Americans: My Religion Isn't The Only Way

Survey Finds 70 Percent In U.S. Believe Other Faiths Can Lead To Eternal Life

(CBS/ AP)  America remains a nation of believers, but a new survey finds most Americans don't feel their religion is the only way to eternal life - even if their faith tradition teaches otherwise.

The findings, revealed Monday in a survey of 35,000 adults, can either be taken as a positive sign of growing religious tolerance, or disturbing evidence that Americans dismiss or don't know fundamental teachings of their own faiths.

Among the more startling numbers in the survey, conducted last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: 57 percent of evangelical church attenders said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life, in conflict with traditional evangelical teaching.

In all, 70 percent of Americans with a religious affiliation shared that view, and 68 percent said there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their own religion.

"The survey shows religion in America is, indeed, 3,000 miles wide and only three inches deep," said D. Michael Lindsay, a Rice University sociologist of religion.

"There's a growing pluralistic impulse toward tolerance and that is having theological consequences," he said.

But, there could be a flip-size to the results, suggests Father Thomas Williams, a professor of theology and a CBS News Analyst.

"I think that organized religion could find this also a little bit threatening in the sense when dogma and doctrine become less and less important, it doesn't matter belonging to one church or another," Williams said on the CBS Evening News.

Earlier data from the Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, released in February, highlighted how often Americans switch religious affiliation. The newly released material looks at religious belief and practice as well as the impact of religion on society, including how faith shapes political views.

The report argues that while relatively few people - 14 percent - cite religious beliefs as the main influence on their political thinking, religion still plays a powerful indirect role.

The study confirmed some well-known political dynamics, including stark divisions over abortion and gay marriage, with the more religiously committed taking conservative views on the issues.

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Full Report On Religion Poll -- 276 pages
Key Findings Of Religion Poll -- 18 pages

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But it also showed support across religious lines for greater governmental aid for the poor, even if it means more debt and stricter environmental laws and regulations.

By many measures, Americans are strongly religious: 92 percent believe in God, 74 percent believe in life after death and 63 percent say their respective scriptures are the word of God.

But deeper investigation found that more than one in four Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants and Orthodox Christians expressed some doubts about God's existence, as did six in ten Jews.

Another finding almost defies explanation: 21 percent of self-identified atheists said they believe in God or a universal spirit, with 8 percent "absolutely certain" of it.

"Many people who identify as atheists may not be telling us they don't believe in God, they may be telling us they don’t like organized religion," Pew senior fellow John Green told CBS Radio News.

"Look, this shows the limits of a survey approach to religion," said Peter Berger, a theology and sociology professor at Boston University. "What do people really mean when they say that many religions lead to eternal life? It might mean they don't believe their particular truth at all. Others might be saying, 'We believe a truth but respect other people, and they are not necessarily going to hell."'

At Saint Alban's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., members of a weekly bible study class agree - their path to heaven is not the only path.

"It is impossible for me to believe that Christ is the only window for salvation," member Claudia Upper told CBS News correspondent Chip Reid.

Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum, said that more research is planned to answer those kinds of questions, but that earlier, smaller surveys found similar results.

Nearly across the board, the majority of religious Americans believe many religions can lead to eternal life: mainline Protestants (83 percent), members of historic black Protestant churches (59 percent), Roman Catholics (79 percent), Jews (82 percent) and Muslims (56 percent).

By similar margins, people in those faith groups believe in multiple interpretations of their own traditions' teachings. Yet 44 percent of the religiously affiliated also said their religion should preserve its traditional beliefs and practices.

"What most people are saying is, 'Hey, we don't have a hammer-lock on God or salvation, and God's bigger than us and we should respect that and respect other people,"' said the Rev. Tom Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

"Some people are like butterflies that go from flower to flower, going from religion to religion - and frankly they don't get that deep into any of them," he said.

Beliefs about eternal life vary greatly, even within a religious tradition.

Some Christians hold strongly to Jesus' words as described in John 14:6: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Others emphasize the wideness of God's grace.

The Catholic church teaches that the "one church of Christ ... subsists in the Catholic Church" alone and that Protestant churches, while defective, can be "instruments of salvation."

