Troll_Bait
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: [T]eaching experience doesn't matter much. -Lee Young-chan (pictured)
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 Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:31 am Post subject: View of God can predict values, politics |
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View of God can predict values, politics
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A new survey of religion in the USA finds four very different images of God � from a wrathful deity thundering at sinful humanity to a distant power uninvolved in mankind's affairs.
Forget denominational brands or doctrines or even once-salient terms like "Religious Right." Even the oft-used "Evangelical" appears to be losing ground.
Believers just don't see themselves the way the media and politicians � or even their pastors � do, according to the national survey of 1,721 Americans, by far the most comprehensive national religion survey to date.
Written and analyzed by sociologists from Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion, in Waco, Texas, and conducted by Gallup, the survey asked 77 questions with nearly 400 answer choices that burrowed deeply into beliefs, practices and religious ties and turned up some surprising findings:
� Though 91.8% say they believe in God, a higher power or a cosmic force, they had four distinct views of God's personality and engagement in human affairs. These Four Gods � dubbed by researchers Authoritarian, Benevolent, Critical or Distant � tell more about people's social, moral and political views and personal piety than the familiar categories of Protestant/Catholic/Jew or even red state/blue state.
For example: 45.6% of all Americans say the federal government "should advocate Christian values," but 74.5% of believers in an authoritarian God do.
Sociologist Paul Froese says the survey finds the stereotype that conservatives are religious and liberals are secular is "simply not true. Political liberals and conservative are both religious. They just have different religious views."
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