Measuring It - Pew Research

I chose the article entitled The Blaine Game: Controversy Over the Public Funding of Religion because it clearly deals with the issue of separation of church and state. It is an interview performed with a law professor about Florida trying to pass an amendment to their constitution that would allow the state to fund religious private schools and other religious functions. Also there is a movement to repeal the current amendment know as the Blaine amendments (that are present in several states) which state that the government cannot fund religiously affiliated schools. Obviously this is a pretty big deal considering one of the founding beliefs of this country was a separation of religion and government so this articles shows that there are clearly some people that don’t care about the country and its principles just about their own agenda. I guess I didn’t really have a concern about this before but it definitely created some concern in me cause people can be so stupid. This was definitely a worth while article because it definitely shows that some people can completely sacrifice the founding principles of the country and that could even move away from religion.

For my first research project I chose to read the article McCain’s Lead Among Evangelicals Smaller Than Bush’s in ’04. I decided to read this report because I wanted to learn about importance of the evangelical vote to the Republican Party as well as the significant contribution of the religiously unaffiliated to the Democratic Party. The composition states that McCain’s has a smaller lead on evangelical voters than George Bush did in ’00 and ’04. In the two previous elections, the evangelical votes helped George Bush win, but now, in ’08 more voters are either for Barack Obama or undecided. According to The Pew Research Center, McCain has lost 8% of the evangelical vote. Also, according to the site, Barack Obama has whopping 67% of the religiously unaffiliated while John McCain has only 24%. This has been the largest gap in people who are unaffiliated in history. Some of the information taken in surprised me. I was surprised that McCain had only 24% of the unaffiliated vote. Another thing that came as a shock to me was that McCain’s lead over the religiously affiliated wasn’t very high. I was expecting the numbers to be similar to those in ’00 and ’04. This article was very worthwhile because it informed me on the impact religious voters have and how now the lead the Republican Party has on these voters has shrunk over time.

The article I chose to read was called “What Brain Science Tells Us About Religious Belief.” I chose this article because I thought it would be interesting to see what scientific researchers have to say about the affects of religion on the brain. I also thought it would be interesting to read an article that combines religion and science. The main point of the article was to tell how researchers examined and compared brain scans of people doing both religious and unreligious tasks. The researchers observed Buddhist monks in meditation, Franciscan nuns in prayer, and Pentecostals speaking in tongues. They found that in all these activities, there was more action (increased blood flow and firing of nerves, etc.) in certain areas of the brain while doing these particular activities, than when not doing these activities. The researchers found that something about the religious experience changes and alters the brain in a specific way. It also talked about how “nerves that fire together, wire together,” which is a reason why most people tend to stay in the same faith, hold the same political views, and share the same values as their parents, because that is what they grew up learning. I’m not sure if this article changed or confirmed my views on this topic, because I don’t think I have ever really thought about this aspect of religion and science before. However, I do think it is a very interesting topic, and one I would like to learn more about. I think there is still a lot researchers have to figure out about this topic, and it will be interesting to learn more as time goes on. This was definitely worthwhile to me, because I had never really thought about this topic before, and now I will. I think it challenged my belief of what constitutes a religious activity or experience, because it’s all in the brain, and these things can be different for everyone.

I read "Public Support Falls for Religion’s Role in Politics." I am very interested in the current presidential election and to see how religion is playing a role in that was very interesting for me to read. This article mainly listed off statistics about how different groups of Americans view the place of politics in church and how they view religion in politics.
A few of the stats really stood out for me. The number of Republicans who supported talking about politics in church has fallen by 20% in the last four years, while overall this rate has only fallen by 5%. Many socially conservatives have started to back away from wanting politics to be discussed in church because they have become disillusioned by the current state of politics. But these social conservatives still feel strongly that religion has a place in politics. These social conservatives also did not have as strong support for McCain as they had for George Bush during August of 2004. These polls were taken before Sarah Palin was added to the GOP ticket, and she has undoubtedly increased McCain's support among this demographic. But beyond conservatives, Americans as a whole have become more uncomfortable with politicians talking about religion with this number being up 6% form 4 years ago to 46%. Clearly, America seems to be shifting away from religion having an extremely strong influence on politics.
This article definitely changed my perspective, because I would have assumed that Americans are becoming more comfortable with religion in politics. I am also interested to see how Sarah Palin trying to reinvigorate Christian conservatives will affect these numbers. Overall, I do feel that this was worthwhile to give me better understanding of how religion fits into politics.

