TruthBook Religious News Blog

September 24,
by Vanessa Barnes

According to a study entitled "American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population," released Tuesday, September 22, 2009, 15% of Americans do not associate with a religious denomination.

The study was conducted by lead researcher Barry Kosmin and professor Ariela Keysar of Trinity College of Hartford and assisted by Professor Ryan Cragun of the University of Tampa and Juhem Navarro-Rivera of the University of Connecticut.

Researchers studied the results of the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) which questioned 54,461 adults in English or Spanish.

The category of "NONES", those who answered "None" when asked their religious identity, grew greatly in the 1990's according to the study. The NONES were the only group to have increased in every state and region of the country during the past 18 years.

About 59% is agnostic or deist, while a small minority is atheist. About 27% profess belief in a personal God. Some in the survey participate occasionally in religious rituals, whiles others say they never would.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article, including an informative video.

Labels: ARIS, Nones, religion, Vanessa Barnes, video

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New Poll Shows Religious Right and Left Look Very Different

By Daniel Schultz
September 15, 2009

Those on the religious right and left not only diverge wildly on everything from abortion to torture, but in their composition and distribution as well.
A graph showing the opinions of progressives on raising their profile.

It should be said at the outset that the new poll released today by the Bliss Institute and Public Religion Research concerning religious activists (on both the left and the right) contains very little that will surprise anyone who has studied religion and politics in recent years.

That should not be taken to mean that there is nothing of worth in the poll results. Far from it. It confirms, for example, much that observers have had to intuit or scratch out from other data. The religious right—pardon me, conservative religious activists—is mostly evangelical (54%), with lesser contingents of Catholics and mainline Protestants. If you’re not standard-grade Christian, however, you’re probably not a part of the demographic: only 1% were Mormon, Orthodox, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, and less than 1% were non-Christians.

Progressive believers were a much more diverse group, which is also not a surprise: 44% mainliners, 17% Catholics, 12% Unitarians/mixed faith, and so on down the line. Only 10% claimed to be evangelicals, a point we’ll come back to in a moment.

More not-shockers: conservative activists are focused like laser beams on abortion and homosexuality, while progressives are interested in poverty, health care, the environment, the economy in general, and ending the war in Iraq. Conservatives love them some individualistic ethics and free-market economics, progressives want to see structural reform. Cons are for torture and progs are against it (if that makes any sense). And the two sides have very different views about church-state relations, though interestingly enough, they both agree that faith should play a role in the public square in roughly equal numbers. [For an in-depth analysis of progressive attitudes on church-state issues see Rebuilding the Wall of Separation: A Progressive Discussion on Church & State—Ed.]

One last result that should not come as a surprise if you stop to think about it: conservatives report attending church far more frequently than their liberal counterparts. 52% of conservatives are in the pews more than once a week, compared to 25% of progressives. Once-a-week numbers are a little more balanced: 37-36. Does this mean that conservatives are more religious than progressives, or that there’s something about church that makes one a conservative? Nope: evangelical and Catholic churches typically offer more than one service a week. Mainline congregations, which tend to be smaller, are open for business only on Sundays.

Labels: Bliss Institute, Conservative, Daniel Schultz, politics, progressive, religion, religious left, religious right

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Saturday, September 19, 2009

Religion in America in Decline

09/11/09

Religion in America is on the decline and has been dropping since the turn of the century. That's not an atheist's happy dream. It's the conclusion of researchers at Faith Communities Today (FACT), the multi-year study of American religion quarterbacked by the Hartford Seminary's Hartford Institute for Religion Research.

The group released a preliminary look this week at results from a major survey done last year. For the bottom line, I really can't improve on their wording:

"The clear and consistent short-term direction is negative -- including worship attendance growth, spiritual vitality and sense of mission and purpose. And as suggested by the eight-year decline in financial health. . . . it is likely that the broader erosion of vitality dates to at least 2000. What makes this even more sobering is the fact that this pattern of decline, here shown for American congregations as a whole, also holds within each of FACT's four primary faith families -- old-line Protestantism, Evangelical Protestantism, Catholic and Orthodox, and Other World Religions with few exceptions."

You want numbers?

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: America, Faith Communities Today, Hartford Institute for Religion Research, religion, religious belief

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Thursday, September 10, 2009

White House Iftar

White House Iftar

Tuesday night's White House Iftar had both a courtly feel and a common touch. Servers circled the ornate reception rooms of the White House with glasses of juice and bowls of dates at fast-breaking time. Prayers were led by a Muslim chaplain in the U.S. military.

Dinner attendees included Congressmen (Andre Carson, Keith Ellison, John Conyers, Rush Holt, Richard Lugar) and Cabinet Secretaries (Bob Gates, Eric Holder, Kathleen Sebelius), but the loudest applause was reserved for the guest of honor -- an American Muslim girl wearing a headscarf who broke Massachusetts state records in high school basketball. She was seated at the head table, to the President's left.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: commonality. difference, Iftar, Islam, Muslims, President Obama, religion, White House

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Thursday, September 03, 2009

Outside faith, a rising tide of 'nones'

Outside faith, a rising tide of 'nones'
by Jay Tokasz
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: September 03, 2009

A few years ago, Tyler Manley would have considered himself a Presbyterian.

If asked about his religion today, he will confess he doesn't have one. Nor does he believe in God.

The United States remains one of the most religious countries in the world, but Manley is part of one of the steadiest trends in the national landscape of faith … the growing number of Americans who profess no religious affiliation.

Social scientists often call them the "nones" … a broad category that includes atheists and agnostics, as well as those who believe in a higher power but don't cite a particular faith.

Studies indicate they make up as much as 16 percent of the U.S. population, and researchers expect that the numbers will continue to grow.

"You're just getting a lot of people drifting away," said Barry A. Kosmin, research professor in the Public Policy & Law Program at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

For Manley, who studies philosophy at the University at Buffalo, the drifting was the result of understanding that "human conscience comes before religion."

"It's important that you critically examine your own beliefs," he said.

Kosmin's latest American Religious Identification Survey, published in March, estimated the population of U.S. "nones" at 34 million … roughly 15 percent of the total … up from 29 million in 2001 and 14 million in 1990.

"It was quite amazing. It went up in every state," Kosmin said. Fourteen percent of New Yorkers did not associate with a religion, up from 7 percent in 1990.

A survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 16 percent of U.S. adults had no religious affiliation. Data from the General Social Surveys indicates that 16.4 percent of Americans are nonreligious, up from 5.1 percent in 1972.

Researchers once observed a familiar pattern of religious disaffiliation among young adults, who then would reaffiliate later on, said Darren E. Sherkat, a sociologist at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

But that pattern is breaking down, said Sherkat, who analyzes data from the General Social Surveys.

"We're seeing greater stability of non-affiliation, and we're also seeing greater numbers of parents raising their children without affiliation, which was really quite rare in earlier generations," he said.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: affiliation, agnostic, belief, God, Jay Tokasz, Nones, religion

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Religion & Ethics Newsweekly Returns For Its Thirteenth Season

Wed Sep 2, 2009

Acclaimed PBS Series Offers One-of-a-Kind Television News Coverage of Religion

As today`s top headlines reveal, dealing with faith, religion and ethics has
never been more important to communities across the U.S. and worldwide. But
network news offers only limited coverage of such issues. For more than a
decade, RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, anchored by veteran journalist Bob
Abernethy, has been providing distinctive, exhaustive, one-of-a-kind coverage of
religion`s role in American life, international news, and major ethical issues.
September fourth marks the start of the thirteenth season of this half-hour
weekly program.

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly is a production of WNET.ORG - one of America`s most
prolific and respected public media providers.

Since 1997, an award-winning team of correspondents, including Lucky Severson,
Fred de Sam Lazaro, Saul Gonzalez, Tim O`Brien, Deborah Potter, Betty Rollin,
and Mary Alice Williams, along with host Bob Abernethy and managing editor Kim
Lawton, have traveled around the country and the globe to cover stories on such
topics such as Middle East peace prospects, the ethics of privatized genetic
testing, the split in the Episcopal church over homosexuality, religion`s role
in American politics and in helping people cope with the recession. Studio
discussions featuring newsmakers, scholars and policy analysts have also offered
insightful perspectives on subjects ranging from bioethics to Vatican policies
to Wall Street and faith.

For more information, and to see the rest of the article, please click on "external source."

Labels: ethics, faith, PBS, religion, Religion and Ethics Newsweekly

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Seeing the Future: Can Religion Evolve and Survive in a Changing World?

By Peter Savastano
September 2, 2009

Since the fall of Secularization Theory, which claimed that belief in God would slowly recede in the face of science and technology, we still must ask: Is there a future for formal, organized, institutionalized religion as we presently recognize it in rapidly globalizing, postindustrial and postmodern world? Here’s what religion will have to do for humans to survive and flourish.

One of the last books the Catholic mystic, social activist, poet, and Trappist monk Thomas Merton read just before his tragic death in Bangkok, Thailand on December 10, 1968, was Final Integration in the Adult Personality (1965, E.J. Brill). Written by the Iranian-born psychologist A. Reza Arasteh, the central premise of the book is that in order for a person to reach final integration of the adult personality, she or he must grow beyond their native culture and religious tradition.

In a subsequent book published twelve years after Merton’s death, Growth to Selfhood (1980, Routledge), Arasteh further develops this central idea making the paradoxical argument: that the means by which one outgrows or moves beyond the limiting worldview of one’s native religious tradition is through the practice of the religious tradition itself.

Two questions I have spent a lot of time thinking about over the last number of years is what form, structure, and expression the phenomenon we call "religion" will take in the future (that is, if "religion" is then still labeled as such); or, conversely, is there a future for religion (specifically formal, organized, institutionalized religion as we presently recognize it) in a rapidly globalizing, postindustrial and postmodern world?

Back in the 1960s, sociologists predicted that the advancement of science and technology would usher in a secular worldview and that religion would eventually fade into the past. Or if it did manage to survive, they imagined, religion would become the purview of a small segment of the population that, kicking and screaming, has refused to enter into the contemporary world.

Of course, we now know that the sociologists were wrong. Religion, it seems, is here to stay. Rather than fade into oblivion or become a private matter, religion is front and center in the new millennium, especially since the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

Still, while it isn’t going away any time soon, it is also true that if we humans are going to collectively survive and flourish living in the information age of a globalized world, our understanding and practice of religion will have to change. While we can’t know for certain what shape or form religion will take in the future, I am willing to speculate. Fortunately, there are some trends and patterns that support my speculations so they are not simply spun out of thin air.

If the recent surveys, Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S." (2009), and the "2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS)," are any indication, the process Arasteh described in his two books may be an experience common to a growing number of Americans. As the surveys suggest, this process of growing beyond one’s inherited religious tradition has become far more prevalent, sometimes spanning generations. Referred to as the Nones," these are people who identify themselves as unaffiliated with any kind of organized religion and are happy to be so. However, this does not mean that Nones have no interest in spirituality, prayer, meditation, or ritual; all areas traditionally associated with "religion."

This is just a small portion of a two-page article exploring the subject of the future of "religion." Please click on "external source" to access the entire article.

Labels: A. Reza Arasteh, ARIS, faith, God, Peter Savastano, religion, sociology, the future

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Martin lifts voice for science and religion

Former N.C. governor tells church the two need not be in conflict.
By Tim Funk
Monday, Aug. 31, 2009

For centuries, they waged war. It was religion vs. science.

Their battles ranged from 17th-century Italy, when the Catholic Church sentenced Galileo to house-arrest-for-life for saying the earth orbits the sun, to the Bible Belt in the 1920s, when Tennessee science teacher John Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution.

Militants on both sides are still shouting away, but another, more nuanced voice can also be heard today: that of the scientist who believes in God.

On Sunday, former N.C. Gov. Jim Martin – son of a Presbyterian minister and a longtime chemistry professor – argued that science and religion are compatible, not contradictory, and that faith must evolve along with our understanding of nature.

"I believe the God of Abraham and Moses… was the creator of the universe and all forms of life," Republican Martin told about 230 people at Charlotte's Covenant Presbyterian, his church for 16 years. "I do not believe it was done in six days."

Six periods of time is more like it, Martin said, starting 4.5 billion years ago. And though one-time seminary student Charles Darwin's theory of evolution continues to be dismissed by many evangelical Christians, Martin called it "the best understanding we have available. You can't be a biologist unless you subscribe to that."

A thoughtful article - please click on "external source" to see the whole thing...

Labels: evolution, faith, Jim Martin, religion, science, Tim Funk

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Saturday, August 29, 2009

How do people view religions other than their own?

By JULIA CORBETT-HEMEYER •
August 27, 2009

The United States is a land of stunning and vibrant religious diversity. All of humankind's religious and spiritual traditions can be found somewhere within our borders. For some people, and I count myself among them, this diversity is an excellent thing. For others, it's threatening.

The 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Forum (www.pewforum.org) found that most Americans say that their religion is not the only way to salvation. On the other hand, there are also those who very firmly believe that their way is the only way and all others are simply wrong. How we regard religious and spiritual paths other than our own becomes very important with religious diversity, because it influences how we interact with the people who follow them. We can identify five points of view.

"My religion is the only one that's true." This reassures those who hold this view that they are in the right. To many people, it seems appropriate in light of many religions' claim to absolute truth. However, it also harshly excludes all others and sets up an us/them mentality in which dialogue and understanding are difficult, although not impossible.

To see the remainder on the five points of view, please click on "external source."

And for comparison, here's what The Urantia Book has to say about religions:

134.4.4 Religious peace — brotherhood — can never exist unless all religions are willing to completely divest themselves of all ecclesiastical authority and fully surrender all concept of spiritual sovereignty. God alone is spirit sovereign.

92:7.3 The many religions of Urantia are all good to the extent that they bring man to God and bring the realization of the Father to man. It is a fallacy for any group of religionists to conceive of their creed as The Truth; such attitudes bespeak more of theological arrogance than of certainty of faith. There is not a Urantia religion that could not profitably study and assimilate the best of the truths contained in every other faith, for all contain truth. Religionists would do better to borrow the best in their neighbors' living spiritual faith rather than to denounce the worst in their lingering superstitions and outworn rituals.

Labels: diversity, Julia Corbett-Hemeyer, Pew forum on Religion, religion, The Urantia Book

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Friday, August 21, 2009

Religion for a Galactic Civilization 2.0

William Sims Bainbridge
Ethical Technology
Posted: Aug 20, 2009

Progress in spaceflight technology has halted at a level that is insufficient for colonization of the solar system, let alone for voyages to the stars. That grim fact was not obvious to me when I wrote the original version of this essay thirty years ago (Bainbridge 1982), but it is apparent now.

The plans to return to the moon will employ the same general principles as the first expeditions over forty years ago, and no new technology is currently under serious development. I recently re-examined the classic motivations for spaceflight, and found that most of them had lost persuasiveness (Bainbridge 2009). Indeed, despite the optimistic tone in much science journalism, it may be the case that stasis has set in across many fields of science and technology, and the motivations needed to break out of this prison seem to be lacking (Horgan 1996). Thus we need a new definition of spaceflight that will energize investment and innovation. I suggest a return to the traditional view: The heavens are a sacred realm, that we should enter in order to transcend death.

Religion shapes science and technology, and is shaped by them in return. It has become fashionable to assume that religion and science simply are opposed, and that science has been winning the battle over the past century. But much historical evidence indicates that religion of a certain kind was instrumental in the rise of science and modern technology (Weber 1958; Ben-David 1971; Merton 1970; Westfall 1973). Religion will continue to influence the course of progress, and creation of a galactic civilization may depend upon the emergence of a galactic religion capable of motivating society for the centuries required to accomplish that great project. This religion would be a very demanding social movement, and will require extreme discipline from its members, so for purposes of this essay I will call it The Cosmic Order.

Despite competition from science, religion has a future. All human societies have possessed religion, because it serves universal human needs (Parsons 1964). People want to feel that life is meaningful and that there is hope for future rewards even as the end of life draws near. The most recent theories in social science argue that religion will arise in all intelligent species possessing society—a structure of social relations among individuals—and which are gripped by strong desires which the current level of technology cannot satisfy (Stark and Bainbridge 1987). Cognitive science theories suggest that religion is wired into our brains as the result of the early course of human evolution, and could not be abandoned without major transformation of human nature (Boyer 2001; Atran 2002; Barrett 2004; Bloom 2004).

Modern industrial society has been marked by secularization, an historical trend in which traditional religious organizations lose influence. This is caused by three main factors. First, the development of science has discredited some traditional beliefs to the general discredit of traditional systems of faith. Second, the development of political radicalism has offered deprived members of society the hope of triumph and glory here on earth, rather than in the supernatural Heaven where they previously sought it. Third, the geographical mobility which many persons experience in modern society tears them away from the congregation in which they were raised, without automatically affiliating them with a particular congregation near their new home.

These factors undercut traditional religion but open the way for novel cults, some of which will become the established denominations of the future. Contrary to what one might think, persons without current religious affiliation are not typically atheistic, secular rationalists. In fact, compared to other groups they are more open to deviant supernatural beliefs, and thus are potential recruits for novel cults. Secularization does not mean a decline in the need for religion, but only a loss of power by traditional denominations. Studies of the geography of religion show that where the churches become weak, cults and occultism will explode to fill the spiritual vacuum (Stark and Bainbridge 1985).

Very recently, throughout the industrialized nations, we have seen a loss of faith in the promises of radical politics, although there is no abating of revolutionary pressures in developing nations. The progressive collapse of utopian politics will remove a major competitor and permit religious revival. While old religions may be at odds with modern science, some of the most recent cults are cloaked in the garb of science. And the most successful new religions have learned to use geographic mobility to their advantage, recruiting aggressively among those individuals who are temporarily adrift in society without an anchor in the community.

Most novel religions are likely to retard rather than promote space exploration, because they focus on "inner space" and mystical experiences rather than on "outer space" and practical action. An extreme example is the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, the Hare Krishna cult, which expressed itself on the subject of spaceflight in a book, Easy Journey to Other Planets. The cover illustration shows drab Apollo vehicles approaching the moon through a bleak and inhuman space environment, contrasted with a Hare Krishna dancer blissfully floating upward through bright celestial bubbles, reaching out his arms to his Lord. In the introduction, cult founder A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami (1970: preface) argues for spiritual rather than technical ascendancy:

The latest desire man has developed is the desire to travel to other planets. This is also quite natural, because he has the constitutional right to go to any part of the material or spiritual skies. Such travel is very tempting and exciting because these skies are full of unlimited globes of varying qualities, and they are occupied by all types of living entities. The desire to travel there can be fulfilled by the process of yoga, which serves as a means by which one can transfer himself to whatever planet he likes—possibly to planets where life is not only eternal and blissful, but where there are multiple varieties of enjoyable energies. Anyone who can attain the freedom of the spiritual planets need never return to this miserable land of birth, old age, disease and death.

Thus, we are urged to reach the stars by chanting "Hare Krishna," rather than by building crass, material spaceships. Since we are going to have religion, whether we want it or not, we’d best have religions which promote scientific discovery and space progress rather than retrograde faiths which oppose them and might even lead to a new Dark Age. Indeed, I suggest that societies will not develop interplanetary civilizations without the transcendent motivations and perspectives which religion can best provide. Quite aware that I enter the arena of wild speculation, I shall sketch briefly the outlines of an argument stating that science and technology naturally contain the seeds of their own destruction, unless controlled by a firm, transcendent rudder like religion.

This is quite an interesting - and lengthy - article. This excerpt is but a small portion, so click on "external source" to access, and enjoy this thoughtful article.

Labels: cosmic citizenship, faith, religion, science, spaceflight, William Sims Bainbridge

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Poll: Religious funerals not for everyone

Published: Aug. 20, 2009

HARTFORD, Conn., Aug. 20 (UPI) -- More than one-quarter of all Americans do not expect to have religious services as part of their own funerals, poll results indicate.

Researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., said their national survey of 6,000 U.S. residents found 27 percent expressed doubts their funerals would include some form of religious service, USA Today reported Thursday.

The 2008 American Religious Identification survey, conducted by researchers at the college's Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, resulted in 15 percent of respondents identifying their religion as "none."

Labels: ARIS, funerals, religion

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Free-flow spirituality

R Jagannathan
Wednesday, August 19, 2009

You may have read a story in DNA suggesting that as many as 65 per cent of Americans subscribe to the Hindu way of thinking about god -- which is that there are several paths to the ultimate. Among other things, the report says that 30 per cent of Americans think of themselves as spiritual, but not necessarily religious, and a quarter believe in reincarnation.

The report, based on a Pew survey of 2008 and a Newsweek poll of 2009, does not come as a surprise. Reason: as societies become richer and are freed from basic material cravings, they will seek higher forms of self-realisation. Organised religion, with its focus on dogma and scripture, is incapable of catering to the needs of evolved minds.

Abraham Maslow, a pioneer in defining the human hierarchy of needs, built a pyramid of five levels. At the basic level, every individual has physiological needs (like food, sleep, sex). Next comes safety, followed by social needs (love and belongingness). At the fourth level, there is the need for esteem, and, finally, self-actualisation. The last could mean seeking a higher purpose in life, a spirituality that transcends self.

Society's hierarchy of needs mirror those of the individual, though no society is a homogeneous mass. It has several strata. Even in the rich west, there will be poor people with basic physiological and safety needs; even in poverty-ridden India, there will be a sprinkling of classes at the top with evolved self-actualisation needs.

That said, one can still make a few generalisations: the developed nations, which have fewer numbers of the absolutely poor and destitute, will have more people seeking higher levels of spirituality. Conversely, the poor will see better alternatives in organised religious structures, of the kind offered by traditional Christianity and Islam. In India, Hindu fears about conversions stem principally from this belief that the church and the mosque may be better positioned in terms of their social philosophies to meet the needs of the poor. Upper-end Hindu or Buddhist spiritualism appears more elitist.

Two caveats are in order here. First, by Hindu one is not merely referring to a specific religion called Hinduism, but a set of broad cultural beliefs about life, god and spirituality. You can be a Hindu by believing in any kind of god, or even no god. You accept that others may have different ideas about god. You can move far away from the base-camp of religion to find your own spiritual altitude, and you will still be reckoned as a Hindu. On the other hand, you cannot be a Christian or Muslim by accepting any other god or spiritual goal as true. Acceptance of these two faiths means implicit denial of other faiths. Which, for the spiritually evolved, can be a limiting factor...

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.
And on the subject of "self-realization," here is a Urantia Book quote which may illuminate why Hindusim may be an attractive religion for some truth-seekers...

Religious experience is markedly influenced by physical health, inherited temperament, and social environment. But these temporal conditions do not inhibit inner spiritual progress by a soul dedicated to the doing of the will of the Father in heaven. There are present in all normal mortals certain innate drives toward growth and self-realization which function if they are not specifically inhibited. The certain technique of fostering this constitutive endowment of the potential of spiritual growth is to maintain an attitude of wholehearted devotion to supreme values. 100:1.6

Labels: America, Hinduism, R Jagannathan, religion, self-realization, spirituality

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Thursday, August 20, 2009

Survey Profiles Nonreligious Americans

By Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter
Fri, Aug. 14 2009

A recent survey took a close look at the "nonreligious" population, offering a picture of what they are really like and determining whether stereotypes of nonbelievers are accurate.

