TruthBook Religious News Blog

Jul 24, 2008
By Chuck Flagg

Some people think religion is a competition. They think that pastors, congregations, even parishioners are rivals, competing against each other to have the largest membership, most elaborate building or largest budget in town.

Hollister, the county seat of San Benito County and best known for its annual motorcycle rally, seems to belie this idea. There a heterogeneous group of pastors who are combining their efforts and are working together to show unity of spirit among Christians of different faith traditions.

Five pastors regularly meet in a back booth of a local diner on Wednesday mornings:

- The Rev. Bob Rufener, Abundant Life Four Square Church.

- The Rev. Ardyss Golden, Hollister United Methodist Church.

- The Rev. Matthew Trasek, Trinity Lutheran Church.

- The Rev. Jonathan Hughes, First Presbyterian Church.

- The Rev. Rudy Ruiz, St. Benedict-Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church.

Although not every minister attends every meeting and others sometimes attend, this is the core membership for Hollister's "Holy-Stir."

The group began meeting about two years ago when the pastors noticed that the anxiety level was rising in the community. One response was to inaugurate a series of ecumenical worship opportunities, bringing together as many residents as possible around various aspects of the theme of "peace."

These services have been held at many churches in a rotating schedule following the same format:

- Scripture readings

- Music

- Brief talks by all the clergy in attendance

- Prayer

The clergy involved in this endeavor have gained much from belonging to the group. They consider it a support mechanism, a place to share confidentially the struggles and concerns in their own lives. Sometimes good advice is the result, but often just having a caring listener can ease burdens.

Holy-Stir has also broadened the perspective of these clergy. They have been exposed to a wider range of spirituality than is present in any one denomination. They stretch each other to appreciate and recognize aspects of their common faith that could be barriers in other contexts.

Even these joint services have served this purpose. Pastor Rufener gives the example of an Ash Wednesday service in which he participated. Ashes were applied to the foreheads of worshippers, and he observes, "At first I didn't feel comfortable with this, and it's not something I would do in my church. But I gained an understanding of how such an ancient rite could have deep meaning for some people."

Other pastors mention the differences in music among the churches or even how building architecture influences worship in different churches.

Jesus of Nazareth famously prayed that all his followers "would all be one." In Hollister it appears that many people are striving for that spiritual goal.

Labels: Chuck Flagg, church, interfaith, religion

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An ever-present help

The American Psychological Association does an annual survey of attitudes and perceptions of stress among the general public.

Last year's survey revealed that 77 percent of Americans experienced stress-related physical symptoms and 73 percent reported psychological symptoms. Issues related to work and money topped the list of major stressors.

Things have not improved since this last survey; in fact, the economy has significantly worsened, with daily headlines proclaiming housing foreclosures, increases in gas prices and failing banks.

According to an Associated Press poll released in June, debt stress is 14 percent higher this year than in 2004.

How, then, are we to cope with this enormous pressure? Some stress is manageable, even helpful in channeling our energy and resources, but multiple stressors can feel overwhelming, especially those over which we have little control.

Most of us already know something about stress management. We're told to identify the sources, understand how we are personally affected by stress, modify our behavior, exercise and spend more time in leisure activities or with family and friends. We know about healthy eating, sleep hygiene and work-life balance.

If all else fails, we may seek the services of a professional or ask our physicians for some medication, but only a small percentage of us actually do that. A billboard by a freeway proclaims that it is better to buy an expensive sports car than to seek therapy. We are a nation that is independent-minded, and we prefer to handle things on our own.

How well do these tools work for us in the midst of overwhelming circumstances? How much can we reasonably expect to handle?

There is another source of help during difficult times and that is what we believe exists outside of ourselves.

It is our spirituality, and it is an important source of strength, meaning, direction and hope. It is through the cultivation of spirituality that we feel connected to the larger universe. It fosters a perspective that takes us away from everyday difficulty and enables us to envision a better future.

Spirituality is complex and hard to define. It can take the form of religious observance, nature, music, art or some other personal experience. Alcoholics Anonymous practitioners subscribe to a "power greater than ourselves" and turn chaotic lives over to "God as we understand Him." However we define it, spirituality is a powerful force for good.

Psychologist Viktor Frankl, after surviving a concentration camp, noted that those who had found meaning in life were the ones most able to withstand the incredible hardships there.

Research continues to document greater health benefits, including decreased stress, for those who cultivate their spirituality. Prayer is cited as the most common spiritual practice, and some recent studies on intercessory prayer have provided provocative evidence that the benefits to those praying are even greater than to those prayed for.

Meditation is another form of spiritual practice that can be used to enhance spiritual communion. Reading and studying religious or spiritual writings and journaling about experiences can deepen faith journeys. However, attempting too much too soon is a common recipe for failure in the building up of spiritual habits.

Many choose to explore different faith traditions to see what fits. Sharing spiritual discovery and expression with others helps to build relationships and connects us to a larger world of believers. Having an "accountability partner" whom we trust and regularly meet with can enhance spiritual discovery and growth.

Mind, body and spirit are interconnected and important dimensions of optimal health and wellbeing. To neglect one part is to negatively affect the whole. Quality of life, especially in an era of higher and more chronic levels of stress, is hard to maintain without the benefits of spiritual belief and practice. Keep it in mind when all the other tools come up short, as they invariably will.

Deborah Barber, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in Westlake Village. Contact her at (818) 5127923. Send questions/comments to askDrDB@yahoo.com or visit www.DrDeborahBarber.

Labels: American Psychological Association, Deborah Barber, meditation, spirituality, stress

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Valley's religions seek 'common good'

By Jason Monaco, Robert B. Lennick and Sharon Joseph
July 25, 2008

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Every major religion in the world has this concept among its teachings. Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and other faiths share this imperative. At its heart, this teaching is about finding the common good.
Is
Working together for the common good promotes ethical, moral, and spiritual values into all areas of our common lives -- economics, commerce, trade, and international relations -- as well as personal virtues, to advance understanding and action on major local and global issues by civil society, private enterprise, the public sector, governments, and national and international institutions, leading to the promotion of collaborative policy solutions to the challenges posed at the present times to all of the humanity.

In Islam, you can find volumes upon volumes of practices, laws and recommendations, the application of which perpetuate and enhance the common good of all, as is commanded by Allah (God) in verse 104 of chapter 3 of Holy Quran: ''Let there be among you a community who enjoin good and forbid evil; it is they that shall be successful.'' That is further emphasized by the Prophet Mohammad in a narration reported by Jabir bin Abdullah in Sahih Bukhari: ''Enjoining all that is good is charity.''

Among Christian teachers, perhaps it was the great St. Paul who best described the common good. In his letter to a young church in Corinth, he talked about working together as different parts of the body -- each part being important, each part having a job to do, each job essential to the body working as a finely tuned instrument. And, he reminds us that no one is left out: ''To each is given a gift of the spirit for the common good.''

In Judaism, we find a living ethic of social justice where the verse, ''Remember the heart of the stranger,'' is repeated no less than 36 times in the Torah. The common good begins with empathy for others and a recognition that unless each individual internalizes the challenges of others we become a collection of private experiences, rather than a caring and committed community.

We must step outside of our comfort zone. We must join hands with others and develop systems that ease the pain and suffering of those facing hardships. What purpose does religion serve if it does not awaken an individual's concern for all human life; for the ''common good?''

God is the author of creation. In this life, all human beings face difficulties and hardships. We must look at the difficulties of this life as an opportunity to become better human beings; to become closer to the Creator of the heavens and the earth. We must cultivate our hearts, and by serving others, we can strive toward this end.

Jason Abdullah Monaco of Allentown is outreach coordinator for the Muslim Association of the Lehigh Valley. The Rev. Sharon Solt Joseph is pastor of Church of the Manger UCC Church in Bethlehem. Robert B. Lennick is rabbi at Congregation Keneseth Israel in Allentown.

Labels: Christianity, God, Golden Rule, interfaith, Islam, Jason Monaco, Judaism, religion, Robert B. Lennick, Sharon Joseph

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7 Things that Sap Your Spiritual Energy

Friday July 25, 2008

by Janice Taylor, Life & Wellness Coach and 50 pound big-time-loser.

What is seriously sapping your spiritual energy? Your resolve? Your energy?