Lucy Driscoll
World Religions
September 11, 2008

PEW Research Center Publications

Public Opinion About Mormons

I chose to read this article because I did not know a lot about Mormons and was curious to see what they believed in and how other people felt about that religion.

Summary: Overall this article discussed the misunderstandings of the Mormon religion. Mitt Romney is mentioned when discussing if his being Mormon is a positive or negative to American citizens. Very few people know the truth about Mormons. Many assume that they are very different from their own religion without being informed as to what they believe and how they practice their religion. According to a PEW poll, a higher percentage of Americans would vote for a Mormon above a Muslim or Atheist. Another PEW poll shows that the college graduates are far less against Mormons than high school graduates. This shows that the more informed people realize that perhaps they are not so different. Wile being a Mormon may not have a negative affect on one’s campaign, many Americans are uneducated on the subject.

This report changed my opinion. After reading about how few people understand the facts of the religion, it made me curious about the truth. The article itself did not convince me of anything besides America’s obliviousness and stereotypes. However, I then went on Wikipedia and looked up Mormon and read about how the religion was created and practiced, I learned a lot. I no longer will assume that they are so far different from any religion. However, they certainly do have their individual religious practices such as polygamy.

It was worthwhile, even though the specific article did not teach me too much, it sparked my interest in learning more about Mormons.

1.I chose this article simply because the title sounded interesting! I am not very familiar with which parts of the brain control what… so I thought I could learn a lot. I also was hoping that they would go into detail about how different religions/practices/prayers/rituals triggered different experiences and activity within the brain. I also thought the article would be a good choice because it includes a lot about religion and politics. And with the election coming up, I thought this would be valuable information to know.

2.This article included a lot of information. At times I was very confused with information about the different parts of the brain, but overall I understood the general concepts. One of the studies they focused on was the difference between the brains of democrats and republicans. They discovered that people who were more libearl tended to be associated with “stronger conflict-related anterior cingulated activity.” Meaning that the people who were more liberal seemed to be more sensitive to changing “habitual response pattern,” meaning that they are more willing to change. A lot of the article focused on explaining which parts of the brain do what… the parietal lobe helps us establish a relationship between ourselves and the world, and the temporal lobe helps us understand our emotional responses to the world. Another important part of the article included the relationship of emotions and beliefs. It proposed the idea that emotions can be negative when they help us defend our beliefs. In other words, when people disagree with other peoples’ religious beliefs they start to get emotional about it and start to feel strong waves of hatred. This inevitably causes a lot of problems with people and their difference in our beliefs. Another interesting thing is how the more you use a particular set of neurons, the more strongly they become connected to each other. This supports a lot of the studies the article referenced… For example, when a group of Franciscan nuns were praying, their frontal lobes had a large increase in activity. This is mainly because they were doing a prayer centering on meditation and while they were focusing on a particular phrase. A study of Pentecostals speaking in tongues however, provided much different results. The Pentecostals were dancing and singing around in English, so it was no surprise that they had a lot less activity in the frontal lobes. These were the primary ideas of the article!

3.I did not have any perspectives on the relationship between religion and the brain… but I verified some of the things I thought were true. I realized I had the functions of the brain mixed up, and therefore actually learned what parts of the brain were working for different religions and their practices. One perspective that I did confirm however, the belief that liberals are more open to change, whereas republicans tend to dwell on habitual beliefs.

4.I thought this article was worthwhile for me, especially because I learned a lot about the brain and its functions. Another reason why it was simply because it got me interested in the relationship between religion and the brain. It made me want to go online and look at other studies and new discoveries!!!

I read the article 'Stem Cell Research: At the Crossroads of Religion and Politics.' It sounded interesting, it is an article that relates to the current election year, and I wonted to clarify some ideas I had about the debate. I say the article in an earlier post by someone who i now cannot find.

