Fully 16% of Americans believe in the “evil eye” or that certain people can cast curses or spells that cause bad things to happen to someone. Although the overwhelming number of Americans describe themselves as Christians, belief in non-Christian mystical experiences is widespread according to a Pew Forum survey. Nearly three-in-ten Americans say they have felt in touch with someone who has already died, almost one in five say they have seen or been in the presence of ghosts and 15% have consulted a fortuneteller or a psychic. Similar percentages of American Christians express these supernatural experiences and beliefs….[Rest of article]
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Fear not, Christians–you can always dance those demons out:
So a little-known congressman, Paul Broun, is making a big ruckus by introducing a resolution calling on President Obama to designate a “National Year of the Bible” for America. Broun is a Republican (natch) from Georgia (of course) so none of this should be a surprise, right? Just another Christian fundamentalist, cynics might say, trying to turn us into a nation of Bible thumpers. The reaction has been equally predictable: Those irreligious Democrats have shunned Broun’s proposal like swine flu. Jewish pols, in particular, see a distinctly Christian slant to the resolution, and secularists see yet another plot to turn the United States into a theocracy.
The reality is that proclaiming a Year of the Bible wouldn’t change America as much as one side hopes and the other side fears: That’s because Americans read into the Bible exactly what they want to read into the Bible — they quote it when it supports their position, and they ignore it when it doesn’t.
Polls show that the Bible remains the most popular book of all time, and almost all U.S. homes (93 percent) have at least one. Yet only half of U.S. adults can name a single Gospel, and most don’t know that the first book of the Bible is Genesis. A 2000 survey showed that even 60 percent of those chapter-and-verse-quoting Evangelicals thought Jesus was born in Jerusalem rather than Bethlehem. Similarly, a 2004 survey of high school students found that 17 percent thought “the road to Damascus” was where Jesus was crucified and 22 percent thought Moses was either one of Jesus’ 12 apostles or an Egyptian pharaoh or an angel. Half of high school seniors also thought Sodom and Gomorrah were married. (Can gay marriage really be far off?)
But before you pile on the slacker generation, consider that one in 10 of all Americans believe that Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife, and 60 percent can’t name five of the Ten Commandments….[Rest of article]
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I do have to say that I have seen a correlation between the most “religious” Christians I know personally and their own Bible illiteracy. In general, I myself have read a lot more of the Bible and books about the Bible–it’s a hobby of mine. I read another article last week stating that there was a correlation between the droves of young people leaving the church and their Sunday School attendance. The more regularly they attended Sunday school (and I went every Sunday from toddlerhood to leaving home for college–when I promptly stopped), the more likely they are to leave the church in adulthood.
Time to “shine the light” on the Bible. I’m all for it! Read and learn. (And then read the Koran–you won’t find a nickel’s difference between the two. Have fun!)
The Church of Scientology has gone on trial in the French capital, Paris, accused of organised fraud.
The case centres on a complaint by a woman who says she was pressured into paying large sums of money after being offered a free personality test.
The church, which is fighting the charges, denies that any mental manipulation took place.
France regards Scientology as a sect, not a religion, and the organisation could be banned if it loses the case.
It will be the first time the church has appeared as a defendant in a fraud case in France. Previous court cases have involved individual Scientologists.
The woman at the centre of the case says she was approached by church members in Paris 10 years ago, and offered a free personality test. But, she says, she ended up spending 21,000 euros ($29,400, £18,400) on lessons, books and medicines she was told would cure her poor mental state….[Rest of article]
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So here I go again “sticking up for” Scientology, despite being notoriously anti-all-religions.
Don’t get me wrong: The Scientologists are as misguided in their beliefs as anyone.
But you’ve got to be kidding me: Here in France we have a country of good witch-burning Christians (Joan of Arc, R.I.P.) saying that giving a lot of money to the Scientologists is tantamount to being a fraud victim, while thumping their Bibles and asking people to give their “tithes” (10% of their income) PLUS “offerings” to the Man Who Walks On Water.