Until now, little information has been gathered regarding nonbelievers' social relationships and mental well-being as well as their philosophical shadings, says Luke W. Galen, associate professor of Psychology at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Mich.

But considering their growing numbers and increasing visibility in the public square, Galen sought out to determine who precisely constitutes the nonreligious group.

The Non-Religious Identification Survey, completed by more than 5,000 nonreligious individuals, is said to be the first study of its type with a full range of questions directed to the "nones," or nonreligious population, who make up around 16 percent of Americans.

The survey found the population to be less homogeneous than previous studies have typically portrayed them to be. Forty-eight percent described themselves as atheist, 12 percent identified themselves as agnostic, 22 percent chose the label humanist, 7 percent called themselves spiritual, and 5 percent chose other.

When given the option to choose multiple terms to describe themselves, 77 percent checked "atheist," 63 percent marked "humanist," 29 percent reported "agnostic," and 3 percent checked "spiritual." But when forced to choose only one label among the four, far fewer individuals identified themselves as humanist (24 percent). Meanwhile, 57 percent preferred the label "atheist."

More than three in four nonbelievers said they were somewhat, mostly or absolutely certain that God does not exist. Meanwhile, 15 percent reported they weren't sure and 8 percent said they were at least somewhat certain of God's existence.

Labels: atheists, Audrey Barrick, non-believer, Non-Religious Identification Survey, religion

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Friday, August 14, 2009

We believe in evolution — and God

Nearly half of Americans still dispute the indisputable: that humans evolved to our current form over millions of years. We’re scientists and Christians. Our message to the faithful: Fear not.

By Karl Giberson and Darrel Falk

The "conflict" between science and religion in America today is not only unfortunate, but unnecessary.

We are scientists, grateful for the freedom to earn Ph.D.s and become members of the scientific community. And we are religious believers, grateful for the freedom to celebrate our religion, without censorship. Like most scientists who believe in God, we find no contradiction between the scientific understanding of the world, and the belief that God created that world. And that includes Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Many of our fellow Americans, however, don't quite see it this way, and this is where the real conflict seems to rest.

Almost everyone in the scientific community, including its many religious believers, now accepts that life has evolved over the past 4 billion years. The concept unifies the entire science of biology. Evolution is as well-established within biology as heliocentricity is established within astronomy. So you would think that everyone would accept it. Alas, a 2008 Gallup Poll showed that 44% of Americans reject evolution, believing instead that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years."

The "science" undergirding this "young earth creationism" comes from a narrow, literalistic and relatively recent interpretation of Genesis, the first book in the Bible. This "science" is on display in the Creation Museum in Kentucky, where friendly dinosaurs — one with a saddle! — cavort with humans in the Garden of Eden. Every week these ideas spread from pulpits and Sunday School classrooms across America. On weekdays, creationism is taught in fundamentalist Christian high schools and colleges. Science faculty at schools such as Bryan College in Tennessee and Liberty University in Virginia work on "models" to shoehorn the 15 billion year history of the universe into the past 10,000 years.

Evolution continues to disturb, threatening the faith of many in a deeply religious America, especially those who read the Bible as a scientific text. But it does not have to be this way.

Paradoxical challenges

Such challenges to evolutionary science are paradoxical. Challenging accepted ideas is how America churns out Nobel Prize-winning science and patents that will drive tomorrow's technology. But challenging authority can also undermine this country's leadership in science, when citizens reject it.

Darwin proposed the theory of evolution in 1859 in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. This controversial text presented evidence that present-day life forms have descended from common ancestors via natural selection. Organisms better adapted to their environments had more offspring, and these fitness adaptations accumulated across the millennia. And this is how new species arose.

In 1859 the evidence convinced many people, but not without challenges. Paleontology, the study of fossils, was new; no reliable way existed to determine the age of the Earth, and the physicists said it was too young to accommodate evolution; and Darwin knew nothing of genes, so the mechanism of inheritance — central to his theory — was shrouded in mystery.

But the biggest problem was dismay that humans were related to primates: "Descended from the apes? Dear me, let us hope it is not true," allegedly exclaimed the wife of a 19th-century English bishop upon hearing of Darwin's new theory. "But if it is true, let us hope it does not become widely known."

This is an interesting op-ed piece regarding a belief in evolution and a belief in God being able to co-exist - it is written by two scientists who also happen to be "religious believers." Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: Charles Darwin, conflict, Darrel Falk, evolution, faith, Karl Giberson, religion, science

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Buddhism strengthens ties to church

By Electa Draper
The Denver Post
Posted: 08/09/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT

What in the recent past seemed exotic and foreign is now almost routinely folded into "the fold."

Buddhism is not only accepted as a mainstream American religion, it is a path increasingly trod by faithful Christians and Jews who infuse Eastern spiritual insights and practices such as meditation into their own religions.

When John Weber became a Buddhist at age 19, his devout Methodist parents were not particularly pleased.

In recent years, however, they've invited their son, a religious studies expert with Boulder's Naropa University, to speak at their church about Buddhism.

"That never would have happened before," Weber said. "They would have been embarrassed."

The Pew Forum's Religious Landscape Survey in 2007 found that seven in 10 Americans who have a religion believe there is more than one path to salvation. A growing number of people are contemplating more than one each.

And they are contemplating contemplation itself.

There are Jubus — Jews who bring Buddhism into their practice of Judaism — and Bujus, who are Buddhists with Jewish parents. Then there are UUbus, or Unitarian Universalist Buddhists, and Ebus, or Episcopalian Buddhists. There are Zen Catholics.

"There is a definite trend and movement that will not be reversed," said Ruben Habito, a laicized Jesuit priest, Zen master and professor of world religions at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. "We are in a new spiritual age, an inter-religious age."

Search can lead back home

People are hungry for a deeper spiritual experience — meditation, mindfulness, personal transformation, deep insight, union with God or the universe.

Habito, who calls himself a Zen Catholic, is one of the experts who say the search is a little like Dorothy and her ruby slippers. The quest for meaning ultimately leads some, like Dorothy, to their own backyards.

Judaism, Catholicism and Islam have rich traditions in contemplative practices, yet these had all but disappeared from everyday congregational life.

For many Christians cut off from the past, or alienated from the faith of their upbringing, Buddhism has served as the bridge to ancient wisdom.

"The problem is the contemplative tradition in the Christian Church has had its ups and downs over the centuries," said Father Thomas Keating, a Trappist monk and leader in the Centering Prayer movement, a modern revival of Christian contemplative practice.

"We sensed that the Eastern religions, with their highly developed spirituality, had something we didn't have," Keating said. "In the last generation, 10 to 20 years, some didn't even think there was a Christian spirituality, just rules — do's and don'ts and dogma they didn't find spiritually nourishing. It's important to recover the mystical aspects of the gospel."

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: Buddhism, Christian, Electa Draper, God, interfaith, meditation, religion, spirituality

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Global survey: Kids doubt God but still put trust in parents

By James D. Davis
August 9, 2009

More teens in Malawi believe in ghosts than God.

Many youths in India make more money than their parents.

Nearly half of young Russians say they've tried to commit suicide.

These are just a few of the startling insights turned up by OneHope, a mission support organization in Pompano Beach. The organization, which distributes Bible portions to children, is conducting a massive survey of beliefs and behaviors of the world's 2 billion children younger than 18.

The survey results are on a new website, spiritualstateofthechildren.com, set up in observance of International Youth Day on Wednesday. Taking in 22 nations — from Armenia to Mexico to Uganda — the website includes photos, videos and documents. OneHope plans to add 38 more nations by 2011.

The goal of the study is simple, according to Chad Causey, OneHope's vice president for global ministry: Get adults to hear the young.

"You see a lot of demographic research on them, but when do you hear from them?" Causey says. "We want to make sure society, and especially the church within society, hears them."

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: belief, Chad Causey, children, church, James D. Davis, OneHope, religion

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Friday, August 07, 2009

God on the brain at Penn’s Neuroscience Boot Camp

August 5th, 2009
Tom Heneghan

Neurotheology - the study of the link between belief and the brain - is a topic I’ve hesitated to write about for several years. There are all kinds of theories out there about how progress in neuroscience is changing our understanding of religion, spirituality and mystical experience. Some say the research proves religion is a natural product of the way the brain works, others that God made the brain that way to help us believe. I knew so little about the science behind these ideas that I felt I had to learn more about the brain first before I could comment.

If that was an excuse for procrastination, I don’t have it anymore. For all this week and half the next, I’m attending a "Neuroscience Boot Camp" at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. This innovative program, run by Penn’s Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Director Martha Farah (photo below), aims to explain the latest research in neuroscience to 34 non-experts from fields such as law, business, philosophy and religious studies (as well as to a few journalists). The focus is not only on religion, but faith and issues related to it are certainly part of the discussion.

After only two of 8-1/2 days of lectures, one takeaway message is already clear. You can forget about the "God spot" that headline writers love to highlight (as in "'God spot' is found in Brain" or "Scientists Locate 'God Spot' in Human Brain"). There is no one place in the brain responsible for religion, just as there is no single location in the brain for love or language or identity. Most popular articles these days actually say that, but the headline writers continue to speak of a single spot.

"There isn’t a separate religious area of the brain, from what we can tell from the data," said Dr. Andrew Newberg, an associate professor of radiology and psychiatry at the Penn university hospital and author of several books on neuroscience and religion. "It’s not like there’s a little spiritual spot that lights up every time somebody thinks of God. When you look at religious and spiritual experiences, they are incredibly rich and diverse. Sometimes people find them on the emotional level, sometimes on an ideological level, sometimes they perceive a oneness, sometimes they perceive a person. It depends a lot on what the actual experience is."

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: belief, brain, God, neuroscience, neurotheology, religion, spirituality, Tom Heneghan

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One Young World Unveils Findings of Global Survey of 20-Somethings and Launches YouTube Contest to Identify Future Leaders to be Delegates at Inaugura

Global Nonprofit Calls 20-Somethings Worldwide to Participate in Phase III
Online Survey

Inaugural Summit in 2010 to Feature Counsellors Kofi Annan, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bob Geldof, Professor Nick Haysom, EMI Music Chief Executive Elio Leoni Sceti and Oscar Morales

LONDON, Aug. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- One Young World, the global nonprofit
organization that serves as a platform to raise the voice of the next
generation of world leaders on global issues, has unveiled the findings of
a global survey of mid-20-somethings addressing the topics of Environment,
Business, Politics, Media and Religion. Co-founders David Jones and Kate
Robertson presented the findings in London on Friday, alongside Carole
Stone, Managing Director of YouGovStone, just-announced Counsellor Oscar
Morales and philanthropist Bill Liao.

"The way to create a better future is to listen to and empower the
leaders of the future. The digital revolution has not only given this
generation of young people access to knowledge and information on an
unprecedented scale but it has also given them massive influence. We've
founded One Young World to help empower the leaders of tomorrow to shape a
better future."

-David Jones

The event also marked the launch of two initiatives aimed at gathering
input from the world's 20-somethings on critical issues:

-- YouTube contest: People born between 1984 and 1986 from around the world
can go to http://www.youtube.com/OneYoungWorld upload their video submissions
on YouTube's One Young World Channel, to be voted on by the YouTube
community. Those with the most votes will be invited to be Delegates at
the 2010 Inaugural Summit in London.

-- Phase III Survey: People born between 1984 and 1986 can log on to
http://oneyoungworld.com/global-consultation/index.html to participate
in the next phase of survey research, by completing an online survey
about today's key issues.

"The global consultation process is vital to engendering a productive
dialogue at the One Young World Inaugural Summit in February, which is why
we are launching Phase III through social networking and online
communities," said Robertson, who also serves as Group Chairman of Euro
RSCG UK.

Survey findings will be used to shape the program at the One Young
World Inaugural Summit on 8-10 February, 2010, which will be attended by
designated One Young World Counsellors, including Kofi Annan, Archbishop
Desmond Tutu, Bob Geldof, Professor Nick Haysom, EMI Music Chief Executive
Elio Leoni Sceti and Oscar Morales. The One Young World Annual Summit will
be a yearly global gathering of future leaders that is truly representative
of the world's population -- weighted for the first time ever to reflect
the most populated regions and countries, and not necessarily the richest
or most politically influential.

"I hope that the delegates of One Young World, the ones who will
inherit this planet, will join us as partners in the Global Alliance for
Climate Justice."

-Kofi Annan

This is an inspiring article for young people especially. Please click on "external source" to access it in its entirety.

Labels: One Young World, religion, youth, YouTube

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PBS to air three religious documentaries in 2010

August 03, 2009

PBS will air three detailed documentaries on religion in 2010, two of which will deal directly with Christianity.

"God in America" will air in fall 2010. It will be a six-hour documentary done by the same team which produces PBS’ "Frontline" and "American Experience" news magazines. The series will start with Christopher Columbus’ voyages and go through the 2008 presidential election, showing the links between democracy and religion, exploring religious liberty and examining the role of religion in social reforms.

"The Calling" will air at a yet undetermined time in 2010. It is a four-hour documentary following eight people transitioning into the clergy in Catholicism, Evangelical Christianity, Judaism and Islam. It will follow them through seminaries and religious instruction and explore their faith journeys.

"The Buddha" is a two-hour documentary slated for spring 2010 which will chronicle the history of Buddhism and it growing popularity in the United States.

Please click on "external source" to access the complete article, including a link to the PBS website for even more information.

Labels: 2010, Buddhism, faith, God, PBS, religion, television

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Book Review: Medicine, Religion, and Health: Where Science and Spirituality Meet

CYNTHIA GEPPERT, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.
Albuquerque, N.Mex.

The historically recent antipathy between religion and psychiatry stemming from Freud, Ellis, and other secular intellects has been gradually reversed through the influence of the wider movement over the last several decades to reintegrate spirituality into health care. Ironically, many of the leaders of this effort have been psychiatrists, among whom none is more prolific than Harold Koenig, M.D., the author of over 40 books on the topic, several of them dealing specifically with religion and mental health. His latest work, Medicine, Religion, and Health: Where Science and Spirituality Meet, is a concise yet substantive tour of the burgeoning research base examining the relationship between religion and health. The book, which is directed toward the educated generalist, has chapters covering studies of religion and health, involving the cardiovascular and immune/endocrine systems, longevity, and disability. Mental health professionals will be particularly interested in the chapters on mind-body interactions, mental health, and diseases related to stress and behavior, as well as the final chapter on clinical applications of the research. Psychiatrists will be conversant and likely comfortable with Koenig’s overarching thesis:

It appears that psychological and social factors influence the physiological systems of the body that are directly responsible for good health and the ability to fight disease. Therefore if religious/spiritual involvement can be shown to enhance psychological health and social interactions, it is reasonable to hypothesize that religious factors may improve physical health as well, doing so by reducing psychological stress, increasing social support, and encouraging positive health behaviors. (p. 53)

Medicine, Religion, and Health: Where Science and Spirituality Meet
by Harold G. Koenig, M.D. West Conshohocken, Pa., Templeton Press, 2008, 240 pp., $14.95.

Please click on "external source" to access the entire article.

Labels: Cynthia Geppert, Harold Koenig, health, psychiatry, Psychiatry Online, religion, spirituality

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Friday, July 31, 2009

God and Majors

July 28, 2009

Some parents of faith have long worried about the possible impact of (secular) colleges on the religious observances of their children.

A new national study that looks at trends between study of certain subjects and religious observance provides some evidence to back up those worries, but also may surprise members of some disciplines and some faiths. And the research also finds that religious students are more likely than others to attend college. The study is by four scholars at the University of Michigan and was released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research (abstract and ordering information available here).

Among the findings:

Please click on "external source" for the complete study results

Labels: children, college, faith, National Bureau of Economic Research, parents, religion

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Survey: Faith of Blacks Grows Stronger, More Orthodox

By Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter
Sat, Jul. 25 2009

Blacks remain the most religious ethnic group in America, a new study shows.

And over the last 15 years, African Americans have grown even more religious and orthodox in their Christian beliefs, according to The Barna Group.

Findings from surveys that included 1,272 African American respondents reveal that blacks today are more likely than they were in the early 1990s to believe that the principles taught in the Bible are totally accurate; to say that their religious faith is very important in their life; to have a biblically orthodox understanding of the nature of God; and to be born again.

African Americans were found to be the most likely ethnic group to consider themselves Christian with 92 percent saying so. Nationally, 85 percent of Americans in general consider themselves Christian. Blacks were also the most likely to be born again Christians (59 percent vs. 46 percent nationally).

Moreover, blacks had the lowest population of unchurched adults and were least likely to be Catholic.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article...

Labels: African-Americans, Audrey Barrick, Barna Group, Bible, Christian, church, faith, religion

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A Portrait of Mormons in the U.S.

July 24, 2009

In Utah, July 24 is Pioneer Day, a state holiday commemorating the day in 1847 when the first Mormon settlers, led by Brigham Young, entered the Salt Lake Valley. Today, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Mormon groups make up 58% of Utah's population and 1.7% of the total U.S. adult population, according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life in 2007. The religious tradition, founded in the United States in 1830, has come under increased public scrutiny in recent years as a result of prominent Mormons in the news, such as Mitt Romney, a 2008 Republican presidential primary candidate and former governor of Massachusetts, and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, as well as the involvement of the LDS church in political issues, such as the recent debate over gay marriage in California.

A new analysis of the Landscape Survey data reveals that as a group Mormons are among the most devout and conservative religious people in the country. The Mormon community is also internally diverse, with differences according to levels of religious commitment and educational attainment, regions of the country where Mormons live, and between lifelong Mormons and those who have converted to the faith. This report explores Mormons' unique place in the American religious landscape and is divided into three parts: demographic characteristics, religious beliefs and practices, and social and political views.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article, along with breakdowns of the survey.

Labels: Church of Latter Day Saints, demographics. politics, Mormonism, pew Religious Landscape Survey, religion

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Friday, July 24, 2009

Jimmy Carter confronts 'religious prejudice' against women

By: Eric Young
Christian Post
Thursday, 23 July 2009

Former president Jimmy Carter and The Elders group of global leaders are calling for a change to "the harmful and discriminatory practices against women and girls and give their full support to the equality of all”.

"Religion and tradition are a great force for peace and progress around the world," said The Elders, a group of global leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela, in statement to mark the launch of their latest initiative.

"However, as Elders, we believe that the justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a higher authority, is unacceptable," added the 12-person organisation brought together by former South African president Nelson Mandela.

In an effort to bring change to and end religious and traditional practices that discriminate against women and girls, The Elders are using their latest initiative to reveal how the "deep-rooted belief that women are worth less than men has infected every aspect of our societies."

They say such beliefs have led to brutal violence and mistreatment against women and have denied girls and women fair access to education, health, employment, property and influence within their own communities.

"It is not just women who are paying an enormous price for this cultural and religious prejudice. We all suffer when women and girls are abused and their needs are neglected. By denying them security and opportunity, we embed unfairness in our societies and fail to make the most of the talents of half the population," The Elders state.

Last week, former President Carter attempted to draw greater attention to The Elders’ gender equality initiative by submitting an op-ed to newspapers including The Observer.

In his piece, Carter recalled his "painful and difficult" decision to sever ties with the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000 after having been a part of the denomination for six decades.

The decision, he said, was "unavoidable ... when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be ‘subservient’ to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military...

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: discrimination, equality, Eric Young, Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, religion, The Elders, women

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Science, religion is a theme in new Galileo book

Issues from scientist’s 17th-century trial still prevail, author says

By Ed Stoddard
July 20, 2009

DALLAS - The current struggles between religion and science in areas such as evolution and "intelligent design" are thrown into sharp relief in a new book about the Italian astronomer Galileo and his trial by the Roman Inquisition.

Author Dan Hofstadter described the Galileo affair as "the great religion-science clash of 1633 that in some form has persisted into our time."

The focus of the trial was the scientist's embrace of the Copernican view that the Earth revolves around the sun — a view informed by the observations Galileo made with his famous telescope.

Christians had been ordered not to teach or promote the Copernican take on the solar system. It was essentially for this reason that Galileo found himself in hot water with the clerical establishment.

Hofstadter spoke with Reuters about his book "The Earth Moves: Galileo and the Roman Inquisition," and the relevance of this 17th-century episode today.

Please click on "external source for the interview with the author.

Labels: Dan Hofstadter, Ed Stoddard, Galileo, religion, science

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NIH nominee Collins smartly balances top science, real religion

By MICHAEL GERSON
Washington Post

According to one survey, just 7 percent of elite American scientists believe in a personal god — the kind to whom you pray. About 8 percent, however, affirm their belief in personal immortality — indicating that some egos are so large that they fill eternity.

Should it matter that President Barack Obama’s nominee to be director of the National Institutes of Health — the Supreme Court nomination of the scientific world — is part of the believing few?

Francis Collins presents a perfect test case. His qualifications are beyond dispute. As a pioneering gene hunter, he helped identify the genetic markers for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington’s disease and adult onset diabetes. He was in charge of the program at NIH that mapped the human genome, the biological equivalent of the Apollo space program.

Collins is also an evangelical Christian who sings hymns while playing the guitar.

For some scientists, this combination of scientific excellence and religious faith is contradictory — like being a geneticist and believing in unicorns or astrology. "You clearly can be a scientist and have religious beliefs," says Peter Atkins of Oxford University. "But I don’t think you can be a real scientist in the deepest sense of the word because they (religion and science) are such alien categories of knowledge."

To which Collins, who has written and spoken extensively on this topic, replies that there are two categories of knowledge, two ways of knowing. And though they are different, they are not "alien" or contradictory.

For a further explanation, and the complete article, please click on "external source."

Labels: Francis Collins, Michael Gerson, NIH, President Obama, religion, science

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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Freedom From Religion: Buddhism Wins Best Religion in the World Award

Wednesday July 15, 2009

Linda Moulin | 15.07.2009 | 16:55

Tribune de Geneve

In advance of their annual Leading Figure award to a religious figure who has done the most to advance the cause of humanism and peace, the Geneva-based International Coalition for the Advancement of Religious and Spirituality (ICARUS) has chosen to bestow a special award this year on the Buddhist Community. "We typically prefer an under-the-radar approach for the organization, as we try to embody the spirit of modesty found in the greatest traditions," said ICARUS director Hans Groehlichen in a phone conference Monday. "But with organized religion increasingly used as a tool to separate and inflame rather than bring together, we felt we had to take the unusual step of creating a "Best Religion in the World" award and making a bit of a stir, to inspire other religious leaders to see what is possible when you practice compassion."

Groehlichen said the award was voted on by an international roundtable of more than 200 religious leaders from every part of the spiritual spectrum. "It was interesting to note that once we supplied the criteria, many religious leaders voted for Buddhism rather than their own religion," said Groehlichen. "Buddhists actually make up a tiny minority of our membership, so it was fascinating but quite exciting that they won."

Criteria included factors such as promoting personal and community peace, increasing compassion and a sense of connection, and encouraging preservation of the natural environment. Groehlichen continued "The biggest factor for us is that ICARUS was founded by spiritual and religious people to bring the concepts of non-violence to prominence in society. One of the key questions in our voting process was which religion actually practices non-violence."

