Posted on 07/16/2014 8:23:00 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Good news for Obama, I guess. The group he actually secretly belongs to is slightly more popular than the group his harshest critics accuse him of secretly belonging to.
Jews, Catholics and evangelical Christians are viewed warmly by the American public. When asked to rate each group on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from 0 to 100 – where 0 reflects the coldest, most negative possible rating and 100 the warmest, most positive rating – all three groups receive an average rating of 60 or higher (63 for Jews, 62 for Catholics and 61 for evangelical Christians). And 44% of the public rates all three groups in the warmest part of the scale (67 or higher).
Buddhists, Hindus and Mormons receive neutral ratings on average, ranging from 48 for Mormons to 53 for Buddhists. The public views atheists and Muslims more coldly; atheists receive an average rating of 41, and Muslims an average rating of 40. Fully 41% of the public rates Muslims in the coldest part of the thermometer (33 or below), and 40% rate atheists in the coldest part.
Not only are Jews the most liked religious group, but per the table below, they’re the only group to draw a “warm” rating from every other major religious group. That’s quite a contrast to recent news from Europe, needless to say. The Atlantic wonders whether it’s a function of (a) Jewish participation in popular culture, (b) the fact that many members of other religious minorities are first- or second-generation whereas the Jewish population is well established in America, or (c) religion-infused politics, with America’s large evangelical population strongly pro-Jewish because of their solidarity with Israel and veneration of Biblical teachings about the “chosen people.”
If the answer is (c), it seems the love is not requited, alas:
White evangelicals view Jews “warmly” with a rating of 69; Jews, meanwhile, give evangelicals a rating of … 34, which is a point lower than their rating of Muslims. Could be that evangelicals, when asked about Jews, instinctively think of Israel and foreign policy whereas Jews, most of whom lean Democratic, think mainly of domestic policy when asked about evangelical Christians. Go figure that a socially liberal, solidly Democratic group would look skeptically at the GOP’s conservative base. When you ask Jews about a Christian group that’s not closely identified with either party, i.e. Catholics, the rating shoots up to 58, the second highest number (behind Buddhists) that Jews gave to any other group. That’s the proof, I think, that the numbers here are to some extent a proxy for politics rather than a gauge of religion.
The same thing’s apparent in the atheist ratings. Atheists give evangelical Christians a rating of just 28, more than 10 points lower than their rating for any other group. That’s not because they see them as significantly more “radical” than, say, Muslims, I suspect; it’s because evangelicals, as an engine of the GOP, have real political muscle and therefore seem threatening to socially liberal nonbelievers. (Evangelicals, meanwhile, gave atheists a rating of 25, the lowest number on the board. Maybe that’s a reaction to perceived political power too, although I tend to think it’s more an expression of pure disdain for the godless.) In fact, look again at the ratings given by atheists and you’ll see a trend — while the two major Christian denominations, which includes most of the public, fail to break 50, several small religious minorities do (Jews, Buddhists, Hindus). It’s not that atheists view all religious believers dimly, in other words, so much as they view the dominant religion as a threat politically.
Exit question: We can’t do better than a 48 for Mormons, America? I know their beliefs are considered “out there” by other religious groups, but they’re very solid citizens and the polygamy thing is ancient history. C’mon.
Both Peter and the late Christopher Hitchens are atheists. Neither of them have any problem with religion. Except for Islam.
I wasn’t being sarcastic. Harry Reid is not merely a Mormon, he is examined every two years and issued special identification as a Temple Mormon, which means that he is so pure, that he can enter the Mormon Temples and participate in the secret ceremonies.
Mormons who are not as devoted and right with God, cannot enter the Temples and must worship at normal church buildings.
The Mormon description:
“Temples are literally houses of the Lord. In the temple we make sacred covenants, or promises, with God that are necessary for us to be with Him in the highest degree of heavenly glory (see D&C 131:1–4). These temple covenants lead to the great blessings available through Jesus Christ.
We are not expected to be perfect to enter the temple. Rather, the purpose of the things we learn and the covenants we make in the temple is to help perfect us. We must, however, be worthy to enter.
A temple recommend signifies that we have been found worthy through an interview with a member of our bishopric or our branch president and also an interview with a member of our stake presidency or mission presidency. Temple recommend interviews are opportunities for us to examine our worthiness. In each of the interviews, our priesthood leaders will ask us about our personal conduct and faith. Our priesthood leaders keep these interviews private and confidential.
If our priesthood leaders find that we are worthy to enter the temple, we will receive a temple recommend. We sign our recommend to confirm our worthiness to enter the temple. Our priesthood leaders also sign our recommend as additional witnesses of our worthiness. This recommend allows us to enter the temple for the next two years, provided we remain worthy.”
Can you actually prove that to MY satisfaction.
I think there is a closer DNA relationship to demons and devils there.
Thank you for explaining. I know very few of that faith, but I think of my favorite Mormon a Michigan man by the name of Mitt Romney. I believe Mitt is also a Temple Mormon or perhaps a Bishop. Glenn Beck may also be of that religion.
For a short while, I considered joining the Mormon’s. They sent two teenage schoolboys to my place to talk about it. The students were very nice and polite, but I never felt comfortable talking about such matters to people that young. They may want to consider sending adults out to talk with other adults.
You should look into Christianity instead.
The gospel is the issue. "What do you cockamamie fundies mean, Jesus is the way, the truth, the life?" Whereas most fundies will see Jews as part of God's procession towards gospel revelation.
Certainly if they can call Reid pure enough, there is a lot they aren’t seeing.
You don’t consider Mormon’s christian? I’m already Catholic, but I like to learn about other faiths. I’m open to visiting a friends’ house of worship once in a while for that experience. I like the Baptist Choirs once in a while.