Roger Oldham, a vice president with the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, bristled at using the word "tolerance" in the analysis.

"If by tolerance we mean we're willing to engage or embrace a multitude of ways to salvation, that's no longer evangelical belief," he said. "The word 'evangelical' has been stretched so broadly, it's almost an elastic term."

Others welcomed the findings.

"It shows increased religious security. People are comfortable with other traditions even if they're different," said the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance. "It indicates a level of humility about religion that would be of great benefit to everyone."

More than most groups, Catholics break with their church, and not just on issues like abortion and homosexuality. Only six in 10 Catholics described God as "a person with whom people can have a relationship" - which the church teaches - while three in 10 described God as an "impersonal force."

"The statistics show, more than anything else, that many who describe themselves as Catholics do not know or understand the teachings of their church," said Denver Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput. "Being Catholic means believing what the Catholic church teaches. It is a communion of faith, not simply of ancestry and family tradition. It also means that the church ought to work harder at evangelizing its own members."

[GlassChimes]

By the way...

Where has Meg Oliver been for the past few months?

Andrea is delightful also, but I miss Meg''s lovely
countenance.

:)

[GlassChimes]

It is wonderful that human beings are starting to evolve away from needing religion - yet, they still hold spirituality near and dear.

I am a former Mormon. Check out my blog to learn more about what this cult does to brainwash it''s followers.

http://vote4change.homestead.com/

Best wishes to all who post & read here :)

Dianne Pearce

[GlassChimes]

It is wonderful that human beings are starting to evolve away from needing religion - yet, they still hold spirituality near and dear.

I am a former Mormon. Check out my blog to learn more about what this cult does to brainwash it''s followers.

http://vote4change.homestead.com/

Best wishes to all who post & read here :)

Dianne Pearce

[GlassChimes]

It is wonderful that human beings are starting to evolve away from needing religion - yet, they still hold spirituality near and dear.

I am a former Mormon. Check out my blog to learn more about what this cult does to brainwash it''s followers.

http://vote4change.homestead.com/

Best wishes to all who post & read here :)

Dianne Pearce

[GlassChimes]

It is wonderful that human beings are starting to evolve away from needing religion - yet, they still hold spirituality near and dear.

I am a former Mormon. Check out my blog to learn more about what this cult does to brainwash it''s followers.

http://vote4change.homestead.com/

Best wishes to all who post & read here :)

Dianne Pearce

[immanualk509]

Wonderful piece by CBS and Pew Forum. I recently became a member of a site that reinforces this broadcast that every one who is searching for real knowledge on today''s topics should join it is called www.onedialog.com.
Keep up the good work CBS and go to the site and see for yourself what people are talking about.

[providence_n]

"I hate to break the news to the world? But to be born again is the only answer? What? Yes through Jesuss death and resurrection can someone come to faith to be in Gods kingdom! This is Gods almighty way period. What? End of discussion? Yes? Bottom line! This is not a CBS tally of people who do not know the bible but this information is from what
Jesus says,
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
So you really can turn from sin and receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior through his atoning blood paid for our debt at the cross!

If its the truth well then hush and allow the truth to take care of you!

[taotxzen]

Joseph Campbell tells the story of the Zen philosopher Daistez Suzuki who read the Bible and made the following comment, "Nature against God, God against nature. Nature against man, man against nature. Man against God, God against man...very funny religion."

The ONLY way to heaven is to be baptized or circumcised - please...


Posted by taotxzen at 10:27 AM : Jun 24, 2008


He obviously didn''''t understand a word he read.

Posted by noseonurface


Oh but I do%u2026

MOYERS: In the Christian story the serpent is the seducer.

CAMPBELL: That amounts to a refusal to affirm life. In the biblical tradition we have inherited, life is corrupt, and every natural impulse is sinful unless it has been circumcised or baptized. The serpent was the one who brought sin into the world. And the woman was the one who handed the apple to man. This identification of the woman with sin, of the serpent with sin, and thus of life with sin, is the twist that has been given to the whole story in the biblical myth and doctrine of the Fall.

