Apparently, Jesus Isn’t The Only Path To Eternal Life After All
June 23rd, 2008 | by Ken Grandlund |Despite the ravings of American televangelists, most religious Americans dispute the idea that the only way to eternal life after death is through Jesus. This will be news to the Pat Robertson’s of the airwaves…
According to a survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, fully 70% of Americans who have some religious affiliation say that many religions-aside from their own particular faith- can lead to eternal life after death on Earth-including non-Christian faiths.
Here are some other interesting facts that the survey reveals about the attitudes of self-described religious Americans (and those who consider themselves “unaffiliated” with any particular religion):
POLITICS & SOCIETY
Political Party Affiliation: Nationally, 36% of religiously minded folks are Republican or lean Republican compared to 47% who are Democrats or lean towards the Democrats.
Political Ideology: Nationally, 37% of these folks consider themselves to be conservative, versus 36% who claim to be moderate and 20% who claim to be liberal. (Maybe not surprisingly, the more conservative folks are Christian evangelicals and Mormons while the most liberal denominations include Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews.)
Government Size: 43% want smaller government with fewer services; 46% want bigger government with more services.
Abortion: 51% believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases; 43% believe it should be illegal in most or all cases.
Homosexuality: 50% think it homosexuality should be accepted by society; 40% say it should not be accepted.
Environment: 30% think that environmental laws and regulations are harming the economy and costing jobs; 61% think stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost.
The survey of over 35,000 also revealed (among other things) that only about 59% believe in Hell while nearly 74% believe in heaven.
Clearly, America’s religious aren’t as dogmatic as we may be led to believe, or even as dogmatic as some anecdotal evidence may have us believe. Clearly, the media overhypes the religious differences anywhere and everywhere it can. And while some regions of the country are more religious than others, as a whole, Americans don’t seem to conform to the standard media view that there are but two sides of the religious equation-nutjob evangelical and raging athiest. In fact, most seem to be just regular folks who hold their own beliefs dear without having to force them on others or condemn others as heretics and blasphemers-or, more importantly, force them upon the nation as a whole via legislation.
This is good news, especially for those of us who live outside the religious tent and have no affinity for religion, other than for the entertainment value it offers us. But what it really shows is that by and large, Americans aren’t hell-bent to mold this nation into a theocracy, despite the overtly vocal rantings of televangelists, “family” groups, and some certain politicians. Let’s hope they get the message.
(cross posted at Common Sense)
5 Responses to “Apparently, Jesus Isn’t The Only Path To Eternal Life After All”
By Lisa on Jun 23, 2008 | Reply
And 58% of Americans are against the terror suspects using our constitution.
“Americans aren’t hell-bent to mold this nation into a theocracy, ”
Exactly what I have been trying to say while everyone has been fear mongering about this.
By Liberal Jarhead on Jun 23, 2008 | Reply
Gotta get this off my chest about some people’s ways of practicing their religions. I’m pissed.
Today I saw two therapy clients; both of them are in very tough situations and need the love and emotional support of their families. Neither of them is getting it. One is struggling with severe depression and suicidal urges; he has the weight of the world on his back - he’s injured and pending surgery and can’t work, but Social Security is denying his application for disability; he’s out of work and broke, has family stress because of it, constant pain, and his pre-existing major depression on top of it. So he goes to his family and his best friend looking for emotional support - not money, not solutions to his situation, just someone listening and telling him they care - and instead, because it would be a sin to kill himself, they bitched him out and told him to quit feeling that way and “be a man.”
The second guy recently gave up two major addictions and is working to stay clean and sober, doing all the things the courts have told him to do to stay out of jail, and just went through the breakup of a long-term serious relationship. Again, he was kind of hoping for some encouragement and moral support from his family. The problem? He’s gay. So his father, instead of being there for him, physically attacked him and told him never to set foot in his house again. Religion again - it’s a sin! Never mind the fact that his son is in a crisis and trying to get his life back on track.
Both of these people are in a lot of pain, emotionally and in one case physically. Both of them are trying to do the right thing, for the sake of their families as much as anything. Neither of them is hurting anyone. And both of them are being betrayed and attacked by the people closest to them, the people they love and trusted.
All this in the name of what these same people will, with a straight face, insist is a God of infinite love. How do you hate in the name of love?
As for “terror suspects using the Constitution”: what is the Bill of Rights there for, if not to defend the rights of “suspects”? The ruling principle is that “suspected” does not equal “guilty”; “convicted” equals “guilty.” All of us have the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. As Ben Franklin said, anyone who is willing to throw away liberties in the quest for security deserves neither liberty nor security, and I would add, will get neither. And you can’t throw away someone else’s rights without putting your own on the chopping block at the same time. What happens if a future administration decides conservative Republicans are “terror suspects”? Could happen. I would bet we’d see the same people who are ready to deny the legal rights of others demanding that their own rights be protected. Based on what principle that someone who disagreed with them would be obligated to respect? None, except their childish view that they are somehow special and better than someone else. If they say they aren’t terrorists, a government that didn’t respect the rights of “terror suspects” could just say, “too bad, we don’t believe you,” and they’d have no recourse.
Depending on how you frame questions, you can often influence the answers most people will give you. I suspect that if you asked whether Americans were for or against people suspected of crimes being given fair trials, with appropriate punishments for those found guilty, a majority would say “for.”
If you asked whether Americans were for or against people being imprisoned or executed without having been convicted of any crime, with no oversight for that process, a majority would say “against.”
The Constitution was the result of the experience of the Founding Fathers with exactly the kind of “because we said so” punishment of people that someone in authority considered “suspects” that many power-hungry administrations (both Democratic and Republican), with the current one being only the latest, have tried to exercise.
The system gives the government plenty of authority and ability to try and convict people, if it actually has enough evidence of their guilt to justify their being “suspects.” But the government can make mistakes, and we need to keep it honest. If the government didn’t make mistakes we wouldn’t need courts, only prisons and death chambers. And we wouldn’t be the United States anymore, we’d be North Korea, or Cuba, or China, or Saudi Arabia, or any of a lot of other places we don’t want to be.
If anyone doesn’t want to live in a country with such a namby-pamby Constitution, no one is stopping them from moving; they can always go someplace where “suspects” get no such consideration. They just better hope they never end up as “suspects” themselves. And if they don’t think that can happen to innocent people, they should talk to any of the Japanese Americans that were put in camps during WW2, or to any of the dozens of death row inmates who have been set free after DNA tests proved they were innocent. Any of us can become a “suspect.” Look the word up in a dictionary and see what it means, and those rights might make more sense.
By Paul Merda on Jun 24, 2008 | Reply
Ken,
Religion can be entertaining… While most Americans aren’t hell bent on making the USA a theocracy, there is a fair amount of Americans who are… They are called republicans
By Lisa on Jun 24, 2008 | Reply
Paul-you know what’s even more entertaining? You talking about religion…..all the time.
By Paul Merda on Jun 24, 2008 | Reply
It is my subject of choice. I have read so much about it, mostly christianity, but also a fair amount on islam, hinduism etc. It is also because the fundies really scare the shit out of me.
I guess I am so intrigued by it because I do not understand what makes people embrace Santa Claus for adults so heartily. I wonder why people would buy the crap at all. It seems so anti-intellectual to believe in something without a shred of evidence. In fact, to believe in spite of evidence is even more intriguing to me. I should have been a psychologist instead of a chemist.