Wednesday, June 22, 2011

US Evangelicals Pessimistic

U.S. Evangelicals Gloomy About Future, 'Global South' Optimistic, Study Finds


Really interesting study here done by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life on a large number of the world's evangelical leaders. They surveyed over 2,000 church leaders attending the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization held in South Africa last October.

One of the things that jumps out at me right away is how the numbers are pretty split on who they sympathize with more, Israel or Palestine. Really thought this would have been a vast majority favoring Israel, what with the whole second coming and all. Another one is the question on the government's role in helping the less fortunate. "The good samaritan" mantra comes through here in the poll, but it sure doesn't come across in the ballot boxes (their utter dislike for homosexuals and women's rights and science gets in the way of them voting for other progressive social issues).

Evangelicals seem to hold a higher favor with catholics, orthodox christians and jews, but generally have a low favor with buddhists, muslims, hindus and atheists (no surprise here).

I'm not exactly sure what to take from this survey aside from the fact that the results are telling and informative. But the fact that the large majority of evangelicals in the US have a pessimistic outlook on the future sure seems to fit right in to their "end times" baloney prophesies. The good news, however, is the fact that they are pessimistic at all must mean the word is getting out about organized religions being a farce. All we can hope for is the continued education of our species, if we can pull out of our primitive fearful malaise and take full advantage of the amazing lives we have and wondrous universe we live in, it could truly be an amazing transformation of mankind. We can be "spiritual" beings at one with the universe without all of this 1st century barbarism and bigoted division. Spread the word.

Most Voters Would Back Mormon or Gay, but Not An Atheist

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