The article talked about the difference of opinion in America on the issue of using embryonic stem cells, and how adult cells could be cultivated to make stem cells. Many religious (read: Evangelical Christians) believe that using embryonic stem cells is an immoral practice and should be banned. It also makes the distinction between those who believe all types of embryonic stem cell research should banned and those who think that research on stem cells about to be thrown out by fertility clinics.

This article did not change my perspectives at all. I did not feel that I learned much of anything I did not already know. I would not recommend it to people who know a fair amount on the issue, but for those who do not know much, it is a good overview.

I read "How the Media Has Handled Palin's Faith". I choose this because it's an election story, and thus very relevant. I still don't know many details about her - other than soundbytes- so I wanted to learn more about her and her religions background.

The article basically says that although Palin has undoubtedly been the biggest news story and the most covered person in recent weeks her religious views have generally only been skimmed or referenced in the being consistent with 'good conservative family values'. It briefly mentions some concerns and controversies that came up while she was governor with religion. Overall though, it critiques the mainstream media for not covering enough of the issues of this election like her views and policies on religion, the economy, international affairs... and instead focusing on her family/scandals, her strategy, and reviewing her record (both good and bad).

I didn't know very much about Palin's religious views before, as all I got were media sound-byte style knowledge... and afterwards all I knew was that I was correct in that I knew very little about her. It raised questions for me, and brought up some issues that I hadn't even known to ask about, so I think it was interesting and worth a read even though it was more of a review than an informative biographical piece.

- I chose to read an article titled Lethal Injection on Trial: An Analysis of the Arguments Before the Supreme Court in Baze v. Rees. I chose this article because I wanted to be updated on the newest argument regarding the death penalty.
- This article was published on December 17th 2007. It gives insight to a formerly future Supreme Court hearing, which took place on January 7th 2008. On that date, the Court heard arguments from Baze v. Rees, which is a case that challenges methods of the death penalty using the constitution as a reference. Specifically, the case confronts whether or not certain forms of lethal injection are “cruel and usual punishment,” which, of course, is forbidden under the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. Furthermore, the article shows the impact that the hearing has had on the public and on specific cases. For example, death row individuals have had their execution dates postponed until the decision of the Court. Also, some hearings have concluded that inmates could not challenge their convictions, or method that they are killed by. For these hearings, this case would have immediate impact.
- This article did not change my perspective on the death penalty, but it did teach me that the form of execution is now under attack. Previously, I thought lethal injection was the answer to a painless death. But according the case presented in this article, obviously lethal injection has caused suffering for some of its victims. I am interested now to see if an alternative execution method is enforced.
- Yes, reading this article was worthwhile because I learned about the latest arguments regarding one the nation’s most highly debated topics.

I examined the article entitled "Voting Religiously." This study showed how each religious group voted, how groups attending religious services at different frequencies voted, the current religious make up of the electorate and how each of these segments changed over the last three elections. I chose to look at this article because it was relevance to the recent election. The results of the study are not particularly revealing as Obama only lost votes in one category: "other faiths" which could be a fluke. However, some of the gains Obama made are surprising. Obama gained one point over the mean with evangelicals/born-again Christians. Obama also doubled his mean gain with those who attend religious service more than once weekly. These gains by Obama are the opposite of what I thought would happen. The article only points out these changes, and does not delve into the reasons for these changes other than pointing out that Obama attempted to make inroads to "people of faith." Obama's faith was a center of discussion, but often because of accusations of his imagined Muslim faith, which could have had a negative effect upon voters. However, I speculate because of the plethora of discussion surrounding his faith most people learned he is a devout christian and voted for him on that basis. Although it is more likely there is a more complex sociological reason for these gains that without advanced statistics and possibly a sociology degree I can't figure out. Looking at these statistics was fun and worthwhile although I didn't pick the most exciting statistic.

