic to Protestant, Jewish to unaffiliated).

The fluidity is combining with immigration to spur dramatic changes in the religious landscape. Protestantism appears on the verge of losing its majority status. The number of "unaffiliated" Americans has doubled, to 16 percent. One-third of Catholics are now Latino and the religion is depending on immigration to maintain its share of the population.

These shifts are captured in a survey released Monday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

"The extent of change in the American religious marketplace is remarkable," says Luis Lugo, the Pew Forum's director, in an interview. "Everyone is losing, and has difficulty retaining childhood members, but everyone is also gaining."

The report is the first of three that Pew will release this year from a path-breaking survey of the US religious landscape. Based on interviews in English or Spanish with a representative sample of 35,000 adults, it describes America's religious composition and the changes under way. Later this spring, the second report will analyze Americans' beliefs and practices, and the third, their social and political values.

The movement between churches and denominations is not new, but the report documents its remarkable scope. "Religious fluidity is part of a larger picture of fluidity in American life generally," says Wade Clark Roof, author of "Spiritual Marketplace" and professor at University of California at Santa Barbara. "You can read this as 'It's what America is about – we choose.... The downside is enormous instability, lack of grounding, wandering in the wilderness."

Observers point to many reasons for the shifts. People may change churches because they relocate to a part of the country where different denominations predominate, or they may prefer another style of worship. Whatever the reasons, the survey reveals some clear winners and losers.

Protestantism, which has shaped American identity for generations, may soon become a minority faith. In the 1980s, 65 percent of Americans called themselves Protestants; today that number is down to 51 percent. Only 43 percent of those aged 18-29 say they are Protestant.

Much has been written about the declines in mainline churches. But in comparing the current religious affiliation of adults with their childhood affiliations, the survey found a net loss of 3.7 percent for Baptists (Baptists account for one-third of all Protestants and nearly two-thirds of black Protestant churches.)

Labels: Americans, Jane Lampman, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, protestants, religion, unaffilIiated

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Saturday, February 23, 2008

New film questions bias against Intelligent Design

STEPHEN ROESLER
Staff Writer

Former Pepperdine Professor Ben Stein’s controversial film, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” scheduled for release in early April, explores the complex topic of Intelligent Design (ID) and the role it plays in academia. Stein, who wrote and stars in the film, finds numerous examples of professors who are being denied tenure and publishing rights for subscribing to, or merely considering, the idea of Intelligent Design. Ironically, most Pepperdine biology professors disagree with Stein’s conclusion.

Intelligent Design, at its most basic form, suggests that an unseen force, namely a creator, developed humanity. In short, ID claims that life is far too complex to explain without including a creator.

Dr. Stephen Davis, a distinguished professor of Biology and this year’s winner of the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching, maintains that the effort to include ID in the class was simply a legal maneuver to incorporate religion in the classroom. He therefore considered the idea flawed and claims “it’s unethical, it’s dishonest, it was flawed from the very beginning.”

The legal maneuvering, Davis said, was an attempt to advocate for religion in Pennsylvania schools. United States District Judge John E. Jones ruled ID unconstitutional in schools by explaining it violated the separation of church and state while attempting to proselytize.

While Davis and Honeycutt fervently oppose ID in the classroom, Professor of Law Ed Larson maintains that discussion of ID could potentially complement other topics and further the process of education.

“The idea of design in nature is a perfectly respectable concept that can very profitably be discussed in philosophy and different social sciences,” said Larson, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his novel, “Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion.”

Although Larson admits that ID does not exactly fit the definition of science, he holds that if discussion on the topic of ID intends for a pedagogical purpose, it maintains no legal problems.

“That doesn’t mean that there may not be supernatural explanations for physical phenomenon — it’s just not science,” Larson said. “As long as that distinction is made, I personally see no reason why you can’t discuss it as long as you don’t proselytize.”

While most consider ID disassociated with science, Dr. Jeffery Jasperse, an associate professor of sports medicine, argues that at a Christian school, students should understand the basis of ID and its connection to the Christian faith.

Jasperse, also a physiology and anatomy professor, spends roughly four hours per semester devoted to discussing ID while allowing students to direct conversation and inquiry on the touchy topic, he said. He understands that science tends to explain processes on microscopic levels, while ignoring the bigger picture. In his opinion, this should remain the core of the class.

Christopher Doran, professor of Religion, spends his class devoted to the big picture. His class, “Conversations at the Intersection of Theology and Science,” explores the interaction between science and theology, wherein he identifies its weakness, specifically in a theological setting. He considers the theological and scientific aspect flawed.

“ID is bad science and even prominent ID folks recognize if it was a scientific program it has significant shortcomings,” he said.

Doran also explains the inconsistencies between the claims of ID and the Christian God. Finding problems throughout, Doran still sees the importance of devoting much of his class to the trying subject because the fundamentals assume a higher power. Furthermore, some critics of evolution ask how a person of faith could denounce ID. More specifically, how could Davis or Honeycutt, in their Christian faith, deem ID flawed, inaccurate or not scientific?

“I believe in creation,” Davis said.

He said he also believes in a form of Intelligent Design, but does not want that belief associated with legal attempts to railroading religion into education.

Davis said the baggage associated with Intelligent Design is unfortunate.

“It confuses and it inserts wedges that are not justified,” he said. “It inserts a wedge that separates science from religion and right now we don’t need that, in fact, we need it less now than maybe ever before.”

Central to the theory of ID remains the idea of what scientists refer to as “irreducible complexity.” The idea assumes that the cell, comprised of many complex, working parts, cannot function if one of those parts is removed. In short, irreducible complexity demonstrates that biological systems did not evolve naturally.

Irreducible complexity, which has since been critiqued and unaccepted by many scientists, functions as the crux of creationism. The idea, in one sense, allows people to prove “God” or “faith” — it qualifies as a “God of the Gaps” theory.

“What if you really believe that the flagellum, being irreducible, is the foundation of your Christian faith, and what if someone reduces it?” Honeycutt asked. “Are you willing to test your faith on the flagellum being irreducible?”

Across the board, the topic of ID remains inherently connected to some kind of faith, saturating the subject with emotion and confusion for the general public. As Honeycutt understands, ID causes people to overstep their bounds. For example, he said he believes people of the Christian community attempt to make ID a “science” to prove their beliefs. “Christians are overstepping their area, they have no scientific basis,” he said.

But, Stein maintains a different point of view in his upcoming documentary.

“We’re not, by any means, certain that Intelligent Design is the answer,” Stein said. “We just want free speech.”

Labels: Ben Stein, Christianity, free speech, intelligent design, irreducible complexity, Stephan Roesler

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People's Award and Judges' Award for Best Spiritual Film of 2007

'Amazing Grace' Winner!

Two views: The Case For

For this year's Best Spiritual Film contest, the Beliefnet community chose "Amazing Grace". It wasn't the best known of the nominees or the highest grossing at the box office, but our panelists and community members agreed: "Amazing Grace" is the best spiritual film of the year. And it wasn't even close, winning both votes by a comfortable margin.

"Amazing Grace" is one of those films about the past that resonates so much with the present that, take away the costumes, it could be set today. It's about what happens to a man when his faith and his spirituality go from being expedient lip-service to being uncomfortable daggers that drive him to make a wildly unpopular stand.

The man was British parliamentarian William Wilberforce, and the issue was the human slave trade--which was seen by most politicians as an economic issue, not a moral or spiritual one. (Heard that one lately?)

There are two extraordinarily wonderful things about this film. First that it was made as a mainstream film by talented filmmakers who may or may not have shared Wilberforce's Christian faith. This allowed it to be a universal exploration of what happens to a person when his or her faith refuses to be compartmentalized and instead becomes the motivating force in his life. The direction, the script, and the acting are outstanding . And while Wilberforce's faith is fully explored, the film doesn't proselytize a specific faith as much as it rouses viewers to do what they know to be right, no matter what their faith, no matter what the consequences.

The second thing I loved about this film is that it isn't a "quick fix" story. Wilberforce's battle to outlaw slavery in Britain cost him years, money, friends, and his health, and required the spiritual values of humility, tenacity, and selflessness, as well as a commitment to justice. He was driven by the idea that not one more human being should die an agonizing death in the hold of a slave ship or be "owned" by another.

We've all become so inured to politicians using their faith as a campaign tool that it seems impossible to believe that a politician might actually put his or her conscience above political expediency. "Amazing Grace" reminds each of us that the same goad that shoved Wilberforce out of his comfort zone is the one that is likely prodding us even now.
--Sharon Linnéa

The Case Against

"Amazing Grace" should be called a good spiritual film of 2007, rather than the best. The William Wilberforce biopic is a circular blend of the 19th century abolitionist's force in ending the British slave trade and his religious conversion to evangelicalism. The film embodied spirituality through Ioan Gruffudd's portrayal of Wilberforce--as well as those of supporting cast members like Albert Finney as John Newton, the writer of the eponymous hymn.

The film doesn't lack spirituality, but it does lack a hold on a wide audience. For one, it came out in February to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the end of the British slave trade, which was a good move in providing a message of relevancy at that time. However, as the film audience looks back at the year of films, it is difficult to recall "Amazing Grace" in the relative consciousness.

That is partly because other films with strong spiritual messages, such as "Juno" and "The Kite Runner" had much more recent releases and wider appeal. The Wilberforce message doesn't have boundaries, really, as it was to make the world a better place, through action and example rather than lecturing.

But "Amazing Grace" separates itself from some American filmgoers with its historical biopic realm set in Britain over 200 years ago, making it difficult to connect. Wilberforce might be a household name in the U.K., yet it wasn't in the U.S. at the time of the film's release and still isn't. That lack of a bond is reason enough not to be considered best spiritual film of 2007.
-- Sara Shereen Bakhshian

Labels: Amazing Grace, movies, Sara Shereen Bakhshian, slavery, spirituality, William Wilberforce

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The power of prayer, in good times and bad

Friday, February 22, 2008

Christian Scientists rely on spiritual healing throughout their lives.

By BILL CUNNINGHAM
The Orange County Register

At Fullerton's First Church of Christ, Scientist, two speakers stood together at a wide podium. One read a passage from the Bible; the other read related words from Mary Baker Eddy's book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." The Sunday morning congregation listened quietly in the plain sanctuary. No crosses, no statues, no elaborate ornaments. Words and thoughts were emphasized, rather than symbols and rituals.

The two books, the Bible and "Science and Health," are considered to be the spiritual leader of the church. There is no ordained clergy.

Mrs. Eddy, who wrote about suffering with ill health since childhood before studying the Bible and discovering a method of curing herself and others, founded Christian Science in 1879. It was designed "to commemorate the word and works of our Master (Jesus Christ), which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing," states a church manual.

An estimated 1,600 congregations now exist in America, with hundreds more worldwide. Beyond the use of the word "science" in the name, it has nothing to do with Scientology.

Spiritual healing is an important part of the Christian Science religion. When practitioners are sick or injured they pray first, rather than head to a medical doctor.

"Spiritual healing probably has as many different faces as there are individuals that are applying it," said Donald W. Ingwerson, spokesman for Christian Science in Southern California and a church member for over 50 years. "Basically it's the power of prayer that heals. And that prayer is based upon inspiration from the Bible and from 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.' "

But if a church member with a broken bone or a severe illness feels the need for medical treatment, there's no stigma attached. "All Christian Scientists are free to go to a doctor any time they feel the need for it," said Ingwerson. "However, generally speaking, a Christian Scientist would pray first and see where that leads their thought and their need. And if they felt after that prayer, they needed to see a doctor, they should feel free to go see a doctor. But many find that they don't need to go to a doctor after they pray."