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)


MOYERS: Does the idea of woman as sinner appear in other mythologies?


CAMPBELL: No, I don''t know of it elsewhere. The closest thing to it would be perhaps Pandora with Pandora''s box, but that''s not sin, that''s just trouble. The idea in the biblical tradition of the Fall is that nature as we know it is corrupt, *** in itself is corrupt, and the female as the epitome of *** is a corrupter. ...The idea of the supernatural as being something over and above the natural is a killing idea. In the Middle Ages this was the idea that finally turned that world into something like a wasteland, a land where people were living inauthentic lives, never doing a thing they truly wanted to because the supernatural laws required them to live as directed by their clergy. In a wasteland, people are fulfilling purposes that are not properly theirs but have been put upon them as inescapable laws. This is a killer.

(cont)

[taotxzen]

(cont)


The twelfth-century troubadour poetry of courtly love was a protest against this supernaturally justified violation of life''s joy in truth. So too the Tristan legend and at least one of the great versions of the legend of the Grail, that of Wolfram von Eschenbach. The spirit is really the bouquet of life. It is not something breathed into life, it comes out of life. This is one of the glorious things about the mother-goddess religions, where the world is the body of the Goddess, divine in itself, and divinity isn''t something ruling over and above a fallen nature. There was something of this spirit in the medieval cult of the Virgin, out of which all the beautiful thirteenth-century French cathedrals arose. However, our story of the Fall in the Garden sees nature as corrupt; and that myth corrupts the whole world for us. Because nature is thought of as corrupt, every spontaneous act is sinful and must not be yielded to. You get a totally different civilization and a totally different way of living according to whether your myth presents nature as fallen or whether nature is in itself a manifestation of divinity, and the spirit is the revelation of the divinity that is inherent in nature.

[rheola-2009]

By many measures, Americans are strongly religious: 92 percent believe in God, 74 percent believe in life after death and 63 percent say their respective scriptures are the word of God.


The percentages stated in this story, surely give a strong indication to the percentage of gullible people in American society

[emily94708]

I just saw Andrea Stassou on Up to the Minute. First time I''ve ever seen her, and she''s a class act. I hope she gives ABC''s World News Now a run for its money and gets that show''s producers to rethink its smarmy broadcasting style.

[midland666]

Such a loving Folks these are.

He Loves you, and he died for you, but man, he will Barbeque you and we will all stand around and point , man we told you so na na na na na.
hypocrites..

[displeased]

I used to believe in mythical creatures when I was a kid. It was fun as an imaginary trip, but eventually reality kicked in.

[genesis15-2009]

Time to go ladies or gentlemen. Nice chatting with you. And whether you believe in God or not, I pray He honestly bless you anyway.

[lib_crusher]

Who wags who in?
the Convention

Posted by midland666 at 12:58 PM : Jun 24, 2008

I''m sorry...in English?

[genesis15-2009]

People are so caught up with the Next Life that they totally miss out on doing good in this one.

Posted by retrospectre at 12:51 PM : Jun 24, 2008

Believe it or not, Christ teaches that we can have abundant life (that is in health, marriage, finances, peace of mind, etc.) while we are here. Eternity in heaven is my spiritual aim, but God gave me the right to live happily down here on Earth. That is if I put Him first (suppress my own ego) in my life and He will take care of everything else.

[midland666]

lib_crusher ...LOL...
Who wags who in?
the Convention

[lib_crusher]

On the contrary - there were errors every time I tried to paste this here - errors with the way this Blog tool handles dashes - and commas , and apostrophes '''' and i just wanted to make sure that what I had written was legible.

Posted by retrospectre at 12:57 PM : Jun 24, 2008

LOL! np, my mistake. And yeah...CBSNews s.ucks.

[R3tr0]

Nevermind. You just like to see your own spam.


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Posted by lib_crusher at 12:53 PM : Jun 24, 2008


On the contrary - there were errors every time I tried to paste this here - errors with the way this Blog tool handles dashes - and commas , and apostrophes '' and i just wanted to make sure that what I had written was legible.