Labels: Buddhism, ICARUS, Linda Moulin, non-violence, peace, religion

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Pitt survey indicates spiritual wellness aids in cancer fight

By Allison M. Heinrichs
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, July 9, 2009

Feeling angry with or abandoned by God increases depression in women with breast cancer, according to a survey by Pittsburgh doctors, which advises clinicians to ask patients questions about their religion and guide them to use spirituality to cope.

The yearlong survey of 284 patients explored the relationship between "religious coping" and well-being. The results, published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, indicate that doctors should listen for "red flag" comments such as, "Why is God punishing me?"

"That's a sign for clinicians that these patients are feeling abandoned," said Dr. Randy Hebert, medical director of Forbes Hospice and lead author of the report.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: Allison M. Heinrichs, cancer, God, religion, spirituality, well-being

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Thursday, July 09, 2009

Does Religion Ever Retard Moral Growth?

by Paul Sunstone
Sunday, July 05, 2009

Lately, I’ve been wondering whether some religions — some forms of Christianity in particular — retard people’s moral growth.

Of course, it would be ironic if it turned out Christianity retarded people’s moral growth since many Christians seem to believe they have a monopoly on morals. But nonsense like that one aside, I’ve been wondering if some religions don’t for the most part do exactly the opposite of what they boast of doing. That is, instead of promoting our moral growth, they actually discourage it.

I have a little story that might illustrate the point. Some long time ago when I was attending university, I had a three or four male friends from the Middle East. Nothing in their own countries had prepared them for the sight of “half-naked” American women. My friends would ask me how I and other American males managed to contain ourselves with so many of our American women walking around “half-naked”.

I was sympathetic to their problem. It seemed to me the ordeal they were describing was something I myself had gone through. But not, like them, at 19 and 20. Instead, I had gone through much the same thing at puberty — that time in the life of males when everything female turns electric.

Yet, there was a difference between myself and my friends. I had gone through puberty in a culture that told me girls have a right to go around “half-naked”, and that, if there was a problem with it, it was my problem. My culture forced me to psychologically adapt to the sight of female thighs and cleavage. And, before I was 19, I was reasonably well adapted.

This is an opinion piece with some thoughtful ideas. Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: culture, men, morality, Paul Sunstone, religion, women

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Churches Face the Boomer Challenge

MIKE HARTON TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST
Published: July 5, 2009

Two recent conversations haunt me. An old college friend, a leading-edge baby boomer (age 63) whom I knew to be a person of faith in college, told me he and his wife "had given up on the institutional church." The other con versation was with an educated professional friend, also a baby boomer, who describes herself as spiritual but not religious.

These friends' attitudes are consistent with American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS, 2008) findings that more and more of us are claiming no religious affiliation. A similar study by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 16 percent of the population has no religious identity.

Why did my college friends give up on church? Why is my spiritual friend not religious? In light of what we know about both boomers and many churches, it is not hard to speculate.

Baby boomers are as diverse a cohort as we have known. Their religious experiences run the gamut from no affiliation or faith identity to former "Jesus freaks" (from the 1960s) to very involved, regular church attenders. Some who formerly never darkened the doors of a house of worship are now actively engaged. Others who grew up in church have dropped out, many with no intention of returning.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: ARIS, Baby Boomers, church, faith, Mike Harton, religion, spirituality

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Monday, July 06, 2009

Are we really a Christian nation? Readers chime in

By TRACIE SIMER
July 4, 2009

Today is the day the United States celebrates its independence. This country's forefathers are considered by most to be patriotic.

There is debate, however, about whether any of those men were Christians or even religious, and if they founded the United States as a Christian nation.

Micah Watson, assistant professor of political science at Union University, said the United States has never had a Christian government.

"The forefathers could've put in explicitly Christian language in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; that would've been quite common for that time, but they did not," Watson said.

According to a 2006 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 81 percent of Americans identified themselves as Christian. Almost 2 percent said they were Jewish, and 0.5 percent said they were Muslim.

Those who identify as "non-affiliated" or "other" were about 15 percent, the survey said.

Watson said there is only one mention of God in the Declaration, with mention of a "Creator." Men such as Thomas Jefferson who authored those documents were most likely theistic, he said.

"We have always been a predominately Christian people," he said. "Even if they weren't devout, they were respectful of Christian ideals and norms."
A Muslim nation?

In June, President Barack Obama talked with a French reporter before his trip to the Middle East, saying that America could be one of the largest Muslim nations in the world.

Watson said Obama's speech about America's religious identity was about him trying to present a new face to the Muslim world. He grew up in the Muslim culture and has credibility others didn't, he said.

"We do have a lot of Muslims, but if you look at the percentages, it doesn't quite work," he said. "Most Muslims hear that and say 'Yeah, right.'"

Lucy Overstreet, who attends Evangelical Community Church in Jackson, disagrees with Obama's views on America's religious culture. She said America is not and never will be a Muslim nation and was founded on Christian principles.

This only the first of a three-page article. Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: America, Christianity, Declaration of Independence, religion, Tracie Simer

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Majority think it is possible to believe in God and Darwin

Most people feel it is possible to believe in God and evolution, according to a survey.

01 Jul 2009

The poll carried out by the British Council found that 54 per cent thought that science and religion are compatible.

Only 19 per cent of those questioned said it is impossible to believe in a God while also holding the view that life on earth evolved as a result of natural selection. This is the theory proposed by Charles Darwin exactly 150 years ago in his groundbreaking book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

The study, which surveyed the opinions of more than 10,000 people across 10 countries worldwide including Great Britain, also uncovered wide regional variations in the acceptance of evolutionary theory.

Please click on "external source" for the complete results from the survey

Labels: Charles Darwin, evolution, God, Great Britain, religion, science

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New poll finds growing ‘religion gap’ between old, young Americans

By Nancy Frazier O’Brien
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON – There is a growing “religion gap” between older Americans and those under 30, according to a new Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey.

The study released June 29 found that one-fourth of Americans ages 18-29 said they were atheists, agnostics or had no religion, while only 7 percent of those 65 and over described themselves that way. Eighteen percent of those ages 30-49 and 13 percent of those 50-64 fell into the no religion/atheist/agnostic category.

At 7 percent, the under-30s also were more than twice as likely as those 65 and over (3 percent) to say they belonged to a religion other than Protestant, Catholic or Jewish.

Catholics made up 24 percent of the 65 and over group and the 30-49 group, 23 percent of those aged 50-64 and 20 percent of those between 18 and 29.

The 152-page study, called “Growing Old in America: Expectations vs. Reality,” addressed a variety of issues related to aging. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.6 percentage points for the survey, which involved telephone interviews with 2,969 adult Americans between Feb. 23 and March 23 this year.

Please click on "external source" for the rest of the article.

Labels: aging, Nancy Frazier O’Brien, Pew Research Center survey, religion

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Generation Gap A Chasm, Study Finds

Nearly 8 In 10 Believe There Is Major Point Of View Difference Between Younger, Older Americans

(AP) American adults from young to old disagree increasingly today on social values ranging from religion to relationships, creating the largest generation gap since divisions 40 years ago over Vietnam, civil rights and women's liberation.

A survey being released Monday by the Pew Research Center highlights a widening age divide after last November's election, when 18- to 29-year-olds voted for Democrat Barack Obama by a 2-to-1 ratio.

Almost eight in 10 people believe there is a major difference in the point of view of younger people and older people today, according to the independent public opinion research group. That is the highest spread since 1969, when about 74 percent reported major differences in an era of generational conflicts over the Vietnam War and civil and women's rights. In contrast, just 60 percent in 1979 saw a generation gap.

Asked to identify where older and younger people differ most, 47 percent said social values and morality. People age 18 to 29 were more likely to report disagreements over lifestyle, views on family, relationships and dating, while older people cited differences in a sense of entitlement. Those in the middle-age groups also often pointed to a difference in manners.

Religion is a far bigger part of the lives of older adults. About two-thirds of people 65 and older said religion is very important to them, compared with just over half of those 30 to 49 and 44 percent of people 18 to 29.

Please click on "external source" for the rest of the article, and highlights of the survey.

Labels: Americans, generation gap, morality, religion, social issues, values

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Friday, June 26, 2009

Two-thirds of [English] teenagers don't believe in God... and think reality TV is more important

Mail Foreign Service
22nd June 2009

Nearly two-thirds of teenagers don't believe in God and think that reality television is far more important than religion, new research has revealed.

The survey showed that 66 per cent of teens do not believe a deity exists while 50 per cent have never prayed and 16 per cent have never been to church.

Teenagers rated family, friends, money, music and even reality TV shows above faith.
Children from a London school take part in a service at Westminster Abbey: The numbers of teenagers who believe in God has dwindled

Children from a London school take part in a service at Westminster Abbey: The numbers of teenagers who believe in God has dwindled

Other statistics which emerged from the report included:

* 59 per cent of children believed religion has had a negative influence on the world
* 60 per cent only go to church for a wedding or christening
* Only 30 per cent of teenagers think there is an afterlife...
* ... while 10 per cent believe in reincarnation
* 47 per cent said organised religion had no place in the world
* 60 per cent don't believe Religious Studies should be compulsory in schools
* However, 91 per cent agreed they should treat others the way they wished to be treated themselves

Please click on "external source" for the complete article...the one bright spot - the overwhelming percentage of these teens do believe in some form of the "Golden Rule..."

Labels: church, God, prayer, Reality TV, religion, teenagers

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Can Science and Religion Co-Exist in Harmony?

June 22, 2009

Some of the nation's leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in May 2009 for the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life's Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life.

Francis S. Collins, the former director of the Human Genome Project and an evangelical Christian, discussed why he believes religion and science are compatible and why the current conflict over evolution vs. faith, particularly in the evangelical community, is unnecessary.

Barbara Bradley Hagerty, the religion correspondent for National Public Radio, discussed how the brain reacts to spiritual experiences and her belief that people can look at scientific evidence and conclude that everything is explained by material means or look at the universe and see the hand of God.

Speaker: Francis S. Collins, Former Director, National Human Genome Research Institute

Respondent: Barbara Bradley Hagerty, Religion Correspondent, National Public Radio

Moderator: Michael Cromartie, Vice President, Ethics and Public Policy Center;

Senior Adviser, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

In the following excerpt ellipses have been omitted to facilitate reading. Read the full transcript, including audience discussion at pewforum.org.

FRANCIS COLLINS: I'll spend most of the time [today] talking about the current conflict that appears, at least in this country, to be a rather unpleasant one, where the voices that are arguing that science and faith are incompatible are actually quite loud -- even shrill at times. I'll offer up from my own perspective why that conflict is an unnecessary one and provide some possibilities of how it might be resolved in a way that I think would be good for our future...

Please click on "external source" to read the entire article, and also, to access the full transcript of this most insightful and important discussion regarding the compatibility of science and religion.

Labels: Barbara Bradley Hagerty, faith, Francis Collins, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, science

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Mix and match: A faith of one's own

Posted by Michael Paulson June 20, 2009

There's been a lot of talk in the religion world about Americans' increasing habit of choosing their own religious affiliation -- survey research by Pew, in particular, has shown that half of all Americans have changed denomination during their lifetime. But there's been less attention to the ways in which Americans also have a tendency to make faith their own, accepting those beliefs and rituals that they like, and rejecting those they don't, within or outside their denominations.

I was thinking about this this morning, when I attended the funeral for a co-worker, Sarah Snyder, who died June 11 at the age of 51. Sarah was a gutsy and funny woman, and a talented journalist, who was felled much too soon by cancer. She was also, like so many folks in eastern Massachusetts (although she was not from these parts), a cradle Catholic who struggled with, but did not completely reject, her faith.

Her funeral took place at a Unitarian Universalist meetinghouse, First Parish in Milton, that is simultaneously non-creedal but, visually, quite explicitly Christian...

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: Christian, church, faith, Michael Paulson, religion, Unitarianism

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Friday, June 19, 2009

Brain waves or beatific vision?

Tue, Jun. 16, 2009

Mystical experiences under the microscope
By David O'Reilly

Inquirer Staff Writer

As mystical experiences go, Barbara Bradley Hagerty's transcendent moment was not the kind that launches a new world religion. Still, it changed her forever.

The day was June 10, 1995. Hagerty, religion reporter for National Public Radio, was interviewing a terminally ill melanoma patient, Kathy, whose sunny outlook and trust in Jesus seemed to have prolonged her life, inexplicably, for years.

Then, as they talked, "I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end," Hagerty writes in her new book, Fingerprints of God, a survey of modern scientific investigation into religious experience.

"The air grew warmer and heavier, as if someone had moved into the circle [of lamplight] and was breathing on us. I glanced at Kathy." She, too, felt something and had "fallen silent in mid-sentence."

"I felt an unseen caress, engulfed by a presence I could feel but not touch," Hagerty continues. "I was paralyzed. . . . After a minute, although it seemed longer, the presence melted away."

What was it she sensed? Jesus? An angelic being? Or, as one researcher later suggested, had the temporal lobe of her brain been briefly hyperstimulated? This, he told her, likely induced the illusion of an unseen presence.

Whatever it was, it proved the "continental divide in my life," Hagerty said during a recent interview. "I decided I should investigate, the way we journalists do."

Her investigation grew into Fingerprints of God, a lucid overview of an essential question: Is mystical experience truly a glimpse of the divine, the eternal, the absolute? Or are the seemingly transformative moments known variously as "enlightenment" or "beatific vision" or cosmic bliss merely swells and quells in brain activity, signifying nothing beyond ourselves?

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: Barbara Bradley Hagerty, brain, David O'Reilly, God, religion, science, transcendence

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This is your brain on religion - OpEd

Faith can bring out the best in people (love, generosity, compassion) — and the worst (fear, hatred, violence). Whether people are the former or the latter depends on how they view the God they worship.

By Andrew Newberg

When I was in high school, I dated a girl whose family regarded themselves as "born-again" Christians. It was my first encounter with devoutly religious people who strongly disagreed with my perspective on faith. They were always pleasant to me, but they were quite clear that in their view I had deeply sinned by not turning to Jesus. Oh, and because of this, I was going to hell.

It's tough enough being a teenager, but this was too much. The family's judgment disturbed me on two levels. First, I didn't like the thought of going to hell, but at the same time, their beliefs also challenged me to evaluate my own beliefs vigorously.

Distress and anxiety followed, and I realized that this was the first time that I had ever experienced such strong negative feelings about religion. And 30 years later, this episode still resonates as I conduct extensive research on religious practices and beliefs and their impact on the human person.

The research that I have come across, if not definitive, seems clear: Religion and spiritual practices generally have a positive effect on one's physical, emotional and neurological health. People who engage in religious activities tend to cope better with emotional problems, have fewer addictions and better overall health. They might even live longer than those who lead more secular lives. Indeed, many studies document that religious and spiritual individuals find more meaning in life.

Our studies at Penn's Center for Spirituality and the Mind (in conjunction with colleague Mark Waldman) of the effects of different spiritual practices, such as meditation and prayer, also reveal significant improvements in memory, cognition and compassion while simultaneously reducing anxiety, depression, irritability and stress (even when done in a non-theological context). One might come to the conclusion, then, that being religious or spiritual is a good thing. Perhaps God is great.

But not so fast. We also discovered that religion's influence on people depends very much on how they view their God.

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: Andrew Newberg, God, mind, religion, spirituality

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Are some churches going overboard in their attempts to package and market religion?

By JEFF STRICKLER, Star Tribune
June 13, 2009

A Church Is A Business

Eyes roll when Rabbi Hayim Herring tells his fellow clergy that they should spend an hour a day on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Listeners at his seminars exchange smirks when he says blogging should be considered mandatory. They look aghast when he recommends posting short video clips from their sermons on YouTube.

It's a lot better than the reaction he used to get.

"They used to look at me as if I'd just said a four-letter word," said Herring, the former senior rabbi at Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park and now the executive director of STAR (Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal). But in its seven years, the organization has seen more converts to what many call one of the dirtiest words in religion: marketing.

Please click on "external source for the complete article

Labels: Facebook, Jeff Strickler, marketing, MySpace, religion, Twitter, YouTube

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Saturday, June 13, 2009

OBITUARIES: Thomas Berry dies at 94; cultural historian became a leading thinker on religion and the environment

Thomas Berry saw Earth’s ecological crisis as essentially a crisis of the spirit.
Described as an 'eco-theologian,' he was an early advocate of the notion that Earth's ecological crisis was basically a crisis of the spirit.

By Jon Thurber
June 13, 2009

Thomas Berry, a cultural historian and specialist in Asian religions who in his later life became a leading thinker on religion and the environment, has died. He was 94.

Berry died June 1 at the Well-Spring Retirement Community in Greensboro, N.C., according to an announcement on his website. The cause of death was not reported, but Berry was known to have been in failing health in recent years after suffering two strokes.

Described by Newsweek magazine in the late 1980s as "the most provocative figure among the new breed of eco-theologians," Berry was an early advocate of the notion that Earth's ecological crisis was basically a crisis of the spirit.

"Thomas Berry contributed to the realization in our times that environmental issues are more than science or policy. They are also issues of the spirit," said Mary Evelyn Tucker, who with her husband, John Grim, heads the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology and directs the Thomas Berry Foundation. "How well we respond to the planetary challenges that face us now will be determined by our ability to form an Earth community with a common future for all species."

Calling the universe God's "primary revelation," Berry wrote in his book "The Dream of the Earth" that "the natural world is the larger sacred community to which we all belong." In his view, Earth's natural elements -- trees, forests, mountains -- had as much right to exist as humans. "We bear the universe in our being even as the universe bears us in its being."

Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: eco-theology, environmentalism, God, Jon Thurber, religion, the universe, Thomas Berry

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Citizen of the world: a brief survey of the life and times of Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

By Ann Talbot
8 June 2009

In the winter of 1788, a small team of men were building a bridge across the river Don in Rotherham. The fact that before Christmas a stream of distinguished visitors had been to see the construction was an indication that this was no ordinary bridge and its designer was no ordinary engineer. Leading the project was Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense and The American Crisis, which had been read to Washington’s soldiers before the Battle of Trenton on Christmas Day 1776.

"These are the times that try men’s souls," it began, "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." This was Tom Paine, the friend of Washington and Jefferson, Tom Paine, citizen of the world.

This is a rather lengthy article, worth a full reading. Towards the end, this paragraph caught my attention, and I know that Urantia Book reader/believers will find it most interesting - indeed, a man ahead of his time...:

"From the time I was capable of conceiving an idea," he writes, "and acting upon it by reflection, I either doubted the truth of the Christian system or thought it to be a strange affair; I scarcely knew which it was, but I well remember, when about seven or eight years of age, hearing a sermon read by a relation of mine, who was a great devotee of the Church, upon the subject of what is called redemption by the death of the Son of God. After the sermon was ended, I went into the garden, and as I was going down the garden steps (for I perfectly recollect the spot) I revolted at the recollection of what I had heard, and thought to myself that it was making God Almighty act like a passionate man, that killed his son when he could not revenge himself in any other way, and as I was sure a man would be hanged that did such a thing, I could not see for what purpose they preached such sermons. This was not one of that kind of thoughts that had anything in it of childish levity; it was to me a serious reflection, arising from the idea I had that God was too good to do such an action, and also too almighty to be under any necessity of doing it. I believe in the same manner at this moment; and I moreover believe, that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system."

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: American revolution, Ann Talbot, Common Sense, religion, Thomas Paine

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Sunday, June 07, 2009

Obama's Challenge to the Muslim World

by Feisal Abdul Rauf

The historic significance of President Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo cannot be overstated. Never before has an American president spoken to the global Muslim community. His speech marked a major shift in American foreign policy. Obama directly enlisted a religion to build global peace and to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, end nuclear proliferation and stop terrorism.

In just a few sentences he demolished the phony theory of the "Clash of Civilizations," which insists that Islam and the West must always be in conflict. Instead, he declared the United States is not at war with Islam and outlined a plan for how the conflict can be resolved.

Perhaps most important, he put religion at the core of the peacemaking process. For too long, Americans had come to fear Islam as an intolerant, violent religion. Obama cited examples from the Quran that belied those stereotypes. He emphasized the core similarities among Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

"Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism," he said. "It is an important part of promoting peace."

Please click on "external source" for the complete article

Labels: Feisal Abdul Rauf, Islam, Muslims, peacemaking, President Obama, religion

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Americans shift spiritual playlists of soul

Trend reveals many crafting their own paths from range of religions

By Peter Smith

People are downloading various spiritual practices, without regard for the integrity of the whole, just as they download individual tunes rather than the whole CD.

That's according to a provocative recent essay by Clark Strand, a former Zen monk and Buddhist journalist.

I thought about this trend as I was preparing this week's article on the generational challenges to American Buddhism.

I reported on the little-recognized trend that for all the cachet Buddhism may have in popular culture, this religion has lost a higher percentage of its young than virtually any other religious category in America.

At the same time, most Buddhists are converts, so it's been welcoming droves of people through the front door even as it loses many kids through the back door.

In response, Buddhists have worked at cultivating youth involvement at events such as the recent celebration of the Buddha's birthday at Ten Thousand Buddhas Summit Monastery in Harrison County, Ind.

The larger influence of Buddhism on larger American society is clear. Many people practice meditation techniques that are at least partly derived from Buddhist practice, even if they don't formally convert.

And as often happens in America's competitive spiritual marketplace, the popularity of one spiritual practice is prompting other religions to get theirs in shape. The spread of Eastern-based meditation has prompted Christians and Jews to dust off their own neglected mystical practices, such as in the Benedictine and Kabalistic traditions.

This is only a portion of a two-page article. Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: Buddhism, Clark Strand, Peter Smith, religion, spiritual practices

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Friday, June 05, 2009

A window into the faith of religion reporters

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

Faith celebrated. Faith lost. Faith inspected and detected, from neurological research to relics of saints venerated in exotic shrines.

USA TODAY religion reporter Cathy Lynn Grossman talks to four journalists who, drawn to write about religion, make their explorations personal in their new books.

Please click on "external source" to read these interesting interviews with Barbara Bradley Hagerty, Peter Manseau, Cathleen Falsani, and William Lobdell, religion journalists.

Labels: Barbara Bradley Hagerty, Cathleen Falsani, Cathy Lynn Grossman, Peter Manseau, religion, William Lobdell

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Merciful storekeeper changes robber's mind, religion

From Kiran Khalid

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A potential victim became a compassionate counselor during a recent robbery attempt, changing the would-be criminal's mind -- and apparently his religion.

Storekeeper Mohammad Sohail was closing up his Long Island convenience store just after midnight on May 21 when -- as shown on the store's surveillance video -- a man came in wielding a baseball bat and demanding money.

"He said, 'Hurry up and give me the money, give me the money!' and I said, 'Hold on'," Sohail recalled in a phone interview with CNN on Tuesday, after the store video and his story was carried on local TV.

Sohail said he reached under the counter, grabbed his gun and told the robber to drop the bat and get down on his knees.

"He's crying like a baby," Sohail said. "He says, 'Don't call police, don't shoot me, I have no money, I have no food in my house.' "

Amidst the man's apologies and pleas, Sohail said he felt a surge of compassion.

He made the man promise never to rob anyone again and when he agreed, Sohail gave him $40 and a loaf of bread.