Our Lady of Weight Loss's
Top Seven Things that Sap Your Spiritual Energy

1. CLUTTER silently gnaws, bites, and nibbles away at your calm center as it takes up valuable air and space.

What to do? Clean up, of course! Make order (humans love order). Read "Miracle of Clearing Proportions."

2. LOUD NOISES grate, aggravate, annoy and irritate and can wind you up and drive you mad!

What to do? Wear ear plugs! From $1 to $187.50

3. AIR POLLUTION can negatively impact on our health, cause coughs, burning eyes, breathing problems and even death (which would surely sap spiritual energy).

What to do? True, we have no choice but to breathe, however, we can avoid high-traffic industrialized areas on poor air quality days (my head is spinning that we've created such a planet). Protect yourself and the air you breath!

4. DEHYDRATION dries, shrivels and depresses. Our bodies are more than 75 percent water, our blood is more than 80 percent water, our muscles more than 75 percent water and our brains more than 76 percent water! We NEED water to think!

What to do? Bottoms up, plain and simple. Drink 6 to 8 glasses every day! Our Lady has plenty to say on the topic!

5. WORRYING clutters the mind, drains, takes up valuable thinking time and carries some heavy-duty negative health effects with it.

What to do? Meditate, listen to music, chant!

6. SLEEP DEPRIVATION brings on feelings of irritability, impatience and depression. It weakens the immune system and leaves dark circles on ones eyes.

What to do? Get a good night's rest! (Duh!) Stanford U. has some tips on sleeping!

7. TELEVISION deadens the mind and puts you into a non-active, non-thinking state. You disappear all right, but not in a good way.

What to do? Escape into a book. Or into something interactive that teaches. I highly recommend EdHeads.org. Have FUN!

Spread the word, NOT the icing,
Janice

Labels: anxiety, Janice Taylor, pollution, spiritual energy, TV

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Study Entices Thoughts Of Hands-On Healing

By HILARY WALDMAN | Courant Staff Writer
July 28, 2008

Steeped in white-coat science since she earned her Ph.D. in cell biology at Columbia University 20 years ago, Gloria Gronowicz is about the last person you'd expect to put stock in the touchy-feely discipline of energy medicine.But then the University of Connecticut researcher saw it with her own eyes, under a high-power microscope in her own laboratory, where, once, only well-accepted biological building blocks — proteins, mitochondria, DNA and the like — got respect.

Therapeutic Touch performed by trained energy healers significantly stimulated the growth of bone and tendon cells in lab dishes.

Her results, recently published in two scientific journals, provide novel evidence that there may be a powerful energy field that, when channeled through human hands, can influence the course of events at a cellular level.

Gronowicz and others said more studies are needed to figure out how and why Therapeutic Touch seems to stimulate cell growth — and if the findings can be applied to patient care.

Through history and across cultures, spiritual healers have long believed that the laying on of hands could cure disease and relieve pain. In the last 30 years or so, many forms of energy healing — sometimes called Reiki, Qigong, Therapeutic Touch, or Healing Touch — have found their way into hospitals and other clinical settings.

Still, it is often derided as hocus-pocus, although some medical practitioners have come to accept it as a harmless diversion that, if nothing else, might relieve stress.

Even when early studies showed some evidence of healing in patients treated with energy therapies, it was impossible to say whether the improvement was a result of the touch. More likely, critics suggested, the nurturing therapy simply improved the patient's frame of mind, promoting a healing response.

Gronowicz was in the doubting camp. She had spent her career studying the biology of bone cells. Her work with hormones, growth factors and tissue engineering has shed light on the very elements of bone — a slow, sometimes tedious effort she hopes might someday help doctors find treatments for crippling diseases.

But when a colleague asked her to collaborate on an experiment looking into the power of Therapeutic Touch, she was curious. As a full professor in the department of surgery, with tenure and respect, Gronowicz had the stature to dabble in an endeavor that some of her scientific colleagues might criticize as a fool's errand.

She applied for a National Institutes of Health grant to fund an experiment designed to isolate the mind/body conundrum from the question of energy healing by applying Therapeutic Touch techniques to presumably inanimate bone cells cultured in an incubator.

At first, even the NIH's branch that funds research in alternative and complementary medicine turned her down. Eventually, she received $250,000 for her study.

To put Therapeutic Touch to the test, cell cultures were divided into three groups.

One dish of cells was treated by a trained healer. A second set of cells was treated by untrained students who were instructed to hold their hands over a petri dish for 10 minutes twice a week. A third dish of cells stood ignored in its metal stand.

After the treatment, the dishes were returned to an incubator. Scientists who later examined the cells under the microscope didn't know which group each dish had been in.

To Gronowicz's astonishment, the cells treated by trained Therapeutic Touch practitioners grew faster and stronger than those that received the sham treatment, or none at all.

"Therapeutic Touch stimulated growth in bone, tendon and skin cells at statistically significant rates," Gronowicz said.

She tested the cells using several different biological markers for growth, and each test confirmed her finding. In one test, Gronowicz found that cells treated with Therapeutic Touch grew at double the rate of untreated cells.

In addition to seeing increased cell division under the microscope, the bone cell cultures treated with Therapeutic Touch also absorbed more calcium, the essential mineral for growing strong bones. Her findings were published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research and The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

Gronowicz also looked at bone cancer cells. Cancer occurs when cells grow out of control, so a treatment that stimulates growth could be detrimental to people with cancer. But unlike healthy cells, bone cancer cells did not appear to be stimulated by the touch therapy — an interesting, though not fully explained, finding, Gronowicz said.

Beyond growing bones, the findings may begin to explain why people with strong social support systems appear to be healthier and recover from disease better than those who are isolated. Maybe it's not all in their heads.

"In this case, the bones didn't know, that's why what she did is so intriguing," Chesney said. "To our knowledge, those cells didn't know who was a healer and who wasn't."

Labels: energy medicine, Gloria Gronowicz, healing, Hilary Waldman, laying-on-of-hands, Reiki, science, Therapeutic Touch

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Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Why the Paranormal is Normal

In general, it's fair to say that the popular belief in the paranormal falls outside the official picture of reality. The official picture is grounded in science, rationalism, and materialism. It takes a definition of "natural," after all, before "supernatural" can exist. God was natural in the medieval world, and thus miracles, healings, apparitions of the Virgin Mary, stigmatics, and so on, were considered natural. At the moment, it doesn't matter how many people believe in the supernatural. Until the official picture changes, astrology is bogus, astronomy is legitimate. Ghosts are bogus, apparitions of the Virgin Mary are -- well, that's the rub. Religious people are allowed to cling to a different model of reality, tolerated by the official gatekeepers but not believed in. This gives rise to the curious phenomenon of religious scientists, who manage to hold on to two totally conflicting worldviews at the same time.

Any of us can hold conflicting viewpoints at the same time -- it's called compartmentalization. If the various compartments are tight enough and separated by thick walls, a whole range of phenomena can be believed in without making them consistent. I can imagine a cell biologist who is Catholic, has seen a UFO, reads the astrology column in the newspaper, and hopes to go to Heaven when he dies. It would be far better, however, to promote a consistent worldview, one that allows the walls to come down so that official reality might open up to unofficial reality. And vice versa, since popular belief in certain kinds of totally unproven folk cures, for example, can do harm, just as the official insistence on pharmaceuticals and surgery does its own brand of harm at times.

The only consistent worldview that I've ever discovered places all phenomena, natural and supernatural, on the ground of consciousness. The noted Australian neurologist Sir John Eccles pointed out a truth that materialists, including both scientists and ordinary people, don't remotely grasp. There is no sight or sound 'out there' in the world, Eccles declared, no touch or taste, no beauty or ugliness, no sensation of light or objects. All these things are created in subjectivity, which is to say, they exist only in consciousness. The fact that your hand seems solid is an illusion. A neutrino passes through the entire Earth without encountering an obstacle. Every atom in your hand is 99.9999% empty space. Measured in proportion, the distance between the electrons and nucleus of an atom is greater than the distance between the Earth and the sun. At the next level of reality, atoms disappear into energy waves and then into pure potential, the ghostly state of so-called virtual reality. Only perception makes a hand solid. and perceptions are interlinked to create the world you and I inhabit, so that color, light, sound, smell, solidity, etc. all fit together.

