According to a new Pew Research Center poll, 49% of Americans who have left church no longer believe in God, or in miracles ( http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/pew-huge-surge-in-americans-who-no-longer-believe-in-god-miracles/article/2600066 ).
Doesn’t that mean that 51% of those who have left church still do believe in God and miracles? But that ain’t the headline.
The Pew report says “‘science’ is the reason they do not believe religious teachings.” Like, once they clue you in to Evilution, you’re just too smart to believe in God anymore. “Rational thought makes religion go out the window,” say some of the poll respondents.
I wonder what these people mean by “rational thought.” Having given up belief in God, what do they believe in now? Space brothers? The good intentions of the Democrat Party? World government?
No, I think G.K. Chesterton was right: Once you stop believing in God, you don’t believe in nothing; you’ll believe in anything.
They are willfully blind. To deny the existence of the Creator, that lets them off the hook (in their minds) for obeying any of God’s laws and instructions. Therefore, they are free to worship themselves.
A less suitable object of worship can hardly be imagined.
Believing in God seems pretty rational to me. They have not really given up religious teachings, they have only exchanged one religion for another. In this case, they now worship at the Church of the Holy Secular.
Another unworthy object of worship.
Having left the Church for several decades, and now back, I can say that I was firmly in the 51%, I just didn’t go to a structured service.
Also, I am an Engineer, but I don’t find faith in God incongruent to my use of science to solve problems.
In fact, when I watch these TV shows about space and they say you have to take some of what they say about the birth of the universe or concepts they can’t imperially prove, on faith – I laugh. How is that not a religion in and of it’s self?
The Bible deals with reality, how things really are. The Biblical WorldView is the most rational of all because it corresponds to reality and how life is experienced. Jesus said unless one is born-again he’she cannot see the kingdom of God. But once you are born-again you see God in everything because we live and move and have our being in Him. Our eye has become single and our body has been filled with light.