Although Mrs. Eddy was founder of the church and the author of one of its most important texts, she is not looked upon a saint or a prophet. "But she certainly has the deep respect of the world for the religion she created," said Ingwerson. "Mrs. Eddy herself said 'look for me in my works' and that's where she wants to be of value to us."

Each church reaches out to the community in several ways. There are practitioners, considered full-time professional healers, who can be called by anyone seeking treatment through prayer. And there are Reading Rooms open to the public throughout the county. These rooms have Bibles and Christian Science literature available for reading, borrowing or purchasing.

On Wednesday evenings, one-hour Testimony Meetings are held, at which individuals tell of personal experiences involving healing. At a recent meeting, several spoke of ailments that were resolved without medical assistance. One woman told of many healings, "physical, emotional and relational" over the years.

Unlike some individuals who live in fear or hope of an afterlife, Christian Scientists "don't believe in a literal sense of heaven and hell," said Ingwerson. "We don't think it's a place. We think it's a state of thought and it's right here. You're living in your own hell or heaven right now. It's not a place you go to later."

Labels: Bill Cunningham, Christian Science, Christianity, health, Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy, prayer, spiritual healing

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$4 million study to understand why people believe in God

Washington DC, Feb 22, 2008

A group of researchers from the University of Oxford will spend $3.9 million on a three-year study to “explain” why humanity believes in God.

The Ian Ramsey Center for Science and Religion has decided to bring together anthropologists, theologians, philosophers and other scholars to academically define if belief in a “supreme being” is a basic component of humanity.

Roger Trigg, a senior research fellow at the Center, said the almost $4 million would be used to respond to the question, “What is it that is innate in human nature to believe in God, whether it is gods or something superhuman or supernatural?"

Trigg admitted that anthropological and philosophical research carried out up to now suggests that “faith in God is a universal human impulse found in most cultures around the world, even though it has been waning in Britain and western Europe.

"One implication that comes from this is that religion is the default position, and atheism is perhaps more in need of explanation," he said.

Funding for the study will come from the John Templeton Foundation, a U.S.-based philanthropic organization.

Labels: belief, faith, God, Ian Ramsey Center for Science and Religion, John Templeton Foundation, Roger Trigg, University of Oxford

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Thursday, February 21, 2008

U.S. Religious Landscape Survey

MEDIA ADVISORY – FOR PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY
Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2008

CONTACT: Robbie Mills, rmills@pewforum.org, 202-419-4564

Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life to Release
U.S. Religious Landscape Survey
reli

Study shows most detailed estimates to date of the size and demographic characteristics of religious groups in the Unites States

WASHINGTON – In a noon conference call for journalists on Monday, Feb. 25, 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life will release the first report of a landmark survey that details the religious affiliation of the American public and explores the remarkable dynamism taking place in the U.S. religious marketplace.

Based on interviews conducted in English and Spanish with a representative sample of over 35,000 adults, the survey includes detailed information on religious affiliation and provides estimates of the size of religious groups that are as small as three-tenths of 1 percent of the adult population. The report also describes changes in religious affiliation and analyzes the relationship between religious affiliation and various demographic factors, including age, ethnicity, nativity, educational and income levels, gender, family composition and regional distribution (including state breakdowns).

Subsequent releases will include analyses of the survey’s findings on Americans’ religious beliefs and practices as well as their social and political views.

TELEPHONE NEWS CONFERENCE

WHO: Luis Lugo, Director, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

John Green, Senior Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Greg Smith, Research Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

WHEN: Monday, Feb. 25, 2008, noon EST

RSVP: Email Robbie Mills at rmills@pewforum.org to reserve your place

HOW: To join the telephone press conference:

U.S. Participants: Dial: 800-894-5910 or 785-424-1052

Labels: Americans, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religious identity, religious practice

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And a Child Shall Lead Him

And a Child Shall Lead Him

Published: February 20, 2008

We celebrated the baptism of our fourth on Sunday. He’s the one without the beard in my head shot. As with our other three kids, the ceremony was a family-only matter at the log chapel on Notre Dame’s campus. Being in such familiar surroundings, the baptism gave me the chance to think about my own spiritual state and what an influence my children have had on it over the last eight years—even though I’m the one who is supposed to be influencing them.

I believe that parents are as responsible for their children’s spiritual well-being as they are for their children’s physical, intellectual, and emotional health. Having gone from calling myself an “agnostic” to a “faithless Catholic” and now being in a state of what I’ve dubbed “surrender,” I often wonder how qualified I am to teach my kids about spiritual matters. Even now, I don’t have much of a plan for maintaining my own spiritual health. Gone are the days when I could strike out hiking on a whim with friends, spend the summer reading thought-provoking books, or just take time to reflect on my life. My days are now consumed with the billable hour, dirty diapers, Bionicles, trucks under feet, and third-grade book reports. What little time I can steal for myself is more often spent on movies and sports than anything truly fulfilling.

Despite the busy-ness of my life, I still owe it to my kids to give them some spiritual guidance. They don’t need to share my own beliefs. But without some spiritual foundation, how can I expect them to live fully? So we’ve turned to what we know, what we grew up with. It was a practical compromise—for me especially. We agreed that we would get our kids through their first Communion. It would allow them to participate in the Catholic mass. At the time, the bargain was made in the context of our kids going to mass with their grandparents. But I now wonder if it wasn’t really for our own sakes.

Taking a child that far into religious education requires a big commitment from her parents. My wife and I had to make more of an effort to make it to church. And of course children have questions. I have pondered—and I believe given reasonable answers to—questions such as “Why is church boring?” and the very direct, “Is God real?” I have also had to conform my own behavior to what we are asking our children to do. I now sing in church. Even if I’m just going through the motions, the fact is, I am minding my own spiritual health more diligently than I likely would have without kids.

And the payoff has been surprising. The thankfulness I often feel has a context. The details of it all may be fuzzy, but I understand that I have been given gifts in the form of each of my children. Often the gifts are moments from my children themselves. The peace of lying next to my daughter as we both read books quietly on the couch. The amazement of watching my five-year-old assemble a complex new Lego toy with focus and determination. The mirth of my three-year-old’s singing and dancing. The pure joy of seeing my baby boy smile at me for the first time. Each of these things fills my soul. And every hug, kiss, and unsolicited “I love you” from my kids sustains me.

So, as I dutifully committed to the religious upbringing of my newest child on Sunday, I had to wonder if we don’t have it backwards. Shouldn’t I have been asking this vibrant innocent baby to lead me, if only a part of the way, on my spiritual journey before he strikes out on his own?

Labels: baptism, children, family, parenthood, religious education, spirituality

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Researchers to probe why people believe in religion

Wed Feb 20, 2008

By Peter Apps

Page one of two...click on external link for full article

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - A team of British-based researchers will spend the next three years probing why people believe in religion.

They will undertake what they said is the largest research project of its kind, armed with a grant of almost two million pounds ($4 million) from a U.S. foundation.

The grant came from the Sir John Templeton Foundation. It was founded two decades ago by a Wall Street banker to support science by funding investigation into the "big questions".

Some experts argued there might be an evolutionary advantage to religious belief, possibly because a society believing in an all-knowing moral god might follow rules better, giving it an advantage over others.

"Groups that have religious sentiment might be more likely to co-operate, giving them a comparative advantage," Barret said. "Children seem to find the idea of an all-knowing God to be a very easy one to take on. It's very attractive in an intuitive sense."

As well as the monotheistic religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, researchers will also look at belief systems with multiple gods from Hinduism to ancient religions still practiced in parts of Latin America.

Labels: Britain, God, gods, John Templeton Foundation, Peter Apps, religion

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Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Teaching happiness: the classes in wellbeing that are helping our children

From Times Online
February 18, 2008

Binge drinking, mental health issues, adolescent suicide: how can we solve the problems that beset so many children? The answer may lie with the new science of positive psychology

In a classroom in South Tyneside, a small group of 11-year-olds is considering the finer points of Stoic philosophy. The teacher, Mrs Carrahar, points helpfully at the blackboard. “Come on now, kids, remember your ABC: Adversity, Belief, Consequence. Sometimes how we feel about things depends on ... what? It begins with P ... Yes, Darren?” “Perspective, miss!” says a small child. “Very good, Darren!”

The class is the latest experiment in a new movement called “positive psychology”, which is slowly but surely revolutionising the way that education is approached in the English-speaking world. It is the brainchild of Martin Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. If there is one figure responsible for the deluge of books, articles and TV programmes on happiness with which we have been inundated over the last five years, it is Seligman. So, when I meet him in a hotel suite in London, it is a relief to discover that he is not some moronically upbeat figure, like the self-help guru played by Patrick Swayze in Donnie Darko.

In fact, he tells me, “I was a slightly depressive grump for the first 40 years of my life”. After considering a career as a professional bridge player, then turning down a Fulbright scholarship in analytical philosophy at Oxford, he eventually became a psychologist and forged a distinguished name for himself studying “learned helplessness”, or how animals (and people) learn to give up in apparently hopeless situations.

While researching the phenomenon, Seligman was struck by something: some people, and even some animals, didn't give up even in highly adverse circumstances. He began to be interested in the opposite phenomenon, “learned optimism” - why some people possess unusual powers of resilience and self-control, and whether those powers can be taught or cultivated in others.

When, in 1998, he was elected president of the American Psychological Association, the largest body of psychologists in the world, he decided that he wanted to use his presidency to shift the discipline from its histor-ical focus on mental illness to a new focus on mental health and wellbeing.

He began to gather together his own and other people's research from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), as well as from neuropsychology, the social sciences and even economics, to try to find the secret to living well. His team discovered that about 50 per cent of our average happiness level is genetically conditioned. But the rest is conditioned by things under our control: both external factors, such as our job or social life, and inner factors, such as how we think and what values we have.

His team undertook a huge amount of life satisfaction surveys, to look at what really made people happy. They discovered that some external conditions were not as important as people commonly believed: changes in income, for example, played a marginal role in life satisfaction. Other external conditions played a much bigger role, such as having a rich social network or being married.

The team also identified the inner work that can improve your wellbeing. They incorporated many techniques from CBT that have been proved to help to overcome depression and anxiety disorders. They also tried out cognitive and pedagogic techniques from ancient philosophy and spirituality, such as the idea of character strengths from Aristotle, mindfulness from Buddhism and learning to challenge one's irrational beliefs from Stoicism, then tested these insights empirically, to see if they really worked. As Seligman says: “We took some ideas from ancient philosophy and married them to the new scientific study of happiness. Aristotle never had the benefit of the seven-point scale [used to measure life satisfaction].”

So, while positive psychology is in some ways a “new science”, and a new way of approaching education, in other ways it is a return to the norm for Western education, which for centuries, through the Roman Empire and beyond, taught young people philosophic techniques to manage their thoughts and emotions. Indeed, he may not know it, but the ABC model of emotions that Darren is learning on Tyneside comes directly from a Stoic philosopher called Epictetus, who suggested that “it is not events, but our beliefs about them, that cause us suffering”.

It has also been taught for the past two years at the £9,000-a-year Wellington College in Berkshire. There, a teacher called Ian Morris, who bears a striking resemblance to David Miliband, tries to guide his wealthy young pupils to a rounded sense of the good life. He says: “Most of them really seem to value the lessons. You occasionally get some mucking around. I sent one boy out for clowning around and he complained, ?I got thrown out of happiness classes for laughing', which I thought was pretty funny.” Harry, a polite 16-year-old whom I meet at a meditation workshop at Wellington, says the wellbeing classes have a decent reputation among the pupils. “We're a very sporty school, and Mr Morris appeals to that in the classes. For example, he teaches us a basic meditation technique which he says Sir Steve Redgrave used before big rowing races.”