In my view, paranormal events are neither fringe nor unreal. They are simply things not yet admitted into consciousness by our official belief system. Reality has this curious habit of keeping certain things under wraps until the human mind is willing to look at them, and then all at once they appear, changing the world when they do. Germs and gravity were once waiting in the wings but now stand center stage. In ancient India, astrology was center stage and now has retreated again, for the coming and going of phenomena works both ways.

Even so, consciousness never retreats. In the darkest ages, people know that they are aware, and from that basic premise they create a personal reality, and when enough individuals agree, then collective reality comes about. Trying to base common reality sheerly on material objects has been wildly successful in the West, but that means little about ultimate reality, which transcends individuals and groups. In the ultimate reality there is only pure consciousness, which can be conceived of as the modeling clay or box of paints that Nature provides, adding the simple instruction: Use as you please.

Labels: Deepak Chopra, paranormal, reality, religion, worldview

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Is there life on other planets?

Poll probes Americans' belief in UFOs and life on other planets

Scripps Howard News Service
Originally published 08:00 a.m., July 18, 2008
Updated 08:00 a.m., July 18, 2008

A survey conducted by the Scripps Howard News Service and the University of Ohio found that about eight percent of Americans say they have seen a mysterious object in the sky that might have been a visitor from another world.

Earlier this year, Marshall Franks of Gulf Breeze, Fla. was at a neighbor's house when he took pictures of an unusual rain cloud passing overhead. When Franks, a 52-year-old musician, uploaded pictures of the clouds to his computer, he noticed three orange, pill-shaped objects in a V formation.

Survey respondents said they saw objects in the shape of lighted orbs, hovering without making any noise, either alone or in V formations.

"I just know I got a picture of something strange," Franks said. "I'm not going to say it's anything, but I'd like to have some professional's opinion."

Some respondents, like 53-year-old Mai-Janne Merklein, feel uncomfortable sharing their stories with others, fearing they'll think they're crazy.

The school bus driver from Springfield, Mass. said she twice saw floating orbs, the first in 1980 outside Dover, Del. when she and three friends pulled their car over to switch drivers. They noticed a vaguely spherical orb of light moving overhead; it hovered silently then quickly flew away.

"When I told my father, he said it was probably a military something or other. I didn't argue," she said.

On another occasion, while hiking with a friend in Holyoke, Mass., Merklein saw a similar object.

Rhine said she didn't tell anyone her story until nearly forty years later, when her half-brother said he also had an experience he believes was extraterrestrial.

He was in Amarillo when an extremely bright white light began pouring into his friend's home. Peering out a picture window to investigate, Rhine's half-brother and his friend saw the silhouette of a humanoid creature, just over four feet tall with a large cranium out of proportion with its small frame. Before summoning enough courage to open the door, Rhine said, the light had disappeared.

The survey revealed that people living in rural areas of the country or in suburbs were twice as likely than urban dwellers to report UFOs. Some respondents said this might be due to light pollution in urban centers blocking the night sky.

Still, seeing isn't necessarily believing.

Respondents like 69-year-old Lindsey Ivey of Ellijay, Ga. aren't convinced their sightings are actually extraterrestrial.

Ivey said on two occasions he saw four mysterious lights hovering in a T shape near his former home in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Despite this, Ivey does not believe intelligent life exists beyond earth, partly because of his Christian faith and also since he believes there are too many circumstances needed for a planet to support life.

The survey revealed that people who have attended church recently are also about a third less likely to report having seen a UFO.

Ivey said he believes students at nearby Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University caused the lights.

Robert Garner, a 62-year-old safety-training supervisor in Nesbit, Miss., isn't sure if his experience was extraterrestrial or divine.

He was deer hunting before sunrise one December morning in 1995 when the wooded area around him suddenly became brightly illuminated for about seven seconds before returning to normal. He said he never saw any object or source of the light.

"There was no sound, no shaking, no movement; all of a sudden, it was as if someone just turned on a light, this beautiful green, golden color," he said. "It was either an angel, or a UFO came down and took a picture of us."

Garner said for weeks after the incident he no longer needed his glasses to see.

On March 13, 1997, Fran Chodacki, a 62-year-old Page, Ariz. resident was one of thousands who witnessed the "Phoenix Lights," a mile-wide V-shaped formation of lights visible over Phoenix. The lights reportedly moved slowly across the city's skyline for about three hours. Chodacki was living in nearby Scottsdale, Ariz. at the time.

She said she does believe aliens exist and have visited the Earth. But she's not sure if her sighting was extraterrestrial.

"Maybe it was a military thing; I don't know. Everything is mysterious in this world," she said. "It's a possibility."

Poll results

Most Americans say it is very likely or somewhat likely that humans are not alone in the universe and that intelligent life exists on other planets.

Only a third of adults, however, believe it's either very likely or somewhat likely that intelligent aliens from space have visited our planet, according to a survey of 1,003 adults conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University.

The poll revealed that one in every 12 Americans has seen a mysterious object in the sky that might have been a visitor from another world, while nearly one in every five personally knows someone who has seen an unidentified flying object.

America's fascination with UFO sightings has been robust, dating at least back to 1947 with the discovery of unusual objects near Roswell, N.M., that many claimed were the remnants of an extraterrestrial craft that crashed.

Among the ranks who have seen something strange in the sky are former President Jimmy Carter, the late Beatle John Lennon and the late comedian Jackie Gleason.

One of the largest mass sightings on record -- the so-called "Phoenix Lights" that hovered for several hours over two or three Southwestern states on March 13, 1997 -- was even seen by then-Arizona Gov. Fife Symington. The governor at first made jokes about the incident, but later apologized for making light of something that thousands of people saw.

"The universe is a big place," Symington told reporters last year. "We're conceited to think we're alone."

Men, young adults and college-educated Americans are more likely than most to believe that humans are not alone in the universe.

The survey found some patterns in the kinds of people who have reported having seen UFOs.

Men are almost twice as likely to have seen something peculiar in the sky than are women. Older Americans are much more likely than younger people to have seen something, as are residents of rural areas or suburbs rather than those living in major cities. People living in Western states are three times more likely to have seen a UFO than are residents of the Northeast, Midwest or South.

UFO experts agree that these trends all make sense. Men are more likely than women to be outdoors on a dark night. Older Americans have had more opportunities simply by virtue of a longer life to see something unusual in the sky.

It is also logical, they say, for people in Western states to have seen more UFOs than people in other regions. Most of the nation's largest and most expensive observatories are located in the West, which provides optimal views of the sky.

"These people have had more opportunities than others to see things in a darkened sky. That makes sense," said Mark Rodeghier, director of the Chicago-based J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies.

Peter Davenport, director of the National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle, Wash., agreed.

"Of course, we get lots of reports from major cities," Davenport said. "But it could be that people in rural areas have a better view of the sky. People in cities are blinded by all of the bright lights."

But the experts were quite surprised by other trends found among the UFO witnesses.

People who have attended church recently and who identify themselves as born-again Evangelical Protestants are much less likely to have seen UFOs or to believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence than people with little or no involvement with organized religion.

People with strong political and ideological convictions -- self-identified "strong Republicans" and "very conservative" people as well as "strong Democrats" and "very liberal" persons -- are much less likely to report having seen a UFO than are politically moderate persons.

"There are just so many variables when addressing this issue," said Davenport. "But the religious trend is very, very interesting. Maybe you are more open to having seen things outside your experience if you don't have very tightly held religious beliefs."

But why are people with strong political beliefs less likely to see UFOs?

"They are more attuned to the establishment," said Rodeghier. "People who are in the establishment are more likely to have distain for the whole UFO issue. That's something those of us in the field of UFO study have seen over and over again. But people who are independent are more open to the issue."

The survey was conducted by telephone at Ohio University's Scripps Survey Research Center from May 11-28. The poll was funded through a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation.

The overall survey has a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.

Chart 1 detailing Scripps UFO poll findings

The following are selected findings from a survey of 1,003 adults conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University from May 11-28. The project was funded by a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation.

Here are some questions about life on other planets. Do you think it is very likely, somewhat likely or unlikely that there is intelligent life on other planets?

