How We Believe_ Science and the Search for God - Michael Shermer [25]
religious competition does seem to generate and increase hope.
This message is not lost on religious leaders who must compete for members of the various religious beliefs and congregations in this supply-side model. As Greeley concluded: “In a competitive religious marketplace like the United States the clergy must work hard at what they are supposed to be doing: preaching a message of hope in the face of the tragedies of life.” Clearly religion plays an important role in society that has not been filled by secular institutions, and since none has ever offered a “product” competitive with life after death, belief in God and religiosity has increased as a market response.
SOCIAL INDICATORS OF GOD
Contrary to the rhetoric of modern conservative fundamentalists—who proclaim that Americans have turned away from God and that we need to return to that “old-time religion”—as a people we have never been so religious. In a revealimg book, The Churchiring of America, 17761990, the authors point out that for the past two centuries American church membership rates have risen from a paltry 17 percent at the time of the Revolution (!), to 34 percent by the middle of the nineteenth century, to over 60 percent today. Bully-pulpit preachers who remind us regularly that we are slouching ever further toward cultural depravity and godless hedonism could not be more wrong. “New-time” religion far outstrips our forebears’ religiosity. Proof of that can be found in any number of cultural signposts.
Consider a spate of Time magazine cover stories over the past decade: June 10, 1991: “Evil: Does It Exist—Or Do Bad Things Just Happen?” April 10, 1995: “Can We Still Believe in Miracles?” December 18, 1995: “Is the Bible Fact or Fiction?” October 28, 1996: “And God Said … Betrayal. Jealousy. Careerism. They’re All in the Bible’s First Book. Now There’s a Spirited New Debate over the Meaning of Genesis.” March 24, 1997: “Does Heaven Exist’?”
Not to be outdone, Newsweek’s March 31, 1997, issue addresses “The Mystery of Prayer: Does God Play Favorites?” U.S. News and World Report countered the same week with “Life after Death: Science’s Search for Meaning in Near-Death Experiences.” An earlier, December 19, 1994, cover reads: “Waiting for the Messiah: The New Clash over the Bible’s Millennial Prophecies.”
Religiosity is more than just belief in God, of course. It is the full package that includes heaven and life after death. In a poll of 1,018 adult Americans conducted on March 11 and 12, 1997, Time reported that belief in heaven is still quite strong, with 81 percent reporting belief, and 88 percent looking forward to meeting “friends and family members in heaven” when they die. Newsweek’s feature article title asked: “Is God Listening?” According to their poll, conducted by the Princeton Survey Research Associates on March 20 to 21, 1997, 87 percent of Americans believe the answer is “yes,” with 29 percent reporting that they pray more than once a day and 25 percent at least once a day.
For some people, they know there is an afterlife Because they have experienced it through a “near-death experience.” A U.S. News and World Report poll, for example, notes that of the nearly 18 percent of Americans who claimed to “have been on the verge of dying, many researchers estimate that a third have had unusual experiences while straddling the line between life and death—perhaps as many as 15 million Americans. A small percentage recall vivid images of an afterlife—including tunnels of light, peaceful meadows, and angelic figures clad in white.” Pediatric oncologist Diane Komp, who has talked to more than a few children