Britain is, at the moment, doing badly in terms of helping its young to achieve wellbeing. The UK came bottom in a recent Unicef survey of life satisfaction among children in 21 developed countries. The Institute of Psychiatry announced last year that the number of children with emotional and behavioural problems in the UK has doubled in the past 25 years. The number of adolescent suicides has quadrupled.

To try to take the teaching of wellbeing forward, Layard organised a pilot scheme to teach “resilience” in 22 state schools in South Tyneside, Hertfordshire and Manchester. Last July about 100 teachers and local council officials spent ten days at the University of Pennsylvania, where they trained with some of the most famous psychologists in the world, including Seligman himself and Aaron Beck, the inventor of CBT. They came back enthused. “The ideas we learnt were so useful, even for our own lives,” says Diane Wood, assistant to the chief executive of South Tyneside council. “In ten days, our head of child services overcame his fear of flying, while I don't think I've argued with my teenage son once since I went on the course.”

They started to teach the subject in September to 4,000 kids ranging from 11 to 16. The classes include teaching cognitive techniques to some troubled adolescents who have dropped out of schools because of bullying or other problems. I sat in on one in South Tyneside. The teacher, Melissa, started by picking out entries from a “problem box”, into which the students had put anonymously written notes about problems they were facing.

One note that Melissa read out says: “I'm not sure I can take any more. I feel so stressed and bad all the time. It all started when I went to the new school.” The pupils then discussed the problem, empathising and asking what could be done to change things, both in terms of the person's inner beliefs and his or her external circumstances. One affable 16-year-old boy with tattoos on his arms, Geoff, said: “I lost a tenner the other day. I was stressed at first, then I figured, well, it could have been more.” The boy next to him laughed, “Yeah, but it wasn't your money, was it?” “Well, that too,” Geoff conceded with a smile.

The pilot scheme is intended to last three years, during which the children will be surveyed to check the effect of the classes on their wellbeing and emotional resilience, compared with groups who haven't been to the classes. The results so far have been good; council officials in Tyneside and Hertfordshire are already eager to roll out the subject to more schools.

Seligman tells me that nowhere else in the world have his ideas been so taken up by public policy as in the UK. “There's a real buzz here about the politics of wellbeing,” he says. He compares Britain's embrace of both positive psychology and CBT to the Renaissance government of Cosimo de' Medici in Florence, which used its wealth to help to translate and reintroduce ideas from ancient philosophy.

The Government's interest in CBT and positive psychology is, in large part, thanks to Lord Layard, who wrote an influential report in 2002, pointing out that the Government spent more money on incapacity benefits for the mentally ill than it did on unemployment benefits. Mental illness, he declared, was “the major social problem facing our country today”.

Positive psychology also seems to offer a way forward for education beyond the ethical relativism of the past 30 years when, in the words of Darrin McMahon, the author of The Pursuit of Happiness, “the only people teaching values in schools seem to be sports coaches”. The science of happiness is a way in which timeless values and philosophical techniques can be reintroduced into the classroom.

Even among the leaders of the wellbeing movement, there is disagreement over what the meaning or goal of life should be: Lord Layard thinks the goal of policy should be “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”. Seligman says: “There's too much emphasis on happiness, I think. I'm interested in the meaningful or virtuous life, what the Greeks called eudaimonia.”

As concepts of wellbeing are slowly introduced into the national curriculum, this pluralism of views needs to be displayed, not hidden away. Young people need to be given guidance in tried and tested ways of thinking and living, but they also need to understand that no two people (or prophets) ever fully agree on the meaning of life, and no amount of scientific data should ever stand in the way of them making up their own minds.

Labels: Britain, education, happiness, Jules Evans, learned optimism, Martin Seligman, positive psychology

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The road to forgiveness

A new documentary looks at how and when people choose to forgive

By LAURA LLOYD

Filmmaker Martin Doblemeier believes that forgiveness can transform the world. His new documentary, “The Power of Forgiveness,” which will be shown on public television stations beginning in March, explores that idea through interviews with people who have forgiven those who injured them.

Being able to let go of the bitterness that follows being hurt isn’t always easy, of course, whether for individuals or for nations. The difficulty in doing so is demonstrated powerfully on the film’s Web site, where Mr. Doblemeier recently posed a question, “How do you feel about a Garden of Forgiveness at Ground Zero?” Such a garden has been suggested by a New York City Episcopal priest, Mr. Doblemeier said.

“In 10 days we had 6,000 hits,” Mr. Doblemeier said. “Of the respondents, 97 percent said no to a Garden of Forgiveness and 3 percent said yes. Now, most of the people who go our Web site might be called progressive tree-huggers, faith-in-the-world types. Yet, they were not in favor of a Garden of Forgiveness.”

Mr. Doblemeier said America is “an angry culture, angry on the highways, angry in the movies. We’re a nation of people who are deeply hurt.” Still, in making his film he was able to find a wide array of people here and abroad who are making creative efforts to foster forgiveness.

“Forgiveness is a decision,” Mr. Doblemeier said. In other words, people don’t have to wait until they feel like forgiving to do so.

A Roman Catholic, Mr. Doblemeier is a veteran maker of documentaries with spiritual themes. The 25 movies he’s produced and directed include “Bonhoeffer,” a documentary about the well-known German pastor who resisted the Nazis, and “Final Blessing,” a film about the spiritual issues of the terminally ill. He decided to explore the topic of forgiveness in a variety of faith traditions and from a scientific perspective as well. He found out that almost all religions teach the importance of forgiveness, and some, like the Amish, make it a cornerstone of their faith. He also found that scientists are discovering that the ability to forgive can confer health benefits such as lower blood pressure and better cardiovascular health.

Forgiveness “is a wonderful virtue in itself and it’s also good for our health,” Mr. Doblemeier said.

He is happy that acts of forgiveness have health benefits, but he places greater value on the idea that corporate forgiveness can lead to a “transformation of the world.” His film focuses on such transforming acts as a school program in Northern Ireland that nurtures nonjudgmental attitudes between Catholics and Protestants and efforts to foster reconciliation between Germans and Jews affected by the Holocaust. These acts, he thinks, have the most power.

“Jesus, when he was on the cross and said, ‘Forgive them, they know not what they do,’ wasn’t forgiving because it was good for his health,” Mr. Doblemeier said.

Mr. Doblemeier left out of his film some stunning acts of forgiveness. They include the story of South Africa, where Archbishop Desmond Tutu counseled forgiveness of the white minority that had viciously oppressed the black population, and Pope John Paul II’s forgiveness of his unsuccessful assassin and his request for forgiveness from the Jewish people. For centuries, Jews had been persecuted and discriminated against by the Catholic world.

“The Power of Forgiveness” is already being used as a teaching tool. Susan Hendricks, a social worker who leads a group of women in the maximum security Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution in Columbia, S.C., has used parts of “The Power of Forgiveness” to encourage discussion about forgiveness -- both of the self and of others. “This film is so important,” she said. “It demonstrates to the women through stories how to forgive themselves and how to forgive others. A lot of them don’t recognize this, that a lot of times you have to forgive yourself for what you’ve done.”

Journey Films, Mr. Doblemeier’s production company, took “The Power of Forgiveness” to 25 special screenings in 2007, including one at a theater in Blacksburg, Va., the home of Virginia Tech, where a student gunned down 32 persons before killing himself, and another at the United Nations. The upcoming broadcast on PBS of “The Power of Forgiveness” is part of a strategy designed to spark conversations at both a national and local level about the ability of forgiveness to alleviate anger and grief. Groups who want to use study material for teaching “The Power of Forgiveness” can download them from the film’s Web site at www.journeyfilms.com.

Mr. Doblemeier, who has been present at many of the screenings of the film, often in churches or synagogues, is optimistic that “The Power of Forgiveness” will have a continuing impact on people’s lives through workshops and seminars. He has noticed that after the film is shown, people frequently come forward to talk to him. Sometimes they reveal they have been living with guilt and are in need of forgiveness themselves.

“I like the idea that the movie shows it is possible to have a positive resolution to a problem and for people to see others who are able to help,” Mr. Doblemeier said.

Laura Lloyd is a Kansas City, Mo., freelance writer.

Labels: anger, documentary, forgiveness, health, Journey Films, Laura Lloyd, Martin Doblemeier

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Unhappy Workers Often Turn to Spirituality for Direction

As job satisfaction rates continue to decline, many job seekers and workers are hoping to find their career calling through faith, according to a recently-released book by America's Career and Life Coach, Susan Britton Whitcomb.

Indianapolis, IN (PRWEB) February 20, 2008 -- Employee satisfaction has struck an all-time low, according to a survey released by the Conference Board, a New York-based private research group. After surveying 5,000 U.S. households, the Conference Board found that more than half of all respondents disliked their current job.

As a result of their unhappiness, many people turn to their spirituality to find guidance in their job search and careers. Susan Britton Whitcomb, author of The Christian's Career Journey and a career coach for more than 20 years, has seen first-hand how often people rely on faith to resolve their career dilemmas and fuel their success.

In her book, she discusses the significant role spirituality plays in a person's career journey and offers essential job search and success tips for finding one's calling in the workplace. The following are five of the 10 helpful tips she provides to help people make the smart career decisions that align with their faith:

1. Prepare to persevere. Exploring career options requires tenacity and time. During this phase, be open to new things--we don't know what we don't know.

2. Brainstorming is a team sport. Enlist the support of people who are miracle-minded, well-connected and strategic thinkers to help expand your career options.

3. Narrow it down. If you have a number of options that sound promising, begin to narrow them down to one or two preferred options to make your research more manageable. If you immediately identify a career track that looks promising at face value, proceed with the curiosity and objectivity of a detective.

4. Investigate with legwork. Take time to thoroughly research your preferred options. Your research will often turn up new ideas that will be an even better fit than you thought possible.

5. Connect with people face to face. Talk to at least three people familiar with your target field. Choose association representatives, veterans of the field, and even newbies. Suppliers, vendors, and customers can also give a helpful perspective. Members of your church or other faith-based organizations can be valuable contacts.

"With Americans logging between 100,000 and 125,000 hours in the marketplace during their careers, it's no wonder that a significant number of prayers are devoted to men and women's job search and career concerns," adds Whitcomb.

The Christian's Career Journey is available at all major bookstores and from the publisher (www.jist.com or 1.800.648.JIST). To speak with Susan Britton Whitcomb, contact Natalie Ostrom.

JIST, America's Career Publisher, is a division of EMC/Paradigm Publishing and is the leading publisher of job search, career, occupational information, life skills and character education books, workbooks, assessments, videos and software.

Labels: career, faith, happiness, spirituality, Susan Britton Whitcomb

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Monday, February 18, 2008

Meditation May Cut Future Heart Disease Risks

ISLAMABAD: Meditation can help heart health, a study from the Medical College of Georgia shows.

The study was small, but its results were encouraging. Meditation may prove to be a beneficial addition to lifestyle and/or medical approaches to heart disease, say Frank Treiber, PhD, and colleagues.

Treiber directs the Georgia Prevention Institute at the Medical College of Augusta. He and his colleagues reported their findings in Orlando, Fla., at the Second International Conference on Women, Heart Disease, and Stroke.

Participants were 36 black females who were about 16 years old. All of them had high to normal systolic blood pressure (prehypertension). That increased their risk of future heart disease.

The girls were assigned to either get four months of training in transcendental meditation (TM) or health education without meditation. Before the groups got underway, researchers checked the pliability of a blood vessel wall in the girls’ arms. Studies have shown that African-Americans have decrease pliability of blood vessels. TM has been shown to improve this function in young people with prehypertension.