* Very Likely .................... 26
* Somewhat Likely ................ 30
* Unlikely ....................... 35
* Don't Know/Other Response ....... 9

Do you think it is very likely, somewhat likely or unlikely that intelligent life from other planets has visited our Earth?

* Very Likely .................... 12
* Somewhat Likely ................ 21
* Unlikely ....................... 54
* Don't Know/Other Response ...... 13

Do you know anyone who has seen a mysterious object in the sky that might have been a visitor from another world?

* Yes ............................ 19
* No ............................. 80
* Other Response .................. 1

Have you, personally, ever seen a mysterious object in the sky that might have been a visitor from another world?

* Yes ............................. 8
* No ............................. 91
* Other Response .................. 1

Chart 2 detailing Scripps UFO poll findings

A survey of 1,003 adults conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that 8 percent said they, personally, have seen a mysterious object in the sky that might be a visitor from another world. Here is how different groups responded to the question.

* Entire nation ................... 8
* Men ............................ 10
* Women ........................... 6
* 18-24 years old.................. 7
* 25-44 ........................... 5
* 45-64 .......................... 10
* 65 or older .................... 10
* Lives in major city ............. 4
* Smaller city .................... 5
* Suburb ......................... 12
* Rural area ..................... 10
* Northeast ....................... 4
* South ........................... 6
* Midwest ......................... 5
* West ........................... 15
* White ........................... 8
* African-American ................ 6
* Hispanic ....................... 10
* Asian-American/Other ............ 0
* Strong Democrat ................. 5
* Lean Toward the Democrats ....... 9
* Independent .................... 11
* Lean Toward the Republicans ..... 7
* Strong Republican ............... 3
* Very Conservative ............... 5
* Somewhat Conservative ........... 6
* Middle of the Road ............. 10
* Somewhat Liberal ................ 8
* Very Liberal .................... 6
* Not A High School Graduate ..... 15
* Graduated High School ........... 9
* Attended Some College .......... 10
* College Graduate ................ 5
* Post Graduate Studies ........... 4
* Income Below $25,000 ........... 11
* 25,000 to $40,000 .............. 13
* 40,000 to $60,000 ............... 9
* 60,000 to $80,000 ............... 6
* 80,000 to $100,000 .............. 4
* Above $100,000 .................. 6
* Attended Church Recently ........ 6
* Not Attended Church Recently .... 9
* Evangelical Protestant .......... 4
* Other Protestant ................ 8
* Roman Catholic .................. 8
* No Religious Preference ......... 9

Chart 3 detailing Scripps UFO poll findings

A survey of 1,003 adults conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that 56 percent say it is either "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that intelligent life exists on other planets. Here is how different groups responded to the question.

* Entire nation .................. 56
* Men ............................ 62
* Women .......................... 50
* 18-24 years old................. 74
* 25-44 .......................... 56
* 45-64 .......................... 60
* 65 or older .................... 46
* Lives in major city ............ 54
* Smaller city ................... 57
* Suburb ......................... 61
* Rural area ..................... 53
* Northeast ...................... 52
* South .......................... 56
* Midwest ........................ 48
* West ........................... 65
* White .......................... 54
* African-American ............... 54
* Hispanic ....................... 61
* Asian-American/Other ........... 67
* Strong Democrat ................ 61
* Lean Toward the Democrats ...... 60
* Independent .................... 60
* Lean Toward the Republicans .... 56
* Strong Republican .............. 40
* Very Conservative .............. 42
* Somewhat Conservative .......... 53
* Middle of the Road ............. 64
* Somewhat Liberal ............... 58
* Very Liberal ................... 65
* Not A High School Graduate ..... 80
* Graduated High School .......... 54
* Attended Some College .......... 49
* College Graduate ............... 60
* Post Graduate Studies .......... 58
* Income Below $25,000 ........... 56
* 25,000 to $40,000 .............. 48
* 40,000 to $60,000 .............. 53
* 60,000 to $80,000 .............. 64
* 80,000 to $100,000 ............. 64
* Above $100,000 ................. 62
* Attended Church Recently ....... 51
* Not Attended Church Recently ... 63
* Evangelical Protestant ......... 38
* Other Protestant ............... 62
* Roman Catholic ................. 60
* No Religious Preference ........ 66

Labels: belief, evangelicals, religion, Scripps Howard News Service., UFO

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Dalai Lama describes himself as 'just one monk'

Fri, Jul. 18, 2008

By David O'Reilly
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The most famous Buddhist in the world insists he is "nothing special."

"I am just an ordinary human being," the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, said yesterday, one day after his daylong visit to Philadelphia.

Some people think of him "as a living Buddha," he said, and laughed. "Nonsense."

Others revere him as "a god-king."

"Nonsense," he said again, this time leaning his head back as he laughed.

"Then some describe me as a demon, or a wolf with a Buddhist robe. That also I think is nonsense.

"I am just one monk. That is all."

And that was how the 73-year-old Dalai Lama came across in an interview: spiritual, intelligent, extroverted, eager to make a personal connection, and, above all, happy.

He claps you on the shoulder to make a point. He leans forward to listen to a question, looking right into your eyes. He turns serious, then breaks out in a broad smile that just may explode into a belly laugh.

"Talking with people" and engaging with others as "human brothers and sisters" is what makes him happy, the Dalai Lama said, sitting in a chair in his room at the Four Seasons.

And when he hears that his teachings have changed a life and made a person happier, "I feel my life becomes something purposeful."

In person he seems not to have a care in the world.

Yet this man in a simple gold and red robe has carried the troubles of Tibet on his bare shoulders since he was a small boy.

In 1937, when he was just 2, a delegation of senior monks arrived at his parents' farm and pronounced him the 14th reincarnation of the Dalai Lama: head of state for all Tibet and spiritual leader of all the millions of Buddhists in his country as well as Nepal, Mongolia, Bhutan, northern India, and the rest of the high Himalayas.

He might have lived a life of isolation, little known to the outside world, had not Communist China invaded the capital of his mountaintop nation in 1951.

The boy-king was just 16.

After eight years of fruitless accommodation with the Communists, whose troops demolished an estimated 6,000 monasteries in the hope of wiping out Buddhism, he fled on foot in the dead of winter to neighboring Nepal.

Later he moved to the northern India village of Dharamsala, where he and his followers built the monastery complex that serves as his home and headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile.

By force of his personality and spirituality, he as grown from a minor Cold War figure to someone akin to pope of the world's Buddhists, and the face of Eastern spirituality to many in the West.

In 1989 he won the Nobel Peace Prize, and still leads the struggle to regain Tibet's independence from China while circling the globe to lecture on tantric, or Tibetan, Buddhism.

He is "hopeful" and "optimistic" that the world will become a better place in the 21st century, he said, provided people promote the "inner values" of peace and compassion at the heart of Buddhism.

But he does not anticipate the West will turn Buddhist - a prospect that worried Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders.

"I don't think so," the Dalai Lama said. "A few hundred thousand, even a few million," might convert. "But the majority will remain Christian, as it should be."

Some Buddhist practices, such as meditation, "can be used according to your own faith. . . . Already some Christian monks and Christian ministers are practicing Buddhist methods or techniques without changing their religion."

The goal for any human is to "minimize such emotions as fear, hatred," he said, and "try to increase love, compassion with forgiveness."

"On that level, I don't think there's much difference between Eastern or Western religion," he said.

He has turned over much of the administration of the Tibetan government-in-exile over to others, he said, and so is "semiretired" from that duty.

But as for the other two duties of the Dalai Lama - "promotion of human values and promotion of religious harmony . . . till my death I am committed."

Labels: Buddhism, compassion, Dalai Lama, David O'Reilly, forgiveness, love, religion, Tibet

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'Unchurched' worshipping more, 'churched' less?

In a survey of more than 1,000 adults, 29% of Americans do not attend religious services at all; 10% attend only on religious holidays; 9% attend occasionally; 19% attend between one and three times a month; and 33% attend once a week or more.

By Ashly McGlone,
A new survey shows that "unchurched" Americans may be worshipping more, and "churched" Americans worshipping less, than many people might think.

Numerous surveys track trends among "unchurched" Americans, but what does "unchurched" really mean? Does it mean never attending religious services, not attending regularly, or to simply be unaffiliated with a particular congregation?

Phoenix, Ariz.-based Ellison Research said the most common definitions "often don't tell a complete story about how Americans attend religious worship services."

