Men Have Forgotten God
Impossible Without Faith In God
What Would Give My Life More Meaning
Topic : God, belief in
Barna Poll
- God is the all-powerful, all-knowing and perfect Creator to the universe, who rules the world today, 73%.
- God is the total realization of personal, human potential, 10%.
- God represents a state of higher consciousness any person can reach, 6%.
- There are many gods, each with different power and authority, 2%.
- Everyone is God, 2%.
- There is no God, 1%.
Men Have Forgotten God
In his 1983 acceptance speech for the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, [Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn] recalled the words he heard as a child, when his elders sought to explain the ruinous upheavals in Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.? He added, "If I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: "men have forgotten God."?
Impossible Without Faith In God
I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to have a moral community or nation without faith in God, because without it everything rapidly comes down to "me,? and "me? alone is meaningless. Today Americans have stopped acting in terms of their own moral, ethical and religious beliefs and principles. They-ve stopped acting on what they knew was right-and the "me? has become the measure of everything. However, moral societies are the only ones that work. If anyone thinks there is not a direct and invaluable relationship between personal integrity in a society and that society's prosperity, that person has simply not studied history. And this should not surprise us. Great moral societies, built upon faith in God, honor, trust, and the law blossoms because they are harmonious; because people love or at least respect their fellowman; because, finally, they have a common belief in something beyond themselves. It simplifies life immensely; you do not waste and spend your days fighting for turf, for privilege, for money and power over your fellowman. Alexis de Tocqueville said it best when he realized even at the very beginning of our national life, "America is great because America is good. If America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.?
What Would Give My Life More Meaning
In 1979, a study was done among teenagers in Sweden, who were asked to respond to the statement, "I think the following could give my life more meaning...? Of those surveyed, eighty-seven percent thought that meaning could be found in a good job, eighty-five percent thought it could be found in a marriage partner, and eighty-four percent thought it could be found in sports and recreation. Only fifteen percent thought that reading the Bible and prayer could help, and another fifteen percent indicated that they thought alcohol could help.
About eight percent considered the question of the meaning of life unimportant, yet eighty percent considered it unimportant whether Jesus existed as a man on earth or not. Also, eighty-five percent considered it unimportant whether Jesus is the Son of God or not. A full seventy-five percent concluded that the question of God's existence is unimportant.