Normal healthy blood vessels contract and expand; a very early sign of blood vessel disease is when this ability is impaired. A decrease in blood vessels’ ability to contract and expand is seen in high blood pressure.

The blood vessel pliability test was repeated four months later. The researchers compared the change in blood vessel function to the earlier test.

By the four-month follow-up, the transcendental meditation group had "improved significantly" its blood vessel function compared to the group which received health education only, say the researchers.

That might bode well for the girls’ future heart health. The blood vessel problems studied have been linked to high blood pressure, poor cholesterol, and coronary artery disease, say the researchers.

Transcendental meditation was popularized in recent decades by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It’s easy to learn and doesn’t require any particular religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, says Robert Schneider, MD.

Schneider directs the Center for Health and Aging Studies in Fairfield, Iowa. He is also a professor of physiology and Maharishi Ayurveda. He discussed meditation and aging in a previous WebMD Live Event.

Meditation has garnered lots of research attention. It’s been found to be good for the heart, immune system, PMS, and even breastfeeding and hot flashes. There seems to be no down side to meditation, but it doesn’t take the place of needed conventional medicine.

"There are many different forms of meditation," says Patricia Monaghan, author of Meditation, The Complete Guide. In a live event with WebMD, she counted more than 50 kinds of meditation.

You don’t need a mantra or a Zen-like room, and you don’t have to twist yourself into a pretzel, says Monaghan. Sitting and focusing on your breath works. So does meditating while walking. Classes teach the techniques, and the practice takes as little as 10 minutes a day, says Monaghan. "Everyone has 10 minutes," she says.

Labels: African-Americans, Frank Treiber, heart disease, Medical College of Georgia, meditation, transcendental meditation

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Saturday, February 16, 2008

Religion colors Americans' views of nanotechnology

Posted in: Science nanotechnology Religion

Is nanotechnology morally acceptable? For a significant percentage of Americans, the answer is no, according to a recent survey of Americans' attitudes about the science of the very small.

Addressing scientists here today (Feb. 15, 2008) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication, presented new survey results that show religion exerts far more influence on public views of technology in the United States than in Europe.

"Our data show a much lower percentage of people who agree that nanotechnology is morally acceptable in the U.S. than in Europe," says Scheufele, an expert on public opinion and science and technology.

Nanotechnology is a branch of science and engineering devoted to the design and production of materials, structures, devices and circuits at the smallest achievable scale, typically in the realm of individual atoms and molecules. The ability to engineer matter at that scale has the potential to produce a vast array of new technologies that could influence everything from computers to medicine. Already, dozens of products containing nanoscale materials or devices are on the market.

In a sample of 1,015 adult Americans, only 29.5 percent of respondents agreed that nanotechnology was morally acceptable.

In European surveys that posed identical questions about nanotechnology to people in the United Kingdom and continental Europe, significantly higher percentages of people accepted the moral validity of the technology. In the United Kingdom, 54.1 percent found nanotechnology to be morally acceptable. In Germany, 62.7 percent had no moral qualms about nanotechnology, and in France 72.1 percent of survey respondents saw no problems with the technology.

"There seem to be distinct differences between the United States and countries that are key players in nanotech in Europe, in terms of attitudes toward nanotechnology," says Scheufele.

Why the big difference?

The answer, Scheufele believes, is religion: "The United States is a country where religion plays an important role in peoples' lives. The importance of religion in these different countries that shows up in data set after data set parallels exactly the differences we're seeing in terms of moral views. European countries have a much more secular perspective."

The catch for Americans with strong religious convictions, Scheufele believes, is that nanotechnology, biotechnology and stem cell research are lumped together as means to enhance human qualities. In short, researchers are viewed as "playing God" when they create materials that do not occur in nature, especially where nanotechnology and biotechnology intertwine, says Scheufele.

He conducted the U.S. survey with Arizona State University (ASU) colleague Elizabeth Corley under the auspices of the National Science Foundation-funded Center for Nanotechnology in Society at ASU.

The moral qualms people of faith express about nanotechnology is not a question of ignorance of the technology, says Scheufele, explaining that survey respondents are well-informed about nanotechnology and its potential benefits.

"They still oppose it," he says. "They are rejecting it based on religious beliefs. The issue isn't about informing these people. They are informed."

The new study has critical implications for how experts explain the technology and its applications, Scheufele says. It means the scientific community needs to do a far better job of placing the technology in context and in understanding the attitudes of the American public.-University of Wisconsin-Madison

Labels: Americans, Center for Nanotechnology in Society, Dietram Scheufele, Europeans, morality, nanotechnology, religion

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Living Your Essence – A Global Perspective

Feb 15, 2008,

Why is it, with so much resource and opportunity in the world, the sheer volumes of information we have on the Internet, and the litany of spiritual venues available, that people would continue to be riddled with unhappiness and plagued by depression? Why do so many of us feel utterly powerless to make a significant difference in the world? Why does it seem like this mysterious force, “out there,” is in charge of what’s happening? And why do we continue to live in fear of one another? Most importantly, what can we do to overcome all of this?

To paraphrase Einstein though, “we will never be able to solve the problems of our current situation from the same consciousness that created it.” That is to say that fear cannot and will not overcome fear. You cannot fight terror with more terror; for all that does is compound the problem!

As we evolve, and our sense of discernment grows sharp, we must start to understand and take responsibility for our beliefs. Simply stated, our beliefs create the reality we live in. By allowing the burgeoning corporate interests and media empires to use propaganda, sensationalism, and psychological prowess to shape our opinions, we are living at the effect of what we see and experience on television. Quite frankly, our subconscious does not realize the difference between a real life experience and an experience it remembers from a picture.

In order to regain control, we have got to become more selective and fill our minds only with information that is useful and critical to our success!

Jack Trout, in his book, “Differentiate or Die,” expounded upon the number of messages that come at us on a daily basis. It is estimated that the average individual is exposed to 30,000 messages on any given day; quite an astounding number. On one level, we have a filtering mechanism that allows us to function despite this full frontal attack of messaging, however on another level, we have very little defense, unless of course, we live in a cave somewhere. It is virtually impossible to escape the proliferation of “Consumerism” and thus, we need to take proactive measures to live within our Essence.

Health can be directly correlated to your ability to process and subsequently stand clear of negative thought. Conversely, we typically pay dubious attention to the negative stories that run us and subsequently persist in ways that will seemingly resolve these negative thoughts - such as listening to negative banter on the news. Each of us, face lessons in life that make us bitter or they make us better. The real trick is to take each obstacle and process both the pain and the wisdom that goes with it. As we resist these lessons, they become imbedded in our consciousness and make us unhealthy and negative – we start to chase conversations that validate negative data. The point is not to deny our experience, resist it, or try to overcome it, but rather to embrace it, asking questions and finding answers that facilitate the highest and best wisdom. The same goes for concepts and words that clog our minds with negative meanings and unclear outcomes.

True discernment is the ability to assert Choice. When you let your negative reactions dictate the way you feel and act, there is no Choice, only reactive behavior. This reactive behavior is the biggest problem we have. Life can certainly be lived reacting to everything that goes on around us. We can try to build walls to keep out the evil forces and put guards at the gates, but at the end of the day, you really have to ask yourself, how much energy is that going to take? You see, ultimately you can never have enough energy to fight off and react to the consciousness of fear and therefore, it is a losing struggle. This is the underlying reason for depression. The alternative is simply to discard the fear based thought and regain Creative Choice, the underlying nature of Essence. Therein lay the answer.

It would be a disservice though, to write at length about what Essence is, Lord knows, the religions have been trying this for Ions and that is fine. We feel the approach best taken to your own Essence is to allow you to stand clear of your reactive fear based thoughts and listen. Listen for what calls to you. Listen for the synchronicity that life hands you every day. Acknowledge the spectrum of Choice at hand and allow yourself to just be still. Everything you need to live the Essence based life is right in front of you, and that is a promise.

Labels: choice, Differentiate or Die, health, Jack Trout, negativity

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Thursday, February 14, 2008

People in loving relationships are healthier

by The Times-Picayune
Tuesday February 12, 2008,
Chris Bynum
Staff writer

There's plenty of proof that love is good for your health. But even if Valentine's Day suggests that a direct hit with Cupid's arrow is required, health experts say that love's physiological benefits are not limited to heady romance and passionate highs.

"When I say love, I mean a deep emotional connection as opposed to being in love, " says Dr. Mark Liponis, medical director of Canyon Ranch in Lenox, Mass., and author of "Ultra-Longevity" (Little, Brown and Company, $25.99). "You can have a really deep emotional connection with friends, hobbies, children, pets, nature. We are social creatures. We have found that social interaction improves outcome."

Liponis points out one of the reasons people form or join support groups is to dissolve "negative emotions like anger, despair and anxiety." Such negativity, he says, can impact health adversely, elevating our levels of C-reactive protein, which weakens the immune system.

Love has been measured in blood tests, stress levels and psychological responses as scientists seek to measure love's impact on wellness. A Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2004 study indicated that married adults are less likely to be smokers or heavy drinkers and less likely to have sexually transmitted diseases. The same study concluded that a healthy marriage contains built-in stress reducers -- combined incomes translating to greater wealth over a lifetime, friends and family from both spouses serving as a ready support group, and a tendency toward more responsible behaviors.

Those who have experienced happy unions can attest to the intangibles that statistics don't always communicate. Local lawyer Orr Adams is one of those who has seen the benefits of a 22-year marriage.

"There's one obvious benefit: You have a partner to do things with, whether it's health-related, raising kids, working on the house, or learning to sail. Having someone there makes it more likely that you will do something and pursue it, " says Adams. "Some people are not shy at all, and they are willing to do things with people they don't know. But if you have a friend or spouse who will go with you, you get involved, and you stay involved."

Adams believes that stability is an important side effect of marriage, and that in turn has a positive effect on his overall quality of life.

"I am very much a creature of habit, and when I am in my comfort zone, I have more peace of mind and can go through the day with a greater sense of optimism, " he says.

Sean Johnson, founder of Wild Lotus Yoga Studio, has been conducting couples yoga classes for more than eight years. His observations corroborate what studies show.

"What I have witnessed in couples who have a healthy, loving relationship is that the love that exists in partnership radiates outward, illuminating other areas of life -- generating a positive, passionate and creative energy that is contagious, " he says. "What I see in these couples is that their love for each other gives them even more incentive to love and take good care of themselves individually."

Johnson says the value couples place on their relationship often translates into healthier spiritual, emotional and physical habits out of respect for their partners. "Partners believe in and support each other and are invested in each other's well-being."

There is, however, one documented negative health risk -- obesity -- that is greater among married people than singles.

The term "married" carries weight in other aspects of health.

"Those who live together may enjoy temporary health benefits, but they may not reap as high a benefit as those who take the plunge (and marry), " says Jack, citing the results of the CDC study.

While no one can dispute that unhealthy marriages carry negative side effects from stress to depression, there are some telltale signs early on as to how to steer the marriage in a healthy direction.

While Valentine's Day might feel like a doomsday barometer for singles who are currently not dating, Jack says the holiday should be put in its proper perspective.

"It's not a personal thing; it's a commercial holiday, " Jack says. "It's an opportunity for those in a relationship to recommit, but it is not a day for single people to beat up on themselves about past relationships. It is an opportunity to appreciate where they are in their journey."

Liponis sees love as much as an action as a feeling, an action that he says can be expressed multiple ways throughout the day. He suggests becoming an advocate -- putting any strong feelings of love or compassion in a positive direction, "whether it's animals, the environment or politics."