The Ellison survey, released July 14, showed that 40% of the "unchurched" do not entirely stay away from worship services, and 37% of "churched" Americans do not make it to religious services every week, even though they consider themselves regular attenders.

"There's often an assumption that people either do attend worship services or they don't," said Ellison President Ron Sellers. "But what we find in this study is that one out of every five Americans is attending worship services at least occasionally during the year, even though they are not regularly involved."

Definitions of "unchurched" used by leading researchers are typically based on yes/no questions of membership at a house of worship, service attendance in the last month, or attendance in the last six months apart from holidays, weddings and funerals.

The Ellison study, however, prides itself in more nuanced questions about frequency of worship attendance for churches, mosques, and synagogues.

In a survey of more than 1,000 adults, 29% of Americans do not attend religious services at all; 10% attend only on religious holidays; 9% attend occasionally; 19% attend between one and three times a month; and 33% attend once a week or more.

The study also analyzed family history of attendance and parental religious involvement. The study estimates that 43 million adults typically categorized as "unchurched" will visit a church or place of worship at some point during the year, and suggested that this should be the focus of outreach for congregations.

Labels: Ashly McGlone, Ellison Research, religion, unchurched, worship

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Pope urges Australian youths to spurn materialism

By KRISTEN GELINEAU – 2 days ago

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday a "spiritual desert" was spreading throughout the world and he challenged young people to shed the greed and cynicism of their time to create a new age of hope for humankind.

Speaking at a Mass before some 350,000 Roman Catholic pilgrims and a likely television audience of millions more, Benedict wrapped up the church's six-day World Youth Day festival. He urged the young people in his more than 1 billion-strong flock to be agents of change because "the world needs renewal."

"In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair," the pontiff said.

The 81-year-old pope said it was up to a new generation of Christians to build a world in "which God's gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished — not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed."

They must embrace the power of God "to let it break through the curse of our indifference, our spiritual weariness, our blind conformity to the spirit of this age," he said.

The aim was "a new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption which deadens our souls and poisons our relationships," he said.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said 350,000 attended Sunday's Mass. Australian organizers surmised a global television audience of up to 500 million during big World Youth Day events.

The pope flew over the scene early Sunday in a helicopter — dubbed "the holy-copter" by bleary-eyed pilgrims below — to see the assemblage swarmed all over the track in a jumble of sleeping bags, backpacks and other personal items.

He later took a slow drive through the crowd, stopping once to plant a kiss on the forehead of a toddler held up to the popemobile's window. Pilgrims from more than 160 countries gave him a rock-star welcome, waving the flags of their nations, cheering and chanting: "Benedicto! Benedicto!" — the pope's Italian name.

The pope was due to leave Australia for the Vatican on Monday. He announced that Madrid, Spain, would host the next World Youth Day in 2011 and told the pilgrims: "I look forward to seeing you again in three years' time."

Benedict, who shrugged off the effects of a longer-than 20-hour flight from Rome and kept a hectic schedule during his time in Australia, coughed a couple of times during Sunday's Mass and at one point blew his nose, prompting reporters to ask about his health.

"It was chilly, and everybody felt it, no?" Lombardi said. "But he is in fine health."

Associated Press Writer Victor L. Simpson in Sydney contributed to this report.

Labels: Australia, Catholic, Kristen Gelineau, Pope Benedict XVI, World Youth Day

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Thursday, July 17, 2008

Recent Poll Shows Christians Believe Religious Freedom is Crucial to Foreign Policy Issue

More than half of Christians in America believe religious freedom should be a high priority in crafting U.S. foreign policy, according to a recent Wilson Research Strategies survey commissioned by Open Doors USA.

“The persecution of Christians in the world today is on the rise, with an estimated 100 million suffering some sort of repression and even death for their faith,” said Carl Moeller, president and chief executive officer of Open Doors USA, a Christian ministry that has served persecuted Christians around the world for more than 50 years. “Open Doors commissioned this study to try to understand what Christians in America feel about religious freedom. Clearly, it is a priority.”

Fifty-four percent of U.S. Christians polled consider religious freedom an important issue in making U.S. foreign policy, according to the survey. This is an especially high priority with those who attend church most frequently (60 percent), compared with those Christians who never attend (40 percent).

The study shows that 96 percent of respondents believe strongly that religious freedom is a basic human right, and that more than eight in 10 believe it is a very important basic right. Those who feel most strongly about the issue are women who frequently attend church. Ninety-one percent believe it is a very important issue.

Respondents did not believe that direct intervention should form our religious freedom foreign policy. Instead, they favored the U.S. using more indirect policies, such as economic sanctions (20 percent) and diplomatic measures to pressure persecuting regimes rather than having the U.S. directly intervene.

“The findings of this study demonstrate that senators McCain and Obama must address the issue of religious freedom in their foreign policy positions if they are intent on winning the vote of faithful Christians,” said Moeller.

Geographically, the weakest support for religious freedom as a basic human right is in New England, with only 76 percent of respondents ranking it as very important, compared with Mountain States, where 9 out of 10 say it is very important.

Among Christian groups, the strongest support came from Baptists, non denominational/independent churches, Lutherans and charismatics. The weakest group support came from Catholics, Presbyterians and Episcopalians.

Of special interest is the finding that 98 percent of frequent listeners to Christian radio believe strongly that religious freedom is a basic human right.

Labels: Americans, Christianity, foreign policy, Open Doors USA, religious freedom, Wilson Research Strategies

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The Shack--Some Preliminary Observations - Book Review

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

It isn’t often that a self-published book rises to the top of the bestseller lists. In fact it is so rare that when it does happen, we ought to stand back and take notice.

Several years ago William P. Young set out to write a story for his children. Some friends found out about the story and encouraged him to publish it. After being turned down by both secular and Christian publishers, he and his friends founded their own company to publish the book. Starting with an initial advertising budget of only $300, the book took took off for the stratosphere.

As of this morning, The Shack is currently #2 on the Amazon bestseller list. It is #1 in the Religion and Spirituality category (beating out Eckardt Tolle’s A New Earth at # 2), and #1 in the Christianity category, coming in ahead of Tim Keller, Gary Chapman, Rick Warren, C. S. Lewis, Jim Tressel (Ohio State football coach), Don Piper (author of 90 Minutes in Heaven), Joel Osteen, Tony Dungy, Randy Alcorn and John Eldredge. It is also #1 on the New York Times Paperback Trade Fiction bestseller list. “The Shack” has already sold over 1 million copies, and the number is rising daily.

That’s impressive, and take it from someone who’s been in the book writing business for a while, numbers like that are what authors dream about at night. And to have this happen for what is essentially a self-published book, well, that’s just plain amazing.

So what’s going on here?

I don’t propose to write a full-scale review, but I do want to offer some comments both on the book and its popularity. Clearly the author has touched a chord with many people. I’m wondering to myself what it all means and what we might learn from it.

So for the moment, here are three preliminary observations. First, the book is mostly about the question of how to maintain your faith in God in the face of unimaginable tragedy. It’s about a father’s virtual loss of faith after his daughter is abducted and murdered on a camping trip. Second, the “shack” in the story is both a literal and a metaphorical place. The shack is the place where the daughter was killed. It is also the place where the man returns to meet God. Third, the book attempts to paint a picture of the Trinity that emphasizes God’s love. I think that message resonates with many readers, especially those who have been deeply hurt. To be told that there is a God who loves you and is in fact quite fond of you (a phrase used several times in the book) even when your heart is filled with despair and confusion gives hope to many people. And taken in and of itself, that message is true and needs to be shared.

But the way in which that message is delivered matters almost as much as the message itself. And it is for this that “The Shack” has sparked so much controversy. I want to consider some of these issues in the next several days.

You can reach the author at ray@keepbelieving.com . Click here to sign up for the free weekly email sermon.

Labels: book review, Dr. Ray Pritchard, faith, God, The Shack, tragedy, Trinity

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Poll probes Americans' belief in UFOs, life on other planets

07/15/2008

Most Americans say it is very likely or somewhat likely that humans are not alone in the universe and that intelligent life exists on other planets.

Only a third of adults, however, believe it's either very likely or somewhat likely that intelligent aliens from space have visited our planet, according to a survey of 1,003 adults conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University.

The poll revealed that one in every 12 Americans has seen a mysterious object in the sky that might have been a visitor from another world, while nearly one in every five personally knows someone who has seen an unidentified flying object.

America's fascination with UFO sightings has been robust, dating at least back to 1947 with the discovery of unusual objects near Roswell, N.M., that many claimed were the remnants of an extraterrestrial craft that crashed.

Among the ranks who have seen something strange in the sky are former President Jimmy Carter, the late Beatle John Lennon and the late comedian Jackie Gleason.

One of the largest mass sightings on record -- the so-called "Phoenix Lights" that hovered for several hours over two or three Southwestern states on March 13, 1997 -- was even seen by then-Arizona Gov. Fife Symington. The governor at first made jokes about the incident, but later apologized for making light of something that thousands of people saw.

At least one of the participants in the poll saw the strange, slowly floating lights over Phoenix.

"Maybe it was a military thing; I don't know," said Fran Chodacki, 62, of Page, Ariz. "Everything is mysterious in this world. It's a possibility."

She is among the 56 percent of adults in the poll who believe it is very likely or somewhat likely that intelligent life exists on other worlds. The survey found that 35 percent said extraterrestrials are unlikely and 9 percent are uncertain.

Men, young adults and college-educated Americans are more likely than most to believe that humans are not alone in the universe.

Men are almost twice as likely to have seen something peculiar in the sky than are women. Older Americans are much more likely than younger people to have seen something, as are residents of rural areas or suburbs rather than those living in major cities. People living in Western states are three times more likely to have seen a UFO than are residents of the Northeast, Midwest or South.

UFO experts agree that these trends all make sense. Men are more likely than women to be outdoors on a dark night. Older Americans have had more opportunities simply by virtue of a longer life to see something unusual in the sky.

It is also logical, they say, for people in Western states to have seen more UFOs than people in other regions. Most of the nation's largest and most expensive observatories are located in the West, which provides optimal views of the sky.

But the experts were quite surprised by other trends found among the UFO witnesses.

People who have attended church recently and who identify themselves as born-again Evangelical Protestants are much less likely to have seen UFOs or to believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence than people with little or no involvement with organized religion.

People with strong political and ideological convictions -- self-identified "strong Republicans" and "very conservative" people as well as "strong Democrats" and "very liberal" persons -- are much less likely to report having seen a UFO than are politically moderate persons.

But why are people with strong political beliefs less likely to see UFOs?

"They are more attuned to the establishment," said Rodeghier. "People who are in the establishment are more likely to have distain for the whole UFO issue. That's something those of us in the field of UFO study have seen over and over again. But people who are independent are more open to the issue."

The survey was conducted by telephone at Ohio University's Scripps Survey Research Center from May 11-28. The poll was funded through a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation.

The overall survey has a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.

(Thomas Hargrove is a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service. Guido H. Stempel III is a professor emeritus at Ohio University's Scripps School of Journalism. Scripps Howard reporter Daniel Collins contributed to this story.)

Labels: Guido H. Stempel III, Phoenix, politics, religion, Scripps Howard News Service., Thomas Hargrove, UFO

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Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Many Medical Schools Now Include Classes On Healing Power Of Spirituality

By Zulima Palacio
Washington
14 July 2008

For the past 20 years, western medicine in the United States has been exploring uncharted territory: the healing power of spirituality. Now, many medical schools include classes on the subject. And multiple studies point to spirituality as a key element in boosting immune functions and enhancing and accelerating the healing process beyond conventional medical treatment. Producer Zulima Palacio has the story. Carol Pearson narrates.

Praying, being part of nature, meditating or practicing yoga - practitioners say they all have a common element: a strong part of a person's spiritual life and, potentially, a great importance in health and well-being., Dr. Christina Puchalski has been studying the subject for more than 20 years.

"Would you say that your spirituality is important to you in they way you think about your health?” Dr. Puchalski asked her patient.

"Very important because, its like a bad feeling; if you get up in the morning with gloom and doom in your mind, you are bound to have gloom and doom all day," patient responds.

For two decades, 82 year old Vera Thompson has been a Buddhist with strong spiritual practices. Her case, as with many other patients, has provided Dr. Puchalski with great insight about the healing power of spirituality.

Regardless of religion, faith or practice, the positive effects of spirituality are now being proven in medical studies Dr. Puchalski says. "People who have spiritual practice tend to recover from depression a little sooner than those that do not. There are studies that look at blood pressure, incredible studies looking at meditation actually that affect blood pressure and resilience to stress."

Dr. Puchalski is the founder and Director of the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health. She also teaches spirituality and health at The George Washington University Medical School. She says the most significant role of spirituality in health includes the ability to cope with serious illness, with suffering and stress.

Two weeks ago her patient Gwenda Martin had a total mastectomy to treat breast cancer. Martin attributes her quick recovery to the power of positive thinking and the attention of her church community. "I think it had a lot to do with it because when I went into surgery I knew I was going to be fine," Martin said.

When meeting her patients, Dr. Puchalski asks them many non-conventional questions involving their physical, emotional, social and spiritual life. In many ways, she says, she is talking about the power of the mind, "If someone says that spirituality is like a placebo, I think it may be truth because what we are doing is engaging the power of our minds," Dr. Puchalski said.

Dr. Puchalski says she tries to keep the alliance between mind, body and spirit. She says studies done on Tibetan monks and brain imaging while meditating have established the positive effects of spirituality. However she recognizes that western society is dominated by technology and scientific methods that make wellbeing very hard to measure.
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Labels: Christina Puchalski, George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health, health, medicine, spirituality, Zulima Palacio

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Saturday, July 12, 2008

Sir John Templeton: iconic innovator in finance and religion

He was a shrewd stock picker. But his priority was spiritual wealth.

By Gary Moore

from the July 11, 2008 edition

Sarasota, Fla. - Sir John Templeton was many things to many people.

To the general public, he was one of the past century's greatest investors and philanthropists – a man who revolutionized both mutual fund investing and the effort to explore the nexus between science and religion.

After his passing this week, he will likely be remembered by the rational and affluent West as a poor boy from Tennessee turned Rhodes scholar and Dean of Global Investing.

Christians might remember him for his Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, and as someone who puts first things first: Faith, patience, prudence, and ethics were foremost in his thought.

Scientists might remember him most for his Templeton Foundation, which gives millions to study the links between science and religion.

Traditional Europe might remember Sir John, as his friends called him, as a great philanthropist who was knighted by Her Majesty as he valued historic treasures such as Oxford and Westminster Cathedral enough to invest in their futures. And the East will probably remember John as a spiritual creature who valued his Creator above all else, as he'd "been convinced that nothing exists except God."

I will remember him as a good Samaritan who paused to help me during a painful time on Wall Street. His historical and global perspective assured me that markets assuredly rebound – and that it's most wise to, as the poem goes, "keep your head when all about you are losing theirs." That was sage advice then, and it's sage advice today.

We would all be correct in our differing memories of John Templeton. Yet we live in an age of strained relationships, where differences seem intractable. So we might be most enriched if we remember his holistic approach to life.

John worked very intentionally to live the spiritual qualities he prized. And while he may have valued reason, prosperity, tradition, and spirituality, he gave top priority to love, the connecting force that holds us together despite our differences – even the largest ones.

He once startled me by describing how difficult it had been to love Joseph Stalin. He later worked at loving Saddam Hussein. That effort showed how seriously he took the biblical injunction to love his neighbors, including enemies, as himself.

That began with humbly loving God. The Jewish scriptures, which John loved and studied late in life, tell us: "As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he."

In the West, it is common to think of science as being about this world and religion about the next. But John saw reality as a single whole. So his foundation now invests his wealth in scientifically testing that proposition, just as the scriptures say Solomon "tested truth."

We financial types often think of investing as a selfish activity and charity as an altruistic one, so we leave ministry to the ordained clergy. John thought of us as "ministers of prosperity."

The Christian Scriptures say to put your mind on those things that are good, pure and lovely. So John refused to read or watch most media as he knew they might fill his mind with negativity.

But John wasn't just a contrarian for the sake of being different. He simply understood a truth that still escapes most investors: "The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell."

That perspective proved prescient in the late 1990s when he predicted that 90 percent of the new Internet companies would be bankrupt within five years. He added that US stock markets would likely stagnate for a decade. Those were enriching lessons in the school of life.

Yet John was ever hopeful about financial and spiritual progress. A few years ago, he asked me to co-write an article about why the Dow Jones Industrial Average might rise to 1 million by the year 2100.

I was skeptical at first. But then I remembered that John often spoke to us in financial parables, and I realized that the Dow would only need to rise about five percent per year in order to achieve that goal. He was saying that America will be fine but developing nations may also achieve greater parity during this century.

He would be even more pleased if his foundation helps us achieve even greater spiritual progress, the most important progress of all. That is more likely as we now have his example that the ancient values of faith, hope, and especially love still promise a more abundant life for our modern world.

• Gary Moore is an investment adviser who wrote two books about John Templeton, including "Spiritual Investments: Wall Street Wisdom from the Career of Sir John Templeton."

Labels: finance, Gary Moore, God, John Templeton, love, science, spirituality

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Templeton's Legacy of Humility

Billionaire investor John Templeton, who died Tuesday at age 95, might have had more money than God, but he knew better than to mistake wealth for wisdom.

"We should admit that no human being has ever known one percent of the infinity of God. We are terribly ignorant," Templeton told me in 2002.

Humility is a wonderful trait in a billionaire, or any person of faith. How do we find more of it? Templeton spent a good deal of his fortune trying to figure that out.

The Wall Street Legend was the first and only billionaire I ever met. I interviewed him in his hometown, Winchester, Tenn., better known as the birthplace of Dinah Shore.

I wanted to ask him for a stock tip. He wanted to talk about science and religion. Just my luck.

"When new discoveries are made about science, do we not merely discover more about God?" he said. "All of nature reveals something of the Creator."

I've always thought so. Like Templeton, I've never thought of science and faith as rivals. Science can tell us how, faith can tell us why. Science deals with facts, faith deals with truths.

But I didn't grow up in the shadow of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, which pitted religion against science a mere four counties east of where Templeton was being raised in the Cumberland Presbyterian church.

Templeton said he was fascinated by the trial, but he was equally enthralled by the natural wonders around him. He began to wonder Why couldn't God create an evolving universe that operated on both physical and spiritual laws.

After he made his fortune, he set out to make a contribution. In 1987, he established the John Templeton Foundation to encourage the use of scientific methods to discover more about the spiritual realm. Foundation grants are being used to study such virtues as forgiveness, gratitude and humility.

What Templeton wanted more than money was meaning. What he wanted more than certainty was wisdom -- knowledge tempered by humility.

"I grew up as a Presbyterian," he told Business Week in 2005. "Presbyterians thought the Methodists were wrong. Catholics thought all Protestants were wrong. The Jews thought the Christians were wrong. So what I am financing is humility. I want people to realize you shouldn't think you know it all."

That's more valuable than any stock tip.

Labels: faith, God, John Templeton, science

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Friday, July 11, 2008

Religous survey looks at prayer, heaven, hell, hollywood, etc

Posted on July 8th, 2008 by Tracy Simmons

On USA Today’s web site there is an interactive in-depth look at Pew’s recent religious survey. Check it out here. Here are some highlights:

Question 1: Do Hollywood and the entertainment industry threaten your values? Mormons, yes, 67 percent.

Question 2: Which statement comes closer to your own views? The choices: a) society should accept homosexuality b) society should discourage homosexuality c) other. Other faiths, a, 84 percent.

Question 3: What factors most influence your thinking about government and public affairs? Sixty percent of Jehovah’s Witnesses said religious beliefs.

Question 4: Do you believe there are clear and absolute standards for what is right and wrong? Jehovah Witness, completely agree, 55 percent.

Question 5: When it comes to questions of right and wrong, which do you most look to for guidance? Jehovah Witness, religion, 73 percent.

Question 6: Aside from weddings and funerals, how often do you attend religious services? Unaffiliated, seldom or never, 72 percent.

Question 7: Do you believe there is a heaven, where people have led good lives are eternally rewarded? Mormons, yes, 95 percent.

Question 8: Do you think there is a hell, where people who have led bad lives and die without being sorry are eternally punished? Jehovah Witness, no, 88 percent.

Question 9: Only one religion, or many religions lead to eternal life? Hindu, many religions lead to eternal life, 89 percent.

Question 10: Is there only one true way to interpret the teachings of your religion? Buddhist, no, 90 percent.

Question 11: Should your church preserve traditional beliefs, adapt them, or adopt modern ones? Mormon, preserve traditional beliefs, 68 percent.

Question 12: Outside of attending a religious service, how often do you pray? Jehovah Witness, every day, 89 percent.

Question 13: How often do you receive a definite answer to a specific prayer request? Jehovah Witness, at least once a week, 37 percent.

What religion are you and how would you answer these questions?

Labels: church, eternal life, heaven, hell, Hollywood, prayer, Tracy Simmons

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JOHN TEMPLETON - 1912-2008: He spent his fortune advancing religion in relation to science

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: July 9th, 2008

John Templeton, an investor and mutual fund pioneer who dedicated much of his fortune to promoting religion and reconciling it with science, has died. He was 95.

Templeton died Tuesday from pneumonia at Doctors Hospital in Nassau, Bahamas, said his spokesman Donald Lehr.

Templeton created the $1.4 million Templeton Prize – billed as the world’s richest annual prize – to honor advancement in spiritual matters. Winners have included Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Templeton wanted the monetary value to surpass that of the Nobel Prize to show that advances in spiritual fields were just as important, Lehr said in a statement. Next year’s prize is expected to be almost $2 million, he said.

Templeton was born in Tennessee, graduated from Yale University and became a Rhodes scholar, earning a master’s degree in law at Oxford University. He later moved to Nassau and became a naturalized British citizen.

The Associated Press

Labels: John Templeton, science, spirituality

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Dalai Lama tells us to 'reprioritize, revalue'

By Lloyd Steffen
July 9, 2008

Why is the Dalai Lama thought to be important? Fair question.

There have been many spiritual leaders, many different heads of state, even other exiled heads of state, and quite a few Nobel Peace Prize winners -- so why is this man, who describes himself always as ''a simple monk,'' important? Let me suggest three reasons.

First of all, the Dalai is an extraordinary teacher and a gifted communicator. His fame derives from his efforts to stay in constant communication. He is a New York Times best selling author many times over, able to reach wide audiences; he is a lecturer to hundreds of thousands of people across the globe -- a true global citizen; and he is the subject of many films and documentaries, including Martin Scorsese's bio-pic, ''Kundun.'' The Dalai Lama has succeeded in translating central ideas from his Buddhist tradition to people in a way -- and through all kinds of media -- that speaks to their common spiritual needs and longings, regardless of whether they are Buddhist or even religious at all. But he has also taught Buddhism along the way. Much of what many people know about Buddhism comes from their encounter with the Dalai Lama, who has connected with people as only great teachers can, embodying in his life and words a message that speaks to the great questions about life and its meaning.

Second, the Dalai Lama is important because of the specifics of his message. The Dalai Lama reminds us that we are all in the same boat, that suffering is our common condition. He humbly suggests that we are responsible for one another, and that geographic boundaries should be no impediment to our sense of responsibility. We are all connected. And we all want the same thing out of life -- we want happiness. His teaching, then, is designed to illuminate the pathways that might get us to happiness. Learn patience. Show tolerance. Seek wisdom. Forgive. Make love your aim as well as your mode of operation. Offer compassion and help those who are in need. Calm yourselves and seek peace within -- meditate. Bring peace to the world through a life of care and empathy. Shun violence and hatred. Channel anger and overcome fear. Build your life around these values, rejecting the excesses of materialism and the temptations to resolve conflict by resorting to violence. Make kindness your ethic. You cannot be too kind.

These are messages that can be found many places, including the religion of Christianity. What is unusual about the Dalai Lama as teacher is that he has extracted these messages from theological trappings and offered them as wise counsel and living directives to those seeking spiritual enlightenment. This is radical business and the kind of teaching that many Christians find difficult, since in many versions of Christianity the message about what is required to do is subordinated to requirements about belief. The Dalai Lama dissociates the two-- he focuses on the doing, on the requirements of peaceful living and wisdom seeking. He does not force his Tibetan beliefs on those outside his tradition -- when people tell him they don't accept reincarnation he laughs and says, ''How could you? How is that a part of your life?''

And this leads to a third consideration. The Dalai Lama is important because the challenge of his message is this: ''Stop doing business as usual.'' The idea that we can find peace through force of arms or happiness through acquisition is illusory. He urges people to rethink what they want and how to get what they want, and with so much misery and unhappiness in the world, the way to happiness will not come from doing things as we are used to doing them. Reprioritize and revalue, he seems to be saying. Emphasize dialogue, not confrontation. Think about cooperation rather than competition. Think about advancing the interests of others as much as you do advancing your own. Make every encounter with another person the greeting of a new friend. And when you are told this is impractical, remind your skeptic that if we do not reshift to an alternative set of values and refocus our concern to include all others, even the well-being of the planet itself, we imperil our very existence.

The Dalai Lama relates this message from his Buddhist sources -- it is not an alien message for me as a Christian. What I celebrate is that the Dalai Lama has found a way to make this message heard today, even if it is through massive media exposure and paper doll cut out books. The message goes to the hope for human happiness. The message is that business as usual is a well doomed to run dry, and alternative values, an alternative spirituality, will be required to energize peaceful and meaningful life in the days ahead. The Dalai Lama offers an alternative path away form the present unhappiness; he emphasizes a way of living that challenges what most of us value and how most of us live-and that, for me, is why the Dalai Lama stands in a long line of great spiritual teachers; that for me is why the Dalai Lama is so important.

Lloyd Steffen is professor of religion studies and chaplain at Lehigh University.

Labels: Buddhism, China, compassion, Dalai Lama, kindness, Lloyd Steffen, love, Tenzin Gyatso, Tibet

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German Study: Religion Stronger Than Ever Among Global Youth

10.07.2008

A worldwide survey by Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation has found religion is as strong as ever among most of the globe's young people, with Europe the main enclave where religion is on the decline.

Releasing details Thursday, July 10, the respected social-science foundation said the findings would surprise Europeans. It said the notion that young people were less religious than their parents was a typically European perception, not a global reality.

"Young people in developing countries and Islamic states are just as religious as adults," the study's authors said. "In Morocco, about 99 percent believe in God and life after death. Among Brazilians, Turks and Nigerians, 90 percent are believers and even in Israel, Indonesia and Italy, the rate is 80 percent."

Martin Rieger, who heads the Religion Monitor, a Bertelsmann project to track faith, said: "The notion that religion continuously declines from generation to generation can be clearly disproved, even in some of the industrialized nations."

Religious Brits

The study found religious belief was stronger among young people in Britain and Israel than among their parents.

The first findings of the Bertelsmann Monitor of Religion, which will be continuously updated in future, were issued to mark World Youth Day, a Catholic youth festival being celebrated with Pope Benedict XVI in Sydney, Australia on July 20.

Globally, 85 percent of young people aged 18 to 29 are religious believers, with 44 percent defined as deeply religious in the sense that they often pray, discuss religious issues and are guided in day to day behavior by religion.

In non-religious nations such as France, Russia and Austria, daily prayer is a fixture for only 9, 8 and 7 percent of young adults respectively. The United States is quite different, with 57 percent of young adults praying daily, the survey found.

Labels: belief, Bertelsmann Foundation, Europe, religion, youth

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God's OK, it's just the religion bit we don't like

Linda Morris
July 11, 2008

AUSTRALIA is one of the least devout countries in the Western world, although two-thirds of its population identifies itself as Christian, an international survey comparing religious expression in 21 countries has found.

Religion does not play a central part in the lives of many Australians: 48 per cent of Australians surveyed said they did not partake in personal prayer and 52 per cent said they rarely attended a place of worship for religious reasons.

The survey by Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation questioned 21,000 adults. It found that levels of religious identity in Australia were on par with Germany and Switzerland, significantly less than the US but greater than Britain.

Forty-four per cent of Australians considered themselves religious but said religion did not play a central role in their lives, a third said they did not believe in a divine power or in life after death. Half the Australians surveyed considered religion the least important when compared with family, partners, work and career, leisure time and politics.

Worldwide, the young are more religious than reputed, with only 13 per cent having no appreciation for God or faith in general, so expressions of faith during World Youth Day should come as no surprise.

Australians had a largely positive perception of God. Most thought of God as a loving, kind-hearted being and there was a strong religious vitality among the nation's youth, with one in five considered to be deeply religious, the survey found. This suggested that the Pope's mission to rejuvenate the Catholic faith in Australia may fall on fertile ground.

Census results show Mass attendance is continuing to fall. The percentage of Catholics attending Mass during a typical weekend dropped to just under 14 per cent in 2006, compared with 18 per cent in 1996. Rates of Mass attendance among young people are now thought to be less than 10 per cent. On average, Mass attenders are older, better educated and more likely to be female, married and born overseas.

Labels: Australia, Bertelsmann Foundation, God, Linda Morris, religion

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Study: Bible Still Recognized as Top 'Holy' Book

By Elena Garcia
Christian Post Reporter
Thu, Jul. 10 2008

A new Barna survey shows that more Americans accept the Bible as "holy" or "sacred" than they would other books.

Respondents of the survey for The Barna Group identified around 12 books they thought fit the bill as "sacred literature" or "holy books." The list included expected titles such as the Bible and the Koran and others such as Quiet Strength by football coach Tony Dungy.

However, the Bible stood out by far from other texts with 84 percent of Americans deeming it a holy book.

Only three books were recognized as holy by at least 1 percent of Americans. The Koran trailed behind the Bible in second place with 4 percent; the Book of Mormon as labeled by 3 percent as sacred/holy; and the Torah was deemed holy by 2 percent of the public.

Most of the other books listed in the survey failed to even garner 1 percent of the public's vote.

While only 7 percent of Christians in the study would categorize a book other than the Bible as holy, around 40 percent of non-Christians would point to the Bible as holy.

The study also found that men, conservatives, older Americans, and individuals who had lower income and education levels were more likely than their counterparts to accept the Bible as holy.

Not surprisingly, the study found that adults under 25, residents of the West and liberals were the groups most likely to consider non-Bible books as holy.

Barna said this rings true because these groups "tend to be the most experimental in spirituality.

And among the different types of Christians responding to the survey, evangelical Christians appeared to hold the firmest conviction in the holiness of the Bible. A high 99 percent said the Bible was sacred.

Overall, people's responses in the study demonstrate America’s singular connection to Christianity, concluded Barna.

Barna noted that while Christians in America are "only moderately committed to Christianity and to the church they attend most often, they have no inclination to embrace anything besides the Bible as sacred, especially if it originated from a different faith tradition."

Labels: Barna Group, Bible, Elena Garcia, Koran, Torah

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Q & A: A spiritual leader's message of peace

Q & A: A spiritual leader's message of peace

By NIRAJ WARIKOO •
July 10, 2008

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, founder of the Art of Living Foundation, gave a two-hour presentation at Renaissance Unity Church that touted the benefits of meditation, breathing, and non-violence.

"We have ignored spiritual education," he told the crowd. "No one teaches us how to get rid of negative emotions...If you tend to the breath, you can get rid of all these negative emotions. For every state of mind, there is a specific emotion of the breath."

On Thursday, Shankar spoke with the Free Press from a hotel room in Southfield:

Q: What are your views on religion?
A: Religion should not be a barrier. I feel that one should not have any prejudice in this 21rst century. We can't afford to have prejudice against any religion or any community. We live in a globalized society, and there needs to be an exchange of wisdom, an exchange of ideas. When we can exchange our food and music, why shouldn't we exchange wisdom? I think people are very intelligent. It's not like it was in the Middle Ages, where the walls of religion and community and nations were so hardened, making it hard to communicate.

Today, there is better communication, better understanding. Spirituality transcends religious restrictions and boundaries. It actually unites people of all religions because it's basically about how to better one's life.

Q: Why has yoga and meditation become popular in the West?
A: Because it's practical and it's useful, and it makes a big change in life.

Q: Your program has reached out to people in prisons. Why?
A: Stress levels can push someone to go to crime. If the stress level is reduced, then the belongingness is created. Then naturally, the crime rate will come down.

Labels: Art of Living Foundation, breathing, Niraj Warikoo, peace, religion, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

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