TruthBook Religious News Blog

India West, News Report, Ashfaque Swapan
Mar 13, 2009

Despite virtually unanimous support in the scientific community, there is considerable public skepticism in the U.S. about Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, with 39 percent believing in the theory, according to a Gallup poll.

Hindus in the U.S., however, overwhelmingly accept the scientific consensus, with four out of five Hindus agreeing that evolution best explains the origin of human beings, according to a recent study by the Pew Center.

Buddhists, edging Hindus by a slight margin, were the greatest supporters among different religious groups, the survey found.

As the world celebrated the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin Feb. 12, his legacy is a study in contrasts: While there is virtual unanimity among biologists regarding the validity of his theory of natural selection, public opinion continues to show surprising pockets of resistance in some nations.

The resistance has come almost entirely from religious groups, led by Christian groups, who support an alternative theory called intelligent design, which accepts the existence or agency of a supreme being.

However, skepticism among scientists about intelligent design in unanimous.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that "creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science." The U.S. National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have termed it pseudoscience. Many in the scientific community have been less kind, bluntly calling it junk science.

Public opinion in the U.S., however, continues to be surprisingly resistant to Darwin’s theory. According to an August 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 63 percent of Americans believe that humans and other animals have either always existed in their present form or have evolved over time under the guidance of a supreme being. Only 26 percent said that life evolved solely through processes such as natural selection.

Hindus in the U.S., however, do not share this view. In advance of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birthday on Feb. 12, the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life released a report exploring the evolution controversy in the U.S. The Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey found that views on evolution differ widely across religious groups.

Buddhists and Hindus led the study with 81 percent of Buddhists and 80 percent of Hindus agreeing that evolution is the best explanation of the origin of human life on earth, followed by Jewish (77 percent) and unaffiliated (72 percent) groups. Muslims (45 percent) were the fifth least enthusiastic about Darwin’s theory in the 12-group study, with Jehovah’s Witnesses (7 percent), Mormons (22 percent) and evangelical Protestants (24 percent) being the least enthusiastic religious groups.

Labels: Buddhists, Charles Darwin, creationism, evolution, Hindus, science

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Friday, November 21, 2008

Trying to measure faith, health link

Some scientific studies show religion and spirituality offers benefits

By JANUARY W. PAYNE
THE WASHINGTON POST

Published: Saturday, November 15, 2008

An integral part of many people's lives, religion defines patterns of worship and socialization, but its impact, if any, on health is unclear. Some studies show a benefit to religious practice, while others -- including much of the research into prayer -- fail to prove its health value.

The question of the role something as unquantifiable as religious belief might play in health troubles some scientists in an age when mainstream medicine is turning ever more toward epidemiological science to define research protocols and to determine the validity of treatments.

That said, it's not hard to understand why being religious might be good for the body, experts say. Religious people often attend regular services; this puts them in a socially supportive environment, which has widely acknowledged health advantages. And some religions promote healthful diets and discourage unhealthy behaviors such as drinking alcohol and smoking

Among that research is some evidence that religion and spirituality offer health benefits and even longer life spans. A national survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ...found that people who did not attend religious services were 1.87 times more likely to have died during an eight-year period than those who attended services more than weekly.

The life expectancy for infrequent attendees was age 75, and it was 83 for those who attended frequently.

A 1996 study looked at the association of Jewish religious observance with mortality by comparing secular and religious kibbutzim in Israel. Belonging to a religious group appeared to prolong life, and the lower mortality rates seen in the religious group were consistent for all causes of death, the authors wrote. And a 2003 study published in Psychosomatic Medicine found that meditation might alter brain and immune function in positive ways, an effect similarly seen in research involving Buddhist monks.

It's hard to show conclusively whether or how a belief system affects one's health; other life experiences might provide benefits to health so similar to religion and spirituality that it's hard to differentiate.

Despite the lack of scientific evidence, some common religious practices are widely thought to enhance health.

Power of prayer

It's not unusual for people to pray for their own health and for that of others. In a 2004 survey of more than 31,000 people, 45 percent said they'd prayed for health reasons, 43 percent prayed for their own health, and 25 percent reported that others had prayed for them. About 10 percent said they'd participated in a prayer group for their health, according to the results, released by the National Center for Health Statistics and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

But science says that prayer might not help a person who is ill. A 2003 update to an earlier systemic review of clinical trials on distant healing found that intercessory prayer, which involves someone praying for the healing of a person located elsewhere, with or without that person's knowledge, probably doesn't offer specific therapeutic healing effects.

Any benefit seen from prayer might come from the fact that "knowing that your friends and family are praying for you is part of social support, ... and (that is) probably really helpful to people, independent of if there is a higher being that answers those prayers," said David Schlundt, an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, who has researched the connection between faith and health.

Although religion might provide social support, purpose, a belief system, a moral code -- and even happiness -- these benefits can also come from other sources, notes a 2007 study by Eckersley published in the Medical Journal of Australia. Future examination of the health benefits of religion and spirituality should be done in a broader context, he said, especially with regard to how cultural influences affect faith and health.

Cultural context

That cultural context could be key to understanding how people's beliefs factor into their health outcomes, experts note, because religion and spirituality don't seem to produce a uniform effect on everyone. Differences are apparent between groups of varying socioeconomic and racial and ethnic backgrounds.

A dangerous aspect of the purported faith-health connection is fatalism, the belief that health is predetermined and is not within a person's control. Research shows that people who hold such beliefs are less likely than others to participate in health promotion programs and to seek health care.

Research shows that African Americans are more likely to endorse fatalism than whites. A 2007 study published in the American Journal of Health Behavior reported that such beliefs could be a reaction to chronic illness or poor health rather than something that inhibits beneficial health behavior from the outset.

FAITH HEALING

Research suggests that religion offers health benefits, including longer life spans. Is that because of the healing benefits of prayer or because people of faith enjoy supportive, healthful lifestyles? Some statistics:

83: The life expectancy of people who frequently attended religious services; for infrequent attendees, the estimate was 75.

70 percent: The percentage of churches that provide health-care services to their communities, according to a survey of 6,000 congregations.

40 to 60 percent: The percentage of hospital patients who want their doctors to pray with them. But fewer than 5 percent of doctors say they do so.

2,500: Number of Maryland kindergartners exempted from vaccine mandates on religious grounds, up from 1,300 in 2004.

Labels: belief, Buddhists, culture, faith healing, health, January W. Payne, Jewish, prayer, religion, spirituality

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Saturday, January 12, 2008

Survey: 'Unchurched' Americans say church is 'full of hypocrites'

Compiled by Tribune wire services
Article Last Updated: 01/11/2008

Almost three-quarters of Americans who haven't darkened the door of a church in the past six months think it is ''full of hypocrites,'' and even more of them consider Christianity to be more about organized religion than about loving God and people, according to a new survey.

Almost half those surveyed - 44 percent - agreed that ''Christians get on my nerves.''

But the survey of ''unchurched'' Americans by LifeWay Research also found that some 78 percent said they would be willing to listen to someone who wanted to tell them about his or her Christian beliefs. Researchers, affiliated with the Southern Baptists' LifeWay Christian Resources, defined ''unchurched'' as Christians who haven't attended church in six months as well as non-Christians such as Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists.

The findings echoed a previous study by The Barna Group that found the vast majority of young non-Christians view Christianity as anti-gay, judgmental and hypocritical.

The study was based on an overall sample of 1,402 adults who were interviewed by phone in 2007, including 900 ages 18-29 and 502 age 30 and older. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

- Religion News Service

Labels: Buddhists, Christian, Hindus, hypocracy, Jews, LifeWay Research, Muslims, unchurched