Working for your cause, whether as an advocate leading the charge or a volunteer living a passion, he says, is not only an expression of love, but provides a logical place to find a soul mate.

Labels: Chris Bynum, health, love, marriage, relationship, Valentines Day

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The Woman Who Shed Her Burqa

Posted February 12, 2008

Book Review: Reconciliation by Benazir Bhutto

As someone who knew and respected Benazir Bhutto ever since we were in college together, I cannot write an unbiased review of her new book, Reconciliation. But because I feel that it is an extraordinarily important and beautiful work, I'm pleased to take up Arianna's offer to comment upon it here.

The book, completed just before her assassination this past December, is both an intensely personal and a profoundly intellectual assessment of Islam and its relationship to the West. Her own journey began in the village of Lukana, as the daughter of a strong-willed man who would become Pakistan's prime minister. "When I reached the age of puberty, my mother asked me to wear a burqa," she writes. "Suddenly the world looked gray. I felt hot and uncomfortable breathing under the confines of the cloth. My father took one look at me and said, 'My daughter does not have to wear the veil.'"

The subjugation of women in many Muslim countries, Bhutto contends, is a perversion of the Quran. "The Prophet Mohammad accepted women as equal partners in society, in business, and even in war," she writes. "The Quran elevates the status of women to that of men. It guarantees women civil, economic, and political rights."

There are many who might dispute such characterizations of Islam, including both its most ardent adherents and fiercest critics. That is why Bhutto's book is so important. She marshals evidence from the Quran, from history, from a survey of society in Muslim nations, and from her personal life to paint a picture of what Islam can and should be. In making her theological arguments, she was helped by her wise friend Husain Haqqani, a scholar from Pakistan now a professor at Boston University. Another dedicated friend, Mark Siegel, a political consultant in Washington, was instrumental in editing and researching the book.

Bhutto's defense of Islam does not extend to how it has been manifest in most countries where it is the dominant religion. "There are unfortunately only a few clear democratic success stories," she notes. The courage that she exhibited throughout her life is reflected in her book's critique of the way politics is practiced in much of the Islamic world today and her unflinching prescriptions for reform.

To those, in both the West and the East, who believe that a clash of civilizations is inevitable, Bhutto offers a reasoned alternative vision of what the world could be like. And she wraps it in a personal tale that should inspire readers everywhere. Both her vision and her personal courage are made all the more poignant, and all the more important for people to appreciate, by her tragic murder.

In the spirit of full disclosure, let me note that I gave a blurb for the book at the publisher's request. My endorsement was deeply felt. This is a powerful personal narrative by an astonishingly brave woman. It's also a brilliant manifesto for challenging radical Islam.

Labels: Benazir Bhutto, Islam, Pakistan, Reconciliation, religion, Walter Isaacson

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Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Speaker Stresses Values of People Doing Good

February 9, 2008

By Cary McMullen

To give credit where credit is due, Stephen Post attributes his scholarly work on altruism and the widespread recognition it has garnered to a simple bit of advice from his Irish mother. Whenever he was bored or morose as a kid, she would tell him, "Stevie, why don't you go out and do something for someone," Post told an audience at Florida Southern College on Friday.

Post is professor of bioethics, philosophy and religion at the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University and the author of "Why Good Things Happen to Good People." He delivered the keynote lecture at the annual meeting of the Florida Center for Science and Religion at FSC, which was devoted to the topic "Angels and Devils: The Theory and Praxis of Good and Evil in Science and Religion."

In a lecture that was by turns intellectual, inspirational and humorous, Post marshalled a host of data from scientific studies to support his thesis that unselfish actions toward others have mental and physical health benefits. Or, as Post put it, "It's good to be good, and science says so."

Post cited one study in which a researcher followed people who had high indications of anger on a psychological profile test. Their mortality rate by age 50 was 20 percent. For those in the lowest quartile of indications of anger, the mortality rate was 2 percent, he said.

Post was tapped by British-American philanthropist Sir John Templeton several years ago to found the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, which facilitates studies on the interface of science, health and love. Post devoted a good bit of his lecture to questions of happiness and love. The key to happiness, he said, lies in practicing altruistic virtues, such as helping others and practicing forgiveness. Noble purposes and actions yield more enjoyment of life, he said.

"I believe even in the deserts of life, if you plant a rose and stick with love, in the long run you're going to be better off and be blessed for your efforts," he said.

Responding to a question, Post said people should not pursue altruism just so they can be healthier.

"If you're getting into religion for self-benefit, that would be inauthentic. All science can give us is statistics, not promises. We 'do unto others' because they're deserving of it," he said.

Post called the late 20th-century "an intellectual hellhole" because of ideas that cast suspicion on notions of unselfishness. He mentioned existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre and biologist Richard Dawkins, author of "The Selfish Gene" and one of several recent writers who have written harsh critiques of belief in God. Attributing the moral category of selfishness to the biochemical process of reproduction was "ridiculous," he said.

"In our contemporary society, for a lot of people, the gene has taken the place of the soul. If you want to know your ultimate essence and destiny and nature, it's your genotype, baby. ... So don't get to be feeling too genuine about yourself," Post said, describing Dawkins' views.

Labels: altruism, Cary McMullen, happiness, health, Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, Stephen Post

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Forgiveness has God on its side: study

February 12, 2008

Psychologists at RMIT University in Melbourne interviewed people of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith and compared them to Australians who were non-believers or who had new-age beliefs.

They found that people affiliated with the more traditional religions had a greater tendency to forgive and let go of past wrongs.

But they found that spirituality in the broadest sense, that is belief in any type of higher being, was the strongest predictor of whether you were forgiving or not.

"The results showed that it doesn't matter what you believe in, but if you believe in something, have faith in something, it means you're more likely to forgive," said researcher Adam Fox, who led the study overseen by professor of psychology Trang Thomas.

"That indicates that there's something in the system of thought connected to spirituality that helps people to accept others and their actions."

The researchers were unable to compare individual religions due to "ethical considerations", but said there was only "slight differences" between each.

A number of recent international studies have linked religious worship to lower rates of depression, improved physical health and a longer life span.

This latest study, based on an internet survey of 475 adults, was one of the first to show how faith can improve behaviour, Mr Fox said.

He said the finding was positive given that religions were commonly blamed as a source of much violence in the world.

"We are all aware that religion causes conflict, but it is heartening to see that it also has the ability to reduce conflict and animosity too," the researcher said.

Labels: Australia, faith, forgiveness, religion, spirituality

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Friday, February 08, 2008

Religion and the Death Penalty

Religion and the Death Penalty

By Walter Berns
Monday, January 28, 2008

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether the Constitution allows the death penalty for the rape of a child.

--New York Times, January 5, 2008

The best case for the death penalty--or, at least, the best explanation of it--was made, paradoxically, by one of the most famous of its opponents, Albert Camus, the French novelist. Others complained of the alleged unusual cruelty of the death penalty, or insisted that it was not, as claimed, a better deterrent of murder than, say, life imprisonment, and Americans especially complained of the manner in which it was imposed by judge or jury (discriminatorily or capriciously, for example), and sometimes on the innocent.

Camus said all this and more, and what he said in addition is instructive. The death penalty, he said, "can be legitimized only by a truth or a principle that is superior to man," or, as he then made clearer, it may rightly be imposed only by a religious society or community; specifically, one that believes in "eternal life." Only in such a place can it be said that the death sentence provides the guilty person with the opportunity (and reminds him of the reason) to make amends, thus to prepare himself for the final judgment which will be made in the world to come. For this reason, he said, the Catholic church "has always accepted the necessity of the death penalty." This may no longer be the case. And it may no longer be the case that death is, as Camus said it has always been, a religious penalty. But it can be said that the death penalty is more likely to be imposed by a religious people.

The reasons for this are not obvious. It may be that the religious know what evil is or, at least, that it is, and, unlike the irreligious, are not so ready to believe that evil can be explained, and thereby excused, by a history of child abuse or, say, a "post-traumatic stress disorder" or a "temporal lobe seizure." Or, again unlike the irreligious, and probably without having read so much as a word of his argument, they may be morally disposed (or better, predisposed) to agree with the philosopher Immanuel Kant--that greatest of the moralists--who said it was a "categorical imperative" that a convicted murderer "must die." Or perhaps the religious are simply quicker to anger and, while instructed to do otherwise, slower, even unwilling, to forgive. In a word, they are more likely to demand that justice be done. Whatever the reason, there is surely a connection between the death penalty and religious belief.

European politicians and journalists recognize or acknowledge the connection, if only inadvertently, when they simultaneously despise us Americans for supporting the death penalty and ridicule us for going to church. We might draw a conclusion from the fact that they do neither. Consider the facts on the ground (so to speak): In this country, 60 convicted murderers were executed in 2005 (and 53 in 2006), almost all of them in southern or southwestern and church-going states--Virginia and Georgia, for example, Texas and Oklahoma--states whose residents are among the most seriously religious Americans. Whereas in Europe, or "old Europe," no one was executed and, according to one survey, almost no one--and certainly no soi-disant intellectual--goes to church. In Germany, for example, leaving aside the Muslims and few remaining Jews, only 4 percent of the people regularly attend church services, in Britain and Denmark 3 percent, and in Sweden not much more than 1; in France there are more practicing Muslims than there are baptized Catholics, and a third of the Dutch do not know the "why" of Christmas. Hence, the empty or abandoned churches, or in Shakespeare's words, the "bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang."

What explains this obsession with the death penalty? Hard to say, but probably the fact that abolishing it is one of the few things Europeans can do that make them feel righteous; in fact, very few. Nowhere in the new European constitution--some 300 pages long, not counting the appendages--is there any mention of religion, of Christian Europe, or of God. God is dead in Europe and, of course, something died with Him.

This "something" is the subject of Camus's famous novel The Stranger, first published in 1942, 60 years after Nietzsche first announced God's death, and another 60 before the truth of what he said became apparent, at least with respect to Europe and its intellectuals. The novel has been called a modern masterpiece--there was a time, and not so long ago, when students of a certain age were required to read it--and Meursault, its hero (actually, its antihero), is a murderer, but a different kind of murderer. What is different about him is that he murdered for no reason--he did it because the sun got in his eyes, à cause du soleil--and because he neither loves nor hates, and unlike the other people who inhabit his world, does not pretend to love or hate. He has no friends; indeed, he lives in a world in which there is no basis for friendship and no moral law; therefore, no one, not even a murderer, can violate the terms of friendship or break that law. As he said, the universe "is benignly indifferent" to how he lives.

It is a bleak picture, and Camus was criticized for painting it, but as he wrote in reply, "there is no other life possible for a man deprived of God, and all men are [now] in that position." But Camus was not the first European to draw this picture; he was preceded by Nietzsche who (see Zarathustra's "Prologue") provided us with an account of human life in that godless and "brave new world." It will be a comfortable world--rather like that promised by the European Union--where men will "have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night," but no love, no longing, no striving, no hope, no gods or ideals, no politics ("too burdensome"), no passions (especially no anger), only "a regard for health." To this list, Camus rightly added, no death penalty.

This makes sense. A world so lacking in passion lacks the necessary components of punishment. Punishment has its origins in the demand for justice, and justice is demanded by angry, morally indignant men, men who are angry when someone else is robbed, raped, or murdered, men utterly unlike Camus's Meursault. This anger is an expression of their caring, and the just society needs citizens who care for each other, and for the community of which they are parts. One of the purposes of punishment, particularly capital punishment, is to recognize the legitimacy of that righteous anger and to satisfy and thereby to reward it. In this way, the death penalty, when duly or deliberately imposed, serves to strengthen the moral sentiments required by a self-governing community.