I read “Voting Religiously,” a description of how religious affiliation affected voting in the 2008 presidential election as compared to previous elections. I chose this report because I know that religion has played a larger role the last two presidential elections than it had in a long time. That is, in 2000 and 2004 the religious right mobilized in support of Bush and voted as a strong block in his support. Thus I though it would be interesting to see if this pattern had changed at all in the election between Obama and McCain. I suspected that although religion had not been an integral part of McCain’s campaign that perhaps (completely unfounded) concerns over Obama’s religious background might have affected religiously related voting. Apparently the opposite was true; Obama picked up support from religiously affiliated voters from a variety of groups. Obama made several modest but important gains in support from voters who tended to favor Bush such as white evangelicals and people who attend service on a regular basis. Obama also maintained or increased support among groups who typically vote Democratic, including people who rarely attend service or are unaffiliated. Still a large gap remained between support from white evangelical Protestants or regular churchgoers and religiously unaffiliated or non-churchgoing voters. Exploring this report was worthwhile because it gave me a better understanding of religion in American voting tendencies while confirming some beliefs I had held previously and eliminated misconceptions.

I chose to read “The New Face of Global Christianity: The Emergence of 'Progressive Pentecostalism'”. I chose to read this article because I did not know very much about Pentecostalism and I thought that it would be interesting because of the huge increase in the number of Pentecostals in the past 30 years. Pentecostalism is a relatively new religion (about 100 years old) in which the individual can experience God through baptism of the Holy Spirit involving speaking in tongues (which differentiates it from charismatics). In the past 30 years the percentage of Pentecostals among Christians rose from 6% to 25%. This is clearly a huge increase and much of the article covered the reason for this increase. The roots of Pentecostalism are in the United States, but it the greatest increase in Pentecostals has been in Latin America and Africa. It has become a popular alternative to Catholicism in Latin America because it provides social structure and a strong community devoted to bettering the immediate community as well as a place of worship. It has grown in popularity in Africa because it is popular among animistic communities because it believes in the spiritual world, but that Jesus is the only true spirit. Pentecostalism in America is in a way a reaction to new liberalism in religion, because it is very puritanical in its ethic. The report didn’t confirm or change my perspectives because I didn’t know anything going into it, but I did learn a lot. It was worthwhile for me because it was succinct and gave me a lot of information. However, it was done in a question and answer session with a leader of the Pentecostal community, so it seems to me to be very biased.

-I chose to read "The Blaine Game: Controversy Over the Public Funding of Religion" because I find controversies between issues interesting, and hearing the different sides of the issue so that I can make my own analysis.
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I found that in June this past year, a lawsuit was filed in Florida to remove 2 proposed amendments that would allow Florida to fund religious schools. One would allow parents to use state-funds to send their children to private schools or religious schools, and the other was to allow public funding for religious organizations. The Blaine Amendments are actually constitutional provisions that restrict state aid to religious groups and organizations. In order to understand this issue a little better, there was an interview conducted, which is what this article was about, in order to understand the controversy a little more clearly. They interviewed a man named Ira "Chip" Lupu, who is a church-state scholar. As it turns out, the Blaine Amendments were founded in 1875 that prohibited state funding for religious education. It was such a big deal back then because of the increase in Catholic immigration in the mid/late 1800s. The schools then were primarily Protestant-focused, and as more and more Catholic immigrants came to the U.S., they began to resent sending their children to these schools. So they started their own schools, and people began to worry if the government would start funding these schools. Americans were worried about schools suffering from "Catholicization", so the amdendment was passed in order to avoid this controversey.
So the challenge of these amendments today is based on 2 ideas; one is the "scope of the commission's power under the state constitution.", and the other is that the language on the ballot might mislead voters.
-I feel that there really shouldn't be a mix of church and state. These religious schools are private, and they should not be funded by the government. I think that religious schools should stay away from funding by the government, because it could lead to bigger and more complicated arguments.
-The article was interesting to read, because throughout the article I realized that there was quite a basis set for this argument, dating all the way back to the 1800s, and the many cases leading up to this one that also challenged the law in similar ways. I learned a little more about how government and church may or may not mesh, and how financially messy such situations are or can become.

Which publication did you choose to read? Why?
Please provide a brief summary of the most important and/or relevant information you found in the report.
Did the report change or confirm any of your own perspectives?
Was this worthwhile for you? Why or why not?

