The Buddhist and Hindu religious groups have steadily increased in numbers, according to data compiled from the 2010 U.S. Religion Census. The greatest concentrations occur in the New York Metropolitan Area, and big cities in Texas, California, Illinois, and Georgia.

“Both Buddhists and Hindus, though still relatively small compared to the large Christian groups, have grown to the point that they are beginning to exert significant influence on the key issues that most affect their lives,” said J. Gordon Melton, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of American Religious History with the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, who was in charge of assembling the data on both groups.

Both Hindus and Buddhists have temples in most states, and “the groups now regularly voice their opinions on U.S. relations with predominantly Hindu and Buddhist countries,” Melton said.

All religious groups in the United States have grown in numbers with the exception of some of the larger Christian churches, which have stagnated or decreased. Those Christian groups include Southern Baptists, which have seen a significant drop since 2000, United Methodists, and Evangelical Lutheran.

The groups that experienced the largest growth were Muslims and Mormons. There are now some 6 million Mormons and 2.6 million Muslims in the country.

You can read more about the results of the study published by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies at this link: http://www.rcms2010.org/press_release/ACP%2020120501.pdf

Yale psychologists, wondering if our souls really are located within our eyes, set out to test if the long-held belief was a universally shared intuition.

In three experiments, the Mind and Development Lab researchers explored preschoolers’ and adults’ intuitions about the location of the self using a novel method that asked when an object is closest to a person. Children and adults judge objects near a person’s eyes to be closer to her than objects near other parts of her body. They postulated from the findings that children and adults intuitively think of the self as occupying a precise location within the body, at or near the eyes.

“The indirect nature of our method, and the fact that these judgments are shared by adults and preschoolers, suggests that our results do not reflect a culturally learned understanding … but might instead be rooted in a more intuitive or phenomenological sense of where in our bodies we reside,” Christina Starmans and Paul Bloom concluded.

Some mind-body experts felt the suggested implications of the study were far-fetched. Neurologist Robert Burton, a mind-body connection expert, believes that the perceptual judgments are culturally indoctrinated. He also noted that the four-year-olds were at times actually at odds with how the adults perceived the experiments. ”This suggests that something has transpired during the time between age 4 and adulthood that affects our understanding of the identity of other people,” Burton said. He also noted that self-awareness just happens to reside in the brain’s ventromedial prefrontal cortex – located behind the eyes.

You can be your own judge – take the online test yourself:
http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2257-souls-eyes-experiment.html

Source: http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2256-souls-eyes.html

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s data used for the study suggest that praying increased among those not only with chronic health problems but also with an acute health issue to cope with their changing circumstances. The groups of people more likely to pray about their health included females, African-Americans, those of the lowest income status, the well educated, and people who exercise less.

While the study didn’t indicate which types of prayer people used, lead author Amy Wachholtz, PhD, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School said: “There is also a greater public awareness of Buddhist-based mindfulness practices that can include prayerful meditation, which individuals may also be using to address a variety of health concerns.”

“We’re seeing a wide variety of prayer use among people with good income and access to medical care,” Wachholtz said. “People are not exchanging health insurance for prayer.”

The article appears in the May issue of the APA journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.

The study, led by UBC Psychology Asst. Prof. Jessica Tracy with co-authors Joshua Hart, assistant professor of psychology at Union College, and UBC psychology PhD student Jason Martens, is the first of its kind to examine the implicit psychological motives that underpin one of the most heated debates in North America. Despite scientific consensus that intelligent design theory is inherently unscientific, 25 percent of high school biology teachers in the U.S. devote at least some class time to the topic of intelligent design.

“Our results suggest that when confronted with existential concerns, people respond by searching for a sense of meaning and purpose in life,” says Tracy. “For many, it appears that evolutionary theory doesn’t offer enough of a compelling answer to deal with these big questions.”

However, the study also indicated that those individuals who were inclined toward the belief in naturalism – the scientific approach that underlies evolution, but not intelligent design – showed reduced belief in intelligent design after being reminded of their own mortality. Carl Sagan, the cosmologist science writer, argued that the belief in naturalism can also provide a sense of meaning.