Walter Berns is a resident scholar at AEI. An earlier version of this essay appeared in Democracy and the Constitution (AEI Press, 2006).

Labels: Albert Camus, America, capital punishment, Europe, religion, Walter Berns

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Gratitude improves health

Monday | February 4, 2008

Health and happiness are two of the universal goals of all people. Many philosophers, spiritual teachers, the world's major religions, including Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have prized gratitude as a spiritually beneficial emotional state. Now doctors and psychologists have joined in the chorus.

Medical research indicates that there is something you can do each day to be healthier and happier, and it will cost you nothing and take very little time. Be grateful. Dr Michael McCollough, of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and Dr Robert Emmons, of the University of California at Davis, say their scientific study indicates that gratitude plays a significant role in a person's sense of well-being.

A Healthier Lifestyle

Grateful people: Those who embrace gratitude as a permanent trait rather than an occasional state of mind have an edge on the not-so-grateful when it comes to health.

Stress Buster

"Gratitude research suggests that feelings of thankfulness have tremendous positive value in helping people cope with daily problems, especially stress," the researchers say.

Immune Booster

Grateful people tend to be more optimistic, a characteristic that the boosts the immune system. Dr Lisa Aspinwall, professor of psychology at the University of Utah, reported on some very interesting studies linking optimism to better immune function. In one, researchers compared the immune systems of healthy, first-year law students under stress. They found that students who were optimistic (based on survey responses) maintained higher numbers of healthy blood cells that protect the immune system, compared with their more pessimistic classmates.

Optimism also has a positive health impact on people with compromised health. In separate studies, patients diagnosed with AIDS, as well as those preparing to undergo surgery, had better health outcomes when they maintained attitudes of optimism.

Heart Health

Clinical psychologist Blair Justice, PhD, professor emeritus of psychology at the UT School of Public Health at Houston, states, "A growing body of research supports the notion that rediscovering a sense of abundance by thinking about those people and things we love lowers the risks of coronary events."

GRATITUDE STRATEGIES

Practise: Start each day by simply focusing on three to five things for which you can be grateful. This will increase your health and happiness. Everyone has something to be grateful for. Just being alive is a big one. Being able to breathe, or having enough money for lunch, or a roof over your head are all things we can be grateful that we have, but we often take these for granted.

Express your gratitude to someone else for an even stronger dose of health and happiness. Holding the thought of gratitude and expressing that gratitude to the friend will benefit both of you.

Record your gratitude. Some people have found even greater rewards from practising gratitude when they make a daily list of things they are grateful for in a 'gratitude journal'. This practice is made even more powerful when they find time to reread their gratitude lists.

Share your gratitude. Gratitude becomes infectious. Look for ways to share your blessings. It can express itself in simple ways like with a smile, a blessing, a prayer, a note or phone call. Just do it.

Thank you for reading this; I'm so grateful that you did.

Labels: gratitude, happiness, health, immunity, Michael McCollough, Robert Emmons, stress

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Renewable energy, renewed planet

from the February 7, 2008 edition

Problems, personal or worldwide, present an opportunity to turn to prayer. How to slow down global warming and still supply the world's increasing energy needs is one of those challenges. Not only is the problem baffling, but the solutions offered so far have had only a mixed reception.

It's heartening to realize that existing technologies could provide energy that won't pour so much carbon into the atmosphere. And we can expect further developments in this area as well as some form of international agreement on their use. Finding energy sources beside nonrenewable oil and coal is also a promised solution. Yet none of these technologies is without some kind of drawback. So the question remains: how to make good decisions about such complex issues?

There's value in turning to God, Spirit, for solutions. In fact, the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," speaks of energy in spiritual terms. Its author, Mary Baker Eddy, who was very much abreast of the news during her lifetime, declared, "Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy" (p. 249).

To shift our thoughts from limited resources that are either quickly being depleted, or that have ecological drawbacks, to looking deeply into God's infinite care for His creation can be quite transforming. For one thing, divine Spirit doesn't include matter – and neither does its creation. The "divine energy of Spirit" might be defined as Love, which supplies direction and strength to fulfill the obligations of a busy life. This divine energy is eternally renewable and includes no element of destruction. It promises that not only can we personally expect a wonderful feeling of newness but that Spirit can inspire humanity to discover new methods for generating energy and reveal new ways to help save our planet.

Many thinkers today are recognizing that the universe, including man, is more than a material creation and actually has a spiritual origin. In their eyes, the universe is governed by spiritual law and powered by unlimited and renewable divine energy. This energy naturally finds expression in new and better ways of living.

In reality, we are dwellers in a spiritual universe where all energy is divine. The more we recognize and yield to this divine energy, the more we'll feel not only newness of life individually but also find more ways of conserving and renewing all the elements that make up daily living. Each of us has our part in working together to accept the divine energy that God is providing and to let God guide us to steps we can take to renew our planet.

Labels: energy, global warming, God, Mary Baker Eddy, prayer, spirituality

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Bishops Tell Christians to Give Up Some Carbon for Lent

By Alexis Madrigal February 07, 2008

Two Church of England Bishops want their followers to join them in a "Carbon Fast" for Lent, the 40 day period in which many Christians abstain from eating or imbibing some favored item.

But really the plan is closer to a carbon diet than a fast. According to the UK's Independent, those joining the fast will, among other carbon-cutting tips, "be asked to remove one lightbulb from a prominent place in the home and live without it for 40 days."

The bishops green stance is not about protecting the environment, per se, but rather a call to lessen global warming's impact on the residents of third-world nations.

"It is the poor who are already suffering the effects of climate change. To carry on regardless of their plight is to fly in the face of Christian teaching," James Jones and Dr. Richard Chartres, bishops of Liverpool and London, respectively, said in a statement. "There’s a moral imperative on those of us who emit more than our fair share of carbon to rein in our consumption."

Those words would be music to the ears of environmental folks here in the States who have long held skeptical hopes that Christians, particularly evangelicals led by Richard Cizik, would become a potent new constituency in an emerging climate change political coalition.

But pro-environmental evangelical “calls to action” in February 2006 and January 2007 haven't seemed to make much of an impact on the mass of US evangelicals, at least according to a 2007 survey released by the Christian consulting firm, The Barna Group.

One thousand random US adults were asked the question, “Think about how you would like the United States to change within the next 10 years…” and given a wide variety of areas of concern they’d like to improve including the reliability of news coverage, national security in the US, and the health of Christian churches. Among the total survey group, 60% of people felt that “investment in environmental protection” should be a top priority. But those meeting “born-again criteria” felt differently:

Evangelicals stood out regarding their views on the environment. Only 35% said that protecting the environment should be a top priority - the lowest score recorded among any of the 80 subgroups studied.

Even though the Barna survey's phrasing seems destined to draw negative reactions with the inclusion of the they’ll-raise-your-taxes codephrase “investment,” it still doesn't begin to explain evangelical distaste for environmental issues evidenced in the results.

It's clear that here in the States, we have a long way to go before mainstream Evangelicals are willing to do anything green, even if some other polls show less disheartening results (pdf).

Labels: Americans, Barna Group, carbon fast, Christian, evangelicals, global warming, Lent

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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Fasting seen as tool for health, spirituality

February 5, 2008

By JANET ST. JAMES

The history of fasting goes back thousands of years to Hippocrates, Socrates, Plato.

Jesus did it for 40 days for spiritual renewal.

Debbie Ragsdale of McKinney does it once a month, for about the same reason.

Far from starving, a growing number of studies show a periodic fast can do as much for the body as it does for religious beliefs.

After years of being told to eat many small meals a day to rev up the metabolism, research shows giving it a one day rest, once a week or once a month -- may also be beneficial.

Research shows depriving the body of food -- for 24 hours, drinking only water -- can give the heart arteries and pancreas a rest.

"If you're able to fast all day long, except for water, and reduce your insulin secretion," says Baylor University Medical Center Dr. Brian Welch. "There may be some metabolic advantage to that as long as it's not followed by binge eating."

Dr. Welch, a practicing endocrinologist, says there's even evidence partial fasting can extend the lifespan, because eating less sends a message to the brain and cells to use energy more efficiently.

Scientists have seen the proof in rat studies and in real life.

A study recently presented to the American Heart Association looked at Mormons. The study showed Mormon's hearts are much healthier than the average American's -- and not just because their religion forbids smoking and drinking.

Gordon Wright, a Dallas attorney who also happens to be Mormon, has fasted regularly his whole life.

"The appetites that we typically have and just set them aside and focus on more spiritual things. It allows us to focus on things other than the body and the things that drive us day to day," he said.

And Wright says when the fast is over, he's suprisingly not ravenous or obsessing about food. That's because research also suggests that supressing insulin may also reduce the taste for sugar.

Reducing sugar cravings can lead to weight loss over time.

Ragsdale also tries to eat healthy. Once a month, she and friends gather to cook and share a light, healthy lunch, as part of that endeavor.

And, she never misses her monthly fast, for body and soul.

Doctors say fasting more than a day at time breaks down muscles, instead of helping the body. And diabetics should talk with their physician before attempting even a one day fast.

Labels: fasting, health, Janet St. James, Mormonism, religiosity, spirituality

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Celebrate Darwin Day -- February 12

by Revolution Newspaper
Tuesday Feb 5th, 2008

Darwin Day, February 12 each year, is an international celebration of the birthday of Charles Darwin, who first developed the modern scientific theory of the evolution of life.

What would the world be like today without Darwin and the science of evolution?

It is no exaggeration to say that this world would be a much more terrible and impoverished place—in every dimension. There would be no modern medicine—no way to know that we could use tissue from animals sharing a common ancestry to fix a failing human heart valve. No chance to stop infections that evolve and grow resistant to treatments, or discover cures for viruses like AIDS. Moreover, we’d be deprived of the wonderment and exhilaration from learning how the natural world actually works. Conversely, because Darwin did make this contribution, his work also served to strengthen the scientific method and its role in modern society. And that is very important.

There is beauty as well as usefulness to the truth that Darwin discovered. As Darwin himself put it poetically in the conclusion of On the Origin of Species, the path-breaking book which first put forward his theory: “It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us…. There is grandeur in this view of life....”

Evolution is true. There is evidence of it everywhere (and nobody has ever found evidence to disprove it). To take just one example, the book The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism—Knowing What’s Real and Why it Matters by Ardea Skybreak explores the evolution of whales: First, the earliest ancestors of all animal life on land evolved from fish and developed the capacity to walk on land, and then one branch of those animals, the ancestors of whales, over many generations, evolved to live in the sea again. From the sea, and then, many millions of years later, back into the sea! That’s why examining the skeleton of a baleen whale reveals the remnants of hipbones that once supported legs!

Evolution shows that—starting from simple forms of life—all living things transformed out of other living things in a tremendous branching tree, including humans and all their mental capacities. This has been firmly established by scientists from many different fields coming at this from different angles. And all this happened without any overall preset direction, let alone being orchestrated by a (non-existent) god (what kind of an inept god would create a whale with tiny skeletal hips?). The changes in life forms are driven by naturally occurring variations (changes) in the genes that make up living things. And many of those changes are then “sorted out” through natural selection, as different plants and animals confront and either survive, or die off, in constantly changing environments.

Today, with people agonizing about the future and feeling alienated and isolated, the core of the U.S. ruling class supports the most backward and outright obscurantist religious fundamentalism as a way to channel this anxiety into hard-core support for the system. And it supports this fundamentalism against science. Bush himself states that “the jury is still out” on evolution. Research into realms ranging from global warming to preventing the spread of AIDS to stem cell research for cures to tragic diseases is suppressed because it conflicts with political programs and ways of thinking that are integral to keeping people ignorant and enslaved.

