Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
According to polls, a mere half of Americans are able to name a single Gospel, and a majority are unfamiliar with the fact that Genesis is the first book of the Bible. Thomas, according to 22 percent of Americans, wrote one of the books, and Sodom and Gomorrah were married, if we are to listen to half of American high school seniors.
Are Americans Faking Religiosity? | reasonWeekly (http://reasonweekly.com/reasonweekly-originals/are-americans-faking-religiosity - broken link)
Good question, I know a lot of the religious are that way for other reasons. Many like church just for business and social connections, and others just follow so as not to be slammed by the religious right. In much of the South you have to have thick skin and a hard head to be public abour your non- religious views.
Good question, I know a lot of the religious are that way for other reasons. Many like church just for business and social connections, and others just follow so as not to be slammed by the religious right. In much of the South you have to have thick skin and a hard head to be public abour your non- religious views.
Extend 'the South' to the Caribbean and the same thing goes on there.
What's interesting about the calculations of people who say they attend services weekly versus the numbers of seats in every church in America is that on important Christian occasions like Christmas and Easter you would expect the number of churchgoers to be much higher than it is on a regular Sunday. That means that even on those special days when attendance actually is much higher than normal that the churches still have enough seats for everyone and probably a few to spare. That does seem to prove that a great many people are lying in those polls and we really don't know what the real percentage of regular churchgoers really is.
Many Americans are religious largely for social reasons. I wouldn't say this means they're secretly atheist/agnostic. I think it's more a great many of them hold to a vague "Americanist" belief that amounts to positive thinking, God solely being about love and happiness, all religions being equally true, and Jesus being a really neat guy. What's actually in the Gospels or Nicene Creed is maybe not that interesting to them.
At the same time I often think most people throughout history have leaned toward something like that. A kind of spiritual bell-curve with the super-religious and the atheistic representing ends of the curve with the middle having a vague theistic or nontheistic (depending on the culture) sort-of pragmatism or conformism.
This is my problem with organized religion. People rely on their preacher to tell them what God thinks. However, they never read the "word of God" for themselves.
I'd say 70% of Christians don't know that the bible says its ok to rape a woman, kill homosexuals, or that the Sabbath is on Saturday, not Sunday.
I don't think people are faking anything; I think they're just as stupid about religion as they are about any other subject you can name.
Not long ago, I saw a piece on one of my local TV stations about the near-absence of geographic knowledge among Americans. They set up a big map of the United States in Rockefeller Center--a major business district, where people walking down the street might come from practically anywhere in the country.
The newsperson asked passersby to locate their home state on the map. One man declared that he came from Minnesota, then raised his hand and put his finger confidently on Illinois.
It's no different with religion. People think Sodom and Gomorrah were married? Not surprising in the least. (It was predicted in the Book of Asphalt which, if I'm not mistaken, follows Isaiah in the Bible!)
Just about everything else is fake and phony, why shouldn't religion be the same?
Because...what profit is there? What is the motivation? Other than if you are a politician running for public office, or a phony preacher on TV drumming up millions in donations from the faithful; I don't see the point of it...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
