Skip to main content

Top Ten Shifts in Faith Beliefs

It is not unusual for someone to ask me what I think are the biggest or most important shifts in faith-beliefs that have occurred in recent years. Answering this question usually leads to an interesting discussion about where we are as a society as regards religious, or “spiritual”, issues. Following is my “Top Ten” list for your consideration and discussion.

1. God doesn’t exist/isn’t real/is dead.
2. There are many gods, or perhaps one God who expresses himself, or itself in many different forms.
3. Many/all religions lead to eternal life, or to the same God – they just have different understandings of who, or what, God is.
4. All religions, basically, teach the same truths, perhaps, with a little variation.
5. The Bible is not God’s word but just another book.
6. Jesus was a great teacher or prophet, but he was not God in the flesh.
7. The universe and man came about through evolution.
8. When a person dies they come back again as another person, or thing, through reincarnation.
9. Man can save himself, or participates in his salvation through good works.
10. There are no absolute truths

If you are interested in reading the statistics behind this list, read our article, Top Ten Spiritual Truth-Shifts.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Muslim President - Really?

I found it interesting that, in conjunction with the Alabama and Mississippi primaries, Public Policy Polling thought it would be a good idea to poll the people of my fair state and those in Mississippi to see where those voting in the Republican primary stood on the President’s religion. They found 45% of those polled in Alabama believe him to be a Muslim and 14% consider him a Christian. His numbers were even worse in Mississippi where 52% of those polled believed him to be a Muslim and only 12% a Christian. Some question the accuracy of these polls which considered responses from only 600 voters. However, maybe the numbers are accurate. Consider the results of similar polling done by Pew Research among conservative Republicans on a national level. In 2009 they found that 18% of conservative Republicans believed the President to be a Muslim. When taking the poll in 2010 the number was on the rise having increased to 34% of conservative Republicans believing him a Muslim. Maybe th...

The Bible Comes to Prime Time

On Sunday, 3-3-13, the Bible will be featured on the History Channel as a "prime time" 10-part mini-series simply titled, "The Bible". Though not the first time the History Channel has aired programming related to the Bible, the producers promise this one will be different. For, unlike past programs, they have said The Bible is not intended to approach the Bible as an "investigation" or "mystery" as the network has done in past documentaries; but, rather to be a more straightforward interpretation. Hopefully, by straightforward they mean accurate. I have high hopes that it will be an accurate representation, and after watching the previews, I am actually looking forward to watching this series. However, the viewer should keep in mind it is a docudrama, which means that "artistic" liberties will surely be taken in the telling of the story. In fairness, that is not unusual in historical documentaries and should not be a reason for Chr...

Aliens Among Us

Last week, the National Geographic Channel (NGC) released the results of its "Aliens Among Us" poll. The poll was conducted in May of 2012 and was commissioned to bring attention to the new NGC program, "Chasing UFOs" which premiered Friday, June 29, 2012. While most of the poll's questions were typical of those asked in other polls regarding the beliefs of Americans concerning space aliens and UFOs, NGC senior vice president, Brad Dancer acknowledged not all the questions were serious; but, some were intended to be fun and to measure the impact of pop culture references on these beliefs. These "fun" questions included: "Who would better handle an alien invasion, President Barack Obama or Republican Challenger, Mitt Romney?" And, "Which superhero would you call in to fight off an alien attack?" The more serious questions were consistent with the findings of prior polling related to UFOs in revealing the extent of Am...