As part of this war on science, the theory of evolution is suppressed, banned, distorted, and just not taught. Recently, an administrator in the Texas school system was forced to resign simply for forwarding an e-mail announcing a speech by a prominent scholar on evolution!

There is battle raging in society over epistemology—that is, over the nature of truth and how people come to know the truth. Is this to be done by seeking the real material causes of things in reality? Or, instead of that, by turning off critical thinking and seeking answers from some supernatural being that doesn’t even exist? Darwin Day contributes at this important time to supporting the understanding that we can and must know how the world changes through developing and testing theories in relation to the evidence of the real, material world.

There’s another dimension as well. An important aim of the communist revolution is to “free the spirit from its cell,” as the song the Internationale says. That is to say, to liberate people’s minds from the chains of ignorance and traditional ways of thinking—including the shackles of religious belief in non-existent supernatural powers (gods). These “old ideas” both justify oppression and foster a dog-eat-dog mentality, and also keep people from understanding, appreciating, and being inspired by the real world. In the case of religion, these ideas ultimately justify “the way things are” (“render unto Caesar”) and instill passivity and ignorance in people (“God works in mysterious ways”). Firmly grasping science, in all its rigor and wonder, is essential to the crucial rupture with that kind of thinking.

Correspondingly, in a revolutionary socialist society—and on a whole other level when humanity reaches the goal of worldwide communism—the method of scientific discovery will be taught in schools and promoted throughout society. Science, and a scientific worldview, will be made the common province of all society—including those who have up to now been locked out of that. Scientific research—including scientific inquiry that does not promise any particular immediate practical benefit, as well as research that is directed to the most pressing problems of the masses—will be unleashed on a level far beyond anything humanity has seen. Previous socialist societies have accomplished great things in this—and overcoming weaknesses and tendencies to narrow this sphere in those revolutions is a critical element of Bob Avakian’s re-envisioning of communism.

Finally, if we are to bring forward a real revolutionary movement, then it must involve people engaging in science and the scientific method. If we don’t understand the world as it really is— its underlying dynamics and driving forces, including as a key part of that where the possibility for big revolutionary changes can come from and how to seize on such potential opportunities—then we won’t be able to change it in the direction that it needs to go for humanity. Making that change—making revolution—will take millions struggling to figure out and grasp the truth and moving to act on it, decisively—not only from among the intellectuals, but also and especially from the brutally oppressed and exploited people who must and can be the backbone force of a revolution to throw off and put an end to all forms of exploitation throughout the globe. To emancipate humanity, we must emancipate our minds.

In this spirit, and from this perspective, we encourage all our readers to find and attend Darwin Day events, and to engage Darwin’s work in this annual celebration of a wonderful breakthrough in human understanding.

A list of Darwin Day events is available at darwinday.org. There are events all over the world—from Spain to Australia to Bangladesh. In San Francisco, people are being invited to an “Evolutionpalooza to celebrate Darwin Day with your fellow primates”; Darwin’s Bulldogs are gathering in Grayslake, Illinois; and a whole week of programs at Indiana State University includes “The Adventures of Darwin’s Chihuahua.” In the U.S. hundreds of religious congregations are planning to join in, with talks and sermons upholding evolution on Evolution Weekend, February 9 and 10.

Labels: Darwin Day, epistemology, evolution, fundamentalism, religion, socialism

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Book Review: DO YOU BELIEVE? CONVERSATIONS ON GOD AND RELIGION

DO YOU BELIEVE?
CONVERSATIONS ON GOD AND RELIGION
By Antonio Monda;
translated from the Italian by
Ann Goldstein
Vintage Books, 178 pages, $12.95
How artists & intellectuals view God

Reviewed by Cynthia D. Bertelsen

Born from a survey conducted in 2003 for La Repubblica newspaper, Do You Believe? Conversations on God and Religion contains brief interviews with members of America’s intelligentsia about “religion’s central place in existence.” The premise is promising, if these people are indeed those who subtly and subliminally shape America’s thought processes. Antonio Monda, a cultural critic and writer for the Italian publications La Repubblica and La Revista dei Libri, teaches at the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television, Tisch School of the Arts, in New York City. A traditional Catholic, Mr. Monda states in his introduction that, “from the perspective of my own religion [Catholic, apostolic, Roman], I’ve always found less than convincing the position of those who recognize the existence of God and the divinity of Christ but dispute (or even have contempt for) the church.”

In Do You Believe? Mr. Monda works with a somewhat skewed sample, since he personally knows most of the final 18 interviewees. The interviews are arranged alphabetically by last name. The list includes Paul Auster, Saul Bellow, Michael Cunningham, Nathan Englander, Jane Fonda, Richard Ford, Paula Fox, Jonathan Franzen, Spike Lee, Daniel Libeskind, David Lynch, Toni Morrison, Grace Paley, Salman Rushdie, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Martin Scorsese, Derek Walcott and Elie Wiesel. Several others whom he asked to participate declined to be included in the book. Mr. Monda names no names, so the reader has no idea who self-selected themselves out of the sample.

The breakdown of religious affiliation among the interviewees is five Jews, one Catholic, five Protestants, three agnostics, three atheists and one Muslim verging on atheism.

Aside from the major question -- “Do you believe in God?” -- the questions asked of each interviewee vary widely, with a few exceptions. Mr. Monda asks most of the interviewees to comment on Dostoevsky’s statement, from The Brothers Karamazov, “If God doesn’t exist, then everything is permitted.” And several writers cite the work of Flannery O’Connor in response to another of Mr. Monda’s inquiries, “Are there writers who have confronted religious subjects whom you admire?” In response, only Mr. Rushdie mentions one of the people Mr. Monda includes in this book, Saul Bellow. Mr. Monda asks a majority of the interviewees to comment on their religious education and upbringing.

Some of the most intense interviews are those with film directors Spike Lee, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, actress Jane Fonda, and Elie Wiesel, the writer/philosopher and Holocaust survivor. Mr. Wiesel says, as does Mr. Monda at the beginning of the book, that, “In the end, the existence of God is the only true problem, in which all other problems are subsumed and minimized. At times, I think that we are always talking about God without realizing it.”

Mr. Monda reflects his personal beliefs in the question that he shoots back to Mr. Lynch, “What about that is different from St. Augustine’s ‘Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas (‘Go not about, retire within: Truth dwells in the inner man.’)?” Mr. Lynch replies, “Transcendental meditation is a mental technique that I practice twice a day; it allows each human being to dive into his own ego and reach pure consciousness and pure happiness. In St. Augustine, on the other hand, it’s all closely tied to Christian revelation.”

The interview with the late Grace Paley makes for diverting reading. The writer, an atheist, turns the tables on Mr. Monda, quizzing him about his beliefs even as he is trying to ask her about her own. “Do you think you are happier than I am?” she asks Mr. Monda. Ms. Paley’s parents were atheistic Jews from Russia, and while the 83-year-old writer tells Mr. Monda she has no longing for religion she mentions that in the last 10 years she’s started attending a synagogue in Vermont, not for religious reasons but to connect to her community.

There are intriguing moments in these interviews. But Mr. Monda’s goal -- to illustrate how religion and spirituality, or the lack of it, permeates the work of major players in America’s cultural life -- falls short. As a European, Mr. Monda is accustomed to intellectuals shaping public opinion. But the days when books, magazines and newspapers heavily molded American political thought and public opinion seem far away. Today Internet blogs, talk radio, television, music and film generally crowd out print media in terms of the general public’s choices for information.

Do You Believe? presents a number of important questions that individuals and discussion groups could use to explore their own thoughts on the subject of belief. But the one- or two-sentence answers given to these deep questions may fail to satisfy readers looking for something more profound. The brevity of the book and the large number of interviewees precludes the depth that a topic like God and religion demands. Reading these short, tightly edited interviews is like eating a low-fat serving of fish at 6 p.m., leaving one salivating over a TV ad for greasy pizza an hour later.

Labels: Americans, Antonio Monda, book review, celebrities, Cynthia D. Bertelsen, God, religion

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Monday, February 04, 2008

Streaming video on Internet seen as new way to spread Gospel

By Franz Klein
Catholic News Service

LA CROSSE, Wis

Streaming video is all the rage on the Internet, and some people are starting to realize how valuable a tool this technology can be in reaching out to young Catholics.

If St. Augustine were alive today, he "would have done his 'Confessions' in video and streamed it on the Internet," Travis Boudreaux, the tech-savvy Louisiana Catholic who founded Catholic-Tube.com several months ago, told The Catholic Times, newspaper of the Diocese of La Crosse.

On his Catholic-Tube blog, Boudreaux posts daily some of what he considers the best Catholic videos and podcasts uploaded to major sites such as YouTube.com and GodTube.com, as well as smaller Catholic operations such as LoveToBeCatholic.com and SQPN.com.

A veteran Web watcher, Boudreaux believes that video is the future of the Internet.

"There will always be room for audio and the written word, but video provides a dynamic that's not there otherwise," he said. "Imagine if you could see St. Augustine's emotion. There's so much that's lost without voice inflection and hand gestures."

YouTube.com was created in 2005 and was bought by Google Inc. in October 2006. According to Alexa.com's statistical analysis, YouTube is currently the third most frequented Web site on the Internet.

On YouTube, users can upload, view and share music videos and television clips, as well as video content of their own creation. More than 65 million videos have been uploaded to date. While no pornographic or nude videos are permitted, YouTube relies on its community of viewers to identify and flag such uploads, meaning there is a definite time lag before they come down.

A quick search of YouTube's contents for "Christian" will return a staggering 329,000-plus videos, while a search for "Catholic" will yield 21,000-plus results.

Several bishops use the site, including Philadelphia's Cardinal Justin Rigali, who posted a series of reflections, and Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins, whose monthly "Lectio Divina" meditations have been watched by thousands of viewers.

But nearly half of the videos on the first page of search results for "Christianity" portray the faith in a negative light. And while a search for "Catholic" will yield an inspirational video by "KaterinaMarie" called "Why I am Catholic," and a clip of a Mass with Bishop Fulton Sheen in 1941 among its initial results, there's also a video parodying the church sex abuse scandals, as well as many others that are anti-Catholic or contain salacious material.

"That's why we believe biblical topics need to be discussed in a forum that is respectful of the Word," GodTube.com co-founder and chief executive officer Chris Wyatt said in a Catholic Times interview.

With its first version launched last January, GodTube's quick growth has been phenomenal. The site, which recently added an alternative to the secular networking site Facebook.com, already contains more than 48,000 videos. Wyatt said the site logged more than 10 million visitors by the end of 2007.

But accusations of anti-Catholicism have plagued GodTube, as some users have posted videos that try to discredit the church's teaching on the priesthood, the sacraments, the papacy and other things.

Wyatt, a Baptist, said anti-Catholicism would not be tolerated. "We don't stand for that," he said, although he admitted there were some anti-Catholic videos on the site until a recent string of articles brought them to the company's attention.

Even with these videos removed, clips claiming to discredit elements of Catholic teaching remain on the site, including a John MacArthur lecture series on "The Pope and the Papacy."

Thomas Hall, founder of LoveToBeCatholic.com, believes he has come up with a better alternative.

"About a month ago, I typed 'Catholic' in on YouTube, and six of the first 10 responses were anti-Catholic propaganda," Hall told The Catholic Times. "I felt Catholics needed an equal voice and a safe environment to learn about their faith and to evangelize."

With a background including Web work with Fortune 500 companies, Hall, who just moved from Chicago with his family to Minneapolis, naturally turned to the Internet.