Tracy says, “These findings suggest that individuals can come to see evolution as a meaningful solution to existential concerns, but may need to be explicitly taught that taking a naturalistic approach to understanding life can be highly meaningful.”

The countries in the study included:

• Australia
• Austria
• Canada
• the Czech Republic
• Finland
• Ireland
• the Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Switzerland

One of the team members, Richard Wiener of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and the University of Arizona, stated: “In a large number of modern secular democracies, there’s been a trend that folk are identifying themselves as non-affiliated with religion; in the Netherlands the number was 40%, and the highest we saw was in the Czech Republic, where the number was 60%.”

The team used a mathematical model to project the rate of extinction, using parameters that include nonlinear dynamics, such as social status and motives in being associated with certain groups.

Such intentions will be discussed with the Tibetan parliament in exile, when it reconvenes in March 2011.

In a televised statement on December 14th, the Dalai Lama said the move does not mean he will dissociate himself from the Tibetan people’s struggle for freedom. “I am a Tibetan and every Tibetan has the moral obligation to carry out the struggle,” the 75-year-old Tibetan leader said, adding that to resolve the Tibet issue would remain his top priority.

According to the Dalai Lama’s office, the spiritual leader’s statement was delivered after reports of Tibetans living in Tibet expressing anxiety and confusion over his retirement plan.

Past studies consistently indicate that people who proclaim to be religious also reveal that they are happier compared with those who are not religious. Now a new study reveals the real reason for the increased satisfaction in life.

“Our study offers compelling evidence that it is the social aspects of religion rather than theology or spirituality that leads to life satisfaction,” said Chaeyoon Lim, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who led the study. “In particular, we find that friendships built in religious congregations are the secret ingredient in religion that makes people happier.”

The findings occur among those who belong to a Christian-based organization, and even occur among groups of practicing Jews and Mormons.

The more friends and social connections associated with church-related activities, adding to one’s sense of belonging to a moral community, the more extremely satisfied the survey’s participants were. “To me, the evidence substantiates that it is not really going to church and listening to sermons or praying that makes people happier, but making church-based friends and building intimate social networks there,” Lim said.

“America is still predominantly Christian, but it is more diverse than ever,” said Jeremy Brooke Straughn, an assistant professor of sociology who studies national identity. “At the same time, many people feel even more strongly that America is a Christian country than they did before the turn of the century. This is especially true for Americans who say they are Christians and who attend religious services at least once a week.”

The fact that these beliefs have intensified since the mid-1990s suggests a connection to events such as the Sept. 11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Straughn said.

“We suspect that these events accentuated the connection between Christianity and American identity by reinforcing boundaries against non-Christians and people of foreign origin,” he said. “Although we can’t be certain of the underlying causes, our data clearly show diverging attitudes between American Christians and their non-Christian counterparts here in the United States. Those who express these views might say the belief is rooted in love of country and religion and is not about hating or discouraging others. But voicing these beliefs may cause others to feel that they do not belong and to withdraw from participating in public life.”

Straughn and co-author Scott L. Feld, a professor of sociology, looked at two waves of public opinion data from the General Social Survey, which was collected by the National Opinion Research Center. They found that between 1996 and 2004 the percentage of people who said Christian faith was a very important attribute of being “truly American” rose by more than 11 percentage points, from about 38 percent to 50 percent. The findings are published in the current issue of the journal Sociology of Religion.

This trend coincides with a steady increase in religious diversity, with Protestants suffering the greatest relative losses. Although Christians still account for about 78 percent of the adult population, the share of Protestants has fallen from more than 60 percent in the early 1990s to 50 percent in 2006.

“Religious boundaries can be politically divisive,” Straughn said. “And this is important to take note of as we approach the November elections. Religion and national identity continue to be in the news, from questions about President Barack Obama’s religion to the recent controversy about an Islamic center near the Sept. 11 site.

