Findings of Religious Survey --2007 Pew Research

Addendum/Prelude to this post: It occured to me that the anti-Evangelical, anti- Bible-believing Christian sentiment of atheist/agnostic/social liberal bloggers makes them the group that should remain a small minority--for the good of freedom. They long to see their ranks grow so they can predominate in law and culture --but they are a greater threat to the believers than the believers are to them. Their two main fears would be the illegalization of gay marriage and abortion --and the way they recoil and roil like the devil himself at public prayers and public acknowledgements of a supreme being --such that they can't even abide our comments on their blogs--can't stand the religious freedom expressed by the majority. They openly scorn and detest Bible-believers and Creationists--and they unabashedly claim intellectual superiority over them and want to see them repressed and shrink in numbers.

I only want to see the number of atheists shrink for their own sake --that they might know the joy and fellowship and forgiveness of God and have the hope of Heaven. I don't detest people who don't agree with me --REALLY! But I will verbally and with my vote oppose them if they want to encourage the nation's children to approve homosexuality in kindergarten --in schools generally --if they want to redefine marriage to mean any combination and number of consenting adults in covenanted LEGAL relationship, on a par with God's male/female design-unit as the foundation for rearing children. And of course, we oppose the taking of human life in the womb.

I have no reason not to believe that homosexuality is like adultery, pedophilia, incest, etc. --in starting with a thought and an attraction that should be rejected at the gateway of the mind. The Bible says so. Biology says so. STD's as a consequence of "exploring sexuality" say so.

Atheists/liberals, et al have nothing to fear from evangelicals --except not having their way in law and culture. Granted, too many evangelicals have exchanged their salt and light roles in a misbegotten idea of love. In fact, love includes steering the culture in godly directions--standing up for God's Word as Truth regarding sin and righteousness --that we might know how to live and for what we need to repent.

http://religions.pewforum.org/reports

Apparently, this Pew survey actually took place in 2007 and was reported in 2008.

Engineer of Knowledge at Mudrake's blog writes of the demise of Christian faith, but the link above doesn't confirm that, seems to me. Though, Engineer notes, the survey does report that protestant majority is down to 51%. But perhaps that's because the Catholic Hispanics are a growing minority and expected to outnumber the rest of us at current rates. However, I notice that Catholics have been the biggest losers, from 31 to 24% --but I don't expect that trend to continue as the Hispanic population grows. The priest scandals have hurt them, I'm sure.

Evangelicals outnumber Catholics at 26.3 percent and all who call themselves some form of "Christian" are 78.4 %. No wonder the anti-Christian boys in Mudville are always upset!

I also saw where the United Methodists, the Catholics, and the Lutherans very recently had a conference discussing "justification by faith alone," which was Martin Luther's famous emphasis as he led the protestant reformation. Evangelicals believe in this doctrine, and yet note that the rest of the NEw Testament does ask us to "run the race" and "be watchful lest we stumble" --and suggests we could be people like soil that nurtures the Gospel seed --or like soil that initially allows the seed to grow but then lets it be choked out by the cares and concerns of this world. In other words, faith does not mean "easy believism" whereby Jesus doesn't ask anything of us since He died for our sins.

The numbers of atheists are still VERY small --though "practical atheists" may be a majority of us --people who act as though God does not exist --who make up what they want about God and accept no source of divine revelation as valid.

Like the other major groups, people who are unaffiliated with any particular religion (16.1%) also exhibit remarkable internal diversity. Although one-quarter of this group consists of those who describe themselves as either atheist or agnostic (1.6% and 2.4% of the adult population overall, respectively), the majority of the unaffiliated population (12.1% of the adult population overall) is made up of people who simply describe their religion as "nothing in particular." This group, in turn, is fairly evenly divided between the "secular unaffiliated," that is, those who say that religion is not important in their lives (6.3% of the adult population), and the "religious unaffiliated," that is, those who say that religion is either somewhat important or very important in their lives (5.8% of the overall adult population).

However, half of those unaffiliated as children are now affiliated with a religion. Notice that 5.8 percent of the overall adult population who are unaffiliated with a particular religion, nevertheless, say that religion is somewhat or very important in their lives.

"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible