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Religious Trends
Gallup

“The survey released Dec. 24, shows 72 percent of Americans say religion is important in their lives, including 51 percent who say it’s ‘very important.’ …Only 46 percent of Americans say religion can ‘answer all or most of today’s problems’ — another record low and the first time the number has dipped below 50 percent.” - Christian Headlines

Discussion

Fri, 12/28/18

I’d be in the 46% I guess. Why should “religion” be expected to fix my chipped tooth or my flat tire? “Most of today’s problems” are very small and superficial. A better question would address the “deepest” or “biggest” or “most profound” problems. Even then, “religion” is an awfully big bucket, and if you lump it all together as if it were one thing, it’s full of completely incompatible “solutions.” Might as well say “ideas and actions” can “answer all or most of today’s problems.”

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Fri, 12/28/18

Aaron, I was thinking the same thing as you. Religion, by nature, deals with the biggest issues: Who am I? Where did I come from? Where are things heading?

But when it comes to immigration or choosing the right car, or choosing between ibuprofen and alleve, it has limited application. I often find myself siding with unbelievers in polls because poll questions are so poorly constructed.

For example, how bad is it, really, that many people think that “God helps those who help themselves” is in the Bible? If they take it to mean that salvation is synergistic, then I could understand why this would be bad. But the concept that God wants us to do our part when it comes to sanctification or providing for our needs, for example, is Scriptural.

Of course some of my polls are guilty of ambiguity too :) But, then again, I am no professional pollster.

"The Midrash Detective"