Pew 2024 religious landscape survey

[BartenderElite]

Link up, Buttercup. That comment reeks of opinion, biased opinion, and not fact.

He can't.

He absolutely cannot.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Feeding and housing the poor is best done by people who have a desire to do it, and those that want to give to that cause. When government does it, the whole thing just ends up fucked up totally. From public housing projects to general welfare, the government is bad--horrible--at charity.


I wouldn't care. I might be interested in what he had to say, but I wouldn't be out to pillory him. But I'd bet a Leftist, like you, would in a heartbeat the second he said something that wasn't party doctrine. After all, that is essentially why Jesus was crucified the first time.


It's that many of those are run by corrupt assholes bent on little more than self-enrichment who know how to sell shit to the gullible and idiots. The few that aren't gain a following that stays the course with them because they're genuine.

Where do your opinions fit into the Noble Eightfold Path, Terry.

Let me remind you since you don't appear to know about it:

1. Right view
2. Right resolve
3. Right speech
4. Right conduct
5. Right livelihood
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right samadhi (meditative absorption or union)

 

[ThatOwlWoman]

Or they join another preexisting church that more closely aligns with their beliefs. I doubt that wokeism is driving many religious people away from religion. Science, rationality, research, and logic do that. Terry's just a grumpy MAGAt who's going to bitch about woke libs in every thread he enters.

Some Xtians (mostly nondenominational) shop churches like you do a place to have lunch. Mr. Owl's got a couple of family members who do that. They are ultra RW Trumpers, too. What they want is fellowship/friendliness, RW political bias, and teachings that they agree with. Prob. most churchy people do the same these days.

 

[Cypress]

So?

See? I didn't need to dictate or put constraints on what this thread was supposed to be about. The opening post was just an invitation, peppered with interesting statistical data. The national and global religious landscape is an inherently interesting topic on it's own, that many posters freely gave their own insights, and took the thread on interesting tangents.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Some Xtians (mostly nondenominational) shop churches like you do a place to have lunch. Mr. Owl's got a couple of family members who do that. They are ultra RW Trumpers, too. What they want is fellowship/friendliness, RW political bias, and teachings that they agree with. Prob. most churchy people do the same these days.

Per the previously posted graph, the global median is that 64% of the global population believes in an afterlife as do over half in First World nations. While Mr. Owl's relatives may be looking for RW confirmation bias, I think the over all picture is a desire for spiritual fulfillness.

 

[Cypress]

It varies by nation/region. Comparing First World nations with emerging nations in the graph below will give a good comparison with the US.

A requirement for both of my degrees was a Statistics class....and having poor math skills was a main reason why I'm not an aeronautical engineer. LOL

A main thing I learned from each is that statistics don't lie, but it's very important to know what question to ask in order to obtain a particular truth. Regardless of religious beliefs or claims of being an agnostic or atheist, knowing what percentage believe in an afterlife is an excellent measure of their spirituality.

That said, the fact Thailand is about 50/50 seems odd to me. Is this something about their particular form of Buddhism or is it because they are half atheists who believe "when you're dead, you're dead".

2. Beliefs about the afterlife

In nearly every place surveyed, half or more say life after death is likely. Fewer believe in reincarnation or that ancestral spirits can affect their lives. Pew Research Center.

www.pewresearch.org

I suspect there is some western bias in the way the question "life after death " is being asked.

Hindus have a very different concept of what ultimately happens to atman (roughly equivalent to our 'soul') at the achievement of spiritual liberation, and the Buddhists do not conceive ultimately of an individual existence when nirvana is achieved.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I suspect there is some western bias in the way the question "life after death " is being asked.

Hindus have a very different concept of what ultimately happens to atman (roughly equivalent to our 'soul') at the achievement of spiritual liberation, and the Buddhists do not conceive ultimately of an individual existence when nirvana is achieved.

FWIW, I don't believe in an "individual" existence post mortem either. I believe our sense of individuality is like the cycle of water. There's the Great Ocean and then there are temporary periods where water molecules pass through different states of "invividuality" before rejoing the Great Ocean. Is the water molecule lost when it arrives back at the ocean? No. It becomes part of something greater.