Labels: compassion, Kiran Khalid, religion, robbery

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Modern Religion’s Missing Ingredient

2 June 2009

With all that traditional religions have done over the centuries to build and mold societies and cultures, they find them self at an impasse. Their appeal to the masses must switch to the individual and they are lacking one key ingredient.

What could this one missing ingredient be? Urantia Book readers will relate to this article, and likely will agree that this missing ingredient will oneday transform our world, if achieved. Please click oin "external source for the complete article.

Labels: God consciousness, Pete Latona, religion

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Monday, May 25, 2009

Spiritual Medicine: Bridging the Gap Between Religion and Psychology

By Gale Bataille and Bill Berkowitz
May 22, 2009

Activists and advocates have launched an initiative to further the understanding of the role of religion and spirituality in mental health. Conferences next month will bring clergy and mental health workers together to break new ground.
The wall at the Quaker-founded York Retreat, founded in 1796. Image courtesy imago

Historically, religion and mental health issues have had an uneasy relationship—and it goes both ways: people with mental illness have long faced stigma in religious communities, and mental health professionals have, for the most part, been suspicious of religion.

Mental health professionals are often trained to bracket out a patient’s religion in the name of professional boundaries, and have been encouraged to consider religion in the context of a medical model that can view spiritual beliefs as potential psychiatric symptoms. As psychologist David Lukoff explains:

This tendency, representing a form of cultural insensitivity, can be traced back to the roots of psychoanalysis as well as behaviorism and cognitive therapy. Freud saw religion as “a universal obsessional neurosis,” Skinner ignored religious experience, and Ellis viewed religion as equivalent to irrational thinking and emotional disturbance. Similarly, spiritual experiences have been viewed as evidence of psychopathology.

But the understanding of the role of religion and spirituality in mental health is changing. The California Mental Health and Spirituality Initiative (which grew out of a grassroots movement founded by activist and advocate Jay Mahler and other consumers, family members, and service providers) was established in June 2008 at the Center for Multicultural Development at the California Institute for Mental Health to advocate for the “inclusion of spirituality as a potential resource in mental health recovery and wellness.”

In advance of two upcoming California Conferences on Mental Health and Spirituality I had the opportunity to interview the initiative’s Director, the Rev. Laura Mancuso, along with Jay Mahler.

Please click on "external source" to read the entire interview.

Labels: Bill Berkowitz, Gale Bataille, Jay Mahler, mental health, religion, Rev. Laura Mancuso, spirituality

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Friday, May 22, 2009

Book Review: " Fingerprints of God"

NPR reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty uses journalism’s tools to explore the intersection of spirituality and science.
By Gregory M. Lamb | May 19, 2009 edition

Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality By Barbara Bradley Hagerty Riverheard Books 323 pp., $33.50

Using the reporting and explanatory skills of a talented veteran journalist, Barbara Bradley Hagerty has written a compelling account of her quest to answer an age-old question: Is this all there is?

The result is Fingerprints of God, a book that sails the roiling waters between religion and science and is unlikely to make quick friends among either evangelical Christians or those in the scientific community who conclude that God cannot exist. But for readers who consider themselves to be spiritual seekers, Hagerty treads some fascinating territory.

Rather than dismissing science as the enemy of spirituality, she engages with it, seeking out scientific pioneers, the outliers who are doing intriguing work on the nature of the brain and consciousness. She also talks with ordinary people who’ve had extraordinary personal encounters, such as near-death or out-of-body experiences, that have changed their views of themselves, reality, and on the existence of an afterlife.

Hagerty, the religion correspondent for National Public Radio, comes to a less-than-startling conclusion: Science can neither prove nor disprove these great questions. But she also sees hints of a “paradigm shift” in science now under way – akin, perhaps, to the early 20th century when the work of Einstein and others took a quantum leap away from a universe based solely on 18th-century Newtonian physics.

“Hard science does not mean petrified science,” Hagerty posits. “The paradigm to exclude a divine intelligence, or ‘Other,’ or ‘God,’ to reduce all things to matter, has reigned triumphant for some four hundred years, since the dawn of the Age of Reason,” she continues. “Today, a small yet growing number of scientists are trying to chip away at the paradigm, suspecting that its feet are made of clay.”

Please click on "external source" for complete article.

Labels: Barbara Bradley Hagerty, God, Gregory M. Lamb, religion, science, spirituality

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'God Is Back' tracks a religious surge in an age of science

By Hanna Rosin

New York Times
Posted: 05/14/2009

Not that long ago, great minds predicted a future with little or no religion.

Science would make us highly skeptical of miracles. Psychiatry would direct all of our awe and wonder inward. Changing roles for women would weaken the patriarchal structure that props up clerics. Whatever script for modernity one followed, it had God playing a bit role.

It didn't happen that way. Modernity arrived and improvised new starring roles for God. The Americans led the way by becoming both "the quintessentially modern country" and a very devout one, write John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge in their new book, "God Is Back," and most of the world has followed that model.

In rich countries and poorer ones, democratic and undemocratic, primarily Islamic and primarily Christian — everywhere, basically, except Europe — devotion to God is robust.

This is a review of the book "God is Back." Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: Adrian Wooldridge, God, Hanna Rosin, John Micklethwait, religion

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Friday, May 08, 2009

New Web Site Aims to Change the Way Americans Talk about Religion and Spirituality

First-of-its-kind site Patheos.com launches today to provide an open forum to explore, experience and engage in religious and spiritual beliefs and discussion

DENVER, May 5 /PRNewswire/ -- A new Web site designed to meet the growing online demand for credible, engaging information on religion and spirituality will launch today. Patheos.com (www.Patheos.com) aims to be the premier online destination for engaging in the global dialogue about religion and spirituality, and to explore and experience the world's beliefs. According to the Pew Internet Project, nearly 82 million Americans use the Web for faith-related reasons, pointing to the need for a credible and comprehensive online religious and spiritual destination.

Husband-and-wife entrepreneurs, parents and 20-year Web technology veterans, Leo and Cathie Brunnick were inspired to develop Patheos in 2008 when they married and were unable to find a credible, comprehensive online resource to provide guidance when blending two families from different religious backgrounds.

"With the launch of Patheos, we hope to provide access to a resource unlike any other on the Web, dedicated to providing religious and spiritual information and most importantly, constructive and meaningful dialogue," said Leo Brunnick, Patheos co-founder and CEO. "We've seen too much disrespectful, unconstructive dialogue about a topic that's important to many Americans. It's time to change the way we talk about religion, and Patheos can be the catalyst to help create this positive change."

In addition to the Public Square, Patheos visitors will find a unique variety of resources and applications...

Patheos is open to all visitors and does not support, endorse or promote any one religion, but strives to engage those of all beliefs and elevate the level of dialogue in the U.S. around important spiritual and religious topics.

To find out much more about Patheos.com, its founders and its features, please click on "external source"

Labels: Patheos.com, religion, spirituality, websites

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Why so many Americans switch religions

A new Pew survey suggests that many Catholics leave their church because of doctrine, whereas Protestants tend to leave because of life changes such as marriage.

By Jane Lampman | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the April 27, 2009 edition

America is a country on the move in innumerable ways, and religion is no exception. Half of Americans have changed their religious denomination at least once in their lives – many several times – and 28 percent have switched faiths altogether (for example, from Christianity to Judaism). Amid this fluidity, the number of "unaffiliated" adults has grown to 16 percent of the population.

What is behind such extraordinary "churn" in US religious life? As a follow-up to its pathbreaking 2007 survey of the American religious landscape, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released a new survey Monday – "Faith in Flux" – that explores in depth the patterns and reasons for such remarkable change.

Most people who switch their allegiance during their lifetime, the survey finds, leave their childhood faith while they are still young, before the age of 24. Yet the opportunities for attracting them to another religion appear to continue for some time.

The reasons for leaving differ according to the origin and destination of the convert. Roman Catholics, for instance, tend to leave because they don't accept certain church teachings. Those Protestants who switch denominations do so more often in response to life changes such as relocation or marriage, or because of dislikes about institutions or practices.

While 56 percent of US adults remain in their childhood faith, 16 percent left, joined another house of worship at least once, and then returned to their original fold.

Of those raised Protestant, 80 percent remain so, with 52 percent still in their childhood denomination. Twenty-eight percent have moved to another Protestant following, 13 percent are now unaffiliated, 3 percent have become Catholic, and 4 percent joined other faiths.

Of those raised Catholic, 68 percent remain in the faith, 15 percent are now Protestant, 14 percent unaffiliated, and 3 percent in other faiths.

As several polls have shown, the "unaffiliated" is the fastest growing group in the past two decades. Yet the Pew survey shows this group to be very diverse, and often serving as a way station for many still seeking a religion.

While about 40 percent in this group say they don't believe in God, another 40 percent say religion is somewhat important in their lives, and roughly one-third say they just haven't found the right religion yet.

Please click on "external source" to access the complete article, which provides the survey results in more detail.

Labels: America, faith, Faith in Flux, Jane Lampman, Pew Religion and Public Life Survey, religion

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Double Helix: Religion Requires Memory; Memory-Killing Drugs Inspire Big Questions

Double Helix: Religion Requires Memory; Memory-Killing Drugs Inspire Big Questions
By Arri Eisen
May 1, 2009

A host of experimental new drugs interfere with the process of creating memory, promising to help combat sufferers, addicts and others. But if memory is required for the creation of ethics (and religion) and indeed in the formation of who we are, what effect might these drugs have on our identities?
Magic bullet?

Surely you remember Total Recall, the hugely successful 1990 film starring California’s current governor and based on the great Philip K. Dick short story?

But what just happened when you tried to remember whether you remember it?

What if I could block that memory, or insert another one in its place (as happens in the story)?

Todd Sacktor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center is working on the most recent example of a drug that might have been plucked directly from science fiction. When he injects the drug into rats who have learned (that is, retained the memory) not to walk on a surface that gives them a mild shock, they turn right around and walk on it again.

Ethics=Memory?

I teach a class on bioethics to college students. We start the course with the simple question: What are we? Are we are genes? Our memories? A combination? It seems to me we are, in large part, our memories. Not just our individual memories, but also our cultural memories, and our species’ memories. In fact, one whole theory of the evolution of consciousness, by the engaging eccentric Julian Jaynes, posits memory as the initial font of consciousness and even of primitive religion.

Jaynes imagines a primitive tribe sitting around a fire. They have strong memories of warnings from their former leader, who recently died. It is dark, but the leader’s ideas—build a fire, stay together—still have power beyond his death. He is keeping them safe without his being present. Thus soweth the seeds of awareness and the power of things we cannot see or understand.

Whether you agree with Jaynes’ theories (which I’ve greatly simplified) or not, it’s clear that ethics—and its ritualized partner, religion—are significantly shaped and driven by memory: memories of how to do things, why we do or should do things, how those before us did them, how we felt when we did or did not do them.

This is a small excerpt from a longer article, which may be accessed by clicking on "external source."

Labels: ethics, Julian Jaynes, memories, religion, Todd Sacktor

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Young Americans Losing Their Religion

New Research Finds Number Who Claim No Church Has Risen Sharply
By DAN HARRIS
May 6, 2009

New research shows young Americans are dramatically less likely to go to church -- or to participate in any form of organized religion -- than their parents and grandparents.

"It's a huge change," says Harvard University professor Robert Putnam, who conducted the research.

Historically, the percentage of Americans who said they had no religious affiliation (pollsters refer to this group as the "nones") has been very small -- hovering between 5 percent and 10 percent. However, Putnam says the percentage of "nones" has now skyrocketed to between 30 percent and 40 percent among younger Americans.

Putnam calls this a "stunning development." He gave reporters a first glimpse of his data Tuesday at a conference on religion organized by the Pew Forum on Faith in Public Life.

The research will be included in a forthcoming book, called "American Grace."

This trend started in the 1990s and continues through today. It includes people in both Generation X and Y.

While these young "nones" may not belong to a church, they are not necessarily atheists.

"Many of them are people who would otherwise be in church," Putnam said. "They have the same attitidues and values as people who are in church, but they grew up in a period in which being religious meant being politically conservative, especially on social issues."

Putnam says that in the past two decades, many young people began to view organized religion as a source of "intolerance and rigidity and doctrinaire political views," and therefore stopped going to church.

This movement away from organized religion, says Putnam, may have enormous consequences for American culture and politics for years to come.

"That is the future of America," he says. "Their views and their habits religiously are going to persist and have a huge effect on the future."

This data is likely to reinvigorate an already heated debate about whether America is, or will continue to be, a "Christian nation." A recent Newsweek cover article, entitled "The End of Christian America" provoked responses from religious thinkers all over the spectrum.

This is the first of a two-page article. Click "external source" for complete article

Labels: Christianity, Dan Harris, religion, teenagers

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Friday, May 01, 2009

Q & A: Francis Collins

The former director of the Human Genome Project hopes to show compatibility between Christianity and science.
By Daniel Burke, Religion News Service
4/30/2009

A year after stepping down as director of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Francis Collins is embarking on a new venture, one that may be even harder than deciphering DNA.

Collin's new BioLogos Foundation, which launched on April 28, aims to be a bridge in the debate over science and religion and provide some answers to life's most difficult questions.

Please click on "external source" to read the answers to the following questions asked of Dr Collins

What led you to this new project?

Where does the name BioLogos come from?

What kind of answers will the Web site give?

What's the goal for this Web site and foundation?

Can you give an example of the kinds of questions the Web site will be addressing?

Is your target audience fellow evangelicals?

Is the site interactive in the sense that people can pose questions that will be answered?

What about other BioLogos projects?

Labels: Daniel Burke, Francis Collins, religion, science

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Survey: Half of U.S. adults have switched religions

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

About half of all Americans have switched religions at least once, according to the most in-depth survey on the topic, released Monday.

And that may still be "a conservative estimate," says Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Pew's new survey is based on re-contacting 2,800 people from its U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of 35,000 people, released last year. Pew estimated at the time that about 44% of Americans have changed religions. It now says between 47% and 59% have, if you count the millions who once switched but have returned to their childhood faith.

The Flux questionaire was conducted in English and Spanish between Oct. 3 and Nov 7. The findings are focused on Catholics, Protestants and the unaffiliated. There were too few converts to or from Mormonism, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and other religions to analyze their views, researchers said.

Both the original Religious Landscape Survey, and the new survey are snapshots in time, so it's not possible to tell whether America has always been a bubbling chemistry lab of religious change. But this is the first to spell out the switches in such detail, establishing a baseline to measure future changes, and potential problems.

Please click on "external link" for the entire article. This is only a small snapshot of the information contained in it.

Labels: Cathy Lynn Grossman, Flux, Luis Lugo, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, pew Religious Landscape Survey, religion

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Monday, April 27, 2009

Obama appoints The first Muslim American woman head of Gallup as advisor

Obama appoints The first Muslim American woman head of Gallup as advisor
Tuesday, 21 April 2009

The first Muslim woman appointed to a position in President Barack Obama’s administration met with lawmakers Monday and discussed her role on an interfaith advisory board the new administration hopes will broaden dialogue and understanding.

Dalia Mogahed’s dimpled smile shined from under her hijab, the Muslim headscarf, as she addressed senate staff and think tanks at a meeting organized by the Congressional Muslims Staffers Association to discuss American Muslim public opinion in the wake of a recent survey.

The Egyptian-born American who heads the Gallup American Center for Muslim Studies a non-governmental research center providing data-driven analysis on the views of Muslim populations around the world, became the first Muslim veiled woman to be appointed to a position in the White House.

"I am very honored to be given this opportunity to serve my country in this way," Mogahed, who will be Obama's window into the Muslim American community, told AlArabiya.net.

Last month, Obama signed an executive order setting up a new body at the White House called the “Office of Religious Partnerships” to support religious institutions and strengthen inter-faith dialogue and government ties. The advisory group, consisting of 25 religious and secular representatives, is to report to the president on the role religion can play in resolving social problems and addressing civil rights issues.

"The key idea of the council is to tap into the energy and wisdom of religious organisations and leaders who focus on faith groups to solve common problems," explained Mugahed.

Mogahed will brief Obama on what Muslims want from the U.S. in a bid to create channels of communication and correct erroneous image of Muslim Americans.

The advisory group will help define issues of concern to religious constituents including the effects of economic crisis on minority groups and the phenomenon of fatherless families. It will also seek to reduce the number of abortions and strengthen inter-faith relations between Muslims and Christians.

"The main premise behind the council is cooperation between faiths and helping them become a force that helps push society forward," said Mogahed. "These societal challenges are shared by all faith-based groups and it is our task to unite them against common challenges."

Mugahed will keep her full time job at Gallup while serving as an advisor.

Mogahed’s appointment comes at a critical time given the rising tide of Islamophobia in the media and within some academic circles.

Please click on "external source" to access the complete article

Labels: American Muslims, Dalia Mogahed, faith, Gallup American Center for Muslim Studies, interfaith, Office of Religious Partnerships, President Obama, religion

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The End of Christian America

The End of Christian America

The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become.

By Jon Meacham | NEWSWEEK
Published Apr 4, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Apr 13, 2009

It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earth—read over the document after its release in March, he was struck by a single sentence. For a believer like Mohler—a starched, unflinchingly conservative Christian, steeped in the theology of his particular province of the faith, devoted to producing ministers who will preach the inerrancy of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only means to eternal life—the central news of the survey was troubling enough: the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent. Then came the point he could not get out of his mind: while the unaffiliated have historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report said, "this pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified." As Mohler saw it, the historic foundation of America's religious culture was cracking.

"That really hit me hard," he told me last week. "The Northwest was never as religious, never as congregationalized, as the Northeast, which was the foundation, the home base, of American religion. To lose New England struck me as momentous." Turning the report over in his mind, Mohler posted a despairing online column on the eve of Holy Week lamenting the decline—and, by implication, the imminent fall—of an America shaped and suffused by Christianity. "A remarkable culture-shift has taken place around us," Mohler wrote. "The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture." When Mohler and I spoke in the days after he wrote this, he had grown even gloomier. "Clearly, there is a new narrative, a post-Christian narrative, that is animating large portions of this society," he said from his office on campus in Louisville, Ky.

There it was, an old term with new urgency: post-Christian. This is not to say that the Christian God is dead, but that he is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory. To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population.

According to the American Religious Identification Survey that got Mohler's attention, the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent. The Jewish population is 1.2 percent; the Muslim, 0.6 percent. A separate Pew Forum poll echoed the ARIS finding, reporting that the percentage of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith has doubled in recent years, to 16 percent; in terms of voting, this group grew from 5 percent in 1988 to 12 percent in 2008—roughly the same percentage of the electorate as African-Americans. (Seventy-five percent of unaffiliated voters chose Barack Obama, a Christian.) Meanwhile, the number of people willing to describe themselves as atheist or agnostic has increased about fourfold from 1990 to 2009, from 1 million to about 3.6 million. (That is about double the number of, say, Episcopalians in the United States.)

While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing—good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance. It is good for Christianity, too, in that many Christians are rediscovering the virtues of a separation of church and state that protects what Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious dissenters, called "the garden of the church" from "the wilderness of the world." As crucial as religion has been and is to the life of the nation, America's unifying force has never been a specific faith, but a commitment to freedom—not least freedom of conscience. At our best, we single religion out for neither particular help nor particular harm; we have historically treated faith-based arguments as one element among many in the republican sphere of debate and decision. The decline and fall of the modern religious right's notion of a Christian America creates a calmer political environment and, for many believers, may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life.

NB: This is only a small excerpt of a four-page article which can be accessed by clicking on "external source" at the bottom of this snippet.

Labels: ARIS, Christianity, culture, Jon Meacham, Newsweek magazine, politics, post-Christian, religion

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Book Review: Solution to "The God Wars" Found in Award-Winning Book

WEBWIRE – Saturday, April 18, 2009

RETURN TO MEANING: THE AMERICAN PSYCHE IN SEARCH OF ITS SOUL redefines religious meaning and its importance for a Scientific Age. (http://www.andrewcort.com)

"Renaissance man” Andrew Cort (science and mathematics teacher, attorney, and doctor of chiropractic), has written an inspirational and scholarly book that “rescues philosophy from the mathematicians, sex from the hedonists, religion from empty sanctimony, and science from barren materialism,” says George Gilder, noted social commentator.

If there is a God, and God is all-powerful and good, why would God create such a painful and difficult world? Does religion have a credible answer? Morality, as secularists know, does not require a deity. Blind faith, as atheists know, often leads to hatred and violence. Taking scriptural stories as literal accounts of history, as scientists know, borders on the nonsensical. There has to be more.

Please click on "external source" for complete article, and a link to the author's website.

Labels: Dr. Andrew Cort, God, philosophy, religion, science, soul

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Review: Teenagers more moral, less religious, says new survey

By Jim Coggins

This is the first of a two-page article. Please click on "external source" for complete article.

TEENAGERS are becoming more moral but less religious, according to a new study released by one of Canada's most respected sociologists.

The Emerging Millennials: How Canada's Newest Generation is Responding to Change & Choice is the title of the latest book by Reginald Bibby, a sociologist with the University of Lethbridge. It is based on a survey of 4,746 high school students aged 15 - 19 that he conducted in 2008.

Friendship and freedom

Asked what they found "very important," the Millennials -- as teenagers in this age bracket are called -- responded emphatically: friendship (86 percent) and freedom (85 percent). These values rated higher than a comfortable life (75 percent), a good education (73 percent), success (73 percent), family life (67 percent), money (44 percent), looks (40 percent) and popularity (16 percent). They also ranked much higher than did spirituality (27 percent) and involvement in a religious group (13 percent).

Along with these values, Millennials also demonstrated that they hold a number of "traditional" moral values. Eighty-four percent said trust is "very important," and 81 percent said honesty is. Millennials also value humour (75 percent), concern for others (65 percent), politeness (64 percent), forgiveness (60 percent) and working hard (55 percent).

Relativism rules

Nonetheless, almost two-thirds of Millennials said that "what's right or wrong is a matter of personal opinion." When asked what they based their own moral values on, 43 percent said "how I feel at the time," and seven percent said "a personal decision." Sixteen percent cited their parents' views, three percent said their friends, and only 10 percent based their moral decisions on "religion" -- slightly below the 12 percent who said their moral views were based on "nothing."

This, however, does not mean Millennials are not acting morally. From 2000 to 2008, the percentage of teens who drink alcohol declined from 78 percent to 71 percent, the percentage who smoke dropped from 37 percent to 22 percent, the percentage who use marijuana or hashish dropped from 37 percent to 31 percent, and the percentage who never have sex rose from 51 percent to 56 percent. In fact, the study claims, teens are having sex less frequently than seniors. The April 13 issue of Maclean's magazine responded to Bibby's findings by dubbing Millennials the "tame" generation.

Teens have not, however, fully embraced traditional values. Seventy-two percent of Millennials said they approved of sex before marriage "when people love each other"; but that is down from 82 percent in 2000 and 87 percent in 1992. Similarly, 44 percent approve of homosexual relations and accept them, and another 28 percent disapprove but accept them; however, that level is lower than the approval rate among Baby Boomers (people who were born between 1946 and 1965).

Who needs organized religion?

Millennials have inherited trends established by their grandparents and their parents -- particularly a trend away from organized religion.

