prayed America

Ernest Thoughts

By Ernest ⋅ November 10, 2009 ⋅

Tags: America, prayer, religion, spiritual

For those friends who don’t know, I had a stroke in mid September. Recovery is proceeding nicely, but for a while my fingers had trouble with the keyboard.

Sorry, but I just could not resist a bad pun. The Sunday, October 4.2009 Issue of Parade magazine that comes with the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer featured an article How Spiritual are WE? Some results of a poll were reported. As many Americans recognize, good religion can help make society work. Bad religion shades off into cults and anti-science, and can even result in terrorism and murder. There seems to be something innate in humans that makes us want something spiritual and religious, similar to our desire for music. Actually, these two innate desires may be synergistic, examples; hymns, church organs and Christmas carols.

As a rationalist, I just cannot accept revealed truth. Note that 40% of the poll’s respondents agree that “Religion’s purpose is to hold the truth. (no information about how many Americans seek Scientific truth in their theology. Since there are many incompatible systems of belief, each claiming to be the ultimate truth and reality, It is most likely that none of them are. Jewish and Christian biblical literalists both believe Darwin’s theory of evolution wrong because it contradicts the biblical Creation story. Recently, a group of Moslems in Turkey have been arguing that evolution contradicts the Koran. This anti-science aspect of many religions harks back at least to Galileo’s period when his astronomical observations were censored because the religious powers that be believed in a geocentered universe, rather than a solar centered bunch of Planets with the Earth among them. Of course, people don’t need religion to believe weird things. A “flat earth” society exists in America today. Even the ancient Greeks knew that the Earth was spherical, based on measuring the angle of the Sun from different locations. Their calculation of the Earth’s size was much too small. Perhaps that explains why Columbus thought he had reached the Indies, when he was sailing around the Caribbean.

Still many Americans seem to believe, “God said or wrote it, so it must be true.” It tells us humans about God. Therefore God exists (A wonderful example of circular reasoning.) 40% of respondents say that Religion’s purpose is that “it holds the truth.” Truth about moral values ethics and the place of humans in the Universe, yes, but not science.

One interesting finding from the poll covered by this article is that an increasing number of Americans identify themselves as spiritual but not religious. By and large, Americans seem to reject communing with the dead and other paranormal ideas. That news is mixed, people with unmet spiritual needs will often be attracted to cults. But at last most Americans seem to be avoiding pure irrational stupidity. Another good finding is that a majority of Americans consider all religions equally valid. This is what makes freedom of religion work for America. We rarely get caught up in religious violence.

Ernest B. Cohen, Ph.D. PE
ernest.cohen@ieee.org

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