Guardian Angels Are Here, Say Most Americans

BDx13 - 9-19-2008 at 11:58 AM

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1842179,00.ht...

More than half of all Americans believe they have been helped by a guardian angel in the course of their lives, according to a new poll by the Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion. In a poll of 1700 respondents, 55% answered affirmatively to the statement, "I was protected from harm by a guardian angel." The responses defied standard class and denominational assumptions about religious belief; the majority held up regardless of denomination, region or education — though the figure was a little lower (37%) among respondents earning more than $150,000 a year.

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The guardian angel encounter figures were "the big shocker" in the report, says Christopher Bader, director of the Baylor survey that covered a range of religious issues, parts of which are being released Thursday in a book titled What Americans Really Believe. In the case of angels, however, the question is a little stronger than just belief. Says Bader, "If you ask whether people believe in guardian angels, a lot of people will say, 'sure.' But this is different. It's experiential. It means that lots of Americans are having these lived supernatural experiences."

Sociologists may need further research to determine how broadly the data should be interpreted. The Baylor study tested other statements that might indicate a similar belief in the supernatural intruding into everyday personal experience — "I heard the voice of God speaking to me"; and "I received a miraculous physical healing." But far fewer people claimed to have had those experiences. This raises the possibility that guardian angels, which famously support an industry of sentimental accessories, are just so darned attractive that they exist in a charmed belief niche of their own.

But other factors may be in play. On one end of the spectrum of American religion are the analytical churches, on both the right and the left theologically and politically, which are primarily concerned with establishing Biblical principles to live by — and are suspicious of any modern-day irruption of the supernatural into religious life. Their miracles all took place in the Bible. At the opposite end of the spectrum are the more experiential churches, like many African-American denominations and those in the Pentecostal movement, that lay heavy emphasis on the workings of the Holy Spirit, where the supernatural, through gifts like healing, prophesying and speaking in tongues, makes regular visits in the pews. In the middle are sacramental faiths like Roman Catholicism, where the supernatural has a regular place on the altar (after all, the Eucharist is said to be the literal body and blood of Christ) but one that occurs only within the restrictions of very specific ritual.

What's interesting about the Baylor findings on guardian angel experiences is that they cross all boundaries. They have scriptural writ (in Psalm 91 and elsewhere). They are clearly experiential. And guardian angels are a prominent part of Catholic belief that happens to float freely outside of a sacrament. The cross-spectrum legitimacy of the notion of angelic interventions may free Americans to engage in the kind of folk faith that is part of almost any religious system but is not always officially acknowledged.

Randall Balmer, chairman of the religion department at New York's Barnard College, says that the Baylor angel figures are one in a periodic series of indications that "Americans live in an enchanted world," and engage in a kind of casual mysticism independent of established religious ritual, doctrine or theology. "There is," he says, a "much broader uncharted range of religious experience among the populace than we expect." Just possibly, Baylor has begun to chart it.

BKT - 9-19-2008 at 12:36 PM

This makes about as much sense as believing in Santa Clause.

MM.

SS76 - 9-19-2008 at 02:03 PM

or god.

xChino_Martinezx - 9-19-2008 at 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by metal mulisha
This makes about as much sense as believing in Santa Clause.

MM.

Santa is not real???
:sniffle:

everything I've believed in is going down in flames

MarkV - 9-19-2008 at 02:11 PM

Someone stole my wallet once and they chased the dude and got it back. Love those red satin jackets.

JawnDiablo - 9-19-2008 at 02:48 PM

Mark Lind - 9-19-2008 at 03:36 PM

I'd like to take a giant shit on the people that believe in this stuff but it would be my luck that I'd be hit by a car on the way home for it.

BKT - 9-19-2008 at 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by juandiablo

hahaha these faggots came to Toronto for a minute. Fucking clowns need to mind their own biz.

MM.

DAK - 9-19-2008 at 03:51 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by metal mulisha
This makes about as much sense as believing in Santa Clause.

MM.

Are you saying there is no Santa Claus?????

BKT - 9-19-2008 at 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DAK

Quote:

Originally posted by metal mulisha
This makes about as much sense as believing in Santa Clause.

MM.

Are you saying there is no Santa Claus?????

hahaha no no no you never heard that from me.

MM.

clevohardcore - 9-19-2008 at 11:58 PM

This topic always comes out around election time. It did in 1996, 2000, 2004 and now. Its like the media busts this out every election for some weird reason. I have bring this up in my SOCIAL CONTROL class next week.

DaveMoral - 9-20-2008 at 02:38 AM

Just a thought... but is all there is to life/existence that which can be seen with the naked eye or percieved with scientific tools such as microscopes and the like? Is all there is to existence materiality?

People have believed in unseen worlds and beings since man had the capacity to form a coherent thought and this has only been marginally supplanted in the last 100 years by a materialistic view of existence. The way people who deny the existence of unseen worlds and beings think is merely a drop in the ocean of human thought, one so insignificant that it will likely NEVER take permanent hold.

I believe in angels, jinn and unseen worlds. Can't really say why, it's not necessarily rational in the sense that I've had concrete experience of such things or tangible evidence... it just seems irrational to completely discount and disbelieve in, and even ridicule, ideas that have neither proof for OR against them. You can no more prove that angels do not exist than I can prove that they do. Just as you can no more prove the non-existence of God than I can prove it.

I'm just not clear on why the belief in something YOU can't see means that people should be ridiculed and considered foolish. When there's really no reason you should've come away from something unscathed, it kinda makes you think there might be something or someone watching out for you.

Barnesey - 9-21-2008 at 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DaveMoral
Just a thought... but is all there is to life/existence that which can be seen with the naked eye or percieved with scientific tools such as microscopes and the like? Is all there is to existence materiality?

People have believed in unseen worlds and beings since man had the capacity to form a coherent thought and this has only been marginally supplanted in the last 100 years by a materialistic view of existence. The way people who deny the existence of unseen worlds and beings think is merely a drop in the ocean of human thought, one so insignificant that it will likely NEVER take permanent hold.

I believe in angels, jinn and unseen worlds. Can't really say why, it's not necessarily rational in the sense that I've had concrete experience of such things or tangible evidence... it just seems irrational to completely discount and disbelieve in, and even ridicule, ideas that have neither proof for OR against them. You can no more prove that angels do not exist than I can prove that they do. Just as you can no more prove the non-existence of God than I can prove it.

I'm just not clear on why the belief in something YOU can't see means that people should be ridiculed and considered foolish. When there's really no reason you should've come away from something unscathed, it kinda makes you think there might be something or someone watching out for you.

Well, you might as well believe in Unicorns, Centaurs, etc. I'm sorry but I usually do believe in things that are proven, but that's just me. Feel free to believe in what you want but I'm a little too old for imaginary friends.

newbreedbrian - 9-21-2008 at 07:29 PM

angels...

DaveMoral - 9-21-2008 at 09:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Barnesey

Quote:

See, the problem I have will your whole perspective is how just how fucking arrogant it is. I'm not telling you what to believe, and yet you're telling me I'm an idiot or childish for believing in what is very real to me. What is more real than the world we live in. And the irony is, top level science has gotten to the point that many of their theories sound more like the mystics of the past than it does the "concrete" sciences of the present. When you get into the very foundations of existence the differences between science and mysticism/metaphysics just start to disappear.

Both are pursuing the Reality behind everything. Long as you believe only in what has been "proven" you're going to be missing out on what is actually cutting edge science. Dark matter, dark energy, other dimensions, string theory... everything.

Poopooing religious believe... :rolleyes: