TruthBook Religious News Blog

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Sydney: A new poll conducted has found that a majority of Australians believe in God or a similar universal spirit, miracles, heaven, life after death and angels.

The findings by a Nielsen poll showed that Aussies are willing to mix and match religious faith with belief in other phenomena.

The research showed that Australians are more religious, with 68% believing in God or a universal spirit, and 50% saying religion is important or very important in their lives.

But atheists and agnostics also had a strong showing in the national survey of 1000 respondents, taken early this week.

Almost one in four Australians (24%) do not believe in either God or a universal spirit, and 7% are not sure or say they "don't know'".

Women have more faith than men, with 56% saying they believe in God and 13% saying they believe in a universal spirit, compared with 43% and 11% of men, respectively.

Most people with faith hold it strongly, with 88% saying they were either absolutely or fairly certain in their belief.

Christianity, generally considered to be on the decline, was still the largest faith, with 64 % of believers nominating it as the religion they most identified with.

The next biggest was Buddhism, at 2%, followed by Hinduism and Islam, which each had 1% of believers.

Judaism accounted for less than half of 1% of believers.

But God is not the only thing Australians believe in. They place their faith in a range of other phenomena. For example, 63% believe in miracles, and 53% believe in life after death.

Angels are also popular, with 51% of respondents saying they believe in them, slightly more than the 49% who hold faith in psychic powers such as ESP.

While 56% of people believe in heaven, only 38% believe in hell, and belief in God is much more popular than faith in the devil, with only 37% of respondents believing in Satan.

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Labels: angels, Australia, God, heaven, life after death, Nielsen poll

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Tuesday, July 22, 2008

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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Friday, July 11, 2008

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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Tuesday, February 12, 2008

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, January 18, 2008

Trendy spiritualism breeds unhappiness

By Tamara McLean
January 18, 2008

YOUNG people who embrace trendy, self-focused spiritualism are more anxious and depressed than those who believe in God or reject religion altogether, a survey shows.

The survey quizzed 3705 people on their beliefs in God, higher powers other than God, as well as their church-going habits and other behaviours.

Young adults with a belief in a spiritual or higher power other than God were at more risk of poorer mental health and deviant social behaviour than those who rejected these beliefs, said study author Dr Rosemary Aird, a population health researcher at the University of Queensland.

Young men who held non-traditional religious views were at twice the risk of being more anxious and depressed than those with traditional beliefs.

The research is believed to be the first in Australia to examine young adults' religious and spiritual thoughts, behaviour and feelings.

Dr Aird found only 8 per cent of young adults attended church once a week, a trend linked to lower rates of antisocial behaviour among young men but not women.

She said individualism was the common thread in the shift away from traditional religious thoughts to non-religious spirituality.

"This focus on self fulfillment and improvement over others' wellbeing could undermine a person's mental health with many people feeling more isolated, less healthy and having poorer relationships," Dr Aird said.

She said so-called new spirituality promoted the idea that self-transformation would lead to a positive and constructive change in self and society.

"But there is a contradiction," Dr Aird said.

"How can one change society if one is focused on oneself?"

Labels: Australia, church, God, individualism, non-traditional, self-centered, spirituality, Tamara McLean, youth