A new Pew survey indicates that if you want to know something about religion, ask an agnostic or atheists. The survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found atheist and agnostic Americans fare more knowledgeable about religion than their religious neighbors.
For example, the majority of Protestants did not know that Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation and four out of 10 Catholics were clueless on the meaning of transubstantiation.
Alan Cooperman, the forum’s associate director for research, is quoted as saying that agnostics and atheists have simply given such matters more study and thought: “These are people who thought a lot about religion. They’re not indifferent. They care about it.”
Source: Telegraph
Breaking news on the subject of yoga and Christianity!
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Southern Baptist leader on yoga: Not Christianity (10/7/2010)
By DYLAN LOVAN
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101007/ap_on_re/us_rel_southern_baptists_yoga
Excerpt:
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A Southern Baptist leader who is calling for Christians to avoid yoga and its spiritual attachments is getting plenty of pushback from enthusiasts who defend the ancient practice.
Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler says the stretching and meditative discipline derived from Eastern religions is not a Christian pathway to God.
Mohler said he objects to “the idea that the body is a vehicle for reaching consciousness with the divine.”
“That’s just not Christianity,” Mohler told The Associated Press.
Mohler said feedback has come through e-mail and comments on blogs and other websites since he wrote an essay to address questions about yoga he has heard for years.
“I’m really surprised by the depth of the commitment to yoga found on the part of many who identify as Christians,” Mohler said.
Yoga fans say their numbers have been growing in the U.S. A 2008 study by the Yoga Journal put the number at 15.8 million, or nearly 7 percent of adults. About 6.7 percent of American adults are Southern Baptists, according to a 2007 survey by the Pew Research Center Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Mohler argued in his online essay last month that Christians who practice yoga “must either deny the reality of what yoga represents or fail to see the contradictions between their Christian commitments and their embrace of yoga.”
He said his view is “not an eccentric Christian position.”
Other Christian leaders have said practicing yoga is incompatible with the teachings of Jesus. Pat Robertson has called the chanting and other spiritual components that go along with yoga “really spooky.” California megachurch pastor John MacArthur called yoga a “false religion.” Muslim clerics have banned Muslims from practicing yoga in Egypt, Malaysia and Indonesia, citing similar concerns.
Yoga proponents say the wide-ranging discipline, which originated in India, offers physical and mental healing through stretching poses and concentration.
K F
Gandhi (my mispell) also said:
One’s own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one’s Maker and no one else’s.
Elaine M.
Probably. Perhaps the longevity of a creed is what gives it credence. If people don’t find it helpful, they drop it.
Elaine M.,
What may be a cult is a religion to others….to wit….The Greatful Dead and Jerry Garcia…..
Buckeye,
Didn’t many religions start out as cults? Many people–like the early Christians–who were followers of a “new” religion may have been secretive because they were fearful of repercussions from the powers that be.
Time changes things. What was once thought to be a cult may many years later considered to be a mainstream religion.
Like Ghandi said when asked by a reporter what he thought of Western civilization?
“It would be nice.”
Mike S.
Jesus was so revolutionary, that today he would probably have been imprisoned by almost any current government now in power.
Of course, as with MLK and Ghandi, we’re now more used to assassinating revolutionaries than executing them, but that could change.
Elaine M.
If so, then couldn’t many religions–even some “mainstream” religions–be considered cults?
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I admit I don’t have the credentials to differentiate between a cult and a religion. Someone else probably does, maybe Blouise. Since almost all have a charismatic personality involved, only age and size seem different.
It’s always seemed to me the main difference is cults are secretive and exclusive and religions are open and inclusive.
To me this Pew survey just reveals what a collection of idiots Americans are. The score on the test directly correlates to education level and guess what-most educated people are atheists and agnostics.
I couldn’t believe the statement about transubstantiation until I asked my two devout Catholic friends about the subject. Neither of them had heard the term and neither could identify what it meant.
Elaine M.-Thanks for Bill Maher. “Mormons are just Scientologists without celebrities.”
Mike S.,
“In any event anyone at all familiar with the gospels understand that Jesus would not be a right winger today. Unfortunately, too many who profess to believe have let others propagandize them into a belief that has little to do with Jesus”
I say “Amen” to that!