In the 1950s, more than 60 percent of Canadians attended a Christian church weekly. In the 21st century, less than 30 percent do. Conservative Protestants (evangelicals, Baptists, Pentecostals, Mennonites, Christian Reformed, etc.) have held steady at about eight percent of the population; but there have been very significant declines among mainline Protestants (United, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Lutherans), and among Roman Catholics.

Labels: Canada, Jim Coggins, millennials, organized religion, Reginald Bibby, religion, teenagers

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God and the Multiverse

April 14, 2009, 6:14 am
God and the Multiverse

Please click on "external source" to access the original article in "Seed" magazine. Interesting juxtaposition with Urantia Book revelation.

Today’s idea: Multiverse?theory —?the idea that many universes lie beyond what we can observe — doesn’t really undermine the argument for God as creator as some Christian thinkers contend, scientists and theologians say.

Science and Religion | New “multiverse” theories challenge both humanity’s uniqueness and our central place in the cosmos, Nathan Schneider writes in Seed magazine — so it looks like they could join evolution as another battleground in the culture wars. Christian thinkers have criticized such ideas as “motivated by a refusal to accept evidence of God’s handiwork in the cosmos.”

But among scientists and theologians focused on multiverse theory, many believe that it simply expands the job description for God.

Labels: God, multiverse, religion, science, Seed

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Broken connection

Broken connection
Growing number of Christians claim no church affiliation
BY PAM THARP
APRIL 12, 2009

This is the first of a three-page article which is well worth reading. Please click on "external source" to access the complete piece.

Natasha Allen does not have a church she calls home, but she prays every night.

Allen is among a growing number of Americans this Easter with no religious affiliation, a group that's almost doubled in size during the past 18 years, from 8 to 15 percent, according to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) released last month. Fewer Americans also say they are Christians now than did in the 1990 survey.

And even though three-quarters of those polled still identify themselves as Christians, area pastors say the survey is an indicator of a church culture that's not fulfilling its God-given mission.

"Jesus gave us the blueprint and the church is not following it and the church is dying," said Pastor Ocie Poole of Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Richmond. "The imperative is to go and teach and the whole thing is driven by love, but too many believers won't do it and they're not concerned about the lost."

The church isn't reproducing itself because some Christian parents have failed to disciple their children in the faith, said Pastor Laura Altman of St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church in Richmond.

"Parents are letting children make their own decisions. Faith has to be taught," Altman said. "You don't get it by osmosis."

ARIS showed few gains in atheism, those who don't believe in God, said Liberty Church of Christ senior minister David Soper. It's the "nones," who have no connection to a church, that are most concerning, he said.

"The 'nones' are a growing trend," Soper said. "People know what the church is against and not what it's for. The church doesn't have good answers to people's problems and it's not addressing the problems they face.

"We've spent too much time in politics rather than living out our lives in Christ and in love. We need to focus on what the church was called to do: serve, love, teach and disciple. That's where the true influence lies."

Labels: ARIS, Christianity, church, Pam Tharp, religion

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Friday, April 17, 2009

Religion in America: A many splendored thing

By ARTURO MORA

Should America be guided by any specific religious viewpoint? You’d think the answer was obvious, considering the First Amendment.

Yet there are politicians and religious leaders who insist we are a Christian nation, and demand the majority religion should set the rules. They want it to dictate our laws, our education system, and even how we shop. (“There’s a “War on Christmas!” they complain.)

But are we a Christian nation?

The Pew survey also showed a lot of movement between religions. Americans are searching for meaning in their lives, and they care less about specific creeds or traditional faith lines.

For example, few in the survey said they were Buddhists. Yet mindfulness practice and meditation have grown beyond the fads they once were. Popular writers such as Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra and Thich Nhat Hanh mix Eastern and Western spiritual teachings. God, they say, is not Christian or Buddhist. God is just God.

So even if we were to agree Christianity should set the rules, whose Christianity would that be exactly?

Instead of claiming you’re oppressed, instead of yelling at one another, how about we talk to each other?

A relative of mine, a traditional Christian, called last year during a health crisis, and asked, “Have you thought that maybe the reason you got sick is you’re worshipping the wrong God?”

I explained the Buddha is not a God, and described what God meant to me. We talked for an hour about the role spirituality plays in our lives, and she directed me to a wonderful passage in Philippians (4:6-8), which helped me through my crisis. I go back to it often.

I’d love to have such discussions with many traditional Christians. If you see God and Jesus in a traditional way, or take the Bible as literal truth, I respect your beliefs.

Labels: America, Arturo Mora, Christianity, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, spirituality

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Religion Spirituality Theology Books

WEBWIRE – Friday, April 10, 2009

Dr. Andrew Cort, D.C., J.D., has launched a website, http://www.andrewcort.com, providing information on books and seminars, with free excerpts, customer reviews, and related articles, on the topics of Religion, Spirituality, Education, Science, Holistic Healing, and contemporary American Culture.

Regarding his own major work, ‘Return to Meaning: The American Psyche in Search of its Soul’, Rev. Janet McKinstry has written, “Cort demonstrates that all religious traditions have the common aim of teaching a method for enlightening our souls. When this shared noble purpose is understood, a sense of sacred meaning is restored to our lives and there is no further need for religious hatred and bigotry. All of this is made clear in a book that is entertaining, inspiring, beautifully written, and filled with amazing insights into biblical passages that have perplexed generations of scholars (I was especially moved by Cort’s exploration of the Feminine aspect of creation). His real genius is that he takes complex theology and explains it for the everyday reader.”

Labels: Dr. Andrew Cort, Janet McKinstry, religion, spirituality

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Friday, April 10, 2009

Youth Survey: Teens lose faith in droves

Youth Survey: Teens lose faith in droves

Islam and atheism are on the rise while Christianity fades

Teens lose faith in drovesEvery day, Mohamed Hadi wakes up before sunrise for morning prayer. The 19-year-old then boards a bus for the 90-minute ride from his home in Richmond, B.C., to the campus of Simon Fraser University, where he’s studying to become a physiotherapist. He’s involved in the Muslim Students’ Association, and with Rich in Faith, a Muslim youth group he founded that offers tutoring and mentoring services. Hadi’s a busy guy, yet he always finds time for his religion, including prayer five times a day. “It helps me stay composed,” he says, “and to maintain balance in my life.”

Such devotion is rare among teens these days—or at least, among those from Protestant and Catholic households. Just as the younger generation is abandoning the Christian faith, though, non-Western religions, such as Islam and Buddhism, are growing in Canada at a surprising speed. According to new data from Project Teen Canada, more teens now identify as Muslim than Anglican, United Church of Canada and Baptist combined. As a group, the percentage who adhere to so-called “other faiths”—including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism—has grown fivefold since Project Teen began its surveys in 1984, while the percentage of teens who identify as Roman Catholic has declined by one third, and the percentage who identify as Protestant is down by almost two-thirds.

A side effect of this trend is a hollowing-out of the religious middle ground in Canada. Reginald Bibby, the University of Lethbridge sociologist who heads up Project Teen, says the grey zone of those who believe in God, but don’t regularly practise an established religion, is rapidly emptying out, leaving behind two distinct camps: teens who are very religious and actively practise their religion, and those who don’t believe in God at all. “For years I have been saying that, for all the problems of organized religion in Canada, God has continued to do well in the polls,” Bibby writes in The Emerging Millennials, a new book based on Project Teen’s latest findings. “That’s no longer the case.”

The growth in popularity of faiths such as Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism can largely be attributed to immigration, Bibby says. Indeed, there are more new Canadians than ever—immigrants made up 20 per cent of the population in 2006, according to Statistics Canada, up from 16 per cent in 1981. And the majority of new Canadians now hail from the Middle East and Asia, whereas most came from Europe a decade before.

Foreign-born teens are more likely to be religious when they arrive, but whether that faith will persist over the coming generations remains to be seen. “Because these faith groups are so small, they often can’t hang on to their kids,” Bibby explains. “They have this maddening tendency to socialize with Protestant, Catholic, and ‘no religion’ friends, and marry out of their parents’ groups.” But immigration will continue to supply fresh believers, so it’s likely that their community support will grow too. That’s been Hadi’s experience. Amongst his friends, many of whom are Muslim, “we all know when it’s time to pray. If we forget, we’ll remind each other,” he says. “Community is an integral part of the equation.”

For Canada’s Christian teens, meanwhile, the community is shrinking like never before. Since 1984, the percentage of teens who call themselves Christian has almost been cut in half while the number who call themselves atheist has grown to 16 per cent, up from just six per cent in the mid-1980s. Just as the boomers shifted toward agnosticism, teens are now going a step further and rejecting religion entirely. “Belief is learned, pretty much like the multiplication table,” Bibby writes. “So is non-belief.”

Labels: belief, Buddhism, Canada, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Project Teen, religion, teenagers

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More Religious Countries, More Perceived Ethnic Intolerance

by Steve Crabtree and Brett Pelham

This is the second article in a two-part series on religiosity and community intolerance. The first article addressed religiosity and intolerance toward gays and lesbians.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gallup Polls conducted in 139 countries between 2006 and 2008 reveal that in countries where a higher percentage of citizens say religion is important in their daily lives people are also more likely to say that their communities are not good places for ethnic or racial minorities to live. However, this trend is not linear. Countries with average levels of religiosity -- comparatively speaking -- report about as much intolerance as the world's most religious countries.

"Religious" people in this analysis are defined as those who report that religion is important in their daily lives. Using the percentage of "religious" people in a given country, all 139 countries are divided into five groups, ranging from least to most religious.

Comparing Different Religious Groups

Despite the history of caste systems in some predominantly Hindu cultures, the Hindu American Foundation states, "While tolerance and pluralism are valued by many religions, these concepts are the very essence of Hinduism," and Gallup's findings suggest Hindus are generally true to their creed. It is also important to note that many Hindus do not consider caste to have much to do with race or ethnicity.

After Hindus, Christians are the religious group that reports the lowest level of ethnic intolerance in their communities. In fact, Christians report only slightly more ethnic and racial intolerance than do secularists. In contrast, those in other major faith traditions -- Muslims, Buddhists, and Jews -- are substantially more likely than are secularists to say that the places where they live are not good places for ethnic and racial minorities. Jews are more than twice as likely as secularists to report that their communities are not good places for ethnic and racial minorities.

Local Frictions Have Big Effects

To a great degree, differences among different faith traditions may have more to do with culture than with faith. That is, these group differences may reflect historical and political factors, such as long-standing conflict over territory, rather than religious ideology per se. A case in point involves Jews and Muslims living inside and outside Israel. A majority of Jews and nearly half of Muslims living in Israel say their neighborhoods are not good places for ethnic and racial minorities. Outside of Israel, however, only about one in three Muslims and about one in five Jews say the same thing.

Ethnic and Racial Intolerance and Individual Levels of Religiosity

It is also informative to look within each major faith tradition to compare those who do and do not say that religion is important in their daily lives. In most faith traditions, religious and less religious people report similar levels of intolerance.

The largest gap, at 10 percentage points, is among Buddhists. However, this difference is driven predominantly by the reports of Buddhists in only a few countries, most notably Vietnam and South Korea. In Japan and Cambodia, for example, it is less religious Buddhists who report more community intolerance. In short, this small average difference, even for Buddhists, varies widely across countries.

Why, then, is there a persistent belief among many that religiosity is associated with ethnic intolerance? Perhaps it's partly because there are specific religious sects in which this is more likely to be the case. For example, Gallup Polls taken in 26 countries (mostly in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union) asked respondents to say whether they thought of their religion as "the one true religion in the world," "one of a few true religions in the world," or "just one way, among many different religions." Among Christians and Muslims, those who say that their religion is the one true religion are the most likely to say their communities are not good for ethnic and racial minorities. In some cases then, exclusionary views of religion are accompanied by exclusionary views of race and ethnicity.

A Caveat: Individual Intolerance or Awareness of Discrimination?

It is a well-worn truism in research on discrimination and ethnic and racial intolerance that the answers one gets in a survey depend greatly on the precise questions one asks. This analysis focuses on a question that essentially asks people to serve as informants about their communities at large. Gallup might have observed different results if it had asked people, for instance, if they would prefer to have a member of a specific minority group as a neighbor.

A Glass of Intolerance: Mostly Empty?

Critics of religion have often noted that religion has historically played a major role in fueling and maintaining ethnic tensions. From the Crusades of the Middle Ages to the ancient tensions that flare daily in the Middle East, religion is certainly connected in some ways to ethnic tensions. This fact notwithstanding, the present findings suggest that most modern religious traditions seem to have made some progress, at least since the Middle Ages, in promoting ethnic understanding and cooperation. Although there are some connections between religiosity and ethnic and racial intolerance, these connections were generally small and inconsistent -- and certainly much smaller than the comparable effects that exist for religious intolerance of gays and lesbians.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone and face-to-face interviews conducted between 2006 and 2008 with about 1,000 adults in most countries (and a sample size range of 446 to 2,006). Confidence intervals vary widely based on the sample sizes of specific groups. However, for the results involving groups of countries that vary in religiosity level, confidence intervals were always less than +1 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Labels: Brett Pelham, ethnicity, Gallup Poll, religion, religiosity, religious intolerance, Steve Crabtree

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New Television-Web Series "Global Spirit" Explores Spirituality, Religion and the Science of Belief as Practiced Worldwide, premiering April 12 on Lin

New Television-Web Series "Global Spirit" Explores Spirituality, Religion and the Science of Belief as Practiced Worldwide, premiering April 12 on Link TV

Link TV presents the premiere of "Global Spirit," a nationally broadcast, pan-cultural television and web series that explores spiritual, psychological and scientific belief systems from around the world. Episodes explore the relationships between mind and spirit, science and metaphysics, and mental and physical well-being as approached by the world's ancient wisdom traditions and by modern science. "Global Spirit" is a unique 'internal travel' series that brings to light spiritual, mental and physical practices that help us to define who we are as human beings, our relationships to others -- and to the world at large. From the ecstatic state of the Turkish Whirling Dervishes, to new scientific understandings of Oneness and the interconnectedness of the universe, to the personal journeys of American veterans who return to Vietnam in search of forgiveness, "Global Spirit" explores mankind's deepest existential questions, tracing the human quest for truth and wisdom. Watch online at LinkTV.org/GlobalSpirit.

New York, NY (Billboard Publicity Wire/PRWEB ) April 6, 2009 -- A rally cry for change has been heard from Americans and people around the globe. The intense environment of conflict, fear and cultural misunderstanding of recent years has generated a yearning for a more interconnected, just and compassionate way of co-existing with our global neighbors. At the same time, we are perhaps seeking a deeper understanding of ourselves -- both as individuals and as a nation. In the midst of this burgeoning, collective reassessment, Link TV presents "Global Spirit," a nationally broadcast, pan-cultural television and web series that explores spiritual, psychological and scientific belief systems from around the world.

"Global Spirit" premieres on Sunday, April 12 at 6:00pm PT/9:00pm ET with its first original program "The Spiritual Quest," featuring acclaimed comparative religion author Karen Armstrong and professor of Buddhist studies Dr. Robert Thurman. Each week through June 14, "Global Spirit" will present the U.S. television premiere of a new program probing the trans-cultural dynamics of human inquiry. Link TV is available on DIRECTV channel 375 and Dish Network channel 9410 and on select cable stations. Programs will also be streamed in their entirety at LinkTV.org/GlobalSpirit.

For full episode descriptions and air dates, please visit our website.

Episodes explore the relationships between mind and spirit, science and metaphysics, and mental and physical well-being as approached by the world's ancient wisdom traditions and by modern science. "Global Spirit" is a unique 'internal travel' series that brings to light spiritual, mental and physical practices that help us to define who we are as human beings, our relationships to others -- and to the world at large.

From the ecstatic state of the Turkish Whirling Dervishes, to new scientific understandings of Oneness and the interconnectedness of the universe, to the personal journeys of American veterans who return to Vietnam in search of forgiveness, "Global Spirit" explores mankind's deepest existential questions, tracing the human quest for truth and wisdom.

The belief systems of many of our global neighbors lie beyond the purview of formalized religion, yet they have guided mankind through many millennia with highly evolved principles and philosophies. In August of 2005, the cover of Newsweek magazine announced the rise of spirituality in America. The issue explores how and why many Americans choose to seek spiritual experiences outside the norms of traditional church, mosque or synagogue settings. A poll conducted by Newsweek and Beliefnet found that new forms of religious experience and expression attract many Americans each year. The poll also found that 79% of those polled described themselves as "spiritual," and 70% of those polled said it was very important to them to practice their religion in order to find happiness and peace of mind. "Global Spirit" explores the emerging longing in the American psyche to explore the depths of human consciousness and the many faces of spirituality.

Rather than approaching global traditions from a detached, voyeuristic perspective, "Global Spirit" invites the viewer to test and participate in traditions as practiced by a wide range of peoples and spiritual leaders. By connecting and cross-pollinating the core concepts from the world's wisdom traditions, "Global Spirit" offers the curious viewer an exploration of new and ancient approaches to healing, forgiveness and self-knowledge. From the mystical to the religious, and from the psychological to the spiritual, "Global Spirit" offers a rich and thoughtful exploration of the world's many approaches to personal and collective well-being.

Each "Global Spirit" episode offers compelling film segments with original, on-location footage shot by the "Global Spirit" crew, together with engaging, in-depth conversations between host Phil Cousineau and a diverse set of experts such as Karen Armstrong, Dr. Robert Thurman, Deepak Chopra, Sobonfu Somé, Chief Oren Lyons, Azim Khamisa, Rev. Alan Jones, Joanne Shenandoah, Lama Lhanang Rinpoche, Robert Bly, Hamza El Din and Jai Uttal. Each week, "Global Spirit" will present a spectrum of new insights for understanding ourselves, our families, our communities, our planet -- and ultimately our place in the Cosmos.

Support for this series has been generously provided by The Kalliopeia Foundation, The Fetzer Institute, The Attar Supporting Organization, The Compton Foundation and Dreamcatchers.

Journalists may screen programs in advance at this link, please email Julia Panely-Pacetti for login information: Link TV Press Screening Room.

To access full "Global Spirit" episode descriptions, air dates, photography and press materials visit the: Link TV Press Room.

ABOUT LINK TV

Link TV is the nation's largest independent broadcaster, devoted to providing diverse global perspectives on news, current events and world culture not typically available on other U.S. networks. Link TV regularly airs a robust selection of award-winning films and documentaries that explore the human condition from different multi-cultural perspectives. Through its "Cinemondo" series, Link supports the essential cultural role of world cinema by helping Americans better understand what is happening in the world.

A pioneer in news and current affairs programming, Link TV has been recognized domestically and internationally for its original news programs including the Peabody Award-winning daily broadcast "Mosaic: News from the Middle East," which monitors and airs unedited selections of news reports from more than 30 Middle-Eastern broadcasters, and "Global Pulse," which compares and contrasts news reports from around the world on critical issues. Link also offers its viewers original, innovative participatory programs promoting national and global citizen action. Most of Link's programs are available nowhere else on American television.

Link TV is a nationwide television network available in more than 31 million U.S. homes as a basic service on DIRECTV channel 375 and DISH Network channel 9410. Select programs are shown on more than 50 urban cable systems, including New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Link TV's original programs, music videos, documentary clips and artist interviews are streamed on the Internet at LinkTV.org.

For complete background information, program schedule, and internet streaming, go to LinkTV.org.

Labels: belief, Global Spirit, Kalliopeia Foundation, Karen Armstrong, Link TV, religion, spirituality, web TV

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Half of Americans lack understanding of Islam: survey

Press Trust of India / Washington April 06, 2009

More than half of Americans lack a basic understanding of Islam, while a sizable number hold negative views about the world's second-largest religion.

Most Americans think President Obama's pledge to "seek a new way forward" with the Muslim world is an important goal, even as good amount of number say that even mainstream adherents to the religion encourage violence against non-Muslims, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey showed that 55 per cent of those polled said they are without a basic understanding of the teachings and beliefs of Islam, and most said they do not know anyone who is Muslim. While awareness has increased in recent years, underlying views have not improved.

About 48 per cent said they have an unfavourable view of Islam, the highest in polls since late 2001.

Nearly three in 10, or 29 per cent, said they see mainstream Islam as advocating violence against non-Muslims; although more, 58 per cent, said it is a peaceful religion.

Overall, nearly two-thirds said Obama will handle the diplomatic mission "about right". Nearly a quarter, though, said he will probably "go too far". Nine per cent said it is more likely he will not go far enough.

Republicans are also more apt than others to hold negative attitudes toward Islam, with six in 10 having unfavorable views, compared with about four in 10 for Democrats and independents.

Perceptions of Islam as a peaceful faith are the highest among non-religious Americans, with about two-thirds holding that view. Among Catholics, 60 per cent see mainstream Islam as a peaceful faith; it is 55 per cent among all Protestants, but drops to 48 per cent among white evangelical Protestants.

There are deep divisions in perceptions of Islam between younger and older Americans as well: More than six in 10 younger than 65 said Islam is a peaceful religion, but that drops to 39 per cent among seniors.

The Post-ABC poll was conducted by telephone March 26-29 among a national random sample of 1,000 adults. The results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

In his inaugural address, Obama extended an offer to leaders of unfriendly Muslim nations that the United States "will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."

Labels: Americans, Islam, polling, President Obama, religion, understanding

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Sunday, April 05, 2009

Smorgasbord religion on the grow throughout United States

Smorgasbord religion on the grow throughout United States E-mail
By Daniel Burke, Religion News Service
Published: April 03, 2009

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Friday afternoons find Ann Holmes Redding at the Al-Islam Center in Seattle, reciting Muslim prayers. Come Sunday, she heads about two miles south to kneel in the pews of St. Clement’s of Rome Episcopal Church.

“My experience and my call is to continue to follow Jesus,” said Redding, an Episcopal priest for the past 25 years, “even as I practice Islam.”

Redding insists she is both Christian and Muslim, fully following both faiths.

And for that, Redding expects to be defrocked by the Episcopal Church, which has warned the 57-year-old to renounce Islam or leave the priesthood.

Some Episcopalians are urging the church to take a similar stand against Kevin Thew Forrester, who was elected bishop of the sparsely populated Diocese of Northern Michigan in February. The only candidate on the ballot, Thew Forrester, 51, has practiced Zen meditation for a decade and received lay ordination from a Buddhist community.

Conservatives are outraged at the election of this “openly Buddhist bishop,” as they call him, charging him with syncretism—blending two faiths and dishonoring both.

The bishop-elect and the Lake Superior Zendo that ordained him say the angst is misplaced. The ordination simply honors his commitment to Zen meditation, they say. He took no Buddhist vows and professed no beliefs that contradict Christianity.

While people like Redding, who claim membership in two religions, are quite rare, scholars say the number of Americans who borrow bits from various traditions is multiplying.

Current sociological surveys, with their one-size-fits-all categories, don’t tell us exactly how many Americans hybridize their spiritual lives.

Sociologist Barry Kosmin, co-author of the recent, massive American Religious Identification Survey, said “the tendency of academics and everyone else is to try to disabuse them of this syncretism.”

For sure, “syncretism” is a dirty word to many Western monotheists; in Asia, “multiple religious belonging,” as scholars call it, is common.

Kendall Harmon, an Episcopal theologian from South Carolina, argues that Thew Forrester is a greater threat to his church than the openly gay bishop whose 2003 election has led four dioceses to secede.