Doesn’t this kind of precedent open the doors for the prosecution of our good old American televangelists who plead with little old ladies to give, give, give so that Oral Roberts won’t be “called home”?
I have old clients (and family members, come to think of it) who tithed all of their lives despite being on the wrong side of the Federal Poverty Guidelines–and who gave a lot more to their Christian church over the years than this poor, deluded French woman, and with nothing more to show for it than extra “Stars In Their Crown”.
But fools and their money are soon parted, and it should remain a god-given right to try and buy your way into heaven–generally considered a good investment what with the whole mansions and streets paved with gold thing going. If you’re going to start prosecuting churches for fraud, well…that’s a pretty slippery slope now, isn’t it?
(A tip of the hat to Uncle Rich for the “heads up” on this story).
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Imagine that just one generation–25 years or so–of parents (most of whom, of course, have it wrong and thus condemn their children to Hell for Eternity) did NOT indoctrinate their children with their personal religious beliefs until the children were 21 years old and mature enough to make their own decisions.
Then, as a “rite of passage”, the parents or whomever sit down with these kids and gives them the whole “walks on water”, “flies to heaven on a horse”, “magical invisible bearded Guy in the Sky”–the choice of story being, of course, the parents’ option. If met with skepticism from the 21-year-olds (which just might happen), they are told that they MUST believe this on Faith–”Just Because”. Do we think a lot of these new adults would buy into the whole religion thing? Or does this demonstrate that the only reason we Believe–the only reason YOU Believe–is because of the indoctrination from childhood?
First of all, I absolutely understand that nothing I say here will change any Pro-Lifers’ minds whatsoever. Nor will anything that they argue back to me change mine.
That’s kind of my point.
My point is that obviously there is room for a well-reasoned and firmly-held difference of opinion on the issue. On the one hand, human life is “sacred” (except that, from what I understand, many Pro-Lifers are delighted with the death penalty), and nobody likes the idea of Dead Babies. On the other hand, if my daughter/wife/mother gets pregnant and does not want the child…it’s really none of the Pro-Lifers’ religious business. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Except that this is what I call “The Problem With The Pro-Lifers”. Agreeing to disagree is not acceptable to them. Even though the law is otherwise, and the country is pretty much split equally on the issue–their position is that if my daughter/wife/mother disagree with them in all of their Holy Enlightenment, my daughter/wife/mother and her physician must go to jail. Eternal damnation is not enough for them–it’s not just between the woman and her Invisible Magical One True God. There must be jail time in This Life.
So while I “respect” their right to preach against abortion, there is no such respect for a woman who decides to terminate her pregnancy rather than bring yet another unwanted child into the world. Respecting opinions not in lockstep with their own is something Pro-Lifers will not do. That is the nature of religious thinking, after all.
I’m actually kind of enjoying the brouhaha at Notre Dame this weekend. I believe that these fundamentalist Pro-Lifers are further marginalizing their increasingly schizophrenic Holy Catholic Church (schizophrenic in the sense that very, very few American Catholics believe in many of the tenets of the Church any longer, and are just not buying much of what His Holiness the Pope says any more–and schizophrenic in the sense of the multiple-identies of the various Folks that they pray to: I believe that there are many Catholics, for instance, that actually pray more to Jesus’s mother than to Jesus himself…) More “transparency” in the Church and their beliefs is a good thing, I believe. When I was a kid, mass was said in Latin with the Priest literally turning his back on his congregation while he muttered magical words that no one understood. This won’t fly any more–and I think the “new generation” of Catholics is going to continue the skepticism that started with their parents. And the weird conduct and the weird statements coming from the Notre Dame protestors is surely having a negative effect on most young Catholics.
Protest on, Pro-Lifers. But if you want to put our women and their doctors in jail…well, that is just never going to happen.
From PEW RESEARCH:
