kong
12-14-2009, 01:05 AM
Americans' blending of disparate religions seen as a threatening 'a sense of the sacred'
December 11, 2009
A new Pew Foundation survey finds that a remarkable number of Americans adopt their own blend of different religious beliefs and practices. “As a scholar of religion, I am supposed to simply observe all this without rendering any judgment,” comments Stephen Prothero in the Wall Street Journal; “but I can't help feeling that something precious is being lost, perhaps something as fundamental as a sense of the sacred.” He continues:
Harvard philosopher George Santayana once observed that "American life is a powerful solvent," capable of neutralizing new ideas into banal clichés. I worry that this solvent is now melting down the sharp edges of the world's religions, bending them toward purposes other than their own.”
December 11, 2009
A new Pew Foundation survey finds that a remarkable number of Americans adopt their own blend of different religious beliefs and practices. “As a scholar of religion, I am supposed to simply observe all this without rendering any judgment,” comments Stephen Prothero in the Wall Street Journal; “but I can't help feeling that something precious is being lost, perhaps something as fundamental as a sense of the sacred.” He continues:
Harvard philosopher George Santayana once observed that "American life is a powerful solvent," capable of neutralizing new ideas into banal clichés. I worry that this solvent is now melting down the sharp edges of the world's religions, bending them toward purposes other than their own.”