I read "More Americans Question Religion's Role in Politics". I chose to read this article because I didn't know what people thought about religion is politics and I wanted to find out. All I knew was that more people would prefer a gay president to an atheist president. The main point of the article is more people now believe religion should not express its view in politics or favor a candidate. It surprised me that in a country with separation of church and state, the number would even be as close as it is. Also surprising was the fact that most of the growth has been in the republican party, which although not changing its views dramatically is shifting away from religion in politics. Even among the evangelicals, the support for McCain (while still with majority at 68%) is only 30% strongly compared with 60% for Bush. Another finding of the study indicates people have found the GOP to be more supportive of religion and the DFL less so. However, these views are both going down. I think that this is a very good sign because it means that more people are thinking about the issue(s) and will hopefully make more informed decisions. This article was informative and interesting. I would consider it worthwhile because it gave a good unbiased description of changing American opinion.

How the Public Resolves Conflicts Between Faith and Science

- Most Americans feel that sciences is a great tool when it comes to new technologies and medications, but have trouble with the idea of taking embryonic cells and doing research with them => their religious beliefs suggest that this is not what “god” intended
- However, many people view science and religion as complete enemies, which is not true. The scientists have only fueled this idea in the past (like Galileo and Darwin) who went up against the church, and got rid of the ideas that the earth was flat, or that the sun actually rotated around the earth. All of these ideas were proved to be wrong by scientists, who were exiled by the church. Hence making the feud between science and religion seem to be way out of sorts.
- Scientists view religion as a way to answer different questions about the world; ways that science cannot. However there are a few who still think that religion is a waist of time, and the cause to all of the turmoil happening in the world today
- The one key problem though between the two areas (science and religion) is the idea of evolution vs. divine creation. “…according to a 2006 survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 42% of Americans reject the notion that life on earth evolved and believe instead that humans and other living things have always existed in their present form. Among white evangelical Protestants - many of whom regard the Bible as the inerrant word of God - 65% hold this view.” (from the article)
- So some questions that have formed in the article are: how can people say that they respect the scientific look on life when they think that religion is a better way to go around and understand the world. People have little information about how the scientific world really does work with religion, or the ideas and views the scientist’s hold.

Pew Research: I read the article titled "Many Americans say Other Faiths Can Lead to Eternal Life. a majority, 52% of americans believe that eternal life can be achieved through a non christian faith. Less than 25% of americans believe that their faith is the only faith that can lead them to eternal salvation. there was some speculation that people may not have constituted non christian based faiths as "other faiths" so to confirm this up they asked them to name another faith that would lead to eternal life. an astounding 80 % could cite another non christian based faith that they believed could lead to an afterlife. the study also found that about a third of americans thought that whether one reaches eternal life was determined by their actions during their normal lives. another third of the people believe that eternal life can be reached through a combination of believing and actions throughout their life. they polled people of many faiths asking if they thought that someone outside of their faith can reach eternal life and in each faith over 50 % said yes. out of all the people polled only 42% believe that atheists can reach eternal life. The Americans were polled again asked how one obtains eternal life. 29% said that a persons actions are most important, 30% say that belief it the key factor, 10% say that it a combination of belief and actions, 8% say it is some other factor, 14% say they dont knowand 7% say they just dont believe in it. i liked using this cite. it provides some good information but it is very repetitive. i feel like i read the same thing five times. the good news is it is hard to miss something because it is repeated ten times before your done reading.

While scrolling through the capacious list articles, 'How the Public Resolves Conflicts Between Faith and Science' struck me as interesting. Due to my interest on how society deals with conflicting ideas regarding religion and science, the article seemed like a good choice.
The article states that most scientists are not 'against' religion and merely consider it to be a different field of purpose, contrary to the famous quarrels of scientists like Darwin and Galileo opposite the church. The Article then covers the public's view on evolution, scientists, and the possibility of disproving religion through science.
While there were not any astounding facts that necessarily changed my perspective, there were parts of the article which did strike me as interesting. The statistic that 42% of Americans reject the idea of evolution surprised me. The first few paragraphs shifted me ideas about the mentality of scientists. I had considered religion and science to be at odds with each other, but according to the article, most scientists would disagree with that notion.
I would recommend this article to anyone else who shares the same interest as me about the impact of science and religion on society.