Some thoughts on religion
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted a survey about American’s religious beliefs, and it confirmed what I’ve thought about as some crazy religious beliefs in our country.
According to the survey, most of the people who identify with Evangelical Christianity think that there’s more than one way to interpret the Bible, and that there’s more than one way to get to ‘eternal life.’ These beliefs completely counter the most fundamental of Evangelical teachings. First of all, I have to say ‘Thank God” people believe this way, but the ironies abound. My protestant students, for instance, think the Catholics are just like them, without understanding the basic conflicts between Catholicism and Protestantism, never mind fundamentalist Christianity. Catholicism is a cult, according to most protestant or evangelical based religions, and many people forget that Catholics were strung up by the KKK or put in camps by the Nazis. These inconsistencies are part of the reason I don’t understand the whole Christian Right movement. I suppose it’s “coalition politics” at its finest.
In the MSNBC article on the study, there’s a great quote:
“The survey shows religion in America is, indeed, 3,000 miles wide and only three inches deep,” said D. Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist of religion.
Ain’t it the truth.
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