TruthBook Religious News Blog

DECEMBER 17, 2009
By MARK PENN
With E. Kinney Zalesne

This is the season for traditions: chestnuts roasting on an open fire, carolers on the doorstep, and the endless argument about the secularization of Christmas. This isn't the usual complaining about the toy and greeting card companies commercializing the holidays, but a much broader trend involving the secularization of religion around the country.

We are still a nation whose coins say "In God We Trust," where most witnesses in U.S. courts swear "so help me God," and where our school kids pledge allegiance to "one nation, under God, indivisible."

But God, as we have traditionally known Him, is evolving for more and more worshippers. Belief in the God revered by most mainstream religions -- a highly specific, paternalistic deity with an agreed-upon history and behaviors -- is on the decline.

According to the most recent American Religious Identification Survey, only 76% of Americans identify as Christians, down from 86% in 1990. But interestingly, while non-Christians are not choosing Islam or Judaism, neither are they choosing atheism. A poll done by Gallup in 2008 found that 15% of Americans – up from 8% in 1999– say they don't believe in God, but they do believe in a "Higher Power" or "Universal Spirit." More and more, Americans believe that the world was created by a spiritual being, but they reject the Torah, the Koran and the New Testament as the explanation for it.

These universal-spirit worshippers, or what we call Religious Independents, are defining a secular Third Way in religion. They are like political independents who vote but refuse to affiliate with a party. Consequently, attendance at Christmas mass may be declining, but celebration of Christmas and the holidays remains as high as ever. Paradoxically, overall belief in a God is rising, while participation in organized religion is declining.

Demographically speaking, the Religious Independents, like their political counterparts, are more affluent and well-educated than traditional God-believers. We did our own poll to get at the differences between the traditionalists and the Religious Independents, and the results were striking. Americans with just a high school diploma are Religious Independents at a rate of just 10% – but attend even some college, and it shoots up to 30%. As more and more students attend college here and elsewhere, we can expect this trend to mushroom, since higher education strongly correlates with a rejection of organized religion in favor of a more amorphous notion of a Supreme Being.

The data suggest, though, that modern secularization will not lead us back to Sodom and Gomorrah, where lack of religion caused unrestrained amoral and reckless behavior. Religious Independents have a high belief in values like doing good, giving back to the community, and taking responsibility for our planet. They accept most of the Ten Commandments on moral, if not religious, grounds.

Our poll also revealed that whereas almost 70% of traditionalists say that after death, "there is either heaven or hell," 54% of the Religious Independents say that "there is only what people remember of you." A remarkable 75% of traditionalists say that they believe in angels, compared with only 45% of the Independents. And while 53% of traditionalists say they've had a "spiritual or mystical life experience that defies simple scientific explanation," only 1 in 3 Religious Independents says that--and a majority (53%) reject that statement strongly.

Perhaps most importantly, 83% of Religious Independents say it is more important to be ethical than to be devout, compared to only 64% of traditionalists. Seventy-two percent of Religious Independents say that living a good spiritual life depends on how you act, not what you believe -- compared with only 59% of traditional followers. In other words, Religious Independents have just as strong a desire for repairing the world, even as they reject the habits and practices of religion.

Please see "external source" for the complete article

Labels: ARIS, E. Kinney Zalesne, God, life after death, Mark Penn, Religious Independents, Supreme Being

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Majority of Australians believe in God, miracles

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.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

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

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Thursday, December 18, 2008

After death: then what?

Goodbye Heaven and Hell: we now hold a host of quirky ideas about the afterlife

by John Naish

(This is page one of a three page article. It contains results of a survey exploring peoples' beliefs regarding life after death, and is very interesting. Please click on "external source at the bottom of this page to access the entire piece.)

Of the two certainties we face in life, death and taxes, we all tend to share similar thoughts on taxes. But what about death and whatever comes after it? Most of the time we go about our lives as though it will never happen. The afterlife has become taboo. Even during Easter, the great Christian story of death and resurrection, we prefer to think of chocolate eggs and fluffy bunnies. But Michael Irwin, a retired United Nations medical director, has created his own national opinion survey about life after death and unearthed an intriguing range of beliefs.

He wrote to 1,600 Britons picked at random from Who’s Who, where he is listed by dint of working for the UN and the World Bank. He is also a former secretary of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society and is on the council of a similar group, Friends At The End (Fate). I guess you could say he’s interested in the subject. So, it seems, are many others: of the 761 replies he received, more than half added extra comments and ideas to the questionnaire.

Nearly half of those questioned believe that nothing will survive their deaths other than their children, their writings, and the memories of friends. But significant numbers believe in the possibility of their souls surviving in an afterlife, or of their life force continuing in some form. Only one in five didn’t feel certain about what would happen.

And beyond these apparently simple positions lies a spectrum of quirk-filled personal credos, which Irwin has compiled into a booklet, What Survives? “I’m 74 and it’s natural that I’m thinking about what happens to me when I die,” says Irwin, of Cranleigh, Surrey. “I grew up in the Church of England and was a religious teenager. But later I grew sceptical and became a humanist. Now I’m more New Agey: I believe that there are life forces common to all living creatures which may survive our deaths in some way going back to the universal force of creation.”

Despite his spiritual shift, he has not lost his scepticism. “In my years as a clinical doctor, eight of my patients came around from comas or ‘died’ on the operating table and told me they saw flashes of light and other phenomena,” he recalls. “Whether it was genuine or the result of chemical changes in the brain, I can’t say.”

Michael Irwin will send copies of his booklet, What Survives? free to the first 50 readers who e-mail him on michael-hk.irwin@virgin.net

ANNABELLE BOND Mountaineer, 36 “I would like to think that I will go on another journey after I die. What form it will take I cannot possibly imagine. But I do believe in some kind of God, and I think that we will all report to it after we die, whatever our religion.

“I had Christianity shoved down my throat at school, but it hasn’t stopped me believing. Climbing has helped; it suits me to be optimistic about life after death. It helps me to come to terms with the chance that I won’t make it back from an expedition. You never know on the mountain; you can die however good or bad you are at climbing. It’s beyond your control.

“One person in 12 doesn’t make it to Everest’s summit. Last year, I saw two friends slip to their deaths on a peak in Alaska, and I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies on the way up mountains.

“Of course it makes you think about your own mortality; it’s important to acknowledge the obvious danger you are putting yourself in. But at some point, it’s comforting to pass the responsibility on to a higher force — otherwise you’d never climb.

“Being on a mountain is a powerful spiritual experience. You feel connected with this world and the next. The least religious person would pray if they found themselves in danger, I can guarantee. I never know who, or what, I’m praying to. It’s something up there, and I want it to protect me.

The closest I’ve ever been to my own end was climbing a peak in Argentina last year. It was the sixth mountain I’d done back-to-back in six months, including Everest.

I was going for the title of fastest woman in history to complete the Seven Peaks challenge — involving the highest mountains on each of the seven continents — which I got.

Labels: belief, death, life after death, Michael Irwin