LDS is a confused branch of evangelical Christianity. While it is not side beliefs, but the Lord himself, that makes a Christian a Christian, the side beliefs are not immaterial to how well the Christian will live. The stuff about the gold plaques, etc... to put it very kindly, is unsubstantiated. And there has been a notable level of iniquity in Mormon societies in the name of Mormonism. Mormon missionaries recently visited a buddy of mine who is an evangelical, and described a spiritual experience that can only be described as demonic.
You’ve mentioned the Baptist choirs. When you find a church that preaches what the choir sings, then you have probably found a good one.
The Catholic church doesn’t consider Mormons Christians, no Christian church does, not the Catholics, the Methodists, the Southern baptists, the Orthodox, the Presbyterians, none.
Mormonism is a religion of it’s own, a polytheistic religion with countless numbers of Gods, Reid, Romney and Beck are all Temple Mormons and are aspiring to become Gods some day with many wives and their own planet of worshipers.
Remember that the Mormon bible that Joseph Smith wrote, the “Book of Mormon” is greater than the Bible, in Mormonism.
After you die, they will baptist you into Mormonism anyway, just like they did Pope John Paul II and all Popes and Hitler, and Anne Frank, and probably Ronald Reagan by now, it is what they do.
That is a question which typically ends up being answered by a consideration of “well, what does some kind of average of their professed doctrines look like.”
Which is a fallacy. It is the Lord that makes Christians Christian. No demon, no idol, can overpower the Lord. However their presence in a situation that moves the Lord to jealousy can result in distinctly painful situations.
I have no idea what you are trying to say.
As typical, and that reflects on you, not on me.
It’s too bad you feel the need to lash out, your post is not very clear at all, it isn’t the fault of the reader.
Shouldn’t you be posting to the other guy anyway since he is the one looking at Mormonism?
It very clearly IS your (”The Reader’s”) fault. It’s too bad you aren’t bright enough to grasp that!
Why should I be trying to please the royal you?
How about not turning this into another one of your personal grudge threads.
I didn’t understand the post, that’s all.
Seriously, why not direct your Mormon posts to the guy who is actually thinking of becoming a Mormon.
lee martell I think post 31 is more appropriate to you.
“provided we remain worthy...”
Worthy huh? Is that kind of like Obama’s press secretary being worthy?
Does that mean that an average, everyday christian can be worthy too? Nah, I didn’t think so.
Well, he had some scorn for a lady in Calcutta:
Mother Theresa spent her whole life saying (that what Calcutta needs) is a huge campaign against family planning. I mean, who comes to that conclusion who isn’t a complete fanatic? She took – and I would directly say stole…millions and millions of dollars and spent all the money not on the poor, but on the building of nearly 200 convents in her own name around the world to glorify herself and to continue to spread the doctrine that, as she put it — when she got her absurd Nobel Peace Prize — that the main threat to world peace is abortion and contraception. The woman was a fanatic and a fundamentalist and a fraud, and millions of people are much worse off because of her life, and it’s a shame there is no hell for your bitch to go to. http://www.discovery.org/blogs/discoveryblog/2009/10/hitchens_manages_to_top_dawkin.php
Not that i support Rome, yet he had a different motivation than the one who cared for the needy:
For a lot of people, their first love is what they'll always remember. For me it's always been the first hate, and I think that hatred, though it provides often rather junky energy, is a terrific way of getting you out of bed in the morning and keeping you going. If you don't let it get out of hand, it can be canalized into writing. In this country where people love to be nonjudgmental when they can be, which translates as, on the whole, lenient, there are an awful lot of bubble reputations floating around that one wouldn't be doing one's job if one didn't itch to prick. Interview with Brian Lamb about Hitchen's book, "For the Sake of Argument," http://www.booknotes.org/FullPage.aspx?SID=51559-11993
And yet, I wake up every day to a sensation of pervading disgust and annoyance. I probably ought to carry around some kind of thermometer or other instrument, to keep checking that I am not falling prey to premature curmudgeonhood. * Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays (2004)
My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilization, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either. It happens to be my view, but it doesn't challenge any of the findings of Darwin or Huxley or Einstein or Hawking. - * "A day in the intellectual glare of Hitchens: Contrarian opines on religion to his crowd of followers" by Joseph Brean, National Post (2006-11-18}
It is more than confused, and is not evangelical Christianity, but constitutes some of the very type of things that the modern evangelical rose up to contend against. See the standard work "Kingdom of the Cult" by the late Walter Martin for instance.
When you find a church that preaches what the choir sings, then you have probably found a good one.
Or a choir that sings the old hymns and believes them.
SeekAndFind merely copied the title from the source, as per FR rules. A-theism is indeed not a religion proper, but i would postulate that it is arguably basically an ideology in form, based upon the belief that there is no deity, and thus (typically) no supreme universal objective, transcendent moral standard, with morality being based upon what seems reasonable to the atheist, and with the origin of the universe and miracles being attributed to naturalistic causes.
And thus there is the militant atheistic movement in the West, exhibiting hostility toward religion in general, and against the idea of a absolute moral law and a supreme Judge, and traditional support of religious faith by the government.
Which does not have a home on FR, and as it rejects any Divine supreme universal moral standard, it easily lends itself deifying man, in which such a work as Mao's little red book can serve as a Bible, and atheists can advocate the removal of children from the homes of Christians under the premise that it constitutes child abuse, while at the same time advocating such things as fornication.
This does not mean atheists cannot be relatively moral (and the Bible teaches pagans can be so, due to innate moral sense), but there is no universal standard that they can be held to, or even interpreted as being that supreme standard .
Christians of course are also 99% atheists, rejecting all the gods and divine revelation/scriptures books that atheism also rejects saved for one, even though atheists typically treat them as the same.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.