That this poll would play out like this is obvious to anyone who has read the Gospels alone and not the Christian Canon. Jesus, of the Gospels (whether real or not) was a revolutionary. Yet fundamentalist (and mainstream) Christianity have always be pro those in power. The RCC fought for years to keep the Vulgate translations banned for the reason that they wanted to have the interpretations filtered through them. Luther, opposed this, but once he achieved success his followers forgot the idea that each Christian formulates their own beliefs through their study, in order to work with the powerful and retain the status quo.
In any event anyone at all familiar with the gospels understand that Jesus would not be a right winger today. Unfortunately, too many who profess to believe have let others propagandize them into a belief that has little to do with Jesus
I see being religious as I see choosing to be a smoker
Lots and lots of reasons listed in the “against” column and only the one reason in the “for” column
Buckeye,
“…their other religious inclusions and interpretations make them a very different sect – some would say cult, since it is based on the beliefs a charismatic leader which Blouise tells me is the sign of a cult.”
If so, then couldn’t many religions–even some “mainstream” religions–be considered cults?
Gyges
Well, I’ve done some looking on the internet and I think I can see why the Mormons were listed separately from Catholic, mainline, and fundamentalist Christians in the test, which is why I made them separate in my remark.
They ARE a subset of Christianity in that they have most of the same beliefs in the Bible, God and Jesus Christ. But their other religious inclusions and interpretations make them a very different sect – some would say cult, since it is based on the beliefs a charismatic leader which Blouise tells me is the sign of a cult. And they believe they are the one true Christian church – all others are apostates – not new, but telling.
There are several websites for ex-Mormons and it’s hard to tell if these websites are real or a “Stop Mitt Romney” effort, but you can look at this one and decide.
http://www.exmormon.org/tract2.htm
Bob,Esq.
1, October 4, 2010 at 7:51 pm
BTW, how is it that the Gnostics didn’t score the highest?
After all, if anyone would know something about religion, you’d think it would be the Gnostics.
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Maybe only the dumb ones answered the phone …
BTW, how is it that the Gnostics didn’t score the highest?
After all, if anyone would know something about religion, you’d think it would be the Gnostics.
“I do not at all share the opinion which certain excellent
and thoughtful men (such as Sulzer), in face of the
weakness of the arguments hitherto employed, have so often
been led to express, that we may hope sometime to discover
conclusive demonstrations of the two cardinal propositions of
our reason — that there is a God, and that there is a future life. On the contrary, I am certain that this will never happen. For A742 B770 whence will reason obtain ground for such synthetic assertions, which do not relate to objects of experience and their inner possibility. But it is also apodeictically certain that there will never be anyone who will be able to assert the opposite with the least show [of proof], much less, dogmatically. For since he could prove this only through pure reason, he must undertake to prove that a supreme being, and the thinking subject in us [viewed] as pure intelligence, are impossible. But whence will he obtain the modes of knowledge which could justify him in thus judging synthetically in regard to things that lie beyond all possible experience. We may therefore be so completely assured that no one will ever prove the opposite, that there is no need for us to concern ourselves with formal arguments.”
http://arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/cprsearchf.pl?query=/cgi-bin/mfs/02/20met1.htm?920#mfs
Buckeye,
I can recommend an excellent book on the founding and development of Mormonisn written by Jon Krakauer titled “Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith.” It’s a fascinating book. In it, the author also talks about the FLDS–Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints who still practice polygamy.
Buckeye,
Eh, I’d say that Mormonism has as much in common with the the various other sects as the other sects have with each other. The difference between Eastern Orthidox and Lutheran is pretty big. I’ve just seen the “Mormon’s aren’t REALLY Christian” thing used way to often to justify bigotry, and hate for people who aren’t bigots to fall into that kind of rhetoric.
And then there’s the church that practically every human being in America belongs to . . . the Church of Modern Medicine.
Take a peak at the Medical Maniacs website, or the book “America’s Dumbest Doctors” and then decide for yourselves where the real fear lies.
I would say “God bless” you all, but then . . . maybe the wrong folks, here.