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

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, January 02, 2009

One year in 40 seconds

Take a break...relax for 40 seconds, and enjoy this popular video...it'll help put things into perspective as we strive for peace in the world.

From the author: Images snapped at the same spot through one year. Showing the seasons change. For more information on how the video was made visit my web site. The audio is actual recordings from the same spot. The images are from Oslo, Norway 2008.

Labels: Oslo, peace, seasons, time-lapse photography, video

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Religious unity: The Charter for Compassion

Friday, November 21st, 2008
by Juliana Rincón Parra

This is a Video post. Please click on "external link" at the botom of the piece for the complete article, along with the videos. Well worth it...

As children we may all have heard the Golden Rule expressed in many different ways, but the basic idea is: Treat others as you would like to be treated. This is Karen Armstrong's TED wish, to create The Charter for Compassion, a platform in which the different Abrahamic faiths could focus on what was common to all, the moral backbone of all their faiths towards a greater unity and better communication among people of different faiths.

As children we may all have heard the Golden Rule expressed in many different ways, but the basic idea is: Treat others as you would like to be treated. This is Karen Armstrong's TED wish, to create a platform in which the different Abrahamic faiths could focus on what was common to all, the moral backbone of all their faiths towards a greater unity and better communication among people of different faiths. The Charter of Compassion is requesting stories of unity and compassion to be uploaded on their site, written or in video form, and that together, people may write this Charter of Compassion a document where this new image will be established, signed by sages and religious leaders. Different sections of the charter are opened on different dates, so feel free to stop by the site and write your perspective on the issue.

Karen Armstrong is a British born former Catholic nun who has written many books on Muslim faith and has taught in the Leo Baeck rabbinic college: this inter-faith knowledge led her on the path towards bringing this project into fruition. Her acceptance speech video is on YouTube, and in it she speaks about this desire of hers to work for the unity of the different faiths, to make religion work towards universal harmony:

The Charter for Compassion's YouTube channel already has some inspirational videos by people in Pakistan. Samia Shoaib shares her own personal compassion story of how we are all interconnected and what happens to our neighbor or someone down the street does concern us:

Arshad Mahmood also speaks from his Muslim faith, in how people should concern themselves about the fate of others, and how discrimination against those of a different faith should not take place:

The Charter for Compassion has opened the call for submissions where people can also tell their stories of compassion and change the image of religion as a harborer of intolerance, showing the world that compassion is and will be the cornerstone of religion, and the way towards change. You can participate by offering information in different languages so the message can get to more people, and by making a video with a story where compassion is featured, or writing your opinion or perspective on the Charter itself.

Labels: Charter for Compassion, Golden Rule, Juliana Rincón Parra, Karen Armstrong, video

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, October 17, 2008

A Car Crash, A Five-Year Coma, and The Inner Voice

This video is the story of a young girl who suffered a brain injury in a car crash, after which she endured a five-year coma. During that period of time, she was sustained in her inner self by her relationship with God. In the video, she relates her experience, during which she maintained much of her consciousness, and she expresses a desire to help others who are searching for assurance of God and the assurances of faith.

Labels: Allison Zopel, coma, consciousness, God, healing, inner peace, spirituality, The Urantia Book, video

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

VIDEO: Madeleine Albright Discusses “The Mighty and The Almighty: United States Foreign Policy and God”

VIDEO: Madeleine Albright Discusses “The Mighty and The Almighty: United States Foreign Policy and God”

By ReligiousLiberty.TV ? August 24, 2008

From Fora.TV - Recorded May 7th, 2006 - Madeleine Albright talks about The Mighty and The Almighty: United States Foreign Policy and God. The former secretary of state offers a provocative and very personal look at the role of religion in America’s foreign policy. She argues that understanding the place and power of religion, and knowing how best to respond to it, is essential if America is to lead successfully around the world.

Labels: America, foreign policy, God, Madeleine Albright, religion, video

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Thursday, May 08, 2008

The Spiritual Brain

Is there a specific part of the brain for feelings of spirituality? Many lines of evidence suggests it is the temporal lobes. Dr. David Comings, a renown human geneticist, neuroscientist and physician proposes that spirituality is genetically hardwired into a specific part of the brain, is pleasurable, is critical to the evolution and survival of man, and will never go away. Understanding the biology of the spiritual brain can help us to develop a rational spirituality where are rational brain and spiritual brain can live in peace.

Labels: biology, Dr. David Comings, God, neuroscience, spiritual reality, video

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, April 04, 2008

I've Been To The Mountaintop

Martin Luther King's Last Speech On April 3, 1968 In Memphis, Tennessee.

Labels: anniversary, Martin Luther King Jr., Memphis, speech, video

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, March 28, 2008

Karen Armstrong - Charter for Compassion

As she accepts her 2008 TED Prize, author and scholar Karen Armstrong talks about how the Abrahamic religions -- Islam, Judaism, Christianity -- have been diverted from the moral purpose they share to foster compassion. But Armstrong has seen a yearning to change this fact. People want to be religious, she says; we should act to help make religion a force for harmony. She asks the TED community to help her build a Charter for Compassion -- to help restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious doctrine.

Labels: Christianity, compassion, God, Golden Rule, Islam, Judaism, Karen Armstrong, religion, video

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

A nice respite from Christmas overload...Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!!!

Labels: Charlie Brown, Christmas, Jesus, tree, video

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, October 19, 2007

History of Religion Video

How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go!

Labels: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, religion, video, war

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Friday, September 21, 2007

The ascension of GodTube: What took this long?

Posted Sep 20th 2007 11:10AM
by Barry Summerlin

Web watcher comScore Inc. has reported that last month, the new site GodTube.com saw traffic climb 973% -- growth unprecedented in the web's history.

Owned and operated by Big Jump Media, Inc., GodTube is exactly what you might guess -- a Christian alternative to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s YouTube. In six weeks, it has accumulated more than 20,000 user-submitted clips and streamed more than 800,000 hours of video.

It's fascinating that here we are nearly two decades into the internet, and only now does a dominant faith-oriented web destination start to take shape.

But the opportunity has surely always been there. Since the heyday of Usenet, determined faithful have been debating and witnessing, huddling together on message boards or tugging back and forth on Wikipedia entries.

Just to give you an idea of how often web-going Americans reach to religion, consider these figures from Google. Shown here are the relative volumes of searches for "God," "Jesus," "church" and "Britney Spears," the latter our control for this experiment, chosen since she's the most veteran resident of Lycos' weekly list of 50 most searched people, places and things:

But for occasional spikes, Miss Britney typically places lower than the first three terms, giving some perspective on how in demand she really is (or isn't). Good on GodTube's backers -- who include Norm Miller, chairman of privately-held Interstate Batteries -- for answering that demand for faith with YouTube's viral recipe.

How long can GodTube maintain this growth? That's a question for its users. As is the case with YouTube and other startup smashes like eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and News Corp (NYSE: NWS)'s MySpace, GodTube is just a meeting place, tasking its unpaid community with the bother of generating content, not to mention policing its appropriateness for the site, which is likely to be an enduring issue of contention.

Labels: Barry Summerlin, Christianity, Godtube.com, religion, video

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Sunday, September 16, 2007

For the Next 7 Generations: The Grandmothers Speak

Thirteen elder women, representing 13 tribes of earth, join to share their wisdom with the world.

Labels: grandmothers, prayer, religion, video, wisdom, women

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Sunday, September 09, 2007

High-tech focus on higher power

September 8, 2007
Associated Press

Godtube.com is just what it sounds like: Youtube, but only for Christian content

ANDERSON, Ind. -- On any Sunday morning, members of Faith Church in Anderson expect to sing several hymns and listen as Walt Weaver preaches. They also expect to watch some TV without leaving their pews.

Weaver has been sprinkling his services with multiple video clips for more than a year.

More churches are turning to new technology in the hope that it will engage their congregations and stop the national decline in church attendance.

Godtube.com, a new Christian video-sharing site, makes it possible for people to bypass the bricks and mortar and experience their faith in a completely digital format.

The site hosts more than 20,000 clips. They range from amateur home videos to professionally produced television segments, and they include sermons, music videos, comedy bits and infomercials.

Like Youtube.com, Godtube allows anyone to share a video. But videos on Godtube must pertain to Christianity.

Many religious sites have copied nonreligious models. My Church.org is similar to the social networking site MySpace.

More than any other religious Web site, Godtube seems to be billing itself as an alternative to the physical church. A release from the company cited statistics on declining church attendance and a Pew Internet Study that found 82 million Americans use the Internet for a faith-based reason, which is more than the number of Americans who use it for banking or dating.

Weaver said his congregation bucks that national trend and hasn't seen its membership decline. And although he likes Godtube for the videos it provides, he said the site also makes him nervous for the impact it could have on future attendance.

"We like to think of ourselves as the Switzerland of Christianity," said Christopher Wyatt, Godtube's founder and CEO.

He officially launched the site on Aug. 8, but test versions have existed online since January. Within 60 days of going live, the site became the most popular Christian site on the Internet, Wyatt said.

Its growth has continued at a breakneck pace. In July, Godtube users watched about 300,000 hours of video. This month, Wyatt said, he expects them to watch close to 2 million hours.

A former TV producer with CBS, Wyatt now attends seminary school in Dallas. The idea for the site came to him after he learned of statistics describing future downward trends in church attendance.

He calls the trend of Christians going online and using new technology, such as file-sharing and streaming video, to experience their religion the "Jesus 2.0 movement."
But the movement is somewhat restricted due to Godtube's ban on anything it deems objectionable.

Labels: Christianity, Christopher Wyatt, church, Godtube.com, religion, social networking, video

Permalink | Link to External Source Article

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

A Different Take on Death From Carl Jung

In this short video, Carl Jung, one of the most eminent and well-known psychologists of the 20th century, gives his views on death. He explains that since our psyche knows no boundaries of time and space, it is therefore, able to envision life going on forever. He gives some practical advice for living in a mentally healthy way as we age.

Labels: afterlife, Carl Jung, death, psychology, video

Permalink |

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

The Stained Glass Ceiling

Aug. 20 - Decades after the ordination of women in most Protestant churches, women still find it difficult to get senior positions in big congregations. (Producer: Brent McDonald)

To view this video, please click on "Link to external source."

Labels: Brent McDonald, ministry, ordination, Stained Glass Ceiling, video, women