The store, in this metaphor, is that big ice-cream parlor in the sky.

Fewer than three in 10 Americans claim their religion is “the one, true faith leading to eternal life,” according to data from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, and 44 percent say they’ve switched religious affiliations since childhood.

At the same time, traditional religious boundaries are falling and interfaith marriages are rising, meaning Americans increasingly are likely to attend a grandmother’s church funeral and a cousin’s bar mitzvah.

It’s little surprise then, that people who pledge allegiance to two traditions are proliferating.

John Berthrong, a Boston University scholar whose book, The Divine Deli, explores multiple religious belonging, said: “While churches are still having formal discussions about religious pluralism, the laity has bolted down the street to a Buddhist temple where they’re learning meditation.”

Sometimes those temples house Catholic nuns like Sister Rose Mary Dougherty, who leads a multifaith group of Zen students in Silver Spring, Md.

A nun for 50 years, Dougherty also is a sensei in the White Plum Lineage of Zen Buddhism, meaning she is entrusted to teach meditation to others.

Like many Christians who practice Zen, she uses its meditation techniques to clear the mind and focus on the present moment, but she doesn’t consider herself a Buddhist.

Labels: Buddhism, Christian, Daniel Burke, Episcopalians, Islam, religion, syncretism

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Friday, March 27, 2009

Obama Walks Religious Tightrope Spanning Faithful, Nonbelievers

By LAURA MECKLER

WASHINGTON -- In the early days of his administration, President Barack Obama has developed an unusual pattern as he talks about religion: He regularly puts nonbelievers on the same footing as religious Americans.

It is a rare gesture for a U.S. political leader. But what makes Mr. Obama's outreach especially remarkable is that it is accompanied by public displays of faith that sometimes go beyond even those of his religiously oriented predecessor in the White House.

Mr. Obama speaks easily about his own faith. White House events, even those without a religious theme, often begin with a prayer. And the president said he would expand President George W. Bush's outreach to faith-based organizations.

At the same time, he has taken a series of policy steps that are troubling to religious conservatives, and pledged that decisions in his administration would be governed by science. He reversed Bush policies on funding for international family-planning groups and stem-cell research, and he has moved to rescind regulations that allow health-care workers to opt out of duties that offend their beliefs.

Mr. Obama acknowledged nonbelievers on the campaign trail last year, and, notably, in his inaugural address, where he said: "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers."

While nonbelievers welcomed Mr. Obama's recognition, the move could make some people uneasy. Americans are less comfortable with atheists than they are with many other minority groups, according to a 2006 University of Minnesota study. Nearly half of those surveyed said they would disapprove if their child wanted to marry an atheist, versus a third who said the same of a Muslim. People were more accepting of homosexuals, conservative Christians, immigrants, Hispanics and Jews.

A 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, conducted by Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., found that 15% of Americans are unaffiliated with any religion, up from 8.2% in 1990. In 2008, only 0.7% identified themselves as atheists and 0.9% said they are agnostic.

Mr. Obama isn't the first president to acknowledge nonbelievers. When running for re-election, Bill Clinton spoke of the U.S. having more religious freedom than any other country in the world, "including the freedom not to believe." At the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast, George W. Bush recognized those with "no faith at all" among Americans of varying religions.

But Mr. Obama's frequent mentions of nonbelievers stand out, said Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist who studies religion and culture. In some ways, says Mr. Lindsay, it represents the continuation of a pattern in American public discourse. "The last 50 years has been a gradual evolving notion of what constitutes religious diversity," he said. First, he said, Jews were included. Later, after immigration increased from Asia in the 1960s, politicians began mentioning Buddhism and Hinduism. But rarely have atheists been included, he said.

Part of the explanation for Mr. Obama's references also may lie with his own story. He wasn't raised religious and only became a Christian as an adult, when working with churches as an organizer in Chicago.

"I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist; and grandparents who were nonpracticing Methodists and Baptists; and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion, even though she was the kindest, most spiritual person I've ever known," he said at National Prayer Breakfast in February. "She was the one who taught me as a child to love and to understand and to do unto others as I would want done."

Labels: faith, freedom, non-believer, President Obama, religion

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Here's the steeple. Open the door. Where are all the people?

Elizabeth Scarinci
3/19/09

This page one of three. Please click on "external source" for complete article.

The steeple of the Congregational Church of Middlebury is the most defining characteristic of the town's skyline. But despite the steeples that dominate many Vermont towns, religion is a declining landmark of the state. The most recent American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), released March 9, showed that a record 34 percent of Vermonters claim no religious affiliation, making Vermont the most secular state in the country, followed by New Hampshire and Maine.

The Program on Public Values at Trinity College recently conducted the last of three surveys from 1990 to 2008. On a national level, Americans who claim no religion almost doubled from 1990 to 2008. In 1990, 8.2 percent claimed no religion, which spiked to 14.2 percent in 2001 and is now at 15 percent. The number of people answering "None" grew in every state.

Vermont's status as the leader of "Nones" is an issue that Vermonters themselves can unfurl. Professor Larry Yarbrough, chair of the Religion department at the College, speculates that part of the reason is that Vermonters are independent and freethinking.

"For the most part, they are not susceptible to be led one way or another, and that definitely comes in [to play]," Yarbrough said.

Anne Brown, communication director of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont, said that religious institutions could be better communicating their missions and relating them better to Vermonters' lives.

"I think this is a response to the failure of the institutional religious bodies to respond in a creative and helpful way to the search for meaning," Brown said. "We have often been more focused on maintaining tradition than on meeting people where they are with something that works for them."

Yarbrough said he would be interested in a survey that asked the people who claim no religion if they were spiritual but just did not associate with an organized religion. He speculates that many Vermonters who find themselves spiritual would say that they can encounter God in nature.

Labels: ARIS, Elizabeth Scarinci, nature, religion, Vermont

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Friday, March 20, 2009

Religion and economics during hard times

Mar 17, 2009

-- Martin E. Marty

Virtually every church newsletter, denominational website, religious periodical, or other medium, disseminated in print or electronically, makes some reference to the economic situation in which all classes of Americans find themselves today. Local congregations' offers of spiritual sustenance, community-sharing burdens, and hopes are still among the main and best things they do, as well as providing counseling, tips, and sometimes guidance to non-church organizations and experts who may be of help. These concern issues of joblessness, home foreclosures, and other devastating realities of 2009.

It is too soon to know how this recession-depression will work out for religious institutions and ideas. While watching and waiting, I decided to do what so many do: compare today to the Great Depression of the 1930s. I had explored religious roles and responses in my The Noise of Conflict: 1919-1941, the second volume in my Modern American Religion (University of Chicago, 1991). If we repeat in any way -- but who says we will, or must? -- what happened then, there is not a lot of cheer to be spread. I particularly relied on Samuel C. Kincheloe's 1937 Research Memorandum on Religion in the Depression, an extensive, judicious, realistic survey done for the Social Science Research Council by a Chicago Theological Seminary (then Congregational) professor. Like so many other secular and mainstream Protestant analysts, he did not pay much attention to what was prospering when nothing else was: fundamentalism.

Some leaders hoped and prayed for religious revivals, none of which erupted. "There has been much emphasis on the belief that what society needs is religion," Kincheloe reported, and I observed, "but society evidently did not think so." Money problems limited church efforts to serve the poor, whose numbers grew exponentially. At the same time, deep believers within all congregations and denominatins "did not fall away from faith merely because of economic trauma." The Christian Century editorialized, with a view on the past: "Did people not address this Depression religiously because for once they did not think it occurred under the providence of God?" The editorial conclusion: this may have been "the first time men have not blamed God for hard times." If that was true in 1935, it seems to be true today, too. There are accusers, accused, and commentators on all hands today, but one seldom hears that all the dealings, many of them now seen as greedy at best and criminal at worst, were anything but the results of individual and corporate folly and corruption. This time again, citizens can't blame God for getting them into this, and are trying to find God-ly ways to get out of it...together.

Labels: Great Depression, Martin Marty, recession, religion, the economy

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French Physicist Wins Templeton Religion Prize

By Ethan Cole
Christian Post Reporter
Mon, Mar. 16 2009

A French physicist and philosopher of science is the winner of the 2009 Templeton Prize for religion, the largest annual religion prize given to an individual, the foundation announced on Monday.

Bernard d’Espagnat, 87, will receive the $1.42 million prize for his work in quantum physics that shows the limits of knowable science and affirms a reality that can be explained through spirituality and art, according to Reuters.

D’Espagnat said in prepared remarks that he is “convinced that those among our contemporaries who believe in a spiritual dimension of existence and live up to it are, when all is said, fully right,” according to The Associated Press.

The John Templeton Foundation announced the prize at a news conference held at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris.

“[D’Espagnat has] explored the unlimited, the openings that new scientific discoveries offer in pure knowledge and in questions that go to the very heart of our existence and humanity,” said John Templeton, Jr., president of the foundation, at the ceremony.

Through his work, the physicist counters classical physics pioneered by Isaac Newton that says the world can be explained through laws of nature. Quantum physics, he argues, shows that tiny particles defy the laws of physics and act in unpredictable ways.

"Materialists consider that we are explained entirely by combinations of small uninteresting things like atoms or quarks," said d'Espagnat, who was raised Roman Catholic but now considers himself instead a spiritualist, in an interview with Reuters on Friday.

"I believe we ultimately come from a superior entity to which awe and respect is due and which we shouldn't try to approach by trying to conceptualize too much," he said. "It's more a question of feeling."

D’Espagnat will receive the prize May 5 in a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace in London, according to AP.

Previous winners of the prize include American evangelist Billy Graham, Roman Catholic humanitarian Mother Teresa, and Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

The Templeton Prize was established in 1972 by global investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton. The prize, given by Pennsylvanian-based Templeton Foundation, seeks to support scientific research that contributes to the “Big Questions” of science, religion, and human purposes. Each year, the Templeton Prize, which exceeds the monetary value of the Nobel Prizes, is presented in London.

Labels: Bernard d’Espagnat, Ethan Cole, quantum physics, religion, spirituality, Templeton Prize

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Worldly religions find their way to Franklin

By VICTORIA GRAY
Sunday, March 15, 2009

FRANKLIN — Those interested in learning about world religions don't need to go to Harvard Divinity School, or even a closer university or college. They only have to go as far as West Main Street, where a series of interfaith dialogues begins today at Franklin Congregational Christian Church.

Rev. Jeff Stevens, pastor, said as part of the church's adult education program he has invited speakers representing various religions and members of the public to participate in these discussions.

The first of these dialogues is today at the church hall at 1 p.m. and features Mohamed Ebrahim, PhD, an Imam and director of the Dover-based Islamic Society of the Seacoast Area, as the guest speaker.

The next discussion is scheduled for Thursday, March 19, when Manitonquat, an elder of the Assonet Band of the Wampanoag Nation, will speak about his culture's spiritual traditions.

Manitonquat, whose name translates to Medicine Story, is a counselor and lecturer with a Ph.D. in Religious Counseling. He is a retired ceremonial leader and is currently involved in a prison spirituality program in New England, including at the Concord State Prison for Men.

Manitonquat, who lives in Greenville, said he is looking foward to Thursday's discussion in Franklin.

"I'm always interested in interfaith dialogues," Manitonquat said. "It's very exciting for me to connect with people from various faiths and talk to them about Native American spiritual beliefs."

He added that Native American spiritual beliefs do not constitute a religion or religions and that there are many different traditions among the various tribal councils and nations in North America.

One universal belief is that of respect — that everything in creation, including every person, deserves respect.

He said that, in his prison programs, this concept resonates with inmates, many of whom have neither been given nor seen examples of respect in their lives before.

The next common belief is in "the primacy of the circle as the form in which people should gather together."

The circle, also an important symbol of the life and death cycle, symbolizes the equality of members in gatherings, as there is no head or end.

The third belief is one of continually thanking the spirit and natural world.

Manitonquat has written a book that is soon to be published, called "The Original Instructions," which he said is based "on a lifetime of listening to elders and trying to figure things out."

He said the title comes from a frequent answer elders gave when he asked, "What is wrong with human beings today?"

The answer he often got was "They have forgotten the original instructions."

Manitonquat says this means that the earliest inhabitants of world, including on the North American continent, lived more in harmony with the natural and spiritual world than people do today.

He said since Europeans settled the continent it has been their religions and spiritual traditions that have dominated and been propagated.

"No one really understands the wealth of spiritual understanding that existed here before," Manitonquat said.

Stevens said that, as the population in New Hampshire becomes more diverse, it is increasingly important that people learn about and respect each other's cultural, spiritual and ethnic backgrounds.

He added that there is a Buddhist population in the state and a growing number of Sikhs and members of the Bahá'í faith.

Sikhism is a religion that formed in India approximately 500 years ago. Followers believe in a single, formless God who can be known through deep meditation. They believe in samsara, karma and reincarnation as Hindus do, but reject the caste system.

Stevens has been pastor at the church since December 2007.

Originally from Williamstown in Western Massachusetts, Stevens received a master's degree from Harvard Divinity School and has always been interested in world religions.

He said one of the professors at the school, Diana Eck, started and still directs the "Pluralism Project," which began in 1991 to explore America's changing religious landscape. The project has recorded the growth of religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism and Zoroastrianism in the U.S. as a new wave of immigration that began 30 to 40 years ago continues.

"The Lakes Region is sort of on the edge of the movement toward more religious diversity, this wave of great change," Stevens said.

He said he is excited that the first speaker will be discussing Islam, as he worked with Muslim (followers of Islam) communities in the greater Boston area while at Harvard.

Stevens said despite the substantial Muslim population in the U.S., many people still know little about Islam, though the religion, along with Judaism, shares some of the same history as Christianity.

He noted that Thomas Aquinas, in the 1100s, wrote a letter to Christians, Jewish people and Muslims about the things their religions shared in common.

Islam began in the Middle East more than 1,400 years ago and is the second largest religion in the world with more than 1 billion followers. The word Islam means "submission to the will of God (Allah in Arabic)".

Muslims believe there is only one God and that God sent a number of prophets to humanity to teach them how to live, including Jesus, Moses and Abraham.

The final Prophet was Muhammad, who Muslims believe most perfectly delivered God's message, therefore they follow his example (called the Sunnah) and base their laws on the holy book, the Qur'an.

The five basic Pillars of Islam are a declaration of faith, praying, fasting, charity and undertaking a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in one's lifetime.

The Islamic Society of the Seacoast Area is located in Dover and serves more than 300 Muslim families in coastal communities in New Hampshire and Southeastern Maine.

...Amala Dharmacharini, program director of the Aryaloka Buddhist Retreat Center, will lead a discussion on Buddhism.

Buddhism developed out of the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama who, in 535 BCE, reached enlightenment and assumed the title of Buddha.

He promoted 'The Middle Way' as the path to enlightenment rather than the extremes of mortification of the flesh or hedonism. Buddhists believe in reincarnation and that, after many lives, a person can attain nirvana by releasing their attachment to desire and the self.

Stevens said he also is working on booking a speaker from the Bahá'í Faith, a faith that arose from Islam in the 1800s. Bahá'í beliefs promote gender and race equality, freedom of expression and assembly, world peace and world government.

Other speakers may include representatives from neopagan traditions and from the Jainist religion.

Jainism is one of the oldest religions in India and its followers believe that the way to true bliss is through lives of harmlessness and renunciation. Followers believe every living thing in the universe is sacred and has a soul. Because of this, they follow a strict vegetarian diet and live in a way that minimizes their impact on the environment.

Labels: Bahá'í, Buddhism, Christianity, God, interfaith, Islam, Jainism, Native American Church, Pluralism Project, religion, Sikhism, Victoria Gray

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Religious Thoughts and Feelings Not Limited to One Part of Brain

By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: March 9, 2009

Brain researchers trying to understand the neural basis of religious belief have concluded that the brain has no special region or network for this task. Rather, it depends on general networks that exist for other purposes.

A team led by Dr. Jordan Grafman of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke questioned volunteers about their religious beliefs while monitoring the blood flow in their brains with a scanning machine. Extra blood flow is assumed to reflect the activity of neurons in a specific region of the brain.

Different networks of neurons sprang into action when subjects were asked their view of three sets of statements about the religious beliefs, Dr. Grafman and colleagues report in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In all three cases the neural activity in the subjects’ brains corresponded to brain networks known to have other, nonreligious functions. These include the theory of mind networks, used to predict other people’s intentions.

Dr. Andrew Newberg, director of the Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania, said Dr. Grafman’s findings were in line with other research that has so far failed to find any specific structure in the brain that is dedicated to religious belief. “Religion has so many different aspects that it would be very unlikely to find one spot in the brain where religion and God reside,” Dr. Newberg said.

But he expressed doubt as to whether the biological correlates of religious belief, as visualized in brain scans like those taken by Dr. Grafman, in fact captured all of what religion is. “There may be other elements that science is not capable of measuring,” Dr. Newberg said.

In his own work Dr. Newberg looks at subjects undergoing religious experiences, like speaking in tongues or meditating. In “How God Changes Your Brain,” a book being published later this month, Dr. Newberg reports that certain regions of subjects’ brains have enlarged areas of neural activation after many months of intensive meditation.

He questioned whether asking subjects questions about religion when they were not in a religious frame of mind would capture much of interest about religious belief.

Dr. Grafman said that religious cohesion for a common purpose, and the ability to infer what others are thinking, would each have been favored by evolution, along with the theory of mind networks that serves both systems.

Labels: belief, brain, God, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Nicholas Wade, religion, science

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Most religious groups in USA have lost ground, survey finds

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers.

The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely.

These dramatic shifts in just 18 years are detailed in the new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), to be released today. It finds that, despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.

"More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, 'I'm everything. I'm nothing. I believe in myself,' " says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author.

This is a lengthy article, complete with inter-active graphics and charts - worthwhile exploring. In addition, the following topics are covered: "Religion as a hobby," Social mobility a factor," and "Religious movement in the USA"
Please click on "external source for complete access.

Labels: America, Cathy Lynn Grossman, religion

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New Study Reveals Sources of Resilience and Strength for Black Girls in New York City

March 7, 2009

New Study Reveals Sources of Resilience and Strength for Black Girls in New York City

Black Girls Face Hardships and Challenges

A new and unique report, Black Girls in New York City: Untold Strength and Resilience, was released by the Black Women for Black Girls Giving Circle (BWBG), a funding initiative of The Twenty-First Century Foundation, and the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR). A key finding in the report is that the impact of poverty is especially acute in the lives of Black girls. Approximately three-quarters of the girls in the study live in low-income communities and households. Importantly, the report also explores the positive influences in Black girls' lives. It finds that girls who highly valued spirituality also tended to have an excellent relationship with their primary caretaker. Likewise, those who possessed a strong sense of racial identity were more likely than other girls to be happy on typical day, to receive better grades, to want a college education and believe in their ability to reach their goals.

New York, NY (PRWEB) March 7, 2009 -- A new and unique report, Black Girls in New York City: Untold Strength and Resilience, was released by the Black Women for Black Girls Giving Circle (BWBG), a funding initiative of The Twenty-First Century Foundation, and the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR). The report, commissioned by BWBG from IWPR pairs analysis of original data collected through written surveys and focus groups with a review of existing literature to provide an in-depth examination into the lives of Black girls living within the city of New York.

The report finds that the impact of poverty is especially acute in the lives of Black girls. Approximately three-quarters of the girls in the study live in low-income communities and households.

"Like all Black children, Black girls are at increased risk of living a life of poverty. But poverty plays out in the lives of Black girls in very distinct ways," remarked report author, Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeever, affiliate scholar of IWPR and Director of the Research, Public Policy and Information Center for African American Women at the National Council of Negro Women.

"Our surveys and conversations with adolescent Black girls in New York City show that many of the girls are at an increased risk of violence because of the economic situation of their families and economic conditions of their communities," emphasized Dr. Jones-DeWeever. "For far too many of the girls in our study, poverty truncates their childhood experience."

Most survey respondents indicated that they worry about their personal safety. Among those who feel unsafe at home, most attribute their uneasiness to drug activity in their community as well as the prevalence of violent crime, fights, and gang activity. Black girls most often indicated that they felt unsafe due to frequent fights at school.

The study also examines issues of self-esteem for Black girls, a group often considered immune to the impacts of mainstream culture on body image and self-confidence. While most of the Black girls in this study seemed largely satisfied with themselves, one-fifth indicated, that if given the opportunity, they would change their bodies in some way. A few expressed keen sensitivity to issues of skin tone. Some were teased harshly for being "too Black." Others even expressed a desire for skin bleaching; and in at least one instance, that ultimate desire was not just to become lighter, but instead, to become white.

Importantly, the report also explores the positive influences in Black girls' lives. It finds that girls who highly valued spirituality also tended to have an excellent relationship with their primary caretaker. Likewise, those who possessed a strong sense of racial identity were more likely than other girls to be happy on typical day, to receive better grades, to want a college education and believe in their ability to reach their goals, and when involved in intimate relationships, to engage in self-protective behavior by insisting upon condom usage.

Please click on "external source" to access the entire article, and the study.

Labels: African-Americans, BWBG, girls, IWPR, poverty, religion, spirituality

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Religion Reduces Anxiety—A Matter of Faith or Fact?

March 06, 2009
by Rachel Balik

This article reference a number of studies, and provides links for further exploration of this most interesting topic.

Two studies show that the brains of religious people have less intense responses to error, suggesting that faith in God can reduce anxiety.

God on the Brain

Many previous studies have tried to determine whether religion has a positive effect on mental health. In February 2008, the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion and the Centre for Anthropology and Mind at Oxford began a three-year study to develop a scientific understanding of why humans believe in God. Researchers will look for evidence that faith in God is a desirable evolutionary trait, and attempt to discover what aspects of religion can be attributed to nature, and which must be taught.

Psychologists compared a group of students trained for a month in mindfulness meditation with another that was taught somatic relaxation. Both techniques reduced stress, but meditation was more effective at reducing “distractive and ruminative thoughts and behaviors,” indicating that it offered a “unique” method for minimizing distress.

Mindful meditation has also been found to alter the structure and functioning of monks’ brains, The Wall Street Journal reported in 2004. Five neuroscientists visited the Dalai Lama to explore neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to rewire itself) and its relation to meditation. The brains of novice and experienced monks were scanned as they meditated; the experienced monks showed a significantly higher level of gamma waves, a type of brain activity that plays a key role in consciousness.

Religion’s effect on the brain has yet to be fully assessed. However, research suggests that incorporating spirituality into children’s lives can help them navigate the difficult choices of adolescence. Several studies have shown that children raised with a spiritual or religious tradition are less likely to make poor choices about drugs and alcohol.

And in hard times, many find comfort in religion. In September, as the foundation of Wall Street began to crumble, many financiers turned to God and organized religion for support. Churches and synagogues throughout New York City reported a higher number of congregants in business suits.

Labels: believers, God, meditation, mental health, Rachel Balik, religion, science, Stroop

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Coaches walk fine line on praying with students

Published on Friday, March 06, 2009
By Jesse J. Holland
The Associated Press
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WASHINGTON — Coach Marcus Borden used to bow his head and drop to one knee when his football team prayed. But the Supreme Court on Monday ended the practice when it refused to hear the high school coach’s appeal of a school district ban on employees joining a student-led prayer.

