A recent survey of American religion reveals some interesting facts Robert Putnam (Harvard) and David Campbell (Notre Dame) undertook extensive research of religious attitudes in the US, and late last year published the results of their research in American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. I haven’t read the book, but I’ve seen an […]
Last weekend’s Sydney Morning Herald carried two opinion pieces on greed, ethics and a “broken” western society that presented a disturbing picture.
Felicity Dale at Simply Church has posted some interesting accounts in Does prayer make a difference? Two groups of christians prayed for non-believers, with very striking results: A church in the US identified 160 homes, and prayed for 80 of them for 90 days. Then they approached all homes with the offer to visit and […]
A month ago I pondered why so many christians appear unwilling to accept the broad consensus of reputable climate scientists that human-induced global warning is a serious threat to the earth. I have now come across some information that suggests that christians are not doing their homework, but are believing things told to them by […]
Last post I looked at some statistics on church attendance, which has been declining in recent years in many countries. This is just a brief aside to reference a post on the Christian CADRE blog suggesting that while churches may be losing numbers, these people are not going over to atheism, at least not in […]
Lately I have been pondering two facts: The majority of world climate scientists believe the evidence shows that our climate is changing because of human activity, and, if allowed to continue unchecked, this will have disastrous consequences for hundreds of millions of people. Christians are well represented among those who are unwilling to accept these […]
If you are reading this, you probably live in an English-speaking western country. And it is no secret that we in the west use a greater amount of the world’s resources than do people in less affluent countries. Is it fair?
David Sloan Wilson is an eminent evolutionary biologist at Binghamton University in New York. He is an atheist “but a nice atheist”, he assures us, and he is interested in the study of religion from an evolutionary viewpoint and the use of evolutionary principles to develop community development programs. You may be surprised to know […]
A couple of post back, in Good news?, I reflected on how some aspects of the teaching and example of Jesus seemed to be missing from modern “gospel” presentations, and suggested “we could improve our presentation of the good news to be more positive, forward looking and reflecting ‘God’s favour’”. I’ve now had a go […]
Is belief in God dying out, in the western world at least? Some recent surveys give some answers, and some challenges for christians.