“What Americans Really Believe,” a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.
Corbis
The Gallup Organization, under contract to Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion, asked American adults a series of questions to gauge credulity. Do dreams foretell the future? Did ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis exist? Can places be haunted? Is it possible to communicate with the dead? Will creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster someday be discovered by science?The answers were added up to create an index of belief in occult and the paranormal. While 31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in these things, only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once a week did.
Unschooling, also titled by bloggers as “Giving Homeschooling a Bad Name”:
Benny’s never heard of un-kindergarten though. That’s because I made up the term last night.
We were out with friends having drinks. Benny was with us, as usual. We’d hit that lull time around nine o’clock, post happy hour and pre-late night revelers when New York City bartenders don’t seem to mind five-year-olds playing with cars and sipping cranberry juice near the bar.
Homeschooling is no longer (and probably never was) just a bunch of Bible-thumping Seventh Day Adventists
Our friends have no kids, but were curious about our decision not to send Benny to school. They’re aware enough to know that homeschooling is no longer (and probably never was) just a bunch of Bible-thumping Seventh Day Adventists who teach their kids at home in order to avoid the heathens at public school. Our friends also understand that parents homeschool their kids in different ways and for different reasons.