Posted on 01/01/2011 2:12:33 PM PST by Salman
Two in five Americans say they regularly attend religious services. Upward of 90 percent of all Americans believe in God, pollsters report, and more than 70 percent have absolutely no doubt that God exists. The patron saint of Christmas, Americans insist, is the emaciated hero on the Cross, not the obese fellow in the overstuffed costume.
There is only one conclusion to draw from these numbers: Americans are significantly more religious than the citizens of other industrialized nations.
Except they are not.
Beyond the polls, social scientists have conducted more rigorous analyses of religious behavior. Rather than ask people how often they attend church, the better studies measure what people actually do. The results are surprising. Americans are hardly more religious than people living in other industrialized countries. Yet they consistently—and more or less uniquely—want others to believe they are more religious than they really are.
Religion in America seems tied up with questions of identity in ways that are not the case in other industrialized countries. When you ask Americans about their religious beliefs, it's like asking them whether they are good people, or asking whether they are patriots.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
We are intentionally being de-Christianized by the cultural Marxists imbedded in our schools and media.
The Pope talks about the nihilism and destruction to the once Christian paradigm in Europe. We are rapidly descending into the abyss so that we will self-destruct.
Marxists want dysfunctional people who need a nanny state—so they can take us all down the road to serfdom.
Christianity is the only force on earth that leads to a moral, good country which is individualistic, responsible and independent. No other ideology has been universal or adequate for a free country.
God enlighten the ignorant Americans, who once understood the responsibility of freedom and virtue.
However, I agree that if America drifts too far away from it's religious (Christian) moorings - as evidenced in the U.S. constitution - we are doomed to go the way of other once-great nations that succumbed to hedonism and what amounts to paganism (money-worship, celebrity-worship and a fanatic obsession with sexual promiscuity). We're well on the way now and the political/social leftists are pushing us hard to go into that good night. We must stand firm against them and their Master.
Folks, this is, after all, Slate.
Hmmm, should I take anything from this source seriously?
Slate? No, probably not.
But what about the author?
Maybe a Conservative got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get published at this lefty source.
Well, let's see:
Shankar Vedantam is a science reporter with the Washington Post and a Nieman fellow at Harvard University. Between 2006 and 2009, he wrote the popular Department of Human Behavior column in the Washington Post. The column applied insights from psychology and other social sciences to topical news events.
The Hidden Brain is Shankar's new book about the effects of unconscious bias in everyday life. It explores everything from how small children form biases to how nations go to war, from why people choose particular candidates in an election to how they respond to emergency warnings. The Hidden Brain is not a book that asserts that conscious intention does not exist; it merely argues that conscious intention plays a much smaller role in everyday life than most of us imagine.
The applications of this idea are immense. From patients battling mental disorders to policy makers weighing whether to intervene in an unfolding genocide, the hidden forces at play in our life shape our odds of success, our chances of survival, and our moral decisions.
Washington Post "reporter"?
Nieman fellow at Harvard University?
Ah well, glad I didn't waste time clicking over to Slate and reading all of that spew.
I had kind of a funny (well, NOT really “funny”) experience this past year. My wife likes to go to church craft fairs and things like that, and I tag along to keep her company and so on.
We have a pretty old church in Sudbury, MA, and they were having a craft fair, so we went. I had never been in a Universalist church before, had no idea what it was.
As we walked around, my wife was looking at the crafts, but I was looking at all the stuff on the walls, posters, notices and such.
I was appalled. I saw one poster that had rules for kids to follow as they grew up, and there was one rule I saw that made me stop and say “What the hell...?”
I paraphrase: “Never let other people tell you what is right and what is wrong. You must decide this for yourself>
I am not kidding. I walked over to my wife and said “What kind of church is this?”
I have since learned a bit more about Universalists...talk about naive...:(
Shankar Vedantam is a science reporter with the Washington Post ****BZZZZZZZZZZZT!****and a Nieman fellow at Harvard University.****BZZZZZZZZZZZT!**** Between 2006 and 2009, he wrote the popular Department of Human Behavior****BZZZZZZZZZZZT!**** column in the Washington Post. The column applied insights from psychology****BZZZZZZZZZZZT!**** and other social sciences ****BZZZZZZZZZZZT!****to topical news events.
The Hidden Brain is Shankar's new book about the effects of unconscious bias****BZZZZZZZZZZZT!**** in everyday life. It explores everything from how small children form biases****BZZZZZZZZZZZT!**** to how nations go to war,****BZZZZZZZZZZZT!**** from why people choose particular candidates in an election****BZZZZZZZZZZZT!**** to how they respond to emergency warnings. The Hidden Brain is not a book that asserts that conscious intention does not exist;****BZZZZZZZZZZZT!**** it merely argues that conscious intention plays a much smaller role in everyday life than most of us imagine.****BZZZZZZZZZZZT!****
The applications of this idea are immense. From patients battling mental disorders to policy makers weighing whether to intervene in an unfolding genocide, the hidden forces at play in our life shape our odds of success, our chances of survival, and our moral decisions.****BZZZZZZZZZZZT!****
This moron got one thing right. Yes, asking people if they believe in God and follow God's word is the same as asking whether they are good people. Asking whether they are pro-God is the same as asking whether they are pro-America.
Anti-Christian socialists frequently play the "hypocrite" game, pretending that falling short of meeting the very high standards that God asks us to strive toward is a sign of hypocrisy. If they had ever actually listened in church, which liberals choose not to do or they would become conservatives, they would know that we all fall short. The central point that they miss is that Jesus died for our sins and we are forgiven for falling short, not that we lead immaculate and sinless lives because of a personality transplant that happens when we dedicate our lives to Jesus and to God.
I have desires that I know are not in accordance with God's will. Most I resist successfully all the time. A few I resist successfully most of the time. The result? I'm a sinner who falls short - but that is not the same as being a hypocrite (as I suspect many liberal pests know but pretend not to understand).
So true, so true.
Traitors...to their religion, their church, their country.
Good Gosh. The Episcopal Church? Really? I had no idea...
What was disturbing was the sign was instructions for kids...I was appalled. To encourage a child to disregard what parents, clergy or other authority figures might say was unbelievable. I know more than a few adults who take that advice to heart, and as an adult, raised with in a system that should impart some structure of values (hopefully good ones) to live your life by is one thing. But to expect a child to generate that value structure from their own experience is Rousseauian at best, and liberal evil at worst. Actually, those two things are no different from each other. So basically, it is liberal evil.
The cardinal sin to liberals is...oddly enough..Hypocrisy.
Their defense against being accused of hypocrisy is a bizzare combination of Rousseauian Moral Relativism coupled with a strain of Orwellian Doublethink. They believe that all behaviors are matters of personal choice regardless of consequence, and one type of behavior is equally as valid as another.
To put it another way, they don’t have any values or standards. If you don’t have values or standards, you can never be called to be held to them, and can never be accused of Hypocrisy.
Most conservatives understand the Christian concept of hate the sin, love the sinner. We know that people are not pefect, but we do think that standards should be there as, at the very minimum, a goal to strive for. If you don’t reach those standards, you try to learn from the experience and learn to try again.
Liberals think that every kid is going to have sex no matter what is done or said, so there is no valid reason to discourage it. And if you can’t bring yourself to discourage it, then there is no reason you should make them suffer for doing something they can’t help doing anyway.
liberals are confused people..
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