“Even when voters seem focused on problems like the economy and unemployment, the issue of religion and national identity could make a difference at the margins. Especially in close races, the advantage may go to candidates seen as committed to the values of American Christians.”

“There is sufficient belief in a supreme being or entity to constitute a religion for the purposes of charity law,” the Charity Commission said. They also stated it accepted that druidry was an “ancient pagan religion” in its own right involving the worship of nature, particularly the sun and the earth.

The Druid Network recently announced on their home page their new status as an officially recognized religion with the following message:

“The Druid Network received notification that our application to be registered as a charity furthering the religion of Druidry has been finally accepted. This has been a long hard struggle taking over five years to complete.”

Druids have practiced for thousands of years in Britain, honoring forces of the natural world such as thunder and the sun, and spirits they believe arise from places such as mountains and rivers.

The Network defines their aim as a not only a religion, but as a philosophy that is a celebration of life:

“Druidry is not only a philosophy though; for an increasing number of people it is a deeply held religious practice, honouring the sanctity of nature and providing an ethical framework based on the understanding of sustainable, honourable relationship. The Network therefore also aims to provide conscious support of individuality, community, local diversity and environmental sustainability, promoting awareness of the divine within nature, helping to create a world beyond unnecessary consumerism and political paranoia. Put more simply the aim is to inform, inspire and facilitate the practice of Druidry as a modern living religion.”

References: druidnework.org

On average, Americans correctly answer 16 of the 32 religious knowledge questions on the survey. Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively. Protestants as a whole average 16 correct answers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7. Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for different levels of education.

On questions about Christianity (including the Bible), Mormons and white evangelical Protestants show the highest levels of knowledge. Jews, atheists and agnostics stand out for their knowledge of world religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism. Jews, atheists and agnostics also do particularly well on questions about the role of religion in public life, including what the U.S. Constitution says about religion.

While previous surveys by the Pew Research Center have shown that America is among the most religious of the world’s developed nations, this survey shows that large numbers of Americans are not well informed about the tenets, practices, history and leading figures of major faith traditions — including their own. Many people also think that the constitutional restrictions on religion in public schools are stricter than they really are.

These are among the key findings of the “U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey,” a nationwide poll conducted from May 19 through June 6, 2010, among 3,412 adults.

Additional findings include:

• More than four-in-ten Catholics (45%) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize, but actually become, the body and blood of Christ.
• About half of Protestants (53%) cannot correctly identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation, which made their religion a separate branch of Christianity.
• Roughly four-in-ten Jews (43%) do not recognize that Maimonides, one of the most venerated rabbis in history, was Jewish.
• Fewer than half of Americans (47%) know that the Dalai Lama is Buddhist; fewer than four-in-ten (38%) correctly identify Vishnu and Shiva with Hinduism; and only about a quarter of all Americans (27%) know that most people in Indonesia are Muslims.
• There is widespread confusion over the line between teaching and preaching in public schools. Nine-in-ten Americans (89%) know that U.S. Supreme Court rulings do not allow teachers to lead public school classes in prayer. However two-thirds of people surveyed incorrectly say that Supreme Court rulings prevent public school teachers from reading from the Bible as an example of literature, and only 36% know that comparative religion classes may be taught in public schools.
• Most Americans are able to correctly answer at least half of the survey’s questions about the Bible. Roughly seven-in-ten (71%) know that, according to the Bible, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. More than six-in-ten (63%) can correctly name Genesis as the first book of the Bible.

Data from the survey indicate that educational attainment — how much schooling an individual has completed — is the single best predictor of religious knowledge. On average, college graduates answered nearly eight more questions correctly than those with a high school education or less. Religious knowledge is also higher among those who have taken a religion course in college. Other factors linked with religious knowledge include reading Scripture at least once a week and talking about religion with friends and family.

For those curious about their own religious knowledge, the online presentation of the “U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey” includes an interactive quiz that allows Web visitors to answer a selection of questions taken from the survey and compare their results to the nation as a whole and with various religious and demographic groups.