“We’ve become so politically correct in terms of how we deal with religion that it’s being pretty severely limited in schools right now, and individuals suffer,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties organization that focuses on First Amendment and religious freedom issues.

But Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said some parents had complained about Borden leading prayers before the East Brunswick, N.J., school district ordered him to stop and banned all staff members from joining in student-led prayer.

“The bottom line is people in positions of authority, like a coach, have to be extremely careful about trying to promote their ideas, or implying that if you don’t pray, you may not play,” Lynn said.

The high court without comment refused to reconsider the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision upholding the ban.

The district established the ban in 2005 after parents complained about Borden, coach at East Brunswick High School since 1983, sometimes leading prayers at the Friday afternoon team pasta dinner or in the locker room before games.

Judge D. Michael Fisher, writing for the Philadelphia appeals court, said Borden’s past action of leading the prayers made his head-bowing seem inappropriate. “A reasonable observer would conclude that he is continuing to endorse religion when he bows his head during the pre-meal grace and takes a knee with his team in the locker room while they pray,” Fisher said.

School employees should avoid looking like they’re endorsing religion in any way, said Lynn, whose group represented the school district.

The Supreme Court ended school-sponsored prayer in 1962 when it said that directing that a prayer be said at the beginning of each school day was a violation of the First Amendment. The justices reaffirmed the decision in 2000 by saying a Texas school district was giving the impression of prayer sponsorship by letting students use loudspeakers under the direction of a faculty member for prayers before sporting events.

Labels: Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Jesse J. Holland, prayer, religion, sports, supreme court

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Friday, March 06, 2009

How Science Fiction Found Religion

Benjamin A. Plotinsky

Once overtly political, the genre increasingly employs Christian allegory.

There is a young man, different from other young men. Ancient prophecies foretell his coming, and he performs miraculous feats. Eventually, confronted by his enemies, he must sacrifice his own life—an act that saves mankind from calamity—but in a mystery as great as that of his origin, he is reborn, to preside in glory over a world redeemed. Tell this story to one of the world’s 2 billion Christians, and he’ll recognize it instantly. Tell it to a science-fiction and fantasy fan, and he’ll ask why you’re making minor alterations to the plot of The Matrix or Superman Returns. For reasons that have as much to do with global politics as with our cultural moment, some of this generation’s most successful sci-fi and fantasy movie franchises follow an essentially Christian plotline.

Hallelujah!” cries a minor character early in The Matrix, the 1999 cyberpunk flick, directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, that took the nation by storm and, together with its two sequels, raked in about $600 million domestically. “You’re my savior, man, my own personal Jesus Christ.” The character is addressing Thomas Anderson, a restless computer hacker, played by Keanu Reeves, who goes by the handle “Neo” and has sold him some precious illegal software. It’s just one of the movie’s many references to its central inspiration. Neo, we learn eventually, is in fact a nearly divine savior, the Jesus Christ of the bizarre world in which he lives.

Anderson doesn’t realize it yet, however. First, a mysterious man named Morpheus must contact him, conveying a shocking truth: the universe isn’t real but is actually a “Matrix”—a “neural interactive simulation,” a “computer-generated dreamworld”—and the year isn’t 1999 but something like 2199. Early in the twenty-first century, Morpheus explains, human beings and intelligent machines went to war against one another. The machines, seeking a constant source of bioelectrical energy, started to breed people and use them as human generators, keeping them in little cells but convincing them, through illusion-conveying cables attached to their brains, that they still lived in an ordinary world. “You are a slave, Neo,” Morpheus says. “Like everyone else, you were born into bondage.”

Yet escape from bondage is possible. “When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit,” Morpheus tells Neo. “It was he who freed the first of us, taught us the truth. . . . After he died, the Oracle prophesied his return—that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix, end the war, bring freedom to our people.” Is Neo this reincarnated savior—the “One” whom Morpheus and his fellow rebels await? We don’t know until near the movie’s end, when a comrade-in-arms betrays Neo and Morpheus. Neo chooses to save Morpheus’s life by surrendering his own. The machines kill him—but then he mysteriously returns to life and obliterates his enemies, to the grand accompaniment of trumpets and a choir. He is indeed the One.

It takes no great perception to recognize how closely this plot tracks the basic Christian narrative, though it conflates the Passion with the End Days, adding the betrayal of a Judas to a messianic Second Coming. Neo’s very name isn’t just an anagram of “One” but also a prefix meaning “new,” a word with important Christian overtones: Jesus is a “new man,” we read in Ephesians 2:15, who says that he brings a new testament.

This is just the beginning of a very interesting and readable article about science fiction and religious influence. Cited are "Superman," and "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," among others...Please click on "external source" for complete article.

Labels: Benjamin A. Plotinsky, religion, science fiction

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Religion may keep believers from losing their cool: study

'Opiate of the masses?'

Charles Lewis, National Post
Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Religion may or may not be the opiate of the masses but a new study says it may keep believers from losing their cool when things go wrong.

"These results suggest that religious conviction provides a framework for understanding and acting within one's environment, thereby acting as a buffer against anxiety and minimizing the experience of error," said the study published in the journal Psychological Science.

Led by Michael Inzlicht, a University of Toronto psychology professor, researchers measured activity in the part of the brain - the anterior cingulate cortex - that is important for self control and acts as a warning signal that a mistake is being made.

"It acts as a cortical alarm bell," said Prof. Inzlicht. "And the finding is that the more people believe in God the less the cortical alarm bell rings."

Those with the deepest religious belief were more likely to let mistakes roll off their backs, while those who tend toward atheism were more likely to suffer stress and anxiety after committing an error.

To test stress levels, he and his co-researchers used a "Stroop task." In it, subjects have a series words flashed in front of them. But they are told not to read the word but the colour of the word. For example, the word might be "blue" but if coloured red, the correct answer is red.

"It's difficult to do when the word and colour mismatch," said Prof. Inzlicht.

He said it is possible that a lack of anxiety may not be a good thing, as it may cause a more lackadaisical attitude.

"Anxiety can be beneficial," he said. "It gets you motivated, activated to perform at your best level. But if you're too anxious, your performance is going suffer. You're going to over analyze and think too much. What may be happening is that people with religion have a more optimal level of anxiety."

The study was not meant to argue for or against the existence of a higher being, Prof. Inzlicht said.

"Whether God is real or not is irrelevant to this study."

He called the study "statistically significant," meaning that the results should be repeatable in similar experiments and could act as a predictor to how people might react to real-world stress situations, such as today's crumbling stock markets. Prof. Inzlicht also said that no atheist in the study showed low anxiety and no religious person showed high anxiety.

Two separate studies were done and both showed the same results.

He said initially they were simply trying to understand what factors would activate these brain waves, not investigate religious belief.

At first, they asked people to describe themselves as being liberal or conservative. Then they asked others to describe their level of self-esteem. Neither of those parameters helped predict brain wave activity. It was only when they started asking about a belief in God and religiosity that a pattern developed.

Labels: anxiety, Charles Lewis, Psychological Science, religion

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Questions Raised Anew About Religion in Military

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: February 28, 2009

Page one of a two-page article. Please click on "external source" for complete article

WASHINGTON — Terry Bradshaw stared intently into the camera, his eyes moist, as the interviewer asked him if his faith in God had helped him through his bouts with depression.

“Oh, yeah,” answered Mr. Bradshaw, the Hall of Fame quarterback. “Well, I’m a Christian for one thing so, yeah, I’d been praying.”

The viewers of this video were military personnel who were watching an official military production dealing with depression, suicide and “the importance of faith.”

The screening of the suicide-prevention video and other recent incidents are reviving questions that the Pentagon had hoped to put behind it years ago: what the proper role of religion should be in the military and whether a pro-Christian culture permeates the armed forces.

Military officials have worked to enforce tougher restrictions on proselytizing and religious bias since a flare-up over religious discrimination in 2005 at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, where the football coach posted a locker room banner for “Team Jesus.” Officials said they had made great strides in the last few years, with training for officers and a concerted effort at the inclusion of all faiths.

“I’d be wrong to state that every chaplain does it right 100 percent of the time, but we work very hard at it,” said Carleton Birch of the Army’s Chief of Chaplains Office. “Chaplains ascribe to pluralism. We represent our own faith while respecting other faith groups.”

Signs of continued friction over the issue still abound, however. In a memorandum distributed last month at the Air Force Academy in response to several recent complaints about religious bias, base leaders reminded faculty members that “the Air Force is ‘officially neutral’ when it comes to belief systems.” The memorandum said cadets should not be made to feel that they would get better jobs by going to optional Bible study sessions.

Still, some military personnel and activists opposed to what they see as “forced religion” in the military said they believed the problem had continued largely unabated, and they said private groups like the Officers’ Christian Fellowship and the Campus Crusade for Christ’s Military Ministry maintained an outsized influence on many bases.

“The Army enforces policies against racism and sexism, but doesn’t bat an eye at these kinds of religious discrimination,” said Specialist Dustin Chalker, an Army medic based at Fort Detrick, in Maryland, who was raised in a Christian home but is now an atheist. “Why is it acceptable that soldiers are unable to serve this nation without attending state-led religious practices they find offensive and false?”

Specialist Chalker is now a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that accuses the military of ignoring laws and policies banning mandatory religious practices. Specialist Chalker, who earned a Purple Heart in Iraq, remembers returning from the war in 2007 and attending a mandatory ceremony that began and ended with a Christian prayer. The experience, Specialist Chalker said, was “humiliating and dehumanizing.”

Leaders of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit group that brought the lawsuit against the Pentagon, point to episodes that they said represented a pattern of improper religious influence: official military retreats at off-base churches, the appearance of uniformed officers at religious events, displays of crucifixes at military chapels in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the practice of “dipping” the American flag at the altar of the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., among others.

The foundation says the Terry Bradshaw video represents only the latest example of what it considers an improper blurring of secular and religious issues.

Mr. Bradshaw appears in a half-hour interview to discuss his experience with depression, with outtakes appearing in a six-minute video that includes a segment called “the importance of faith.” A suicide-prevention manual, training Army leaders in using the Bradshaw video, includes a “talking point” saying, “Spirituality is an invaluable ingredient in his battle with this disease.”

Chaplain Birch said testimonials like those from Mr. Bradshaw helped soldiers deal with depression. “No one’s trying to force religion on anyone,” he said of the video. “But someone’s personal faith testimony is part of their story, and we’re not going to go around and censor it.”

Labels: Eric Lichtblau, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Pentagon, religion

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ASKING THE CLERGY: Is there a relationship between art and religion?

February 28, 2009

Rabbi Johanan Bickhardt, Congregation Beth Sholom, Long Beach:

Without question, there is a powerful relationship between art and religion. Scripture tell us in Genesis 28:2: "You shall make Holy Vestments ... for honor and splendor." The direct commandment to create vestments that are enticing and aesthetically pleasing were to provide splendor into the holy service and bring honor to the office to those who held it. Houses of worship through the centuries always have had an eye for adornment and to create an atmosphere that was spiritually uplifting... In the words of the great 20th century writer Franz Werfel (1890-1945); "Religion is the everlasting dialogue between humanity and God. Art is its soliloquy."

Pastor James Lupis, Grace and Truth Church, Coram:

Since the beginning of time, there has always been a relationship between art and religion. Before the written word, man communicated what he felt and believed by art. I believe that in this world today, which has become mostly visual, art can be a great way to communicate our belief in God...Jesus painted pictures in the minds of men and women in the form of parables. The relationship of art and religion has never been stronger or more important than the time in which we are living. I believe that men and women and especially children can effectively communicate and minister their personal belief in God through art, and more importantly, glorify him in the process.

Pastor Joseph Costa, Blessed Hope Baptist Church, Coram:

...Art, as well as other forms of creativity, such as music or writing, can be a great way to connect with faith. I also am aware that art does not necessarily have to express anything other than that which its author intended. Some art has certain appeal to some, while it may actually be viewed as offensive to others. My church has sponsored a cable show the past seven years, called "Drawing Men to Christ," where a gospel preacher draws as he preaches. It has proved to be successful in that he keeps the attention of his audience by his artwork while at the same time his message of either salvation or sanctification settles into the soul of the listener.

The Rev. Richard Lehman, director of pastoral care, Long Island Council of Churches, Hempstead and Riverhead:

Art is often expressed in religious ideas and symbols...I think it is great to have art in the church. Art is an expression of a person's creativity. The church should always encourage creativity. I'm a musician, which is another creative expression. Some of the greatest music there is was written for the church. Christmas without "The Messiah" would be a distinct loss. The church would be very much at a loss without music and art.

Labels: art, church, clergy, music, Rabbi Johanan Bickhardt, religion, worship

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Women More Religious Than Men

By Robert Roy Britt, Editorial Director
28 February 2009

A new analysis of survey data finds women pray more often then men, are more likely to believe in God, and are more religious than men in a variety of other ways.

The latest findings, released Friday, are no surprise, only confirming what other studies have found for decades. Still, the new numbers illustrate interesting and stark differences. They come from a fresh review of data that was collected in a 2007 survey and initially released last year by the Pew Research Center. The percent of women (and then men) who:

* Are affiliated with a religion: 86 (79).
* Have absolutely certain belief in a God or universal spirit: 77 (65).
* Pray at least daily: 66 (49).
* Have absolutely certain belief in a personal God: 58 (45).

The survey involved interviews with more than 35,000 U.S. adults by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

George H. Gallup, Jr., in an analysis for the Gallup polling organization back in 2002, wrote that the differences in religiosity between men and women have been shown consistently across the previous seven decades of polls.

Among the reasons women tend to be more religious:

* Mothers have tended to spend more time raising children, which often means overseeing their involvement in church activities.
* Though two-income households are more common today, in the past women often had more flexible daily schedules, permitting more church involvement during the week.
* Women tend to be more open about sharing personal problems and are more relational than men. Other Gallup research shows a higher proportion of women than men say they have a "best friend" in their congregation, he wrote.

Lastly, Gallup argued, "More so than men, women lean toward an empirical [depending on experience or observation] rather than a rational basis for faith."

There may be another reason. Rodney Stark, a professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of Washington, flips the question around: Why are men less religious?

"Studies of biochemistry imply that both male irreligiousness and male lawlessness are rooted in the fact that far more males than females have an underdeveloped ability to inhibit their impulses, especially those involving immediate gratification and thrills," Stark argued in a 2002 paper in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

The upshot is that some men are shortsighted and don't think ahead, Stark said, and so "going to prison or going to hell just doesn't matter to these men."

Stark may have purposely overstated the case, but you get the point. My wife suggested another reason: Life is simply harder for women. While I can't argue with that, I also can't find any research connecting that to prayer or church attendance.

Labels: faith, George Gallup, God, Pew Research Center survey, prayer, religion, Robert Roy Britt, spirituality, women

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Friday, February 27, 2009

Christians’ actions driving people from church

Carolyn Harrison
Thursday, February 26, 2009

Communities with a shrinking and aging church demographic can look to the growing number of college students with negative perceptions of organized religion and faith. According to a national study, 40 percent of 16- to 29-year-olds have opted out of church — 20 percent of whom have been active Christians all their lives and grew up going to church. Contrary to what you might expect, however, the forces driving college students away from church have little to do with faith and theology.

These young people said they rejected Christianity because of the behaviors and hypocrisies of fellow Christians, not because of theological reasons.

The Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kan., just recently finished a sermon series called “When Christians Get it Wrong.” The series focused on major issues like the hypocrisy of Christians, religion vs. science and homosexuality.

“I think many young people are interested in Jesus and what he taught,” said senior pastor Adam Hamilton. “The perception of 85 percent of young adults who do not go to church is that Christians are hypocrites. By that they don’t mean that they take a sip of beer once in awhile. By this they mean that they don’t find them admirable, but off-putting. Some Christians they have known come across as self-righteous, acting judgmental and morally superior while oblivious to their own sins and failings.”

Hamilton’s statements seem to indicate that Christians themselves are often to blame for pushing people away from the church through their actions and words, but that’s not the end of the story. According to Hamilton, Christians do get it right a lot of the time. Organized religion is responsible for countless humanitarian services, including feeding and clothing the homeless and lending a helping hand to those in need.

But not all students drift away from their religious upbringings. About a third of K-State students are involved in more than 30 different religious organizations on campus and in the community.

There is a lesson to learn for everyone here. Christians and other organized religions need to understand that while the reasons for opting out of church and religion vary, the primary reason is not about theology or faith; it’s about the actions of people who represent the faith. On the other hand, those who have opted out of faith because of the poor behavior of a few individuals need to put this in perspective with all the good work attributed to Christians and organized religion. We all need to be less judgmental toward those with different beliefs.

Labels: Carolyn Harrison, Christian church, religion, youth

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Thursday, February 26, 2009

Pew study looks at the religious landscape of African-Americans

by Helen Gray
Feb. 20, 2009

This is the first of a three-page article. Please click on "external source" for complete article.

Through slavery and segregation, the black church has provided hope, unity and sanctuary.

Today African-Americans are the nation’s most religious group. So says a recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

“While the U.S. is generally considered a highly religious nation, African-Americans are markedly more religious on a variety of measures than the U.S. population as whole,” says the study’s overview.

Compared to the rest of the population, more African-Americans have a religious affiliation, attend worship, pray frequently and place greater importance on religion in their lives.

The data come from Pew’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, collected in 2007 and released last summer. Pew recently came out with a new analysis of African-Americans.

“Given the inauguration of (Barack) Obama, (Martin Luther) King Day and Black History Month, we thought it would be a good time to look at this subgroup,” Pew researcher Greg Smith said. “This new analysis helps people understand religion in the African-American community, which is a large group.”

The study is in line with other studies that have had similar results, said Lawrence Mamiya, religion and Africana studies professor at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Among the Pew findings:

•Eighty-seven percent of African-Americans say they belong to a particular religious group, compared to 83 percent among the total population.

•Seventy-nine percent say religion is “very important” in their lives, compared to 56 percent of the total population.

•Fifty-three percent say they attend religious services at least once a week, compared to 39 percent of the total population.

•Seventy-six percent say they pray at least on a daily basis, compared to 58 percent of the total population.

•Eighty-eight percent say they are absolutely certain that God exists, compared to 71 percent of the total population.

The religious portrait of African-Americans reveals that they are overwhelmingly Protestant (78 percent), with 59 percent belonging to historically black churches.

Only 12 percent of African-Americans are not affiliated with any particular religion; 5 percent are Catholic; 1 percent are Jehovah’s Witnesses; 1 percent are Muslim; 1 percent are atheist or agnostic; and small fractions are in other faiths.

“What I like about the study is that it indicates diversity in the African-American religious community,” said Anthony Pinn, humanities and religious studies professor at Rice University in Houston.

In reviewing the data for African-American women, Pew researchers concluded that “no group of men or women from any other racial or ethnic background exhibits comparably high levels of religious observance.”

According to the survey, 84 percent of African-American women say religion is very important to them, and 59 percent attend religious services at least once a week.

“Black women often say ‘my pastor’ or ‘my church,’ which denotes a sense of ownership and independence and trust, which they wouldn’t say about other institutions in American society, like they wouldn’t say ‘my Democratic party’ or even ‘my NAACP,’?” Mamiya said.

Additional findings:

•Religious beliefs: In addition to the high belief in God, 55 percent interpret Scripture as the literal word of God compared to 33 percent of the overall population; 83 percent believe in angels and demons compared to 68 percent of the overall population; 84 percent believe in miracles compared to 79 percent of the overall population; and 58 percent are absolutely convinced there is life after death compared to 50 percent of the overall population.

Labels: African-Americans, church, Helen Gray, Pew Religion and Public Life Survey, prayer, religion, worship

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2008 Election Poll is Worth the Wait

February 19, 2009 5:49PM

New analysis suggests that evangelicals remained unmoved in their support for Republicans, while a few other religious groups shifted.

Tobin Grant

Within minutes of the polls closing in November, journalists were reporting results from exit polls including analysis of how evangelicals and other religious groups voted. One of the findings from these polls was that evangelicals (that is, “born again” voters) voted three to one for McCain, with evangelicals in the South more likely to do so than evangelicals in the Midwest.

But exit polls are short, with too few questions on religion. For a clearer picture of religion’s role in the election, researchers use surveys that take more time to analyze. One of the best is The National Survey of Religion and Politics conducted by John Green (University of Akron and the Pew Forum).

In the March issue of First Things, Green presents a summary of how religious groups voted in November. The fact that this “summary” runs over 4,000 words speaks to the complexities and nuances of religion in American politics. Green uses a combination of information on religious affiliation, beliefs, behavior, race, and ethnicity to group Americans into no less than 15 different religious groups. He reports how each group voted in 2008 and compares this vote with results from 2004. The result is a clearer picture of how the more things change the more they stay the same in American religion and politics.

There were three groups that seem to have made sizeable shifts in their votes.

1. Black Protestants. In 2004, support for Kerry among those attending a Black Protestant church dropped to 83 percent. However, with Obama as candidate, this group returned to its high level of support for the Democrats. As Green notes, 95 percent of Black Protestants voted for Obama, meaning that one in five of Obama’s voters were Black Protestants.

2. Traditionalist Catholics. As with Mainline Protestants and Evangelical Protestants, Green differentiates Catholics by their support for traditional beliefs and practices. Traditionalist Catholics are those who hold more orthodox beliefs and are more active in their faith. In 2004, only one fifth of this group voted for Kerry. In 2008, support for the Democrat nearly doubled, with 39 percent supporting Obama. This is one group to watch over the next four years.

3. Ethnic Protestants. Green analyzes “Ethnic Protestants” as a separate religious group. This group is primarily Latino but it includes other non-white, non-Anglo Protestants. This group tends to hold conservative positions on social issues. They gave Bush their vote in 2004, with only 25 percent voting for Kerry. In 2008, Obama received just over half of this group’s vote. This is a group that has not solidified its voting. As of now, it is trending Democratic, but its votes are likely up for grabs for next few election cycles.

Tobin Grant is an associate professor of political science at Southern Illinois University — Carbondale.

Labels: 2008 election, evangelicals, religion, The Fifth National Survey of Religion and Politics: A Baseline for the 2008 Presidential Election, Tobin Grant

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The Biology of Belief

The Biology of Belief
By JEFFREY KLUGER Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009

This is page one of a four-page article - well worth the read. Please click on "external source" to access the entire article

Most folks probably couldn't locate their parietal lobe with a map and a compass. For the record, it's at the top of your head — aft of the frontal lobe, fore of the occipital lobe, north of the temporal lobe. What makes the parietal lobe special is not where it lives but what it does — particularly concerning matters of faith.

If you've ever prayed so hard that you've lost all sense of a larger world outside yourself, that's your parietal lobe at work. If you've ever meditated so deeply that you'd swear the very boundaries of your body had dissolved, that's your parietal too. There are other regions responsible for making your brain the spiritual amusement park it can be: your thalamus plays a role, as do your frontal lobes. But it's your parietal lobe — a central mass of tissue that processes sensory input — that may have the most transporting effect. (Read "Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs".)

Needy creatures that we are, we put the brain's spiritual centers to use all the time. We pray for peace; we meditate for serenity; we chant for wealth. We travel to Lourdes in search of a miracle; we go to Mecca to show our devotion; we eat hallucinogenic mushrooms to attain transcendent vision and gather in church basements to achieve its sober opposite. But there is nothing we pray — or chant or meditate — for more than health.

Health, by definition, is the sine qua non of everything else. If you're dead, serenity is academic. So we convince ourselves that while our medicine is strong and our doctors are wise, our prayers may heal us too.

Here's what's surprising: a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that faith may indeed bring us health. People who attend religious services do have a lower risk of dying in any one year than people who don't attend. People who believe in a loving God fare better after a diagnosis of illness than people who believe in a punitive God. No less a killer than AIDS will back off at least a bit when it's hit with a double-barreled blast of belief. "Even accounting for medications," says Dr. Gail Ironson, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Miami who studies HIV and religious belief, "spirituality predicts for better disease control." (Read "Finding God on YouTube.")

It's hard not to be impressed by findings like that, but a skeptic will say there's nothing remarkable — much less spiritual — about them. You live longer if you go to church because you're there for the cholesterol-screening drive and the visiting-nurse service. Your viral load goes down when you include spirituality in your fight against HIV because your levels of cortisol — a stress hormone — go down first. "Science doesn't deal in supernatural explanations," says Richard Sloan, professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and author of Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine. "Religion and science address different concerns."

That's undeniably true — up to a point. But it's also true that our brains and bodies contain an awful lot of spiritual wiring. Even if there's a scientific explanation for every strand of it, that doesn't mean we can't put it to powerful use. And if one of those uses can make us well, shouldn't we take advantage of it? "A large body of science shows a positive impact of religion on health," says Dr. Andrew Newberg, a professor of radiology, psychology and religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founder of Penn's Center for Spirituality and the Mind. "The way the brain works is so compatible with religion and spirituality that we're going to be enmeshed in both for a long time."

It's All in Your Head
"enmeshed in the brain" is as good a way as any to describe Newberg's work of the past 15 years. The author of four books, including the soon-to-be-released How God Changes Your Brain, he has looked more closely than most at how our spiritual data-processing center works, conducting various types of brain scans on more than 100 people, all of them in different kinds of worshipful or contemplative states. Over time, Newberg and his team have come to recognize just which parts of the brain light up during just which experiences.

When people engage in prayer, it's the frontal lobes that take the lead, since they govern focus and concentration. During very deep prayer, the parietal lobe powers down, which is what allows us to experience that sense of having loosed our earthly moorings. The frontal lobes go quieter when worshippers are involved in the singular activity of speaking in tongues — which jibes nicely with the speakers' subjective experience that they are not in control of what they're saying.

Labels: Andrew Newberg, brain, faith, health, Jeffrey Kluger, medicine, parietal lobe, prayer, religion, science, spirituality

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Poll: One in Three Americans Unfamiliar with Charles Darwin

By Katherine T. Phan
Christian Post Reporter
Wed, Feb. 11 2009 08:52 AM EST

This is the first of a two-page article. Please click on "external source" for complete article.

Charles Darwin may be an influential name in the scientific community for the theory of evolution but a new Gallup poll shows that roughly one-third of Americans have no clue who he is or what he’s known for.

Ahead of his 200th birthday celebration on Feb. 12, a Gallup poll conducted over the weekend asked Americans the question: “For what scientific theory is Charles Darwin known?”

The Gallup weekly briefing on Tuesday showed that 55 percent of respondents correctly associated Darwin with the theory of evolution, theory of natural selection or his fundamental work Origin of Species. Another 10 percent gave incorrect answers while the other 34 percent said they didn’t know who Darwin was or what scientific theory he was known for.

“Whether that’s good or bad depends on your perspective,” Frank Newport, Editor-in-Chief of The Gallup Poll, told KETV Channel 7 in Omaha.

“I think most of us would assume that even if you disagree with it that a higher percentage of Americans might at least know who Charles Darwin was or at least if he was associated with the theory of evolution.”
Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Darwin, a 19th century British scientist, developed a theory of evolution occurring by the process of natural selection.

During his time, Darwin’s theory was controversial because it was perceived as contradicting the biblical teaching on creation. Nearly 150 years since the publication of his Origin of Species, it remains a highly divisive issue among Americans.

The Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life recently released a report showing the American public evenly divided on the question of whether or not evolution is the best explanation for life on earth, with 48 percent agreeing that it is and 45 percent rejecting the notion that evolution best explains the origins of human life.

The Pew Forum survey showed that the views on evolution differed widely across Christian communities. Evangelical Protestants were most likely to reject the idea of evolution (70 percent), according to the report originally released in 2008. Meanwhile, historically black Protestants were more likely than mainline Protestants to disagree that evolution best explains the origins of human life, 51 to 42 percent.

Roughly half of Orthodox Christians and Catholics, however, agreed that evolution best explains the development of life on earth.

As the Pew Forum pointed out, the Catholic Church’s acceptance of the theory comes with the understanding that natural selection is a God-directed mechanism of biological development and that man’s soul is the divine creation of God.

Some mainline churches have taken a similar stance, stating that evolution and creationism do not contradict each other.

While the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has not issued a definitive statement on evolution, it does contend that “God created the universe and all that is therein, only not necessarily in six 24-hour days, and that God actually may have used evolution in the process of creation,” as reported by the Pew Forum.

Another mainline denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) affirms that evolution and the Bible do not contradict each other. But the Presbyterians are cautious and say it “should carefully refrain from either affirming or denying the theory of evolution.”

Rejecting the theory of evolution altogether is the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the country. Southern Baptists affirm their belief that creation science can be backed by scientific evidence “without any religious doctrines or concepts.”

Labels: Charles Darwin, church, evolution, Gallup Poll, Katherine T. Phan, Pew Forum, religion

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Interfaith Couples More Common

02/11/2009

According to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey from the Pew Forum, 27 percent of Americans are married or cohabitating with a spouse or partner who is of a different faith background.

If people of different Protestant denominations are included, such as a Lutheran married to a Methodist, the number swells to 37 percent.

Those most likely to marry or live with someone of a different belief are nonbelievers (65 percent) and Buddhists (55 percent). Those least likely are Hindus (10 percent), Mormons (17 percent) and Catholics (22 percent).

Labels: belief, faith, marriage, Pew survey, religion, spouse

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What do Alabama, Iran, Zimbabwe share? Religion

What do Alabama, Iran, Zimbabwe share? Religion

Feb 10, 2009

WASHINGTON (AFP) —

Eighty-two percent of Alabamans say religion plays a key role in everyday life, or around the same percentage as in Iran (83 percent) and the southern African state of Zimbabwe (81 percent), a poll conducted by Gallup showed Monday.

That could be because "a population's religiosity level is strongly related to its average standard of living," Gallup analysts Steve Crabtree and Brett Pehlam said in a report summarizing the findings of the poll.

The poverty rate in Alabama was 17 percent in 2007, according to the US Census Bureau, while World Bank statistics show around 20 percent of Iranians live in poverty.

In Zimbabwe, a country where the economy has been plummeting for a decade and inflation is running at several billion percent annually, at least 80 percent of the population live below the poverty line.

Also giving weight to the analysts' theory is the fact that the most religious US state, Mississippi, is also the poorest.

Eighty-five percent of Mississippians say religion is a key part of daily life, according to the poll, for which 1,000 adults each were interviewed in 143 countries between 2006 and 2008.

One in five Mississippians live in poverty, US Census data shows.

Religion was a key part of daily life for 17 percent of Swedes and 25 percent of Japanese.

When all 143 countries surveyed are taken into account, the median percentage for religiosity was 82 percent. The median is value in a set, above and below which there are equal numbers of values.

Although several states were above the global median, the United States taken as a whole fell well below it.

Even though God is invoked when the US president is sworn in, mentioned on dollar bills and in the pledge of allegiance that American students say daily to the flag, just 65 percent of Americans said religion matters in their everyday lives, according to the survey.

That puts the United States about five percentage points behind countries like Armenia, Jamaica, Kosovo, Mexico and Greece on Gallup's religiosity scale.

But "Americans look extremely devout" compared to 27 other wealthy nations, where the median of people who said religion is important in their daily lives was 38 percent, the Gallup analysts said.

Labels: Alabama, Gallup Poll, Iran. Zimbabwe, poverty, religion

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The Cost of Unbelief

By: Simon Smart
Posted: Tuesday, 10 February 2009, 9:43 (EST)

This is the first of a three-page article - well worth reading. Just click on "external source" to access the entire article.

Australian atheists were recently prevented from running a series of ads on buses with the message, “There’s probably no God, so sleep in on Sundays.” It was a funny ad and should have been permitted, and if the Bureau of Statistics A Picture of a Nation report is anything to go by, there’s a generation of young people who don’t need convincing. According to the latest figures young Australians are increasingly secular with the proportion of people stating ‘no religion’ on their census form up from 6.7% in 1971 to 19% in 2006; the younger generation leading the charge to the beach on Sunday mornings (or perhaps staying under the doona). 23.5% of 15 – 34 year-olds did not specify a religion compared with 7.9% of Australians 65 and older.

No doubt this finding will be good news to those who believe religion has only paranoia, superstition, violence and hypocrisy to contribute to society, and there are plenty of them. Freud famously articulated the notion that religion is a neurosis. Likewise, Psychologist Albert Ellis saw only the pernicious effects of religion on individuals, claiming that ‘Religiosity … is in many respects equivalent to irrational thinking and emotional disturbance.’ (Ellis, 1980, 67)

But the latest scientific data on the effects of religiosity on health, might give us reason to pause. In 2001 Duke University researchers conducted a large survey of 100 evidence-based studies of the correlation between religion and well-being and found that 79 reported a positive correlation, 13 no correlation, 7 mixed correlation and 1 a negative correlation.1 The masses of research completed since then has largely pointed in the same direction.

This is a growing field. It reflects a more serious attempt to integrate ‘whole-person care’ in medical areas that previously gave little importance to the spiritual side of patient management. Of the 141 medical schools in the U.S. and Canada 70% now offer courses on religion, spirituality and medicine.

This is largely a response to the vast amount of data emerging over the last eight years that reveals positive correlations between commitment to religion and better outcomes for dealing with depression and anxiety, strength of immune systems, cardiovascular health and even longevity.

It is well accepted that stress and depression have serious adverse health impacts and studies that show religious coping improves outcomes in this area need to be taken seriously. It is the scientists who are telling us that religious involvement is associated with lower rates of a host of stress-related medical conditions including cardiovascular disease, stroke, immune and endocrine functioning, cancer—especially gastrointestinal, breast and oral—and better outcomes for cancer in general.

It is worth quoting some research to give a small taste of the sort of data being reported:

Labels: atheism, depression, mental health, religion, science, Simon Smart, spirituality

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Monday, February 09, 2009

Scientists and religious leaders call for end to fighting over Darwin's legacy

Prominent scientists and leading religious figures have joined forces to call for an end to the fighting over Charles Darwin's legacy.

By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent
09 Feb 2009

Ahead of the 200th anniversary of the pioneering naturalist's birth on Thursday, they warn that militant atheists are turning people away from evolution by using it as a weapon with which to attack religion.

However, in a letter published in The Daily Telegraph, they also urge believers in creationism to acknowledge the overwhelming body of evidence that now exists to back up Darwin's theory of how life on Earth has developed.

It comes after a survey of 2,000 people conducted by Theos, the religion think tank, found that half believe the theory of evolution cannot explain the complexity of the natural world. One in three said they thought God created the Earth within the past 10,000 years.

The influential signatories of the letter include two Church of England bishops, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain and a member of the Evangelical Alliance, as well as Professor Lord Winston, the fertility pioneer, and Professor Sir Martin Evans, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

They write: "Evolution, we believe, has become caught in the crossfire of a religious battle in which Darwin himself had little personal interest.

"We respectfully encourage those who reject evolution to weigh the now overwhelming evidence, hugely strengthened by recent advances in genetics, which testifies to the theory's validity.

"At the same time, we respectfully ask those contemporary Darwinians who seem intent on using Darwin's theory as a vehicle for promoting an anti-theistic agenda to desist from doing so as they are, albeit unintentionally, turning people away from the theory.

"In this year of all years, we should be celebrating Darwin's great biological achievements and not fighting over his legacy as some kind of anti-theologian."

Labels: Charles Darwin, evolution, Martin Beckford, religion, science, Theos

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Just before Darwin day, Pew reviews faith and evolution in U.S.

February 5th, 2009
Tom Heneghan

Please see complete article for links to this study. Click on "external source" at the end of this article.

Just in time for Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday next week, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has posted an extensive research package examining the debate about evolution, Darwinism and religion in the United States. “The Debate over Evolution” is a treasure trove of information about the debate and especially useful for the lists breaking down views of the main religious groups and the political fight over Darwinism state by state.

Labels: Charles Darwin, evolution, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, religion, The Debate over Evolution, Tom Heneghan

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Study: Decline in Adolescent Religious Beliefs & Practices Over Time

Thursday, February 05, 2009

You can download the study by clicking on "external source, and go to the bottom of the article.

The National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) recently announced the release of a new report on adolescents in the United States based on the second wave of NSYR survey data.

In "Religion and Spirituality on the Path Through Adolescence," the authors examined religious and spiritual changes in the lives of adolescents in the United States across a three-year span. The comparison of NSYR survey responses from the same adolescents in 2002 and 2005 reveals relatively small but consistent decreases in conventional religious beliefs and practices. Although the majority of adolescents in this study remained stable in their religious beliefs, practices, and spirituality, a significant minority did experience slight shifts away from standard religious beliefs and decreases in religious practice. Overall, the dynamics in religiosity and spirituality among this nationally representative sample of adolescents reflect subtle changes--rather than large or dramatic shifts.

The report, is authored by Melinda Lundquist Denton, Co-Investigator with the NSYR and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Clemson University, Lisa Pearce, Co-Principle Investigator of the second wave of the NSYR and Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Christian Smith, Principal Investigator of the NSYR and Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame.

Labels: Jim Liebelt, religion, Religion and Spirituality on the Path Through Adolescence, teenagers

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Friday, February 06, 2009

New Congress more religiously diverse

Provides accurate representation of nation's people
By Kaellen Hessel

Page 1 of 2. Please click on "external source" for Page 2.

* The 111th Congress is more religiously diverse than previous Congresses

* Members of Congress are more likely to claim a religious denomination than the public

* Congressmen don't think religion matters to voters

* Catholics, Jews and Mormons overrepresented in Congress

With the inauguration of a new president comes a new session of Congress.

This newly elected Congress is more religiously diverse than previous Congresses and more representative of the nation, according to a report put out by the nonpartisan Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

By comparing the religious affiliations of the new Congress with the religious demography of 35,000 American adults, the Pew Forum discovered members of Congress are more likely to affiliate themselves with a religion than the public. This discrepancy leads some religious groups, such as Mormons, Jews and Catholics, to be overrepresented in Congress.

According to the Pew Forum's report, 30 percent of Congress is Catholic compared to one fourth of American adults. David Masci, a senior research fellow at the Pew Forum, said this is a change from when Catholic politicians lost their races because of their religious beliefs. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is a Catholic, Masci said.

Jews make up 8.4 percent of Congress and only 1.7 percent of American adults, according to the report. Three of Wisconsin's representatives in Congress, including both Senators, are Jewish, according to the Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey. Less than 0.5 percent of Wisconsin's population is Jewish.

David Masci said that although the Pew Forum doesn't know why members of Congress are more likely to claim a religious affiliation, they "can say it's in someone's benefit to belong." Masci cited Pete Stark (D-Calif.) as an example. Stark is a pronounced atheist and a member of the Unitarian Church, says Masci.

Masci said Americans like leaders to be religious because the majority believe people of faith are more moral.

Labels: Congress, faith, Kaellen Hessel, Pew Forum, religion

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Religion now more divisive than race, says public

AT least four out of 10 Muslims do not believe that communities should be forced to integrate in Britain, according to a new poll.

It also found that religion has become a more divisive issue than race.

The survey for the Government's Equalities and Human Rights Commission revealed that more than half of the public believe it is likely that the UK will have a non-white prime minister within 20 years.

However, the black and Afro-Caribbean community, 56 per cent of which believe that the failings of the 1999 police inquiry into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in south-east London in 1993 would still be repeated today, retain some reservations about progress in race relations.

But a greater number of people in all communities apart from Muslims believe that Britain has become more racially tolerant.

Commission chairman Trevor Phillips said: "It is heartening to recognise that here in Britain we have a sophisticated sense of our own identity and an appreciation and interest in difference.

"But we can't be complacent. The survey points to emerging religious divisions.

"And as we mark a darker moment in our own history, the 10th anniversary of the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, it is clear the police still have work to do to convince our ethnic-minority communities they deserve their trust."

Labels: Britain, Equalities and Human Rights Commission, Muslims, race, religion

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Obama Family Values

Joel Kotkin, 01.20.09, 12:01 AM EST
A model of proper parenting and spirituality for the next generation.

The new president's focus on family reflects an increasing emphasis among African-American leaders on the importance of parental values. Many prominent black activists initially scorned Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1965 report linking poverty among African-Americans to the decline of intact family units. But today, when roughly half of all black children live with single mothers, it is widely accepted that strong families represent the most effective way to reduce "the racial gap" in incomes.

Surveys reveal that people born between 1968 and 1979 place a considerably higher value on family, and a lower value on work, than their baby-boomer counterparts. Women in the former age cohort are actually having more children than their predecessors and, particularly among the college-educated, they appear to be working somewhat less.

And this family-friendly shift is likely to continue throughout the next wave of child-rearers. As Morley Winograd and Michael Hais suggest in their book, Millennial Makeover, the Millennial generation, born after 1983 and twice as numerous as Generation X, also enthusiastically embraces the notion of a strong family.

Indeed, three-fourths of 13- to 24-year-olds, according to one 2007 survey, consider time spent with family the most important factor in their own happiness, rating it even higher than time spent with friends or a significant other. More than 80% thought getting married would make them happy. Some 77% said they definitely or probably would want children, while less than 12% said they likely wouldn't.

What's more, the current state of the economy is likely to strengthen ties among family members. One-fourth of Generation X-ers, for example, still receive financial help from their parents, as do nearly one-third of Millennials. As many as 40% of Americans between ages 20 and 34 now live at least part-time with their parents, an option that will only become more commonplace in areas where home prices are particularly high and employment opportunities are sharply limited.

Yet even if family values are in ascendance, how they are expressed sharply diverges from the norms and attitudes typically associated with the Religious Right. In fact, on a host of issues--including gay rights, interracial dating and stem cell research--millennials trend more toward liberal views than earlier generations, Winograd says.

Attitudes concerning religion--the other critical part of the "values" issue--reveal a similar fusion of conventionality and pragmatism. Like other Americans, Millennials are far more religiously oriented than their counterparts in other advanced countries. Fully one-fourth of Americans in their 20s and 30s, observes Princeton sociologist Robert Wurthnow, consider themselves "very spiritual," even if they rarely attend church. A 2003 UCLA study found roughly three out of four college students deem their spiritual or religious views important, but most see their (older) professors as largely indifferent to such concerns.

Yet this spiritual orientation does not imply a shift toward any retrograde "moral majority" conservatism. Upward mobility among evangelicals and fundamentalists, as well as the increased racial integration within churches, has lessened the once-glaring gaps between conservative Protestants, particularly in the South, and the rest of American society. This liberalization is particularly acute when it comes to issues like homosexuality and censorship, but also extends to the role of women and the teaching of religion in public schools.

Labels: family, family values, Gen X, Joel Kotkin, Millennial Makeover, President Obama, religion

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Study: Service Attendance, Not Spirituality, May Decrease Suicide Risk

By Aaron J. Leichman
Christian Post Reporter
Tue, Jan. 20 2009 11:20 AM EST

Religious individuals have a significantly lower chance of committing suicide, according to the results of a recent study in Canada.

Individuals identifying themselves simply as “spiritual” but not religious, however, are not much less likely to commit suicide than anyone else.

Conducted using data drawn from the Canadian Community Health Survey on almost 37,000 Canadians across the country, the latest study by a team of psychiatric researchers based at the University of Manitoba was the first to use national data to look at the relationship between spirituality, religious worship and suicidal behavior in the general population and people with a history of a mental disorder.

However, what was more interesting was the differences between people who call themselves “spiritual” and those who also regularly attend religious services.

According to the data, the former category did not show a decreased inclination to take their lives, suggesting something more was involved that was related to the actual attendance at a religious event occurring in a church, mosque, temple or other spiritual gathering.

Furthermore, among people with a history of mental illness – those at the highest risk of suicide –religious attendance appeared to be associated with a decrease in suicide attempts while simply being “spiritual” was not significant enough to reduce the effect.

Despite the findings, Rasic cautioned against tying the decrease in suicide attempts directly to religious worship.

For most studies dealing with spirituality and religiousness, spirituality is considered as referring to an inner belief system that a person relies on for strength and comfort whereas religiousness refers to institutional religious rituals, practices, and beliefs.

For the recent Canadian study, religiousness was based on a person’s attendance at a religious worship service.

The research results have been published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

Labels: Aaron J. Leichman, Canada, Canadian Community Health Survey, church, religion, spirituality, suicide

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Friday, January 30, 2009

Testing the Limits of What I Know and Feel

by John Updike

John Updike won two Pulitzer Prizes for his series of novels chronicling the life and death of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. He is also a noted poet and essayist, as well as a critic of literature and fine art.

John Updike died this past week...

All Things Considered, April 18, 2005 · A person believes various things at various times, even on the same day. At the age of 73, I seem most instinctively to believe in the human value of creative writing, whether in the form of verse or fiction, as a mode of truth-telling, self-expression and homage to the twin miracles of creation and consciousness. The special value of these indirect methods of communication — as opposed to the value of factual reporting and analysis — is one of precision. Oddly enough, the story or poem brings us closer to the actual texture and intricacy of experience.

In fiction, imaginary people become realer to us than any named celebrity glimpsed in a series of rumored events, whose causes and subtler ramifications must remain in the dark. An invented figure like Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary emerges fully into the light of understanding, which brings with it identification, sympathy and pity. I find in my own writing that only fiction — and rarely, a poem — fully tests me to the kind of limits of what I know and what I feel. In composing even such a frank and simple account as this profession of belief, I must fight against the sensation that I am simplifying and exploiting my own voice.

I also believe, instinctively, if not very cogently, in the American political experiment, which I take to be, at bottom, a matter of trusting the citizens to know their own minds and best interests. "To govern with the consent of the governed": this spells the ideal. And though the implementation will inevitably be approximate and debatable, and though totalitarianism or technocratic government can obtain some swift successes, in the end, only a democracy can enlist a people's energies on a sustained and renewable basis. To guarantee the individual maximum freedom within a social frame of minimal laws ensures — if not happiness — its hopeful pursuit.

Cosmically, I seem to be of two minds. The power of materialist science to explain everything — from the behavior of the galaxies to that of molecules, atoms and their sub-microscopic components — seems to be inarguable and the principal glory of the modern mind. On the other hand, the reality of subjective sensations, desires and — may we even say — illusions, composes the basic substance of our existence, and religion alone, in its many forms, attempts to address, organize and placate these. I believe, then, that religious faith will continue to be an essential part of being human, as it has been for me.

Labels: creative writing, freedom, John Updike, materialism, politics, religion