At the end of October, he launched LoveToBeCatholic.com as a test. Like YouTube and GodTube, LoveToBeCatholic is a Web platform for people to post videos. But unlike them, LoveToBeCatholic is specifically Catholic, and Hall works to ensure that nothing anti-Catholic gets posted.

Hall said the online Catholic community has embraced his site. "In the first month I went from zero to 3,000 visitors per day," he said. "I immediately ran into bandwidth problems. I've had to upgrade the servers twice, and I'll have to do that again this year. But that's a really nice problem to have."

Videos range from priests' sermons to humorous skits and church events. Some of Hall's favorites are vocations videos that show young religious in habits engaged in sports or other activities with youths. "You can't capture that in text or audio," he said.

Labels: Catholic, Catholic-Tube, Franz Klein, Godtube.com, YouTube

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Soldier to soldier

A Christian Science perspective on daily life.
from the January 30, 2008 edition

A few years after the Vietnam War, I left active duty and joined the Army Reserves. As a battalion chaplain, I noticed an interesting pattern with some of the other vets. It seems that they were returning to the military for no other reason than to sort out their war experiences with others who knew what they'd gone through.

Many of them had been exposed to such assaults on human sensibilities that sights and sounds were seared on their minds, haunting them. These soldiers had done whatever they could to get through their tour of duty, but when they got back home, they didn't leave behind the mental impressions and the emotional turbulence.

Often when I talked to a vet, he wanted to know if I was a vet too. Empathy helps. Certainly my tour in Vietnam broke open my shell of self-interest and evolved a greater sympathy for the sufferings of those around me. And I was so grateful for others whose sympathy let me know that I wasn't alone in encountering feelings I'd never experienced before.

Ultimately, I found that my sympathy was most helpful when I recognized something else we had in common: that we were children of a loving God, dwelling in a spiritual reality that was untouched by the imprint of war.

In a sense, all of us who have witnessed suffering that has pushed us to the margins of human stability are on a walk to Emmaus. The Christ is with us, doing what it has always done. The Christ, so fully expressed in Jesus, is the ever-present spiritual reality of being making plain to disturbed and disoriented human thinking our well-being in God's love.

Monitor founder Mary Baker Eddy glimpsed and then explored this reality that healed her in her desperate search for meaning in life's tragedies. She shared in her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will surely appear sometime and in some way. There will be no more pain, and all tears will be wiped away. When you read this, remember Jesus' words, 'The kingdom of God is within you.' This spiritual consciousness is therefore a present possibility" (pp. 573-574).

As you sympathize with soldiers struggling to recover, let your sympathy evolve into a prayer that acknowledges the presence of spiritual reality making itself known to them in a peace that is untroubled and unafraid.

Labels: Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy, peace, veterans, war

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Heart Health

By Sam Manger
Epoch Times Australia Staff Jan 29, 2008

Emotions play an important role in our health.

"Heartbroken" and "heart-warming" have long been considered simple expressions with no significant medical meaning. However, research from the National Heart Foundation of Australia has clearly shown that depression, social isolation, and lack of quality social support are three significant risk factors for the development of coronary heart disease. [1]

Heart disease takes one Australian life every ten minutes, and is the leading cause of death in Australia. In 1993–1994 alone, the health system costs for coronary heart disease were around AU$900 million.

Had a patient asked a doctor twenty years ago whether they believed there was any association between the heart and love, they might have received a chuckle and a pat on the head. However, recent research indicates that joy and interaction are necessities to a healthy heart and body.

Many spiritual and alternative health philosophies have been oriented around the idea that disease is a physical manifestation of a corresponding damaged emotional or psychological condition. It has long been thought that parts of the body represent certain emotions or conditions. For example, the heart represents love; the back represents support, and so on. These ideas have generally received limited support from mainstream medicine, but are they really so far-fetched? Recent research would suggest not.

According to the World Health Organisation, by the year 2020 depression will be the second most prevalent health condition in the world. It is reported that the rate of childhood depression in the United States is increasing at a rate of 23 percent per year. This reflects the situation in Australia—rates of depression are highest in younger age groups, especially females. About half of those affected do not seek medical attention.

In 2001, Australian GPs reported that depression was the fourth most common illness in their practices. GPs have increased their number of prescriptions of antidepressants. The Age Online states that 250,000 antidepressant prescriptions were issued to children and adolescents alone in 2003—an increase of 30,000 from 2002. The statistics call for government and health professionals to take a different approach.

Antidepressants have various adverse effects, including violent and suicidal behavior. Most importantly, pills alone do not address the underlying cause of depression.

Faced with this, health professionals in the future may have to change their traditional approach and begin to incorporate apparently alternative paradigms. We may soon welcome a new age in wholistic medicine.

Labels: emotion, health, heart disease, Heart Foundation of Australia, love, Sam Manger, spirituality

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Christianity: whence and whither

BOOK REVIEW

WAYNE A. HOLST
February 2, 2008

THE CHRISTIAN WORLD

A Global History

By Martin Marty

Random House, 262 pages, $28

The Christian World: A Global History, by veteran, much-feted University of Chicago church historian Martin Marty, tackles a formidable challenge. The author sets out to present the vast Christian story, covering key themes from 2,000 years, in a rich, multilayered narrative.

This is not a typical church history in terms of perspective. Marty weaves strategic narratives from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania with the "classic Christian story" written from Europe and North America. The result is a different kind of "global history" and to accomplish this in 250 pages is a real achievement. He saves the reader much time and effort having to sift through many volumes in order to gain the same results.

Neither is this primarily a book about the development of Christian thought. It focuses more on Christian deeds. Marty begins with Jesus and shows how, from the beginning, his followers sought to reflect and extend his work. Jesus, and the Christian faith that resulted from him, were formed in a Jewish ethos. Because of the unique, messianic "Jesus is Lord" confessions of his first followers, Jewish-Christian tensions quickly developed. Those stresses wax and wane over time, but they have persisted.

Christianity was born in the biblical lands of the ancient Near East and soon spread widely through Asia. Because Christianity emerged at a crossroads of humanity, its followers quickly dispersed into a variety of African and European cultures, living and sharing their faith in a great variety of ways.

Variety was both a blessing and a curse. It eventually became necessary to define clearly Christian understandings amid a confusion of interpretations. Creeds such as the Nicene (325 AD) were formulated. To identify and organize believers, ecclesiastical forms (often following familiar Roman and Greek political patterns) were created. Within three centuries, the faith had evolved from a minority Jewish sect into a growing religion on three continents.

From the start, Africa had an important influence on what constituted Christian belief. Many early challenges to the developing "orthodox" faith (like Gnosticism) were first engaged here. Then, after the seventh century, African Christianity was forced to yield much of its pride of place to Islam, an upstart rival religion. Isolated pockets of Ethiopian and Coptic believers survived as vestiges of a once more powerful Christianity. Africa was without significant Christian influence for more 1,000 years, until the arrival of colonialism and the missionaries.

Rome became the first major Christian power centre in Europe, and a rise of papal influence coincided with the decline of the Roman Empire. Soon Christianity expanded beyond that empire. In spite of its strength in Western Europe, the Roman form of the faith had grudgingly to cope with the existence of other Christian expressions, such as Orthodoxy in the east and Celtic Christianity on its western fringes.

North American Christianity was born in diversity, with mainly European roots, and it also treated its native peoples badly. Blacks, who came to North America as slaves, adopted the faith as their own and reframed it into a powerful message of liberation.

In recent times, Africa has re-emerged as a new heartland of Christianity and an important place to study its global future. The standard denominations thrive there, but a haunting question continues to be asked: "Why is Christianity better than what we had?"

Modern Asian Christianity remains a minority voice among older, revitalized eastern religions. Asian Christianity is gradually finding a natural home in the East and some of it offers the wider Christian world tested models for interfaith dialogue and peaceful co-existence with other faiths.

U.S. evangelicalism notwithstanding, stagnations characterize two-thirds of North American Christianity.

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that old Christianities appear to be losing ground while Christian populations explode in new places. The faith has an intriguing habit of going into decline, then surging unexpectedly. China is a contemporary example of this.

Conversely, Christian ascendancy should not be assumed as if by right. Africa and Latin America provide examples of early growth followed by subsequent decline and later recovery.

Marty ends his historical survey with a brief reflection on the future and poses the query: "Now what?"

Many modern devotees seek a humbler, more peaceful and inclusive faith than in the past. They see this as reflecting the spirit of its founder.

Christian numbers have remained steady at about one-third of humanity for more than a century. "Irrepressible" is a good, descriptive term, Marty says as he looks for signs of hope.

Christianity, with all its frustrating contradictions and splendid diversity, has existed for two millennia. It is not going away. More than two billion people claim this faith today. Among them is evidence that the appealing spirit of Jesus lives on.

Wayne A. Holst teaches at the University of Calgary and at St. David's United Church in that city.

Labels: book review, Christianity, history, Martin Marty, Wayne A. Holst

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Religious converts

Changing religions or denominations is growing phenomenon today in United States

By C. Samantha McKevie
Saturday, February 02, 2008

Please click on External link at the bottom to read the whole article, including personal stories of faith-journeys from one religion to another, and one denomination to another.

Kelley Culver grew up in Houston as a Southern Baptist; Fatima Khiyaty was reared Catholic just outside of Cleveland; and Sonja Ozturk was brought up in a Lutheran family in Green Bay, Wis.

Mr. Culver made a pit stop as a Methodist before converting to Catholicism six years ago.

Mrs. Khiyaty and Mrs. Ozturk left Christianity altogether and are now Muslims.

They are not alone.

Although some people live their lives content with being part of one denomination or faith, others change denominations or switch to a different religion altogether.

Changing from one denomination to another within Christianity is not that unusual, said the Rev. Don Saliers, a Methodist minister and an adjunct professor of theology and worship at Emory University.

"Because of the ecumenical context in American Christianity and a lot more social mobility, shifting from one denomination to another is very different from 50 years ago, though in radical conversion experiences, there can still be great personal trauma," he said. "But shifting denominations is quite common. There is much more 'church shopping' when a family now moves to a new city.

Steve Tipton, a professor of sociology and religion at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, said there is "a lot more denominational switching going on now than a few years ago and indeed a generation ago."

"The rates increase with education and age together, and in particular with intermarriage," he said. "If the Christian woman or man marries a Muslim, one of them is likelier to convert.

When switching major religions -- such as Christianity to Muslim or Judaism to Christianity -- a lot more is involved, the Rev. Saliers said.

"The conversion from one religion to another requires a much deeper change of relationships -- family ties, cultural setting and context -- than does most inter-Christian conversions or changes," he said.

LOOK AT THE CHANGES

Barry Kosmin is co-author of Religion in a Free Market, a book that presents the results of the American Religious Identification Survey. The survey tracked adult Americans by their religious traditions and ethnicity from 1990-2001.

In its chapter on religious switching, the book states that "about 16 percent of the nation's population reported that at some point in their lives they had changed their religious preference or identification."

WHO'S MOVING WHERE

Catholics, Methodists, Protestants in general and Jews were among the groups that had significantly higher percentages of people switching out of their faiths.

General Christians, Pentecostals, non-denominationals, evangelicals, Muslims and Buddhists had higher percentages of people switching into their faiths.

The biggest trend he found, though, is a switch to no religion at all, which was the choice of many of the people who left Catholicism, Methodism and Islam, he said.

"The other big trend is mainline, the old people, becoming born-again and joining evangelicals, non-denominational or Christian churches.

In two thirds of marriages where one person switched to the other's religion, it was the woman who switched to make the accommodations, he said.

The switch to Islam occurs mainly among black men and among women who marry Muslims, he said.

Labels: Barry Kosmin, C. Samantha McKevie, Catholic, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, religion

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